Beeson Podcast, Episode #549
Kristen Padilla
May 18, 2021

>>Announcer: 


Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. 


>>Doug Sweeney:


Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. We are recording this episode on April 29th, the day before Beeson’s spring commencement service. This will be the first in-person commencement since the start of the COVID pandemic. As we end this year and get ready for commencement, we are grateful for God’s provision, protection, and blessing on Beeson and its students. 

We have met all year in-person on campus. God has preserved our community in a very special way. Thank you to one and all for your prayers for us. 

The Beeson Podcast began back in 2010. So, we now have 11 years of podcast recordings. During June and July, we’re giving our podcast team a break, but we’ll be digging into the archives and airing some of our greatest hits weekly through the break. Please stay tuned for some of our favorite Beeson Podcast episodes ever and we’ll return with new episodes for you in August. 

Today we want to share with you one of my favorite sermons from our spring chapel series on the Sinews of Scripture, Leading Doctrines of the Bible. It was preached by none other than my co-host, Kristen Padilla. It’s a wonderful piece of biblical exposition. She preached it live in Hodges Chapel on Tuesday, March 30th – taking the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and applying it poignantly to the ministry of the gospel. I am biased, to be sure, but I assure you that you are in for a real treat. 

Kristen, would you tell our listeners about the text you chose for this sermon and what you tried to communicate?


>>Kristen Padilla:


Sure. Thank you, Doug. When you gave me this assignment in the fall I felt drawn to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps because I feel like the Spirit is often neglected in the Trinity and plays such an important role in all of our lives, but also for gospel ministers. So, I felt drawn to the Holy Spirit. And then in thinking about my audience, namely seminary students preparing for ministry, I thought that this could be an opportunity to encourage them to take the pressure off, so to speak, that at the end of the day their ministry, all of it, is dependent upon the Holy Spirit who is at work in their lives. 

So, I felt drawn to 1 Corinthians 2. I just felt like Paul does so much in those two letters to the Corinthians in talking about his own ministry and giving an understanding of the role of gospel ministers. Then, of course, in Chapter 2 especially he talked about the Holy Spirit in relation to ministry. So, that was my text. I really felt personally it was a text that I related to, because I often struggle with my own weaknesses. Sometimes I feel like they are a stumbling block for me to be able to especially get up and preach in chapel knowing full well all of my weaknesses. But Paul talks about his weaknesses and then actually says that they are a vehicle for the Holy Spirit to display his power and his glory.

So, that’s the background to this message. I just pray that those of you who are listening today, that the Spirit would use it in your own lives. And if it would encourage even just one of you then that will be an answer to prayer.


>>Doug Sweeney:


Well, Kristen, that prayer has already been answered because the Spirit used it powerfully in my own life. Thank you very much for a wonderful sermon. Let’s go now, listeners, to Hodges Chapel and listen to Kristen Padilla preach a sermon called, “Holy Spirit, Director of Divine Communication.”


>>Reader:


A reading from 1 Corinthians 2:

“When I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with the demonstration of the Spirit’s power so that your faith may not be rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

We do, however, speak of wisdom among the mature but not in wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. On the contrary, we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery. A wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom because if they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived. God has prepared these things for those who love him.’

God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit, since the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except his spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God. 

Now, we have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. We also speak these things not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. But the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s spirit because it is foolishness to him. He is not able to understand it, since it is evaluated spiritually.

The spiritual person, however, can evaluate everything. And yet he himself cannot be evaluated by anyone. For who has known the Lord’s mind that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

The Word of the Lord.


>> People:


Thanks be to God.


>>Kristen Padilla:


Good morning. Thank you, Jess, Hayden, Hannah, and Isaiah, and Dr. Westmoreland, for leading us in worship this morning. And a special thanks to Dr. Westmoreland for her work and love for this university over these last many years. You’ve been a blessing to us and you’ve left an indelible print on this university and campus. What she did not mention to all of you is that when I was very pregnant with our son, Philip, past my due date – she brought me lunch. And it was after that lunch that I went into labor. So, I will always be grateful to her.

