Episode Transcript
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And let's give our attention to God's
word. Yet among the mature we do
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in part wisdom, although it is
not a wisdom of this age or of
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the rulers of this age, who
are doomed to pass away, but we
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impart a secret and hidden wisdom of
God which God decreed before the age.
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Is For our glory. None of
the rulers of the age understood this,
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for if they had, they would
not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
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Amen. You may be seated.
So, as we consider last time,
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Paul is speaking in a context in
which his speaking is being challenged. I'm
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he speaking in a context in which
people are looking at him and saying,
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what's so impressive about that guy?
His knees shake, his hands tremble,
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his speech is not that big of
a deal. It's true. Is letters
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are weighty and there's some good at
them, but we want somebody impressive to
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follow. Paul wasn't that man.
Indeed, in many ways, the Gospel
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that he declared wasn't meeting the standards
of much of the world either. You
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remember what he said earlier. He
said that the Cross of Christ is folly
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to the Greeks, a stumbling block
to the Jews. They wanted something else.
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They wanted wisdom, as they saw
it. They wanted signs of power,
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as they saw it, and the
gory body of Christ hanging on the
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cross that we just sung about is
not either of those things. As they
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saw it, there were important people
in the world in Jesus's Day and in
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Paul's Day as well, and in
Corinth who were telling them that this wisdom
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that you're speaking about, this gospel
that you preach, doesn't look like wisdom.
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It doesn't look like wisdom, looks
like foolishness, it doesn't look like
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power, it looks like weakness,
that this mission that you're on as a
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church to go and proclaim these things
and the people that you are sending and
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the people that you are gathering,
none of it's very impressive. And maybe
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it's not just wisdom clothed in foolishness, but it is in fact foolishness and
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weakness. And so Paul takes a
moment here in these verses that we read
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this morning, Second Corinthians or first
Corinthians, to six through eight, to
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get really clear with us about something. He wants us to understand that the
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gospel of Jesus is not foolishness and
it is not weakness. It is,
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in fact, truly powerful and the
very wisdom of God. That's what it
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is, despite the way it often
looks and despite the way it is often
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attacked. In this passage, Jesus
tells us, through his impossible that he
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does indeed give wisdom, but it's
of a certain kind. It's different than
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what we usually experience in this world. It's different, with the than what
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the rulers of this age expect.
Now, of course, the world thinks
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that God's revelation is not wisdom,
and you, I am sure, have
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experienced this. You know this.
For those of you who have been Christians
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for even a little bit, you
know something about who Jesus is and what
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he said and what he's done,
and you also know that if you say
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that, in certain places, people
are going to at least ignore you,
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maybe laugh at you. You might
even get in trouble, at least in
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their eyes and in their hearts,
if not even more specific consequences, and
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that hesitation that you feel about should
I really say this here, a sense
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of a little bit of embarrassment,
of is anybody really going to believe this?
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That is that comes and that's based
in this sense of the weakness of
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the Gospel, the apparent arrant weakness
of the Gospel. So I'm going to
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tell this guy that this man was
the son of God and he was crucified
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on a cross and because of that, somehow my sins are forgiven. They're
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just not going to believe it.
They're just not going to believe that.
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In these are the things that we
tell ourselves and honestly, it's often true.
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People often don't believe it, they
don't accept and hear those things.
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Of course many do as well,
but we understand. But we feel that
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hesitation because we know how people perceive
it, and some people are very explicit
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about this. They they go around
and they make fun of Christians and they
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accuse Christians of not being team players, of not being part of the culture,
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of not moving things forward, of
not being a part of the moment
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of history, but being tied with
foolish myths and speculations and things like that.
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The World Thinks that the Gospel,
just centered in the cross of Christ,
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is foolishness, when Paul's proof for
this, as he says, if
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they hadn't thoughts so they wouldn't have
crucified the Lord of Glory if they understood
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him to be the power of God, the wisdom of God, the Lord
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of Glory. They would not have
done this, and they did, because
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that's the world that we live in
now. Why do they think that?
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I think it's helpful to meditate on
this for a moment. Why does the
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world not think about the Cross of
Christ as we do? Well, part
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of it is that Jesus does everything
upside down. He says, lose your
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life to gain your life. Think
of others as more important than yourselves,
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to use a line from a him. Let goods and kindred go this mortal
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life. Also, he spends time
with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners.
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He chooses unimportant people to do work
that he considers important and great. The
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Gospel that we preach is that the
son of God was sent into the world
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by the father in order to save
sinners from their sins through the death on
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the cross, and this message is
something that no other religion even comes close
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to proclaiming. It's a message that
neither rides high above the history of the
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world and some kind of spiritual abstraction
or pithy sayings, nor is it tied
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to this world in something, in
a way that human beings could accomplish it
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if they would just set their minds
to it. Now, the Gospel that
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we preach, that we proclaim that
we hold to, is God above the
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world, in the world, and
that's a very humble thing. The Lord
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of Glory being born in a manger
is a humble thing. The Lord of
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Glory calling a tax collector to be
one of his main disciples is a humble
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thing. Dying on a cross is
a humble thing. And even after his
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resurrection from the dead, Jesus doesn't
go around Zapping people with lasers. He
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eats fish. That's breakfast with his
disciples. These are humble things. Now,
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we're not discounting here the healing of
the paralytic, the healing the healing
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of the blind and other lame or
the feeding of the five thousand, or
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the turning of the water into wine
or walking on water or raising the dead.
