FBC Morning Light – March 11, 2022

Well, a good Friday morning to you. Here we have come to the end of another work week, looking forward to the weekend and looking forward to gathering together with God's people on this

Lord's Day. I hope you are, and I know it's always a blessing when we get together and we offer our sacrifices of praise to our

God and we learn of Him and we fellowship with one another in the things of God.

And just as the church gathers, it is a time of great joy and rejoicing.

Looking forward to that. Hope you are as well. Well, today we're in the book of 1

Corinthians in our reading plan. And as I'm sitting here recording this today,

I marvel at just some of the wisdom and skill and knowledge that has gone into all of the stuff that makes these recordings possible.

I mean, just a few inches from my mouth is a microphone. And somehow, I don't understand how these things work.

I don't have that kind of knowledge. But somehow, the sound of my voice reaches a little membrane or something in this device in front of me that then translates my voice and digitizes it, sends it through a cable that's connected to my computer.

And I have this laptop computer in front of me, and I can look down at my computer and I can see what you're going to see.

And I can have control over, a measure of control over the video portion, and I can slide the volume and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

And I've got this screen in front of me, this nice sharp screen in front of me that shows me all of this.

And I don't know how that all works. I just don't understand it. And I'm looking into a relatively sophisticated video camera that has the ability to take in what's around me, digitize it, put it through a cable, also run it into the computer.

And then the computer has this software program that somebody wrote and developed that takes all of this information, puts it all together so that then

I can record a video that then I can turn around and upload to some place in Ohio that stores it.

And then I can schedule this thing to go live on Friday morning,

March 11th. And then you'll see it.

Maybe you'll see it on Facebook. Maybe you'll see it on YouTube. Maybe you'll get the email that says the new thing is posted and you'll click on the link and you'll go to the site and you'll open it up.

And all of this stuff happened just for this one 10 minute devotional.

And so much is involved in making that possible that I frankly just don't,

I don't understand. I can know how to make it work usually, but I don't understand all the dynamics behind it.

There are some people behind all that that are very, very smart and have some great skill and wisdom in knowing how to put their knowledge to practice to make all these things possible.

Now, I say all that to say this. In 1 Corinthians 1,

Paul asks the question, where's the wise? Where's the wise? Well, I just talked about some wise stuff, people that had great knowledge and putting all this together.

But here's what Paul's getting at. With all of their great wisdom and knowledge and skill and electronic devices and technology and the rest of that stuff to make a video recording possible that can go all over the world, what does their knowledge or their skill, how does all of that skill outfit me for eternity?

What of their skill is going to give me eternal life?

You see, here's the thing, the wise of this world, the scribes, the disputers of this age and so forth who are so wise, who have all their ideas and their plans and their processes and all the rest of this kind of stuff that blow our minds and baffle us sometimes.

In the end, they may be able to provide things that are comfortable in this life and maybe make life a little easier, smoother, whatever.

But really, what can they offer me that will affect me after death, see, that will impact my afterlife?

And what Paul's getting at is nothing. The wise of this world, the scribes of this world, the disputers of this age, really, they can't offer me anything that's going to help, if you will, my eternity.

What does? What can? That's what Paul's going into, the foolishness of preaching.

He goes on to say, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, didn't figure it out, but it pleased

God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

So in the wisdom of God, what is it that will fit someone for eternity, that will fit you for eternity?

It is the message that is preached, the message of the gospel that is preached to the wise of this world that seems to be so foolish, to those who want to be wowed and enamored and enthused by what they see and experience in this life.

This seems so frivolous. This seems so foolish. It seems such a waste. This message, this story of a

God that became a man and lived, and then he died, and he rose again, and he went back to heaven, that's supposed to save me?

That message is supposed to save me and give me eternal life? That just seems so ridiculous. But that is the message that is to be proclaimed, the message that this

God who became flesh and dwelt among us, he died for our sins.

He died in our place because the wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

But that seems so foolish to the wise of this world, to the wise of this age.

And yet it is the power of God unto salvation. He goes on to say, we preach

Christ crucified to the Jews. This is a stumbling block. To the

Greeks, it's foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

What is Paul saying here? That if you could take and collect all of the wisdom of men in this world and put it all together and grasp it all and practice it all, it wouldn't do you any good in eternity.

Once you die, it will do you absolutely no good. But this simple message that Christ died for your sins, he was buried and he rose again for your justification, that simple message is the message of God unto salvation, unto eternal life.

And to those who are called, to you whom God has called to himself, you hear that message and it resonates with you.

You hear it and you respond to it and you receive it gladly. You don't look at it as foolish.

You look at it as profoundly wise because it stands you in good eternal stead.

Oh, I trust that's how you see this message of God. It is indeed the wisdom of God.

Don't be deceived by the foolishness of this age. Yeah, there's a great deal of technology that can help us and make our lives easier and so on and so forth, but it is the wisdom of God that outfits you for eternity.

Let's thank him for it. And so our Father and our God, we do thank you today for your message of the gospel of Christ, this wisdom that saves for all eternity.

May we appreciate that message. May we proclaim it, even if our world finds it so ridiculously foolish.

Help us to be faithful in it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

Well, may the Lord give you a good rest of your Friday and a wonderful weekend. Gather together with God's people and let's worship our