I want to being by asking you a question. What difference does the Holy Spirit make to ministers of the gospel? What difference does the Holy Spirit make to ministers of the gospel? Let me put it negatively and more personal. If the Holy Spirit were taken away from your ministry, what would you lose?

This morning I want us to consider the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in relation to ministry. I want to contend today that an effective ministry happens when the Holy Spirit is at work in us to preach Christ crucified and to live a cruciform life. Let me say it again. I want to contend that an effective ministry happens when the Holy Spirit is at work in us to preach Christ crucified and to live a cruciform life. We will consider this in these questions in light of 1 Corinthians 2. I hope you have the passage open this morning. But first, let us pray.

Holy Spirit, conform my words to your Word – namely, Jesus Christ. And let my words be a word of encouragement. Spirit, open up our ears to hear and our eyes to see and our hearts to believe the message that you have for us in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our passage is found in the middle of an argument that Paul is making in the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians. Paul is responding to a problem in the church. Rivalry has broken out over which leader they follow. You remember their words, “I follow, Paul. I follow Cephas. I follow Apollos. I follow Christ.” 

The Christians were jostling over their leaders, much in the same way that followers of philosophers and public speakers jostled one another in their society. The cause for this fighting within the church is pride. It was pride. For in their culture, a philosopher status trickled down to you as their follower. So, followers took great pride in their leaders, as their leader status had the potential to boost their own. 

We don’t have to do too much interpretational translation to see how this applies to our own society. Like in which celebrities or politicians we follow. Or even in our own churches, like which preachers we follow. Perhaps even here at Beeson we might be tempted to jostle over which dead theologian we follow. I follow Luther! I follow Calvin! I follow Barth!

This rivalry and pride in the Corinthian church was a presenting symptom of a sort of syncretism. Thanks to a group within the church, the Christians had adopted and baptized the Greco Roman values of self promotion and self centeredness. As a result of the Church capitulating to its culture, it became a micro chasm of it. 

It may be helpful to develop a little how the worldview of the Corinthians, especially in relation to popular public speakers affected their church. This worldview was shaped by traveling professional speakers who would come to Corinth and announce themselves and give a captivating speech on any topic and thereby form a school of disciples who paid them. 

According to one such speaker he said, “Speech is a powerful lord. It can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity.” In their hands speech was a tool that they used to manipulate the emotions of their hearers in order to position themselves above the rest. In many ways their style, their packaging of the speech, the way they gave it was much more important than the content. For the Corinthians, wisdom was all about image and raw power to captivate an audience. This worldview was the core of Corinthian society. Paul not only deals with it in 1 Corinthians, but in 2 Corinthians, and who knows how many times in between.

In light of this backdrop, in light of these values and worldview, the Church then judged Paul and his ministry – and concluded that his many shortcomings as a speaker disqualified him from ministry. In 2 Corinthians we learn that there were some in the church that said, “Oh yeah, his letters, they’re weighty and strong, but you should see him in person. His bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account.” Paul didn’t impress them with this rhetorical style. Regarding his physical condition, Paul writes that he and Apollos go hungry and thirsty, they’re poorly clothed, homeless, roughly treated. They labor with their hands. I can imagine calloused hands. 

In 2 Corinthians he describes his beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, and all his other sufferings. His many physical sufferings and condition left the Corinthian church in shock. “Do we really want such a man, such a person, to have authority over us?” 

So, what we have in the church in Corinth is a clash between their expectations and understanding of leadership and wisdom on the one hand, and Paul’s understanding of leadership and wisdom on the other. And as a result, there was an explosion of the values of secularity and the values of a cruciform existence came into conflict with one another. Sisters and brothers, I think it’s sort of easy these days to see the ways in which American churches as a whole have become like the Corinthian church, especially in light of the recent political cycle.