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We're not discounting any of that.
Those things are full of much glory,
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even as the Earth would, as
this age would, perceive them.
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We're just saying that those things were
done by the son of God in human
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flesh who is frequently homeless and despised
by anyone who was important. But the
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thing that the world really doesn't like
about this upside down nature of the Gospel
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is that it turns them upside down. It's not that the logic of the
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Gospel is ill logical or incoherent.
Are you can't understand it. You can
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understand it. It fits together,
it makes sense. It's not confusing in
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that sense. An average person of
average mind or less than average mind can
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understand what the Bible says about the
Gospel. That's not the problem. God
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doesn't speak nonsense and people believe way
stranger things than the things that the Bible
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proclaims. The problem is that it's
different, and the problem is is that
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it undermines the values of this world, it's aspirations, it's notions of what's
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important and what's what's wisdom and what's
powerful. It turns people's lives upside down
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and that's what they're afraid of.
Think about the rulers at Jesus time right.
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They were afraid of what he was
going to do. All these people
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are following him. They didn't rejoice
in that fact, as we might.
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They felt threatened by that fact because
it threatened their way of life, it
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threatened what they thought was important,
what they thought was valuable. They it
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threatened their sense of importance and meaning
in this world. Let me put it
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this way. There's nothing like being
told that the son of God, the
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son of God, had to take
on human flesh and die on a cross
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in order to knock you off your
high horse, that that's what it took,
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and that you have nothing to bring
to God to earn his favor,
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that you only have your own righteousness
and that if you stay in that unrighteousness,
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you have nothing but death before you, and that the only way to
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freedom is to accept this crucified Lord, to Deny Yourself, pick up your
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cross and follow him. What is
left of human ambition after that? What's
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left? What? What possible thing
could you say? Well, I'll just
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do this or do that, or
we're left with nothing. If we look
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at the Cross of Christ and we
see the Lord there as he truly is,
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we are left with nothing to stand
before God except our sins, or
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the forgiveness of our sins through this
crucified one. So this is why so
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called important people of this world,
the rulers of this age will tell you
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that faith isn't power clothed in weakness, it's just weakness. They'll tell you
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that the mission of the Church,
the message of the Church, is not
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wisdom clothed in foolishness, it's just
foolishness, and that's because they're threatened by
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it, as they should be,
as they should be. And so what
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Paul does in this passage is he
is exposing the lie and revealing the truth.
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The Gospel is powerful, the Cross
is true wisdom, and he tells
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us this because we need to know
it. This age and the rulers of
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this age are doomed to pass away. If we tie our cart to that
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horse, we are doomed to pass
away along with them. And even if
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you don't think of yourself as a
ruler of this age, which a very
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high thing to say, I suppose, I imagine that most of us don't
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say that kind of thing, but
we are all tempted to believe the lies
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that this age tells us. These
accusations, in these lies, they are
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temptations for us and we need to
know the truth about the Bible. We
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need to know the truth about its
power and its wisdom of the Gospel so
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that we can be courageous, bold
and stand strong. As we've seen,
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the world lies to protect itself.
It also lies because it doesn't want you
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to follow Christ, it doesn't want
you to serve Christ, and when you
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don't, it will call you obstinate, ridiculous, not a team player,
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disruptive, rebellious and worse, and
in some serious cases, the world will
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sometime times make you make a choice. They will tell you you either stop
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following Jesus, believing in Him,
obeying him, worshiping him, telling others
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about him, or suffer the consequences. Lose the job, not marry the
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girl, have disruptions in your family, go to prison, even die.
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Whatever it is, there consequences.
Think about Paul. Paul was esteemed,
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Paul was doing very well in his
circles. Paul had a certain measure of
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power, and now he's getting beaten
wherever he goes. He faces all kinds
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of dangers and here among his own
church he's now getting any accolades. They're
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all saying, why aren't you more
like Apollos? He speaks nicer. But
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we must not give up. We
must be bold and go forward like David
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on the battlefield or esther over her
people. We need to be ready to
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put our lives on the line for
the truth of the Lord, knowing that
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it is powerful, that it is
true wisdom, that the lies are the
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lies. And that's not what we
believe. And we do so because of
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what Paul says here. He says
that the wisdom of the world will pass
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away, but not the wisdom of
God. The world may call the God
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usbo foolishness, but beloved, it
doesn't mean that that's true. Somebody can
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say I'm twenty feet tall, that
doesn't make it true. And so we
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can't get rattled simply when people say
stuff. We must stand firm in what
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God says, in what God has
revealed. So here's what's clear. That
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Jesus Christ and him crucified is the
wisdom of God. Think about the world
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for a moment. It's all puffed
up about itself, but is it really
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delivering on its promises? Go to
go to Bookman's and look at the Diet
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self or the business shelf or the
pick any shelf in there, and what
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will you find? Fat after fat
after fat, old books that were once
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best sellers and everybody was talking about
and now it's gone. But we're and
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in some ways they're the same thing
over and over. The world keeps telling
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us the same things over and over
and there's some truth to them sometimes,
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but largely it's empty promises. The
world wants to deliver utopia to us and
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it never comes. Generation after generation
after generation it never comes. Everybody talks
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about how Babil the tower is going
to be so great and then it falls
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down again. This world under the
sun is this repeating cycle, over and
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over and over, a vanity?
