Episode Transcript
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Right. Let's turn into First Corinthians, Chapter One, first rindings one,
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verse seven, through Chapter Two,
verse five. This is the beginning of
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a section which fills through the chapters
the word. So we're going to talk
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about things in here that will be
visit again different ways, because the Lord
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impresses very important truths on our hearts. So First Corinthians one, verse seven,
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also all, for Christ did not
send me to baptize, but to
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preach the Gospel and not the words. Development is them less. The cost
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be emptying of its power, for
the word of the process quality to those
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who are perish him. That's less. We're being saved. It isn't power
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of com for it has betten.
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
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and ancernments of the discerning of the
world. Where is above, who is
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wise? Where is the scribe person? The demand of this age as God,
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God being the thing foolish the wisdom
of the world, for since in
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the wisdom of God, the world
did not know God through wisdom and pleased
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God, and the folly of what
we preach to save those whom, for
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choose to be on signs and Greeks
see wisdom that we preach Christ person,
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stomblen, the luck to Jews and
following the Trinis, but to those who
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are called call of the Jews and
things Christ the power of God and the
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wisdom world, for the foolishness of
God is wise of men and the leaks.
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God is stronger. For consider your
calm brothers, many of you are
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wise and word. The world a
standards of many people, powerful that many
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of these world known worth. But
God shows what is foolish of the world
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to shame of Gods. God shows
what is weak the world, shame strong
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God to chose what is low and
despise in the world, even things,
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the things that are not to bring
to nothing. Things are so that no
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human being my ghost of the presence
of God and because of him, you
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are in Christ, Jesus, who
became to US wisdom from God, righteousness
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and signification and redemption, so that, as it is written, love of
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Onod who mosts most of all,
did not come proclaiming to you the testimony
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of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among
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you except Jesus, Christ and him
crucified. And I was with you in
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weeks and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were
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not in plausible words of wisdom,
but in demonstration of the spirit and of
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power, so that your faith might
not rest in the wisdom of men but
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in the power of God man.
This passage is sometimes confusing to some,
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and there's good reason for it.
Paul uses the same words many times,
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but in different ways. He talks
about something as folly in one moment and
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then the next he calls it wisdom, and then another he calls wisdom and
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then he calls it folly, and
then sometimes he'll switch back. And it's
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not because Paul is being illogical or
he's not making any sense, but he's
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trying to reframe how we think about
two things. How we think about the
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things in this world and how we
think about the word of God, the
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Word of God as in Christ Himself, Christ and him crucified, and the
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word of God, particularly in terms
of its preaching. Paul is focused here,
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in this passage and in some to
come, on not just the content
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of the Gospel but the mode of
the Gospel. How is it preached?
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How does it come to US notice
how? This is how Paul begins and
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this is what we're going to focus
on this morning. He says I came
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to preach the Gospel, not with
words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross
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be emptied of its power. And
then, similarly, at the end of
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the passage that I read in chapter
two, he says in verse three,
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I was with you in weakness and
in fear and in much trembling, and
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my speech and my message were not
in plausible words of wisdom, but a
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demonstration of the spirit and of power. You can listen to this next passage
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or turn with me, if you
liked, a second Corinthians chapter ten,
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and I want to read one more
passage that's similar. Second Corinthians ten,
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Paul says he recounts to us an
accusation that he was receiving First Green atens
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ten. Verse Ten he says,
for they say, that is his accusers
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quote. His letters are waighty and
strong, but his bodily appearance is weak
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and his speech is of no account. So this is what people were saying
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about Paul. This was the problem
that he was facing. They were saying
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that his letters, they're great,
they're enjoyable to read, there's some power
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to them, but when he gets
up in front of US and talks not
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really anything to write home about.
He's not really a great preacher, they
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were saying. He's not a great
speaker. Indeed, Paul even says here
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that he came to them in weakness
and fear and in trembling. His voice
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was shaking, maybe his hands were
shaking. This happens to me sometimes,
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still not so much anymore. I'm
here partly, I think, because we
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know each other so well, but
I notice sometimes if I go and do
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some pulpit supply or guests preaching in
some place, I'll get really nervous.
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My hands will shake him, my
voice will shake Um like, why am
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I shaking? I know the word. I'm going to proclaim the word of
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his regular job to do. I
do this every day or every Sunday,
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usually twice, and yet here I
am nervous. Why am I nervous?
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Why am I shaking? Paul was
experiencing this well at all mentioned. As
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a side note, this brings me
some comfort, as Paul was bold.
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We know Paul went and spoke with
great boldness. He would did not shy
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away. We hear him say I
am not ashamed to proclaim the Gospel,
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which is the power of God,
Unto Salvation, both to Jews and the
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Greeks. But just because he wasn't
a shame, just because he was going
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to go for it, didn't mean
that he wasn't scared too, didn't mean
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that he wasn't that that he wasn't
everything that people had perhaps hoped from him.