But, before we’re too quick to point our fingers at the churches, remember that ministers of the gospel can also be seduced by our American culture in such a way that we do ministry much like the Corinthians did. You don’t have to believe in the prosperity gospel to be beguiled by worldly power. To use your preaching as an opportunity to show off and manipulate others emotions for your own ends. In ministry you may also face the temptation that will be brought on by your church members who will put pressure on you to conform to their values. 

Just in case you don’t think you’re going to face these temptations in ministry, listen to the testimony David Platt gave in 2018 during his farewell address to the International Mission Board Trustees. After having served as its president for four years he said, “I hate the politics of the SBC. I don’t say that as an outsider. I say that as an insider these last four years. Some of the lowest points in my leadership have been when I’ve found myself participating in them. Jockeying for position, continual self promotion, backroom deals followed by spin in the front room, strategizing like brothers are your enemy, feeling like others see you as their enemy. Getting to the point where you wonder if you can trust anyone, even as you start to wonder how trustworthy you’ve become.”

The situation David Platt found himself in can happen to any of us. And it is not an SBC only problem. This can happen wherever the church is and its leaders have surrendered to the secular culture and its values. So, what was Paul’s response to the Corinthians? What did he say? What does he have to say to use today who are here in this place preparing for ministry?

First, Paul says, “I decided to know nothing among you except Christ and Christ crucified.” It wasn’t that Paul thought that Jesus’ life and resurrection were unimportant, or that he didn’t preach them. Rather, the proclamation of the cross was a shorthand way to refer to the whole gospel. Before the Corinthians it was precisely the crucifixion that needed to be emphasized in order to wake them up from their secular slumber. 

You see? The cross the of Christ was a stumbling block for the Corinthians Christians. They wanted to serve a resurrected, glorified Lord who would boost their status. Not a crucified as a criminal lord who would lower their status. They wanted a lord without nail marks in his hands. 

Cicero said that the very word “cross” should be far removed from not only the bodies of our Roman citizens, but even from their thoughts, their eyes, and their ears. 

You see, when we look at the cross purely through the lens of human values the cross seems weak, foolish ... Dare I say, “Stupid?” A great tragedy, really. Outside the biblical statements about the cross and apart from the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is nothing more than an executed martyr who was wrong about his destiny. Or, a heroic nevertheless tragic individual who gives us an example to follow. 

However, when God opens our eyes to the see the reality of the cross, oh, then it’s the place where God is reconciling the world to himself. Where the Son of God is defeating demoniac powers. Where he is transferring you and me from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son. Where God is declaring your sins judged and forgiven. Where we have been granted peace with God. And where we see the very glory of His Son. 

Paul says, “I decided to know nothing among you except for this.” Seeing the cross for what it truly is, the cross then serves paradigmatically as the keystone of Christian identity. Instead of hiding his weaknesses, or subjecting them to self improvement techniques, Paul simply acknowledges them. He isn’t ashamed of his weaknesses, for they bear witness to Jesus who was crucified in weakness for Him. His cruciform living confirms his faith in the message he preaches. As he says in Galatians, “I bear the marks or the stigmata of the crucified one in my body.” 

As followers of the crucified Messiah, then, the cost demands of all of us a crucified laying down our life’s existence for one another. There’s no room for pride or self promotion at the cross. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but it is Christ who lives within me. 

My suspicion here at Beeson is that most of us don’t view our weaknesses this way. But perhaps we often feel crushed by them. Perhaps we wonder if God can use our particular weaknesses? Like Moses and Jeremiah, we protest God’s call in light of all of our incapabilities, “Lord, I stutter. I’m not a smooth talker.” “Lord, I lack charisma or the personality needed.” “Lord, I’m shy.” “Lord, I struggle with depression and anxiety.” “Lord, I have an incurable disease that leaves me weak in my body.” “Lord, I’m not very smart, just look at my Hebrew exam.” “I’m too young.” “I’m too old.” And the list goes on.

