Here is my sermon on 1 Corinthians. I’ve never preached chapter by chapter through it. We just went through Colossians to learn more about Jesus, then had Pentecost and celebrated that God sent His Holy Spirit into us. Now we’re going to spend a few months learning about what it’s like to live the Christian life with that Holy Spirit in our lives.
I’m also experimenting with transcribing my sermons. Below is a big cut and paste of the whole thing, poorly edited. I can’t believe how many times I say UM. And it’s fun to see how many ways a bot can transcribe the name of Sosthenes (sauced the knees?). Enjoy.
Rough Transcript of my 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 Sermon
Acts 18 chapter one “After this, Paul left Athens and he went to Corinth.” This is like Bible Trivia or like a little shortcut hack thing. Acts 17 is where Paul is in Athens talking to this big group of folks. You can just remember, on Paul’s journey when Paul went out and went places in acts 17, he was in Athens. So if you’re ever trying to figure out where Paul is, you can start at Acts 17, and you can either work your way backward to Jerusalem or forward from 17 on to Ephesus and Rome. Does that make sense? So that’s kind of a little trick to figure out where it is. If you don’t have all those little footnotes or cross-references in your Bible, that’s how you can find it. So acts 18 after this, Paul left Athens and he went to Corinth and he found a Jew named Aquilla, a native of Pontus recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.
And Paul went to see them. And because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked for, they were tent makers by trade and he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath. And he tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. So Paul is traveling, he comes to Corinth. It’s was a trade city. A lot of, a lot of ships would come in to Corinth and then go up. This is a, it’s in modern day Greece and it was dangerous to sail around the southern end of Greece. So a lot of them would come in to Corinth and there was a lot of trade there. It’s really wild if you, if you look at them like the map in the back of your Bible, Paul went to a lot of port cities. He went to Ephesus, or there’s all these people coming in from all over the place.
He wants to Corinth where there was a major trade center. He went to Rome, which was, you know, like the capital of the Roman Empire. He went to those places. And you don’t hear a lot about him going into little, you know, Boonville or Yankee town or dog town. I mean he’s, he goes to where the big cities are because he’s going to find Jews there that are dispersed from Jerusalem and then he’s going to find a synagogue. But before that, this is really wild thing that he did. He found some tent makers, he found some Jewish people that worked in the same line of work that he worked in and he met them and started talking to them and then they were like, come on, you can stay with us. Isn’t that wild? So there was something about Paul that upon meeting Priscilla and Aquilla, he wasn’t so Christian and so departed from the Jews that they couldn’t stand to be around it.
I think that’s interesting. Sometimes people become so Christian that non Christian people don’t even want to be around them. Right? Oh don’t say bowling. Cause then he’ll say, Christians don’t go bowling. And he’ll judge all of us. Some, something about Paul was still palatable for these Jewish tent makers. So they get together, he’s staying with them. Paul goes to the synagogue and he persuades and he preaches. And I remember Paul was super educated. He was like Harvard, Yale, super genius, Phd. So when people heard people heard about him, Oh, you learn from Gamaliel. Gamaliel is like the best Old Testament Bible teacher ever. He’s the best rabbi that’s ever been here. One of his students. Wow, will you please teach at our synagogue? And then he would get up and tell them about Jesus like he did.
He did. Every sabbath he tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. So the Jews are there. They’re in a synagogue. There are Greek people that that live around that aren’t Jewish. There gentiles, they see what the Jews are doing. In Corinth you had like a whole shopping mall of Gods go worship and you could just pick the one who’s a lot like Ephesus. And so some people would be like, I like these Jewish people. I like to hear what they talk about. And I heard about Egypt a long time ago. I want to learn more about them. So there are Greeks there too. When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word testifying to the Jews. That Christ was the Christ was Jesus. That the, the chosen, one of God was Jesus from Nazareth. When they opposed him and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, your blood beyond your own heads.
