Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.cccharlotte.org/sermons/66362/misunderstood/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] A pastor's reflections misunderstood. Isaiah 53.4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

[0:16] Isaiah 11.3. And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.

[0:27] 2 Corinthians 5.7. For we walk by faith and not by sight. The ways of God are not the ways of man, neither are they the ways that man would ever choose.

[0:42] Why? Because man's understanding is according to man's nature, and man's nature is not able to comprehend the nature of God. What may look like foolishness to man is wisdom with God, and what may look like wisdom to man is foolishness with God. 1 Corinthians 2.11.

[1:03] For what man knows the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knows no man, but the spirit of God.

[1:13] When God chooses to intervene in the affairs of man, we can expect there to be a certain amount of misunderstanding on the part of man. Without some type of guidance or help, man would not be able to comprehend the works of God. 1 Corinthians 2.12. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

[1:43] Thankfully, the Holy Spirit has been sent into the world to give the illumination to man that he so desperately needs. God's intervention on our behalf has not only given man the opportunity to come out from under the effects of sin, but has also given us the capacity to understand that great work and our need for it. The Savior had been sent into the world, and the world had no capacity to receive him. What God knew was deliverance, man saw as oppression. What God saw as salvation, man saw as cause for rejection. Jesus did not come from man, but for man, and because of that, man would not receive him. However, it is only from without that salvation must come.

[2:35] Galatians 4.4.5. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

[2:50] What man could never do, God willingly did. He came from without man, to be born of man, so that we who are born of men, might be born of God. Father, thank you for taking it upon yourself to accomplish everything that was necessary for my salvation. Even when you knew that I would look upon that salvation with misunderstanding and as something to be despised, that did not stop you from pursuing the means of my peace. Thank you for then going above and beyond by sending the Holy Spirit to give understanding, so that I might enter in to your glorious salvation. Amen.