Perhaps we also bear the external or internal scars of past sins or sins that were committed against us that we worry might disqualify us from ministry. To be honest with you this morning, I was almost crippled by the weight of anxiety to preach this morning due to an awareness of my own weaknesses. Just ask my husband. Even a pulpit this large I knew wouldn’t be able to hide them. My protest to the Lord included, “I’m not a pastor like the men who have preached in chapel so far this series. Lord, I can only count on two hands the number of times I have preached. I’m not the most eloquent or the smartest. I’m the least qualified.”

If you can relate to any of these protests, I have good news. Because Paul says, “Turn your protest into praise to the God who isn’t ashamed of our weaknesses, who isn’t surprised by them, but instead sees them as the very channel for the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in our lives and ministry.” And this is Paul’s third answer to the Corinthians. 

Like Toto who pulls back the curtain to reveal the voice behind the Great Wizard of Oz. Paul pulls back the curtain for us in Chapter 2, revealing that actually it is the Holy Spirit who is the one working behind the scenes of his ministry, directing all divine communication about Jesus Christ for no one can proclaim, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is the one who has brought into symmetry his cruciform message and his cruciform living. 

So, how does the Spirit do this? Paul spends a long time in 1 Corinthians 2 talking about what the Spirit does. And so what I want to do is just finish by summarizing this section about the Holy Spirit. First, the Holy Spirit reveals to us that Jesus Christ crucified is in fact the wisdom of God. This is what he says in verse 10. “This wisdom cannot be attained by our own logic or knowledge or willpower,” or by earning a master of divinity or theology degree, or a PhD. You believe that Jesus paid for your sins on the cross? Great! Who revealed that to you? The Holy Spirit.

Paul says that what was once a hidden wisdom and mystery, a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory, a wisdom that the father had hidden from the wise and the intelligent, a wisdom which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has conceived, is now seen and now heard in the person of Jesus Christ because the Spirit has revealed it to us as such. God revealed God. As the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit reveals the wisdom of the message we preach. He gives us the message we are to preach. 

John Calvin says, “Taught by the Spirit then ministers might speak fearlessly as it were from the mouth of the Lord.” Second, not only does the Holy Spirit reveal to us the message that we are to preach, the way in which the Spirit reveals God and confirms the truth of what has been revealed, is by opening up mouths to prophecy, to preach. We see this activity of the Spirit all throughout scripture. I wish we had time to look. 

Peter tells us in his second letter, “No prophecy of scripture comes from the prophets own interpretation because no prophecy ever came by the will of man. Instead prophets, though humans, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit fell on all sorts of people. Farmers and shepherds, young and old, he once used a speechless donkey. Moses even said, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them.” Did Moses know that perhaps he was prophesying about Pentecost by the Spirit?

This is what the Spirit says through Joel, right? That there will come a day when the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all humanity. “Daughters as well as sons, slaves as well as free, gentiles as well as Jews will prophecy.” When we get to the New Testament we see this activity of the Spirit continuing. When we open up Luke’s gospel we find the first two people who are filled with the Holy Spirit and who prophecy are women. Mary and Elizabeth. Then after the incarnation we see an outburst of the Spirit. Zachariah is prophesying, Simeon, Anna ... I hear the words of John the Baptist, “For the one whom God has sent speaks the Word of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.” 

Jesus, too, as the Son of God was full of the Spirit and ministered in the Spirit. Jesus told his disciples that the Father and the Son will give them the same Spirit when he leaves. In Acts 2 the Spirit came just as Jesus promised. And what happened as a result? He opened their mouths so that they could proclaim the gospel in foreign tongues so that people might hear the gospel and believe. 

The Spirit is still in the business today of opening up mouths to proclaim the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Through the Holy Spirit God invites us, weak as we are, to join him in this divine communication to announce what he has already revealed in scripture. To join him in the work of preaching. We speak about these things, about Jesus, he says in verse 13, “because God is using our mouths to speak them.” Our mouths become the megaphones of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the revelation of God to others. Preaching at its core is an activity of the Holy Spirit.