I am innocent from now on, I will go to the gentiles. So he’s there, he’s there, he’s there. And finally they’ve had enough. Maybe Silas and Timothy coming gave him a little bit more confidence, gave him a little bit more boldness. And he tells this synagogue, forget it. Your disbelief is on your own heads. I tried. I’m leaving. I’m going to go talk to the gentiles. So you’re getting your head. Where’s he gonna go? He goes, right next door to the house, to the building. Next door. Your blood be on your own. Hands down. We’ll go to the gentiles. He left there, went to the house of a man named tissues justice, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord. How do you like that? Together with his entire household and many of the Corinthians hearing, Paul believed and were baptized.
So Christmas is the guy that’s totally in charge of the synagogue. He’s in charge of the scroll, he’s in charge of who speaks, he’s in charge of all the comings and goings. Him and his entire household became Christians. So so what in the world is with this guy next door? So the guy next door, it was a, it was a thing to do is to have people come and speak. And this is like their movies. This was like their rock concert is you could have people come and dance and perform. You could have people come and recite poems. You could come and hear people give speeches. And this guy tissues, justice has a place to do that in his home where he can have people come and speak. And so he has Paul come and speak Crispus the ruler of the synagogue. So the leader of the synagogue, just hold onto that. Okay. That the leader of the synagogue and his whole family became Christians.
Many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized, and the Lord said to Paul One night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you. I have many in this city who are my people. And he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. So from the hole, we don’t know if that means he stayed there from that point on, or if the whole total time he stayed for a year and a half, but we don’t know which. But either way, he spent a lot of time talking in the synagogue to the Jews. And then he spent a lot of time at just the justice house speaking to Greeks. And a lot of people came to believe somewhere in that 18 months, probably near the end, but when Gallio was proconsul of a Kia, the Jews made a United attack on Paul.
Now wait a minute, didn’t God just tell Paul no one’s going to attack you, right? He gave him this confidence. Hang in there. They made a United attack. They brought Paul before the tribunal. This is the city government. They said this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or a vicious crime, you Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it’s a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, settle it yourself. See two at your own cells. I refuse to be a judge of these things. And they drove. He drove them all out of the tribunal. They all seized Saas, the knees, the ruler of the synagogue, and they beat him in front of the tribunal.
But Galleo paid no attention to any of it. Okay, so wait, Crispus was the head of the synagogue. His whole family got saved. Then they got a new pastor. Sauced the knees and the Jews bring this concerted effort against Paul and they’re all complaining about Paul’s doing. And the judge says, I’m not going to have any part of this. You guys get out of my office and they go out and they beat sauce than ease the new synagogue ruler. So apparently he wasn’t doing a good enough job to fight Paul either that awful. So that’s the state that the synagogue is in. And that’s the state that the churches in, in Corinth where the synagogue has you know, just imagine, imagine like a mosque and the Moolah of the mosque all of a sudden becomes a Christian and then they get a new Moolah and all of a sudden he becomes a Christian. Right? It’s like this church got a pastor and it’s just moving out, moving out and the, the, the synagogue and in Corinth is struggling. The church in Corinth is growing. After this, Paul stayed many days longer and he took leave of the brothers and he set sail for Syria with him were Priscilla and Aquilla. So that is how the stage is set in the church. In Corinth. Paul would now be gone. He would travel around Asia and emphasis and, yes, and he would finally get to Ephesus. He’d be an emphasis after he’s gone for about two years. He, he hears news about what’s going on in Corinth and he writes them a letter.
First Corinthians chapter one, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. And our brother sauce the knees, soften the knees. The guy that got beat up, the guy that was the second synagogue ruler who wasn’t good enough and opposing Paul. And when they brought the law before the, you know, when they went before the tribunal and they all dragged the sauce, the knees out, and they beat him. He’s with Paul in Ephesus. How exciting is that? Like it’s not only did they did sauce the, he probably rose up in the ranks. He had probably been loyal at that synagogue because they would, they would always you nominate somebody from within, you know, they wouldn’t go and find another synagogue ruler from far away. They’d get somebody that knew, you know, where the keys were and where the light switches were, so to speak.
