The Three Kinds of People In The World

How does the gospel meet different mindsets, and how can believers effectively engage the world around them?

In this exposition of 1 Corinthians 2:1–3:4, Lead Pastor Neil McClendon breaks down the three types of people described by the Apostle Paul: the natural person, the spiritual person, and the person of the flesh. Contrasting human wisdom and rhetoric with the power of the Holy Spirit, this message offers a framework for understanding where people are spiritually. Discover why the natural person cannot comprehend divine truth, how having the mind of Christ empowers true spiritual maturity, and how to break free from carnal patterns to live in the fullness of God's Spirit.

In this episode, we cover:

• Human Wisdom vs. God's Power: Why Paul rejected persuasive human rhetoric to rely entirely on the power and revelation of the Holy Spirit.
• The Natural Person: Understanding why those without the Spirit view the gospel as foolishness and how to approach them with grace.
• The Spiritual Person: What it truly means to evaluate all things with a biblically informed worldview and operate with the mind of Christ.
• The Person of the Flesh: Exposing the tragedy of carnal Christianity, chronic unpreparedness, and living a "merely human" life.
• The Warning of Samson: Learning from a life of compromised potential and moving into continuous, spirit-led obedience.

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Transcript

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In a time of crisis, the spiritual person asks, What is God doing? The natural man says, What do I do? The spiritual person asks the question, What is God doing? Their take on the Bible is, just tell me what it says.

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This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

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Amen.

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Let's pray together. Uh Lord, we've come to say with every living thing you've ever created that you're worthy. Your worth is not like the stock market. It doesn't fluctuate, it doesn't go up and down. Based on circumstances and people, your worth is secure. The brightness of your being shines brighter than ever against the backdrop and the fading darkness of our insufficiency, our in uh capacity, and our ignorance. And so your worth, God, is not affected by what's going on in the world. If anything, it is magnified, it is put on display. The light of the world goes on the lampstand, so it gives light to the whole room. And so, Lord, by your spirit and from your word today, say things that increase our illuminating power and remind us of our capacity as people of faith, as people in whom the Holy Spirit lives and radiates out of. Lord, we don't stand in judgment or condemnation. We are set free, God-loving, people-loving people who bring light to dark places. And so, Holy Spirit, from the word today, put something in us and on us, in our head and in our heart that longs for expression from our hands. This week, God, we pray. We pray this in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. If you've got a Bible at home, why don't you take it and open up to 1 Corinthians chapter 2? 1 Corinthians chapter 2, and I want to talk to you this week, uh today, about the three kinds of people in the world. The three kinds of people in the world. Uh there's only really three. Three kinds of people in the world, and that's what I want to do, and here's why I want to do it. I want us to see these three different people so we can better contextualize the gospel in our conversations with these people, given what's going on, and by engaging them where they are. Let me say that again. I want us to talk about these, I want you to see these things in the Bible so that we can better contextualize the gospel in our conversations with people, with where they are, instead of trying to drag them to where we are and think like we think and see the world like we we see the world, because they don't. Uh, and we'll get to this in just a minute, but when I talk about the three kinds of people, I'll give you the characteristics. I'll talk about four or five categories, like five categories, like what they do uh in a time of crisis, how they respond, uh, their take on the Bible, what they find comfort in, and what they disagree with. Okay? And so be a lot of notes today. Don't try to write it down if you're at home. Get your smartphone ready and just go click. I take a picture of the screen. You can take notes if you want to. But I've told you many times, everything in the Bible happens in a context. And so to get to these three kinds of people, which happens at the end of chapter two, I'm gonna start reading in verse one of chapter two so you can get the flow of thought. And let me just tell you this by way of introduction: Paul is speaking to people that are heavily influenced. He's speaking to Jews and Greeks. He's speaking to people that were heavily influenced by the movement, the value system of the day, which was wisdom, intellect, rhetoric, debate, dialogue, speaking ability, big vocabulary. I mean, if you were like a fluent public speaker and you had a great public uh uh speaking voice, people just lauded you so much so people would say, Oh, I follow him, and I follow him, and I follow him, and then along comes the Apostle Paul, who he he's not pretty. He best we could tell, he had an eye disease, something wrong with his eyes. Uh, he did not have a great speaking voice. But what he does in the first part, and I'll read four or five verses and