So, he gives us the message. He opens our mouths and he speaks through us. Third, the Spirit is the only one who can open up the eyes and ears and hearts of those who listen. He’s the only one. We don’t have that power. Faith does not rest on us or what a great sermon we preach, but rather on the irrefutable witness of the Spirit of Christ. 

The Corinthians sought power, but they sought it by the world’s methods. Paul says that only God is powerful. And God’s power is demonstrated when he takes our words, which on their own have no power and makes them into a word from the Lord. If people respond to our message it is only a testimony to the work of the Spirit.

Finally, the Spirit gives us the mind of Christ, through his indwelling, so that we can live for him. Through his Spirit we are united with Christ. And therefore we now see the world, we live in the world as Christ does. The Spirit of Christ dwells in us individually, incorporately. It fills us in a such a way that we minister out of the abundance of the Spirit we have received. 

When our son, Philip, was three he told me quite emphatically, as three year olds do, that, “Jesus was in his foot.” And confused, I asked him to explain. He said, “Mommy, Jesus lives in my foot, because wherever he leads, I go.” Thank you, Philip. By his Spirit, Jesus is in our feet, in our hands, in our minds, and in our mouths. 

So, to conclude this morning, if you build a ministry on a platform of self promotion and pride, it will fall. It’s not a Christian ministry. In fact, it will be very anxiety producing, because we’ll always have to perform to keep it up. But ministering in the Holy Spirit means we don’t have to invent the message. We don’t have to rely on our own abilities. We don’t have to open the hearts of the people. That’s the work of the Spirit. Let the Spirit do His job. Let the Spirit be your ally in ministry to do what you could never do, and what only God can do.

Rest in the Spirit. Trust the Spirit. Take heart what Jesus said, “Don’t be anxious. Don’t worry. I will help you speak. I will teach you what to say. For it is not you who speaks, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” But lest I get in trouble after this sermon, let me clarify and say that by having the Holy Spirit does mean that what we’re doing at Beeson doesn’t matter. That our studies are futile or unnecessary or we shouldn’t learn how to go from text to sermon or take preaching courses. Paul used rhetoric. He just didn’t use it in the way they wanted him to. Paul is not calling us to be boring or lazy ministers. 

Rather, what I think Paul wants us to hear is that everything, our ministries, our lives, and yes, even our studies at Beeson are to be placed properly under the authority of the Spirit. So, as people under the authority of the Spirit our most important work in ministry and here at Beeson is to pray. We see the importance of prayer. We learn it from Jesus who, though he was the Son of God and full of the Spirit, still withdrew to pray all throughout his ministry. 

We also follow the example of the apostles and the early church who often prayed for the Spirit’s power to speak God’s work boldly. Through prayer we become humbly reliant on the Spirit. So, let me end by asking the question one more time. What difference does the Holy Spirit make to you and your ministry?

My answer is to look around you. Everywhere you look in this chapel you will see evidence of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The people represented in this chapel were weak, too, just like you. William Seamore was the son of freed slaves who grew up in poverty and lost his left eye due to small pox. Martin Luther and Charles Haddon Spurgeon suffered with lifelong depression. William Carey was a poor shoe cobbler with very little education. May Haman and Lottie Moon were single women. If we had the time we could find all of our excuses, all of our protests, all of our weaknesses and shortcomings in the people depicted in Hodges Chapel. 

Thought not regarded by the world as powerful, or impressive, or attractive, the people depicted in this chapel were filled with the Holy Spirit. They were moved by the Holy Spirit. They were empowered by the Spirit to preach Christ crucified and to live the cruciform life. As such, many of them were arrested, exiled, beaten, put to death ... They were people who in the words of Paul were in last place, a spectacle to the world. Scum of the earth. To the world they were fools for Christ. But to the Church and to us today they were and still today represent a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. 

So, let it be with each of us. Come o’ Sovereign, enter in, let new and nobler life begin. The Holy Spirit guide us on until the glorious crown be won. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.


>>Kristen Padilla:


You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.