So sauce the knees. After he saw Crispus become a Christian and leave, he became the synagogue ruler. Then he became a Christian, got beat up by his whole congregation at the synagogue and is now with Paul in emphasis. We don’t hear anything else about it. We don’t know if he lived out his days and emphasis. There’s numerous places where Luke talks about how big their party was there. Their entourage that traveled with Paul, this sauce, the knees could have been with Paul and stayed with him through all that trouble. We don’t know. But either way in the opening line in First Corinthians, we get this wink back to the Corinthian church where they, you know, how are they doing? They’re struggling. This is going on, that’s going on. But Hey saw sneezes with me and it’s on his behalf and I write this letter to you.
So everybody’s like, Oh, saw studies. We haven’t seen him in two years. He got beat up. I hope he’s okay. He’s doing great. So that’s what, that’s one of those things that even though there’s one sentence like that, camp on that and go real slow and figure it out. And look things up and it’s so exciting to find, to find that it’s all connected to the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ. Jesus called to be saints together with all of those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Man, how does Paul just look at how Paul addresses them? Hey guys, you are sanctified in Christ Jesus. You are called to be saints together with every other saint, every other person on earth that follows Jesus. You are a part of them.
Now. It’s funny is we’re all in the second verse I, but I’ll just spoil it for you. The Corinthian church is a mess. They’re about ready to have a church split in about four different directions. They have elder in blatant public sexual sin that everybody knows about. They are arguing and manipulating one another about spiritual gifts and hierarchy and they’re disagreeing and arguing about who’s rich and who’s poor and, and they’re even getting drunk on communion wine when they have community. That’s a messed up church. And how does Paul addressed them? Sanctified, keep going. Verse Three, grace to you and peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God, always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. This church is like crazy gossip, backbiting, drunk, Orgy Church, and Paul is saying all this stuff isn’t that wild.
It must be more going on here. Verse Four, I give thanks to my God, always for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you are enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, these folks became Christians and they became Christians and their faithfulness to God. Their faith in Jesus was known and it showed in their knowledge of Jesus and it showed in their speech about Jesus. What else? What is he praying for? So you know God loves to answer prayers that he wrote himself. You can, if you ever wonder, should I be praying for this? Should I pray this way? Look in the Bible, find a prayer that Paul is praying and you know that’s a prayer that God would dig. So he’s praying so that you are not lacking any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. This verse seven verse eight who will sustain you to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He will sustain. Verse eight he will sustain you to the end. Guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
How can you be guiltless if you’re committing sin? How can Paul say to the Corinthian Church, cause he knows what’s going to be coming in chapter six he knows what he’s going to write. How can he call them guiltless unless all of their sins have been forgiven all of their sins? Remember in Romans, Romans eight verse one there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. What is it says in Romans? What the law failed to do, Christ did the spirit has done and that it’s, it’s made us obey the law from our hearts, from the inside. And it’s not the law of donate lobster. It’s the law of faith in Christ. And so he knows that God will present them guiltless because as much as they keep on sending in as much as they keep on making mistakes and doing stupid stuff and giving their culture, he knows that Jesus has died for their sins.
You are not lacking as you wait for the revealing of Jesus Christ who will sustain you to the end. Guiltless God is faithful by whom you are called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We are in fellowship with Jesus. We can have confidence. He also says enrollments, neither height nor death nor angels or demons can separate us from the love of God. That’s in Christ Jesus. We can’t send our way out of salvation because we didn’t righteously work our way into it. He died for us. He died for our sins and saved us. And so he’s telling them right from the beginning, okay guys, I’m going to tell you guys a whole bunch of stuff you’re doing wrong. I’m gonna correct you about a whole bunch of stuff that you’re not living for Jesus about, but I want you to know that he’s taking your sin away.