stop and say, Hey, what's happening here? Because there's parts of the Bible, if you're not careful, you can read, and this is one of them in 1 Corinthians 2. You can read it and think, I don't understand that. I just must be stupid. You're not stupid, okay? Uh it's very simple. If someone just takes the time to explain it to you. So I'll read four or five verses, stop, and say, This is what he's he's comparing here. Read four or five verses more. Here's what he's comparing here, and that will set the background and the context for when he gets to the end of chapter two and spills over into chapter three, where he talks about the three kinds of people in the world. Okay? Having said that, let's read God's word together. This is 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 1. Paul says, And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. Now, what we see right here in this first little section is that Paul's contrasting the wisdom of man and the power of God. Again, for the Greeks, wisdom was preeminent. There was nothing that beat wisdom. It was all about wisdom, okay? And Paul comes along and says, I can't talk like those guys. I didn't go to college where they went to college. Matter of fact, I didn't even go to college, okay? But I have the power of God. I'm coming to you in the power of God. Pick up in verse 6. He says, Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. Stop right here. Here's the second section where Paul contrasts the wisdom of this age and the wisdom of God, which some people refer to as the wisdom of the ages, the wisdom of this age. Because Paul, he's very smart, but he doesn't, he doesn't toot his own horn. He doesn't say. He takes words that the Greeks use to extol themselves, and he uses those same words to extol God, to lift up God, to say, look how smart God is. The wisdom of this age, he kind of winks at him and he says, the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. If you kept reading 13 chapters later in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul will say, If only in this Christ we have hope in Christ, only in this life we have hope in Christ, we're to be pitied above all men. And so he's constantly dealing with these people who want to make this about intellect and wisdom. And Paul says it's not about that at all. It's about the wisdom of this age versus the wisdom of God. We'll pick up in chapter 10. He, I mean, verse 10, he says this, these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. Now let me stop and back up because I forgot to tell you this part in that little section from verse 6 to 9. When he talks about the wisdom of God that was hidden, uh the wisdom of this age, he says we're getting part of secret and hidden wisdom of God. That's not like some people, the false teachers take that and say, I've got this hidden, secret wisdom. That's a reference to Jesus, the crucified Messiah, the stumbling block, the stone of offense that people, he was revealed at the right time. Now, a lot of people take that and say, You should listen to me and do what I say and give me all your money and your cars, because I got the secret wisdom of God. They're false teachers. All that, all through the scripture, you'll see, even in chapter one, Jesus is referred to as the wisdom of God. Anyway, verse 10, these things have God is revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now, we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. Here's the last section by way of introduction. Paul contrasts human wisdom versus the Holy Spirit. Now, hear that last part when he where he says in verse 12, after he says, We've not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit is from God. Hear this part, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. Christianity is not for smart people. You may be sitting there on your couch right now and just thinking, you know what, I'm not very smart. I never went to college, or I went to junior college, or I went to college and got a degree, but when I read the Bible, I'm really smart, but I read the Bible, I feel kind of dumb. No, you're not. Because here's the thing: it's not about intellect, it's about revelation. We understand the things that we do because the Holy Spirit reveals them to us. That's why he says, we understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit. And so as a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. Remember, Jesus says in John 14, of the Holy Spirit, he'll lead you into all truth. And so you have the capacity to understand everything the Bible says. What you need is someone that values Scripture enough just to open it up, read it, and explain it to you. And the Holy Spirit will lead you into the truth. And so now we get to these three kinds of people in the world. Paul's kind of had this built a case against the insufficiency of man's wisdom and the preeminence of God's wisdom, which is most uh manifest and put on display in the coming, the life, the death of Jesus Christ. He says this in verse 14. He says, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Chapter 3, verse 1. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you're not yet ready, for you are all still of the flesh. For while there's jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another says, Well, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? Did you catch those three kinds of people? Let me go back and just list them for you. The first person that's listed, first kind of person in the world today, not just in the city of Corinth or the people that Paul's writing to, these are the three kinds of people that still exist today. The first one is what the Bible calls the natural person. The natural person. Verse 14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Remember, I said we're not just pointing, I'm not pointing out these three kinds of people in the world so you can go to the grocery store and pass judgment on everybody you walk by. Well, I think that's the natural person there. No, no. I'm doing this so that you and I can see these different people and better contextualize the gospel in our conversations by beginning with where they are. And so, because the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness to him, you have to ask yourself, where do I start by demonstrating and explaining the gospel to somebody whose mind is hostile to the things of God, doesn't value the Bible, doesn't even think about or think in the ways that you as a Christian may think but should think. They do not because they cannot. They do not because they cannot. What do I mean? Uh they cannot understand the things of God. And so if you come at somebody with a lot of religious language during this time when the world is pretty shaky, anxieties at an all-time high, and you dropping Bible verses on them, they're looking at you like, dude, this is hate speech. This is not love. They do not because they cannot. Secondly, in a time of crisis, this person asks, What do I do? What do I do? It's really a tender, I use an unmanly word, it's a very tender moment because a lot of people realize all the things that I find comfort in cannot help me right now. And so the question in their mind is, what do I do? Uh their take on the Bible is prove it to me. Prove it to me. Now, most people fall uh for that and and they get into an intellectual debate or a Bible argument. Worst thing you could do. Uh prove it to me. What they want to see is that you enjoy God more and you find more comfort in God than anything they enjoy or anything they find comfort in. Uh they find that they find they take on the Bible, they find comfort in their intellect and what their intelligence will not allow them to believe. They find comfort in their intellect and what their intelligence will not allow them to believe. And so you may look at them and go, oh, I I in your head, I think I'm dealing with a natural man. By natural man, the Bible's saying, hey, this is the way we were all born. We all came into the world sinful and separated from God. We're not born God's children. We're God's creation, but we're not all God's children. And so this person does not have the worldview, for say, that you have. And their intellect has been shaped. Most of them have gone to school, uh, and they've been taught a worldview that is completely antithetical to what the Bible teaches. And so you don't need to attack their intellect. You need to give them something to think about that causes them to respect you. Let me say that again. You don't need to attack their intellect. I'll get to that in just a minute. I had a dialogue with one of these people this past week uh via email and text. Uh but here's the last thing: they disagree with anything that goes against their opinion because there's no greater standard by which all things are measured. They disagree with anything that goes against their opinion because there's no greater standard by which all things are measured. Uh for example, I had a conversation back and forth with a person that I would put in this category, okay? And I've never told this person, by the way, I you're you're this way. Very intelligent man, uh, very zealous, uh very self-sufficient. And he asked me what I thought about the coronavirus. He said, How do you make sense of all this? And I sent him this quote. This is a quote from Dr. Jim Dennison who said, Diseases and disasters are natural consequences of the fall. If God miraculously prevented coronavirus virus, he would have to counteract every consequence of the fall. But if there are no consequences to human freedom, God is not just and we're not truly free. See, I didn't, I just put it, this is an intellectual person. He likes to mix it up and think. So I just put this before him. Uh, and by the way, despite our cultural preferences, there's no such thing as the consequenceless world. Now, why do I say that? Hear this last part of the quote again. If God miraculously prevented coronavirus, he would have to counteract every consequence of the fall. Disease is a pandemics are a consequence of the fall. Okay? Now, my friends bombard me with why doesn't God do something about this? God could make the world perfect in a nanosecond, but he had to take away everyone's freedom. And we were created with freedom. If you go back to the Garden of Eden, God says to Adam and Eve, first thing he says is, You are free to eat of any tree in the garden. Now the natural person responds with, Well, that's just your opinion. And what he's assuming is that I value my opinion as much as he values his opinion. And so we have this back and forth, and it's it's it's um uh it's well intended, it's not conflictual, I guess I should say. Uh, it's enjoyable. And I said to him, the whole time, I'm thinking, I want to respect his intellect, I don't want to come off as morally superior or like I'm right and you're wrong, and you're going to hell. That's it. Click. Uh so I said to him, I said, what it sounds to me like you want is you want a God who's responsible but not in control. And he's like, What's wrong with that? And I said, That's an idol, but that's not God. The God of the Bible is not willing to be responsible and yet not in control because that means he's not sovereign. He doesn't have all