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This, of course, was contrasted
a little bit with a man named
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a Paulo's who the scriptures say,
was very good at public speaking. He
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was very good, he was impressive
and and, as we considered last time,
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because of this difference between these two, people were starting to kind of
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gather around one or the other.
Now, what's really interesting about this passage
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is Paul is what Paul doesn't say. It's one of them many interesting things
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he doesn't say. I'm really sorry
about this, and so I'm going to
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study classical rhetoric more and get better. Now, what Paul says is he
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has specifically chosen not to care and
he has specifically chosen a mode of preaching
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that isn't flashy. My guess is
that he'd probably be fine with not trembling.
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He does. He wouldn't accuse Apollos, in other words, of not
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being not trembling. You wouldn't say
well, you got a tremble if you're
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going to preach. Well, I
don't think that's what he's getting after.
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But what he is getting after is
he's saying there is this mode of preaching
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which matches the content of the Gospel, and both are really important. Let's
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look at this passage and consider why. He begins in verse eighteen, for
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he says the For the word of
the Cross is folly to those who are
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perishing, but to us who are
being saved it is the power of God.
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Now, so this is really interesting. He says it is power,
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it is, it has power.
It has power for those who are being
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saved. But he also says in
verse seventeen that he preaches in this particular
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way so that the cross is not
emptied of its power. How could the
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cross be emptied of its power?
It is the Cross of Christ, after
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all. What Paul is saying is
that when the Cross is presented in a
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particular way it takes away from the
message, when the Cop Cross is presented
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in a particular way, it takes
away from the power of the message.
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Not that it isn't powerful, it
is. He says it's powerful for those
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who are being saved. As it
is written. Verse Nineteen, I will
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destroy this is powerful language, right. I will destroy the wisdom of the
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wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will thwart and then Paul tosses
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down the gauntlet. I love these
verses. Where's the one who is wise?
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He's like, let's roll right.
Where's the one who is wise?
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Where's the scribe? Where is the
debater of this age? Here? These,
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these are expressions of confidence, right, this is he's challenging them and
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he says, has not God made
foolish the wisdom of the world? This
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is what the cross does, is
it takes the socalled wisdom of the world
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and it shows it to be truly
foolish. And what the world calls foolish,
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God shows it to be powerful.
In Verse Twenty One, he says,
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for since, in the wisdom of
God, the world did not know
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God, through wisdom, it pleased
God through the folly of what we preach.
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To save those who believe, is
Paul saying here? He's saying that
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he is not revealed through simply studying
this world. There is wisdom in this
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world. Paul's not denying that to
study rhetoric, for example, to study
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speech. That's a task of wisdom. It's not a bad thing to know
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how to present an argument, to
know how to make it very pointed,
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to know how to make it so
it rings in your ears and sticks.
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Some good things, but they're not
powerful to get you to the ultimate things.
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And this is true of anything in
God's world that he's made. you
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go out into the into the woods, you go up into the mountains or
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the deserts and you can be amazed. You can study these things, you
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can cultivate them, you can take
the resources that God has made and create
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amazing things, amazing things. And
yet God does not reveal that salvation that
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we have through Jesus Christ, that
power that takes us out of this age
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and into the next age, through
those things, whether it's, you know,
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physical resources like rocks or or trees, or intellectual resources like rhetoric.
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God doesn't reveal himself through this way, but instead through the simple preaching,
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which some people were calling folly.
People are being saved and this was not
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an accident. Notice what he says. In the wisdom of God, it
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was chosen this way. God has
particularly chosen to reveal him self this way.
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Okay, continuing on the in the
exposition, here he says the Jews
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demands signs and the Greek seek wisdom. But We preach Christ crucified a stumbling
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block to the Jews and folly to
the gentiles. Christ on the cross is
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not a powerful sign. Now,
Christ certainly did powerful signs right. He
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healed people of leprosy, rased them
to raise from the dead. He healed
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all kinds of diseases, he cast
out demons. There were signs, plentiful
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signs, obvious signs, but they
were all leading to this ultimate work of
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God on the Cross. Everything was
pointing to this moment and there was no
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outward power there. There hung our
savior, dead, ultimate powerlessness, not
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able to fight back against the Jews
of the Romans, not able to teach
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any more, not able to speak
any more, not to breathe anymore.