He, he will present you get guiltless before God. So then he starts, I appeal to you brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but you’d be United in the same mind, in the same judgment. I want you guys to agree with each other in the name of Jesus. I agree. It’s been reported to me by close people that there’s quarreling among you. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos. I follow CFUs or I follow Christ. Okay? So there’s a cultural joke that Paul’s making right here. The, I follow, remember how I said that you could go hear a speaker or you could go watch somebody recite a poem. There were teachers that would come and teach and you’d pay a few bucks at the door and you’d go in, you’d hear these teachers and they would, you know, be real eloquent and they would, you know, have five points that all start with the letter r and you’d go and you’d hear them and you would learn from them.
And if you are a fan of one of those teachers, you would say, I follow Cindy. You know, you’re going to go here. Oh, we’re going to go here, Cindy Sully, she’s going to speak at the coliseum tonight and it’s only three bucks. Oh, I don’t follow Cindy. I follow and I’m not going to go. I don’t, I don’t like it. Like what? It’s almost like the orators of the 18 hundreds, you know, that would travel around and you go like, go here, Mark Twain speak in that kind of thing. And they would say that they would follow, if you listen to this teacher, if that was your favorite teacher, you’d say, I follow that teacher. So when Paul says, I follow Apollos, I follow CIF as I follow Christ, it’s like he’s reducing all of these. He’s Jesus and Apollos and CFUS and Paul himself to these wandering speakers to these like off Broadway performance acts that, so that’s what the, that’s what that whole, I follow this, I followed that.
It’s making a cultural reference to oh, what’s the musical? It’s really popular. It’s American history. Hamilton, you know, Hamilton people at some point they get a name for themselves, like the twilight, all the people that we’re real big fans of the twilight movies. Like they, I forget what they, I know like Bieber. There we go. Justin Bieber, he’s a musician. All the people that love Justin Bieber are called beliebers and there’s a name for them. It’s like Paul, when he says, I follow Paul, I follow Cephas. I follow Apollos. He’s making up a silly name that the culture would use to say, you’re following all these people and you’re disagreeing. There’s historically, not in Corinth, but in another city. There were some people that followed a teacher. This is like baseball fans. These are like hockey fans. There was some teacher and some followers of that teacher and there were some followers of another teacher that bad mouth to their teacher and they killed the guy like it was like a mass riot to kill the dude that was a for the other team. That’s how passionate these rivalries were. I mean it’s, it’s bigger than Cubs and Cardinals stuff. This is huge. That’s what Paul turns it all into. So you guys are so divided. I just want you to degree. Do you notice he doesn’t say, I want you to agree on the importance of baptism. I want you guys to agree on the significance of transubstantiation in the Eucharist of communion. Right? Transubstantiation he doesn’t bring a bunch of big, he just quit siding. Quit separating.
I think that’s interesting that he doesn’t say the issue because the Holy Spirit once that to speak to us too. If he named the specific issue that they are dividing about, then we could easily divide over that issue right now. Right. We can quote chapter and verse. It says right there, first Corinthians 10 this is right, this is wrong, but he doesn’t. He says, look, you guys just get along with each other. Was Paul in Verse 13 was Christ divided? Was Paul Crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? Now he’s trying to get everybody back on track towards Jesus. You weren’t, you weren’t baptized in the name of Apollo’s. I’ve talked to people before that are really proud of the specific church where they were baptized and I’ve talked to people that are really proud of the specific preacher that preaches at their church and have a whole conversation with him and we never talk about Jesus.
We just talk about that pastor and how Austin that pastor is and he’s the best pastor in town and pastor, pastor, pastor, pastor, pastor. And Paul is saying, did that pastor die on the cross for you or were you baptized in the name of that pastor? No. Then he even says of himself, I love it that he brings himself into it. I think I that I didn’t baptize any of you except for Christmas and Gaius Crispus Paul Baptized Crispus remember Crispus the leader of the synagogue whose whole family. So now all of a sudden you start to see Christmases, story play out and he’s still there cause these, everybody knows him. So no one may say you were baptized in my name. Basically what he’s saying is, I am so glad I didn’t baptize any of you because you would brag about that and use that to separate yourselves. You’re saying don’t use anything to divide. Don’t use anything to split up.