power. And so he kept saying, well, every time we'd get sideways, he'd say, Well, that's just your opinion, that's just your opinion. And I just kept saying to him, we don't just have a difference of opinion, but we have a disagreement as to what's actually happening. See, in my worldview, somebody is actually in control of the world. In your worldview, I would use to describe, you want somebody to be responsible when coronavirus hits, but when this all clears up and the market peaks back up and we're humming along and the great economic engine, blah, blah, blah, then you want that person to leave you alone. That's not the God of the Bible. And his question to me is so you're you're willing to believe in this God of the Bible? I said, Oh, not only that, but I don't think there's any other option. I think the Christian worldview is the only thing that makes sense of the world regardless of its condition, which we'll get to in just a minute. And then we left it with, I said, what in your worldview brings you comfort these days? And his response was, I gotta get back to you on that. Now, I I'm not trying to win an argument. I'm trying to stay engaged with a person whose mind is what the Bible, he's what the Bible calls the natural man. He does not think, he's got small children, he's kind of freaking out. What kind of God would let something happen to my kids? That that's that's a great question. But this is not God picking on your kids or on the world or whatever. This is a consequence of human freedom. This is the this is what happens when when when the fall happened. Now, my friend does not have a frame of reference for any of that. So he's suspect of it all. So I don't try to drive that down his throat. I try to come at him where he feels life most pressing in on him. And just say, think about this. Here's the second person that the Bible mentions in verse 15. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. We love the sound of that, by the way. I mean, who doesn't want that? I judge all things and no one judges me, but stick with me. And then he says, For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. I mean, I judge everything, no one judges me. And if you press me, I could just go, I got the mind of Christ, dude. Back up. If you fail to understand what these two phrases mean, uh, you will come off as an obnoxious, religious person who doesn't care about other people's feelings or their beliefs. But before we get to that, let me give you the five uh same criteria for the spiritual person. They do because they can. What do I mean? They have a capacity that's brought on by the Holy Spirit. It's not because, oh, they're super Christians, they get it, and we don't. They must be smarter than me, they read the right books, or they read the Bible, they memorize Bible verses. No, no, no. The Holy Spirit is active in them. This is what the text says over and over. He says, the Spirit who is from God, we have the Spirit that is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. This person, this spiritual person, as the Bible describes them, they do because they can. And they live in capacity, not willingness. They live in their capacity because the spirit of God resides inside of them. The Bible phrase for it is they walk in the spirit. Because when they walk in the spirit, which means just walking in obedience to everything the Bible says, the life that they experience is so satisfying, they don't want anything else. Uh, in a time of crisis, the spiritual person asks, What is God doing? The natural man says, Well, what do I do? The spiritual person asks the question, What is God doing? Their take on the Bible is, just tell me what it says. Just tell me what it says because it is the final say in all matters of faith and practice. Just tell me what the Bible says. They find comfort in a biblically informed worldview that makes sense of the world regardless of its condition. Let me say that again. They find comfort in a biblically informed worldview that makes sense of the world regardless of its condition. Uh, have you noticed you've not heard much from the prosperity gospel preachers these days? The faith and wellness. God wants you to be healthy and wealthy. See, they have nothing to say to the world nowadays. Matter of fact, they're all probably in a bunker somewhere waiting for this thing to get over so they can come out and go, hey, back to being healthy and wealthy. But for the spiritual person, they find comfort in a biblically informed worldview that makes sense of the world. Here's this for hear this phrase. Regardless of its condition. Regardless. Here's the last thing. They disagree with anything that goes against the clear teaching of Scripture because there's no greater standard by which all things are measured for the spiritual person. Now, I want to draw your attention to these two phrases I mentioned earlier because if you're not careful, you read that and you go, yep, I'm a spiritual person. That's why I'm a jerk, honey. I'm just spiritual. I judge everybody, nobody can judge me. It's in the Bible. Understand what the Bible says. First of all, the phrase judges all things. It doesn't mean what you think, it's the Greek word akrino. Akrino. The word judge is acrino, and it means this. It means to investigate, examine, uh, inquire, or sift. If your wife has a flower sifter, you put, my wife has one, I think she's got it from her grandmother. It's like a metal can. It's got a piece of a screen door in there and a little thing. You turn the handle, put the flower in, and it comes out a lot finer out the bottom than it went in the top. It sifts the