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He was dead. Jesus Christ Crucified
Meant Jesus Christ dead, powerless, ineffective,
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presumably, and the Greek sought wisdom. What is this? What can
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be learned from this? A man
rises up, he gathers people after him,
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he's becomes famous throughout the the land. And then he dies. This
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is not wisdom, this is not
success, this is not advancing, and
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so people despise the Lord, they
turned away from him. And yet,
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though in the wisdom of God,
he came in this way, he was
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powerful. So this is the Pop
Paul is not saying that Jesus is not
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powerful. He's saying that he's not
powerful as the world perceives him. And
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indeed he's not powerful in the form
in which he came. He came as
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a servant, he came humble,
he came suffering. But, as Paul
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goes on to say, he was
and is the power of God. He
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was and is the wisdom of God. And here's where everything it's put in
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for perspective. That verse twenty five
a kind of key verse here for the
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Foolishness of God. The thing is, especially that the world calls foolish,
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that the world calls weak, that
the world calls powerless. The foolishness of
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God is wiser than men and the
weakness of God is stronger than that.
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So that gets back us back to
what I said at the beginning, that
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he's helping us to understand the things
in this world and the things of God.
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In perspective to one another. You
might look at some technological advancements,
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some amazing aspect of learning, on
anything that you might in consider in this
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world and be rightly impressed, but
it doesn't begin to obtain to the wisdom
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in the power of God, even
when it's revealed through weakness. So then,
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why does God reveal such awesome power
and wisdom through weakness? Why does
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God, in his wisdom, choose
that path? We'll get there, but
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before we do, plaw has one
more thing for us to consider and make
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that point. Not only did Jesus
come in pat in weakness and in suffering
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and humility, not only does the
message that he preached not come with great
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eloquence and power of your personal presence
and all of these things, but even
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you, he says, are not
that impressive. Notice what he says.
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Consider your calling. Brothers. Not
Many of you were wise according to worldly
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standards, not many of you were
powerful, not many of you were of
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noble birth. But God shows what
is foolish in the world to shame the
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wise. God chose what is weak
in the world to shame the strong.
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God chose what is low and despised
in the world. Even the things that
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are not to bring to nothing the
things that are. So, you see,
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Jesus Christ came in a certain way, that message is preached in a
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certain way and it comes to people
who are likewise not that impressive. The
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Corinthians, and not just the Corinthians, but the Corinthians, were wanting to
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advance themselves, they were wanting to
be people who are important, who were
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esteemed socially, who had followers around
them, who were able to climb the
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ladder in their society. And Paul
kind of calls them out and he says,
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guys, not many of you were
of noble birth, not many of
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you are all that impressive. I'm
not looking out on this crowd of amazing
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people by worldly standards. I'Llge Paul, that's kind of hurts. If you
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find that offensive, it's time for
a heart check, I think it's fair
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to say, because a lot of
us spend a lot of our time meditating
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on, thinking about and working about
how to working on how to become something
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special by worldly standards. A lot
of energy in our time and our daily
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lives and in our culture goes into
that objective. How do we become something
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special and worldly standards. And so
when you're preacher, write you a letter,
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as Paul does here, and says
you know, not many of you
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are even obtaining that goal. Not
Many of you are that special by these
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worldly standard. They can kind of
hurt a little bit. But why does
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Paul say this one? Of course
it's to humble them, because this is
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what their hearts are. After they're
wanting these things and he's trying to relativize
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it, he's trying to push it
down. He's saying not important, not
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important, not important. And in
fact it's not only not as important as
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we think it is, but God
has specifically chosen the things that are not,
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not that important, not that powerful, not that fancy, to bring
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into the power and wisdom and life
of the son of God. In other
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words, God calls us to embrace
this fact. He doesn't want us to
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be foolish people, he doesn't want
us to be stupid or or doing dumb
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things or acting in foolish ways,
but he does want us to embrace the
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fact that this world is not all
that there is and I don't have to
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climb a social ladder, I don't
have to be something special in order to
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receive all the blessings and of Jesus
Christ, all the things and honor and
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glory that he ultimately did attain to
and even now has as he sits at
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the right hand of God, enthroned
upon Cherobeam, on his mighty chariot,
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living forever and ever, in which
the whole host of Heaven Calls Holy,
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Holy, Holy He Jesus Christ is
ultimate and Glorious and powerful way exceeding anything
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that this world would ever seek.
But he did that and at a obtained
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that by first becoming low and by
even drawing in those of us who are
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low. What's good news to that? God also draws in the rich and
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the powerful. God also draws in
people who have become something important in this
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world. But, as Jesus says, it's a hard thing for people like
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that to get into the Kingdom of
Heaven. And what do we see?
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What do we see so often happening
in his ministry and his Gospels? It's
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task collectors, it's prostitutes, it's
gentiles, it's people who are low and
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despised and kind on the edges that
are being brought in. Why? Why
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did Jesus do that? Why does
God do that? Why am I here?
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It's because, in his great wisdom, he shows the things that are
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weak, Christ taking on human flesh, a particular mode of preaching the Gospel,
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and even the people that he gathers
into his church to make himself known.