Yeah.
“I don’t want anybody to say they were baptized in my name. Oh yeah. I baptized the house of Stephanus. Beyond that, I don’t know whether I baptized anyone else.”
The other genius move here is Paul is saying, “I don’t even remember if I baptized anybody. That’s how unimportant it is about who baptized you Corinthians.” So if there’s anybody in the congregation, that’s like, “Well I got baptized by the Apostle Paul!” and the other people would be like, “Paul doesn’t even remember baptizing you!”.
He didn’t even remember. So quit bragging. He doesn’t even remember that he did that. I love it. I don’t know if that was his direct intent, but as I read through that and I think about the fight that was happening in Corinth, that had to happen. You could just see somebody that was putting everybody down because they got baptized by the Apostle Paul, and they’re not mentioned in that list. Just shrinking down in their pew like he doesn’t even remember me. Because it’s about Jesus!
Verse 17 Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, less the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
That little bit, not with words of eloquent wisdom. That was the reason why people would go here. These speakers speak. Oh, I just love to hear the way that guy talks. Oh, I just love to hear his speeches. Paul says, I didn’t come with eloquent wisdom. I did not come with a fabulous light show. I did not have an all star cast. I just came. Otherwise, the cross of Christ would be emptied of its power. Don’t focus on me. Focus on Jesus.
Then from verse 18 on, instead of, you know, Paul Dabbled in this little bit of letting them know something they’re doing wrong and he didn’t even correct them, right? He, he didn’t say, you’re doing this wrong. He said, I really wish you guys would come together. I really wish you guys would be United with one another and be likeminded and here’s why. Right? That’s how he came. But then he sets before them Jesus. And from verse 18 on he’s going to talk about Jesus, which is going to get everybody not thinking about why they were dividing, but it’s going to get everybody thinking about why they should be together, why they should be United. This verse 18, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The Cross is folly to those who are perishing.
I have friends that I’ve known for a really long time that aren’t Christians at all and when Easter comes up, they post really rude things on Facebook. Mocking Jesus and I have come in the last few years and, and they know I’m a Christian and they know who I am and I’ll just comment and I’ll say, hey, this offends me. And do you know, they take it right down. They don’t fight with me. They take it right down right away, even before their other friends can pounce on me and beat me in front of the tribunal or anything. I just give a sincere, hey, this offends me, which I haven’t done that since. Facebook’s new offense, hate speech law. But we’ll see what happens.
It’s folly to them. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that I would want to love somebody that would die. They would give themself up and that they would, I mean, you watch all the movies and you know, the, the good guy, the hero does the thing and saves the day but then dies. And everybody’s sad that he died. I mean, Jesus, it’s by faith that he saves us. It’s not like you can see where he got the bad guys, save the day and got the girl or whatever. It’s all by faith. So it is, it does look like folly to a lot of people, but to us who are being saved, it’s the power of God. It doesn’t take long, again around Easter to just meditate and think on what Jesus did and to be moved by God’s love, to be, to have that profound experience of, wow, he did this for me. And then to realize that there is so much power in that there’s so much power of God in his love and in his sacrifice.
So that’s, that’s where Paul is trying to get them back to. It’s not in my eloquence, it’s not in how organized my speech was. It’s not in how I alliterated my five points. So they all started with the letter R or spelled out the word Christ. It’s just Jesus. He’s awesome. And I’m not slamming on any of those things. But the Corinthian Church well I used to work at crossroads and on Friday the phones would be full because everybody be calling on Friday to find out who’s preaching on Sunday. And that’s how they decide whether they’d come to church or not and if it was such and such preacher, we’d have more people in the seats and if it was such and such feature filling in, we’d have less people in the seats. And so the receptionist just started saying, well we have services at nine and 10 45 and you can find out and that’s all they would say is awesome. I made a lot of people mad. It was okay.