flower, okay? The Bible says that when you judge, you evaluate. You don't stand in a position of moral superiority and look down on people and what sinners they are and pass judgment on them. No, no, no. You bring this biblically informed worldview to bear on any conversation you're in. And here's this part. People that fundamentally disagree with you and even don't like you sometimes. They're glad you said what you said because it made them think in ways they wouldn't think before. That's when the Bible talks about this person judges all things. It's not judgment like we think about it, it's they have a perspective that they bring to everything. Like my friend, he's like, I really want to dislike you, but you're stinking enjoyable. And I said, Yes, I'm like a bad penny. I just keep showing up and I become like a ward. I just grow on you. And he's like, that's enough for now. Uh but this is what the spiritual person is like. And when he says he judges all things, that's not about being a jerk and blaming it on God. Okay? Second thing, phrase I want you to understand from this part of the passage is he says we have the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. This is privilege. This is not privilege as much as it is responsibility. I mean, it is a privilege, but this is about when we say you have the mind of Christ. Let me be clear. It doesn't mean that we can know what God knows. Because God's already on record in Isaiah 55 saying, My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and my ways are higher than your ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth. That's how separated my thoughts are. So it's not like I can know everything God can know, because if you and I can know everything God can know, then we could be God. So but when he says we have the mind of Christ, what he's saying, we have the capacity to act in ways that Jesus acted when he was here on the earth. Here's where the Bible talks about it really clearly in Philippians chapter 2, starting in verse 1. He says this so if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves. Hear these next six words, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Have this mind among yourselves, which, by the way, is yours in Christ Jesus. There's two things I want to say right here. Hit the pause button on this Philippians 2 passage. Two things to interject and insert right here. Number one, the Bible never asks you to do what you do not have the capacity to do. One of the ways that you figure out where you are, am I the natural man, the spiritual man, or the person of the flesh, or the fleshly man, is you ask yourself, are the commands of the Bible burdensome? Do I just feel like the Bible's always jamming me up, trying to make me do things? I can't do that. That's not what Christianity is. Because the Bible never asks you to do what you do not have the capacity to do. Here's the second thing I want to insert right here is that there are realities that you and I can only experience in a relationship with Jesus. He says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. If you are not, when the Bible talks about in Christ Jesus, it's talking about being in a relationship with Him, not just believing in a God or a higher power or giving mental assent to the fact that there could be somebody out there in the cosmos holding it all together. Thank you, Carl Sagan. No, no, no. When the Bible says, which is yours in Christ Jesus, this is one of the things that you experience as a result of your relationship with God. It's not just forgiveness and a ticket to heaven. It's the capacity to think like Jesus would think in situations and give yourself up for other people. So he says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 11. Now, what does that mean for us? What has that got to do with what you're talking about, the spiritual person? It means this because we have the mind of Christ, we can be selfless, humble. We can consider others as more important than ourselves, which is much easier said than done. Much easier said than done. Okay? We consider others as more important than ourselves. We can empty ourselves of self. We can serve others, we can obey God, and we bow our knee to Jesus Christ alone and confess that Jesus Christ alone is Lord. All of this is because we have the mind of Christ. This is what we're capable of. Now, those earlier things sound hard. You know, empty yourself of self and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we live in such a pluralistic global world now where all we're all, no, no borders, no boundaries. One of the harder things that's coming for us is to confess that Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is Lord. It's coming, church, and it will be our great privilege. You'll see who really are the spiritual people, who really are in Christ, when the government and the culture around us say, Oh, who do you think you are, saying that your God is the only true God? Well, we're Christians. So I think it's easy now to say, oh man, it's harder to consider. Others is more important than myself. All that stuff. The day will come where what will separate the Christians from the non-Christians is their willingness to confess that Jesus is Lord and to bow the knee to Jesus Christ alone. The third person that the Bible mentions is what I call people of the flesh. Uh, chapter 3, verse 1, Paul says, But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh. Infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, uh, for you were not ready for it. Hear that part. For you were not ready for it. The person of the flesh, some people call it the