We ought not to trust in it.
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But consider that in contrast that with
Jesus Christ. He comes into the world
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to save sinners from their sin.
He goes to the cross, he dies
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and then he raises from the dead. He ascends, he is seen ascending
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into the heavens, where he now
sits at the right hand of God,
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interceding for us, protecting us,
keeping us, and then he sends this
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message out into the world and millions
of people of every tribe and tongue and
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nation come to believe him. He
promises US eternal life and he has delivered
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on that promise. Think about the
wisdom of God from the way that Paul
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Talks about it here. He says, excuse me, he says not the
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we impart the secret and hidden wisdom
of God, which God decreed before the
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ages for our glory. Something has
been and revealed that was planned for a
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long time, and there's wisdom in
that. So first and considering the Cross
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of Christ. Just a moment ago
I had you consider its power and its
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effectiveness and I want you to consider
it's planning, the the will of God
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and perfectly meshing all of these things
together. Sometimes you and I will fall
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into the right decision, but it
wasn't really because we planned it to be
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that way. True Wisdom, really
excellent wisdom, however, is knowing the
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means and the end and everything is
perfectly matched up together. Think about a
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skill, maybe something really simple,
like hanging a curtain Rod. You know
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exactly the tools you need, you
have all your materials, you're not overspending,
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you're not underspending. You put it
up, you drill the holes,
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you put it in, you hang
the curtain on. It's beautiful. Now.
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I suppose some of you can do
that. I cannot. I make
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multiple trips to the hardware store.
The thing is crooked, it ends up
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falling down after, you know,
a few months. This is not wisdom,
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this is not well, the wise
hanging of a curtain right now.
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You this is a silly example,
but you can apply this to anything right,
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having all the resources perfectly matched,
perfectly executed, all right there,
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in the right place, at the
right time, for the right amount of
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mine at money, with the right
amount of energy spent, involving the right
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number of people, everything perfectly,
and then it does its intended thing.
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That's that's wisdom. Now I can't
even get you know, a curtain Rod
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Right. You have, I imagine
your struggles and other departments as well.
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Now consider what God does with the
salvation of the world through Jesus Christ.
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We're fools struggle to do the right
thing and pull it off in some way.
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Think about what God did. The
scriptures say he planned this salvation of
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his people. He planned this salvation
of his people before the ages, before
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the ages, for our glory.
He determined exactly how he would use each
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and every person individually in human history
to accomplish that end. He overcomes every
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single obstacle, including death itself,
using resources that don't even exist except for
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his making them and he does it
through both very ordinary and normal ways and
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totally unnormal or whatever that word is, and extraordinary ways, just to prove
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his wisdom, just so that we
would look at the Cross and marvel at
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the wisdom of God, just stand
back and marvel at it. So in
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the world, you know, strets
around and says that's not wisdom, we
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would just look at them and scoff. I don't know what you're talking about.
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The Lord plants this before the ages
for my glory. Every birth,
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every king, every movement of every
planet, every army, every angel,
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led up to this moment, the
moment of the crucifixion of his son,
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in which the Lord of Glory was
crucified for our salvation. This demonstrates to
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us the real wisdom of God and
it reveals to us the knowledge and his
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plan and his will for our salvation, a will that draws together all the
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events and the diversity of the world
into a single, coherent and very true
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story, a story which he even
then uses to change people's hearts, to
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lay aside their sin and cling to
Jesus Christ, a miracle of miracles.
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Love of this world can't see past
its own nose. Just pick up a
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newspaper, it's not that hard to
recognize this. But in the gospel of
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Jesus Christ, in the revelation of
the wisdom of God give God gives to
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us a telescope to see far out
into things that are not yet and a
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microscope to see way down to the
details of history, and he gives us
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meaning, not only an ability to
see and understand the beginning in the end
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and how all the parts fit together, but he helps us to see how
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we fit into that, how all
this was done for our glory, reflecting
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and Lee and and and redounding back
to his glory. He gives us meaning,
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brothers as sisters. He gives us
comfort for this life and the next.
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In his power and in his wisdom, he gives us hope because of
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these things, in the midst of
grief and sin. He gives us strength
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for times of weakness and he allows
us to stand strong when the world would
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accuse us and the devil would try
to foolish so put your faith not in
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the rulers of this age, because
if you do, you'll be doomed right
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along with them, but put your
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
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you will be glorified right along with
him. Let's pray and ask that God
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would do these things among us