Where did the cross focus on that? It is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning eye will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is describe, where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world. What’s funny is here’s some irony. This whole little section Paul is using some of that rhetoric. He’s using some of that speechmaking and way to write. Where is the wise man who is the really one of the sage hasn’t gotten made them all foolish since the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preached to save those who believe. Okay, well, so what does that mean?
He is in Corinth. He is in the heart of Greek and Roman culture and Aristotle and Socrates and all of these teachers have been, have been teaching for a couple of hundred years before this. And the Greeks really love knowledge and they really want to discuss things. Remember Paul just came from Athens before he went to Corinth and in Athens in acts 17, it says, all the people in Athens want to do is sit around and talk about religion all day. They don’t even, they don’t work. They just want to sit around and talk about stuff all day long. Like bunch of coffee shops just philosophize and Paul saying wisdom of all the philosophers did not get anybody to God. The wisdom of the world. They didn’t get to know God through wisdom, but it pleased God through the folly of what we preached to save those who believe. You can’t get a philosophical system to explain why it makes sense and logic that God himself would come suffer as a human being.
Be a man and die as a sacrifice for our sin. That’s just I’ve, I’ve been to places where people try to philosophically prove that so that you could argue it. And it was just like, guys, come on, let’s just pray for people and love them. Let’s not philosophically overwhelm them. Wisdom would not get people to God. So through folly of salvation, by faith through grace, that’s how it came. Jews demand signs, Greek seek wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to gentiles. So the Greeks wanted wisdom, they wanted philosophy. They wanted all of this logic and rhetoric and, and asking questions and leading up to the discovery of enlightenment, the Jews wanted signs. If you are the son of God, give us a sign. If you are the son of God, you know, come down off that cross.
He could save others but he couldn’t, can’t save himself. And Paul says, nope. Jesus didn’t give any of those people any of that. Jesus submitted to a lot of people. Jesus humbled himself to a lot of people, but it was out of pride that the Greeks want Jesus to prove himself out of wisdom and it was out of pride that the Jews wanted Christ to prove himself with the sign and he’s not going to humiliate himself to pride. He’ll reach out, but it takes humility. We Preach Christ crucified to those who are called both Jews and Greeks. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God for the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men and the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men.
When you really just take hold of faith that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead and you start walking that out and acting on it, suddenly the Christian life makes more sense than any of the ways of life that you could have gotten to through philosophy. I had just some really fun experiments. Experiences in college where I was a, I took some philosophy classes and the guys in my philosophy classes knew that I was a Christian and we would talk it through and, and they knew I wasn’t trying to convert them and I knew they weren’t going to convert me and we would talk through things and all of a sudden it would come down to, gosh, the Christian life really is the best way of life except all of these horrible skulls on TV or making it look terrible. But man, the Christian life like there, that’s really good.
I had a buddy that he was in the class and he explained what would happen. He didn’t use any religious words or any church words about if, if churches cared for each other and if from one church to another to another that Christians cared for each other and submitted to one another and how you would have this underground non dependent on the government network of people all over the United States serving one another. And his professor in his class was like, “That’d be like a utopia. That would be like heaven on earth.”.
And he said, “I just wrote about what the church should be like. That’s all I did.” And then the professor was mad at him cause he kind of sucker punched him.
It is the, it is the best way, but you only realize that when you walk in it, when you walk in and you start to live it out, it starts to be the power of God and the wisdom of God. I can’t tell you how many times there’s been those times where you’re thinking through, you know, this bad thing happened, this person did this cruel thing and now I have an opportunity. I’m, I’m involved in it. How should I act, Lord, what should I do? And there’s all kinds of worldly ways and worldly people give me worldly advice and then I go to Jesus and I realized that Christ, it’s really is experiential and biblically true. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God and to do things with Christ in me doing them is the better way, the foolishness of God, all that.