carnal Christian. Uh I just like to go with what the Bible says. He said, I address you as people of the flesh. They're perpetually not ready for the moment when the moment finds them. Uh, they live with a life of regret. Uh but uh but I'll give you the characteristics of them in just a minute. He says, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it. And even now you're not yet ready. Unpreparedness plagues these people their entire life. And so they're always playing catch-up. They're always saying to God, God just give me one more chance. If you just do this, God, I'll tell you why, this will be enough for me. He says, For you're still of the flesh. For while there's jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos. Are you not being merely human? One of the greatest insults to Christianity is to say that I have the Spirit of God living inside of me. Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, and then to live a merely human life, just doing what everybody else does. These people have been, some of them have been believers 18 months, some of them three years. Paul's been invested in them, and he's he comes to expect more from them, as we should from each other. The longer we are people of faith, the longer we're in relationship with God. Here's the characteristics of people of the flesh. Uh, they're never quite ready for what should be their experience because they like the experiences they can provide for themselves. They're just chronically unprepared. They talk about what they should have done and what they could have done, and oh God, would you forgive me? I'm sorry. Uh secondly, in a time of crisis, this person asks, What have I done? They think in terms of karma. What have I done? Why is bad stuff happening to me? I'm a good person. Uh, their take on the Bible is convince me. Convince me. Now, the big things of the Bible, the virgin birth, stuff like that, they're okay with. The personal things of the Bible, uh, about like 1 Thessalonians 4, where he talks about sexual morality, and he says, you know, uh, do not conduct yourself and uh he says, uh you need to master your own body, your vessel, uh, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God. Uh when the Bible says all sexual behavior outside the context of marriage is sin, any and all of it. This person's like, oh, come on, man, why you gotta be so legalistic? Or kind of like the natural man, it's like, oh, well, that's your opinion. That's your opinion. Because for this person, opinion is very important. They think in terms of karma, but their take on the Bible is, convince me, convince me. Uh, they find comfort in getting their way. And finally, they disagree with anything that goes against their desires because there's no greater standard by which all things are measured. Hear that again. They disagree with anything that goes against their desires, because there's no greater standard by which all things are measured. I want to close this morning by giving you a biblical example of this person of the flesh, the people of the flesh. Now, by the way, do not miss the fact that these people are Christians. Paul says right there in chapter three, but I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. These people have a relationship with God. They're Christians. But these are the people that never enjoy their Christianity. It always prohibits them from doing what they want to do. And so they sneak off and do what they want to do in the dark, on the side with nobody knowing, and then they come back and they're like, ah, all good. But deep inside they live with this lack of power and this sense of regret. Biblical example of this is Samson. Samson. You remember Samson? Samson was the strongest guy. I mean, he had this powerful strength. Uh, the first recorded words out of the mouth of Samson were, I saw a woman. And what killed him, and by the way, this is not a dig at women. This is all about Samson. Samson always had one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. Samson fell for a woman named Delilah, who shouldn't have even been with. He would lay his head in her lap and say, Oh, here's the secret to my strength. And he would lie to her, like this was a little game. What happened eventually is that Sampin got he finally told the truth and they captured him. They cut his hair. There was a secret of his strength. They cut his hair and they put him in prison. They gouged his eyes out first, and they made him uh basically like a mule. He had him grinding a wheel, grinding up grain. And so he's bit he's blind, he's out there grinding for a living. The Philistines have a big party, and one night they get just, they get hammered, okay? And they said, Hey, bring Samson out so he can entertain us. And Samson is in shackles, he has no eyes to see. Here's this man that was created. By the way, if you want to know how how how much uh potential he had, uh here's the carnal Christian. The carnal Christian always talks about their potential, not their experience. I think there's three, I think this is correct. There's three births in the Bible that were prophetically foretold. John the Baptist, Jesus, and Samson. He's in great company. A lot of potential. Never could say no to his flesh and yes to the spirit. And so at the end of his life, he's in prison. They they get overserved at a party, and they said, Bring him out so he can entertain us. And they bring him out and they put his hands on the columns of this big, beautiful building where they're having this party. And Samson to himself says, Lord, two things that I think are very sad. They both start with the word please. He