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Here's the why we have a problem
with idolatry, we have a problem
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with pride, we have a problem
with getting our eyes so focused on this
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world that God comes into this world
and so he chooses what is weak and
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foolish, to turn everything on its
head and make us go what's going on,
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so that ultimately we wouldn't have anything
worldly to stand on and would only
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boast in the Lord, only only
him. That's why he does these things,
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he says in Verse Twenty Nine,
so that no human being might boast
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in the presence of God, so
that none of us can go to the
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Lord and say, well, yeah, I worked really hard, I showed
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up to work every day, I
impressed my boss and his boss and his
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boss, and on top of that, I also learned a few languages on
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the side, and on top of
that, I picked up this hobby and
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had a great family. Nothing God
did the things that he did in the
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way that he did them so that
we could not stand on those things and
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so that we could only say,
well, I'm only here by your grace
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and your grace alone. God undoes
our pride so that we can stand in
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the presence of God, because our
pride blocks us, are plied, separates
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us. Our Pride says I don't
need him, I need me, I
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need more of the world. But
what we really need is God. And
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so, rather than reinforcing the old
system by God saying here's how the Gospel
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comes by the these really fancy amazing
peace people and and this is a super
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exclusive club that you can only get
into if you advance through society in these
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certain ways. God undoes all of
that so that we would be undone,
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so that he would receive all the
glory and that wisdom and power and and
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and and communion with God could truly
be had. We come into the presence
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of God not through our wisdom and
the wisdom of this world and the power
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of this world, but through the
power of God. And here's Paul's application.
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Then in verse five he says so
that your faith, your faith might
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not rest in the wisdom of men
but the power of God. There are
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amazing things in this world. Some
of you are involved in amazing things,
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writing, research, collaboration, working
within your families, working within societies,
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the friendships that you've created truly wonderful
things. But for all of us who
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have read ecclesiastes or lived in the
world for a day, we know that
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that stuff doesn't last. Things get
and done, projects unravel, corporations that
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are strong dissolve and fall apart.
This world under the sun is a trying
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place for some reason that's hard for
us to understand. We'd miss the Vanity
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of it all. We think,
we keep thinking, it's permanent, but
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God comes in this way to undo
these things in our minds. So that's
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what Paul is saying here. Paul's
opposition is not to rhetoric itself. Rhetoric
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isn't sinful. Rhetoric is a good
thing. Paul uses rhetoric even there are
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passages in the scriptures that are immensely
eloquent, beautiful, inspiring, rhythmic,
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whatever you want, whatever words you
want to attach to that, but that
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was not his aim. A great
speaker in Paul's time would not go before
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an audience without mastering those things first. His goal would have been to move
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his audience. His goal was not
just to proclaim the truth, but to
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persuade in such an eloquent way that
when he walked away everyone said wow,
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that guy. That wasn't Paul's aim. That work of rhetoric required a lot
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of study, the ability to read
people in situations, adapt in the moment,
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use masterful turns of phrases, charm. It was a legitimate skill and
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sometimes it was used for highly moral
ends. People would use these skills and
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go and defend people in court,
they would support the cause of the week,
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they would uphold the law and plead
for good causes. The Bible itself
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teaches us that rhetoric is something worthy
of studying. Proverbs twenty five says.
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A word fitly spoken is like apples
of gold in a setting of silver.
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Proverbs Fifteen, twenty three says to
make an APP to answer, is a
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joy to man a word in season. How good is it? Paul's not
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saying we should all talk like fools. He's not saying rhetoric is useless and
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not powerful. Rhetoric can be used
for human flourishing and many blessings. And
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yet what Paul is saying is that
no amount of human wisdom. No amount
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of worldly wisdom, even rightly applied, can bring us to salvation. And
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so he's not going to make it
his priority to master all of those things,
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and master them perfectly. In fact, he's not going to worry about
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them. His primary job, and
the primary job of every preacher and Lord
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Willing me as well, is to
proclaim the truth, clearly and simply,
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with the authority of God, and
no more and no less, not relying
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using perhaps in some ways, but
not relying on those things as being that
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which will save the world, but
relying on God, who speaks and uses
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even simple speaking to bring about power
and salvation. This, in the end,
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beloved, is what gives us confidence. It allows our faith not to
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rest on human eloquence and power,
but on the Lord God himself. And
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so I just ask you where are
do you want to rest your faith on?
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Do you want to rest your faith
on the eloquence of a preacher,
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or do you want to rest your
faith on the wisdom of God revealed in
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the Cross of Jesus Christ? Please
let it be the latter. That's where
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salvation is, that's where true power
and wisdom is. That will not be
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undone that is not vain and will
last for all eternity. It will save
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your soul and your body as well. Let's pray