All right. Verse 26 consider your calling brothers, considering what God has called you to considering what God has turned you into. Not many of you are wise. According to worldly standards, not many were powerful. Not many of you were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong God chose what is low and despised in the world. Even things that are not that don’t even exist. They’re just like nothing to bring to nothing. The things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
If you think by social structure that you’re only something if you blank, right? I’m only something if I have a grandkid and Harvard, I’m only something if I, if on fo this came up today, I’m only something if on father’s day my wife posted this gushing long thing about what a great father am. I am on Facebook and that’s how we operate. Cindy says, do you want me to write a big old thing about Joan Facebook? No, it’s okay. Give me a hug. Okay, we’re good. I’m honored. Did you get, your honor, if you get your glory, if you get your identity from any of those things, it’s gonna fail. It’s gonna fail you. God wants to be your identity. God wants to build you up. God wants you to listen to who you are from him, not anything else. And so obviously, where’s God going to start?
He’s going to start with the people that are desperate for some kind of identity to be told who they are. He’s going to start with the simple, the not noble birth. If I think I’m awesome because I was born, if this noble birth and I don’t need God because I’m already awesome, God loves me and he cares for me and he’s going to reach out for me, but I’m not as likely to come to him, right? Cause I’ve got all this pride built up. God’s using what’s weak in the world to shame the strong. Remember also in acts, Peter, James and John Stand up. Peter and John Stand up before the Jewish Council and they say, if we’re doing the works of God, do you think it’s better for us to obey God or to obey you and all the people in the crowd or like, oh, these guys are just fishermen, but they just faced off against the top rabbis in Israel.
Who are these guys? God used the simple to shame, the strong, the foolish to shame the wise, so no human being my boast in the presence of God, whatever we accomplish, let’s boast in God. God is doing it. God is acting on it because of him. This is verse 30 because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord Jesus because of him, you are in Christ Jesus because of Jesus. You are in Jesus
And he has become to us. So this is who we’re in. We’re in him, he is us and he has become to us. Righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Righteousness. That means God looks at you and says, you are all right. Other night or at my mom’s house, Caleb is super excited. Slips on the gravel, falls down. Head first, gets this gravel cut in his forehead, blood’s running down his face, he’s driven and he’s Ah, and what do you think my first words were? You’re going to be all right. You’re okay. You are all right to us when we’re going through it. When we are having a hard time, when something terrible happens, maybe not necessarily blood running down our face like Caleb head. God says, you’re righteous. You are righteous. When we’re tempted to sin and we think, Gosh, God, I’m a scum bucket. How could you love me?
How could I be holy? God says, you’re righteous, you’re righteous, and he starts picking us up. You’re righteous. You’re all right. You’re holy God, I just hated my brother. You’re righteous. You’re holy. I died for that. Romans eight one there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. You’re righteous. You’re holy, and he picks us up. You’re all right. Sanctification. Sanctification is a really big word. That means I’m pulling you out, making you separate. I’m making you separate. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to go live in Washington, Indiana and I’ll start video sermon ing in my sermons to you guys because I’ve been sanctified. I get to move to Washington, Indiana. It means God’s separating us as far as judgment goes. We’re not going to get judged along with everybody else and redemption. You’ve been paid for your, your worth, however much somebody will pay for you, right?
That’s how much you’re really worth. You could have a yard sale and you can slap 60 bucks on your, we are your we, you or your play station, and you can try to sell that sucker for 60 bucks, but if somebody only buys it for 10 it’s really only worth 10 you can be of noble birth, you can be a super rich, you can be powerful. You can be super wise and God says, that’s not what you’re worth. You’re worth my only son and I’m the one that assigns worth and I’m not assigning work based on your noble birth or your power or your smarts. I’m basing your worth on how much I want you and I want you to enough that I’m going to give up my only son.
He has become wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And we are in him. And so everything that we do, we can boast in Jesus. We can boast in the great things that Jesus has done. I can tell you about horrible things that I did and where I saw Jesus rescue me. I can tell you about great things I did and how awesome it was and how Jesus was there setting it up so it could happen. And the more we do that, guess what? The more stuff he does because he loves it. When we boast in him. And just as we make it a lifestyle, a repetitive boasting in him, you get more and more stuff to boast in you. You’ll see it happens.