says, number one, please remember me. Please remember me. He is a slave to his enemies, the Philistines. And he says to God, please remember me. When you live as a carnal Christian, you also begin to believe things about God that aren't true, like God could forget you. And so he's like, please, please remember me. And secondly, he says this, please strengthen me only this once. Please strengthen me only this once, because he's asking God for the power to push these columns down and bring the building down. And he did. And that's and then the Bible says he killed more people in his death than he did in his life. Here's what's sad about that. He was content to experience once what he was created to experience always. Samson was content to experience one time at the very end. Talk about regret, talk about makeup. God, just give me one more chance. God, I'm gonna stop it. I'm gonna I'm gonna. He said, please, please remember me. Please strengthen me only this once. That's the sad thing for the carnal Christian or the person of the flesh that lives this way. He said you you begin to believe things about God that aren't true, like, oh, please remember me. He hadn't forgotten you. And then secondly, you settle for on occasion what God created you to experience all the time. Let's pray together. Father, thanks for your word. Uh when we talk about the three kinds of people in the world, we don't that doesn't make us uh the judge or put us in charge. But we do want to be sober about what the Bible says. What the Bible teaches, what the Bible invites us to, what the Bible says to us and about us. We live in a world right now where a lot of people are facing and feeling, tasting and smelling and seeing the insufficiency of what they trusted in, because it cannot save us. This Psalm 20 says, some trust in horses, some trust in chariots, and but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. And so, Holy Spirit, just as we kind of just ruminate and just kind of think about what the word has said today. Not what Neil has said, but what the Bible has said. There's really only three kinds of people in this world there's a natural man. The things of God are just they're just ignorance to him. And so, Lord, how do we contextualize the gospel to that person? There's a spiritual person who has a great capacity because of the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us. How do we contextualize the gospel and encourage that person? And then there's the person of the flesh or the carnal man. Who's got one foot in the in his flesh and one foot in the things of God? And just can't get away from his flesh, can't get away from her flesh, struggles in every relationship she's in because the flesh is so powerful for her. And God, we weren't created to be ruled by regret. We were created to be set free by the truth and live in the freedom that only God and the gospel provide. And so, Lord, as we uh just spend some time, the questions come up on the screen, and we spend some time just thinking biblically about this today. Holy Spirit, just brood over us. Capture our head and our heart, God. Pray for anyone out there watching this today, or in the in the days or weeks or months to come, whenever they watch it, God, anyone that realizes, you know, I'm that natural man, that's me. Those characteristics, that's me. That's how I think. Pray, Holy Spirit, that they realize there's a God in this world. And he stands ready to accept anybody at any time, regardless of everything they've ever done. This is the grace that Jesus brings to bear on our lives. And so for the spiritual person, we're not better than them. We've just experienced the grace of Jesus. And we say to that person, hey, come and experience what we've experienced. This is not about our intellect or our our wisdom or our moral superiority. We're none of that, okay? We've just tasted something that changed our life, and we want you to experience it as well. God, I pray for the carnal believer today that they would be done with smallness, that they just be done with the flesh. There's a reason the Bible says the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. Holy Spirit, lead us into life and peace as we think about these questions in Jesus' name. Father, again, thanks for your word. It never goes out and comes back void, but it accomplishes the purpose for which you sent it. And so the gospel is available to the intellectual and to the person that just thinks, man, I'm the dumbest person in the world. No, they're not. No one fits in that category. Because the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to anybody. And so we ask you to do that. We trust the revelation that comes from the Holy Spirit more than we trust ourselves and our intellect, God. Because it humbles us, because we realize that we're just people who've received something. We didn't create it, we didn't find it, we didn't read about it and memorize the facts about it. You revealed it to us because you're a God who's rich in mercy. And so, because you're rich in mercy, God, we ask you to have mercy on people today and reveal yourself to them. This is our prayer. We prayed in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen. Jesus is always the smartest person in the room, and he's always the only perfect person in the room. So stop living under the illusion that you have to be either one of those and just be yourself to the glory of God. God made you like you because he loves you and he trusts you to represent him. So go forth today and represent your Father. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bless you. Thank you for joining us.