God's Power Vs. Human Wisdom | Sermon 10/06/2024

All right, if you would turn with me in your Bibles to the first letter to the Corinthians from the Apostle Paul.

We've moved on. We're in chapter 2. We're going to be in verses 1 through 5 today.

Title of the sermon is God's power versus human wisdom. God's power versus human wisdom.

Honestly, I think this section of scripture is very timely with all the evangelism we've been doing this past week.

So starting in verse 1 of the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 2, this is the word of the

Lord. And when I came to you brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the

Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

That sends the reading of God's holy and magnificent word. Let's pray once more as a church.

God, we thank you for the privilege that we have to give the gospel, to have it on our lips, that we can herald it from the rooftops, that we don't need to simply be at events.

We don't need to simply be at particular places where we plan it, Lord. It is something that we can always have a defense for the hope that is in us,

Lord. And as we do that, God, we consider the fact of what the Apostle's saying here,

Lord, that it's not about human wisdom. It's not about superiority. It's not about eloquent speech.

It's about the Spirit. It's about power, Lord. And that's even how I feel about my preaching,

Lord, about what comes from this pulpit, Lord. It shouldn't just be words.

When we give the gospel, it shouldn't just be words. It should be a demonstration of the Spirit and power.

And never, never, never from here or among us should we elevate ourselves over you.

So God, please teach us this morning by your Spirit. Help us to know your words so deeply,

God, that we may put it into practice and we may be encouraged this morning. I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. So if you remember last week, the Apostle Paul reminded the

Christians in Corinth who they were when they were first called by Christ.

Let me remind you of what it was like when you were first called. This is who you were.

This is what you were like when you were first summoned by God. And he said what? He said, not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble.

He said the are -nots, the nothings in the Greek, the nothings that he might nullify or make irrelevant, the somethings.

He warned them and us to forsake the idea that anyone could boast before God.

Who can boast about something that they simply received? We didn't create it.

We didn't even earn it. We're just elected recipients. And I finished the sermon last week encouraging us as Saint Paul did to boast only in the

Lord. Boast in the Lord. One can never boast too much in the Lord. It's infinite.

It's endless. It's healing to your soul. It's nourishing to the spirit. And all of this was to humble these disbelievers who have made all these factions.

Do you remember that over the past couple of weeks? They made factions. They were dividing. They were elevating certain men over others.

And so now in our text today in chapter 2, Paul will remind them of what he was like when he first came to them.

He told the Corinthians what he observed when he approached them. And now he'll say, look, this is how

I was when I came to you as a believer. This is how I was.

When I saw you, it was not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble. But here's how

I came to you. If you think I would be any different, you'd be wrong. Remember, they were possibly exalting

Apollos or Peter or Paul himself, exalting their favorite apostle.

But who were the apostles when they were called? What were these men like? We've seen now, in our day and age, after 2 ,000 years that the apostles have died, we see now in our age and for the past several hundred years, men and women have made the apostles into idols.

Have they not? There's even statues and stone figures of Peter and James and John and all these different men.

They're often worshipped. They're revered in unhealthy ways. They're prayed to as if they were a mediator.

The book of Hebrews says there's only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And so when you think about, are they worthy to be worshipped?

Would they want to be worshipped? Would they want to be considered in the way that people so often do now?

And I don't think so. I don't think so at all. Think about how they were called.

Think about how they came to know Christ and they were called by Christ. You could think of our series in the gospel according to John.

Brother Peter was a huge example for us, right? We saw Peter make mistake after mistake after mistake.

He relied on wisdom, wisdom of men. He relied on his own power, rather than the power and wisdom of God.

When walking on the Sea of Galilee, the disciple rallied his own strength over Christ when he was staring at Christ and he started to sink.

You could think about the fact when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and the opposition was in front of him and they were about to arrest

Jesus, the temple guards were coming, Roman guards came as well, and all of a sudden Peter takes out his own sword.

He thinks he's mighty. He'll cut them down. And he was wrong. He was wrong.

He said, Master, I'll die for you. And Jesus said, the rooster will not crow three times.

By then you would have denied me. Not very mighty at all.

When they were passing through Samaria during Jesus's earthly ministry, the brothers

John and James, the ones who are called the Sons of Thunder, yes, in the gospel according to Mark, they're called the

Sons of Thunder, John and James, the one who wrote the gospel according to John. And looking at the

Samaritans who didn't want to receive Jesus, John and James came together and they came up to Peter, their master, and they said,

Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and destroy the

Samaritans for you? And Jesus was repulsed. He was repulsed by the question.

He couldn't believe it. That's not what he came to do. And he tells them that.

They didn't have the biblical knowledge. They didn't understand what needed to be done. What kind of Messiah really came?

Not the Messiah that everyone expected. Not the Messiah that everyone wanted, but the Messiah that everyone needed.

They didn't know. They were called unlearned men. Not many wise, not many at all.

Jesus called pretty basic men. These were basic men.

Most of them lived near him. Some of them were even related to him in some way.

Cousins, twice removed, something like that. They weren't temple guards.

They weren't royal officials. They were Galilean fishermen. You have a guy who was a zealot.

Maybe he's a retired zealot. He used to go against the oppressor. Maybe he was related to those who were in the

Maccabean Revolution. You had a zealot, you had fishermen, and you had a tax collector.

Not many noble, not many of royal bloodline.

Right? And so if any of the apostles could claim wisdom or strength or nobility, it was probably

Paul. But what did he tell the church in Philippians chapter 3, verse 4?

If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more circumcise the eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a

Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to the righteousness which is found in the law, blameless.

But whatever things were gained to me then, I now have counted them as loss for the sake of knowing

Christ. When I was called by Jesus, I had all these things going for me, but they were nothing.

They were earthly. They were the wisdom and strength and nobility of men, not of God.

And so what I suppose the gospel does, how it transforms people, is whoever you are, whatever your knowledge, whatever your strength, whatever your bloodline, it strips away everything the world would consider as valuable.

It strips away everything the world would consider as valuable. It even strips away all the things that the world would consider as weak.

Everything. It strips away your old identity. We become new creations in Christ.

And finally, when everything is stripped away, you see your sin. You see who you really are.

You see your standing before God. But most of all, when the message of the cross penetrates our stony hearts by the power of the

Holy Spirit, we see the glory and goodness and brilliance and holiness of God.

Anything or anyone in comparison to God and what He did in Christ strips away our identities, and it gives us a new one.

And in this way, it puts all of us, whether we're wise, whether we're mighty, whether you're noble, whether you're poor or rich, it takes every single person who's called by Jesus Christ, and it puts us on the same level, the level of the cross.

And that's what the apostle alludes to in verse 1. Look at it. When I came to you, brethren,

I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

You see, the apostle Paul was trained under Gamaliel. He was trained in rhetoric. He knew the

Greek philosophers. But he didn't come with superiority of speech. He didn't come with the wisdom of men.

He says, remember when Jesus called you Corinthians? Not many of you were wise, not many mighty, not many noble.

But remember how I came to you? Did I show you another way? Did I show you a way contrary to Jesus' example?

He says, no. I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom.

And that word superiority in the Greek is hyperakē. Hyperakē literally means hyper -possession.

It is the highest version of something, the preeminent, the excellent, the superior form of something.

And the hyperbolic nature of this phrase is meant to demonstrate something that's flashy, something that's showy.

Words meant for self -display. Hey, this is who I am. Superiority.

Because those who proclaim the gospel will either seek to use words in a way that either elevates themselves or elevates

Christ. But Paul came with humility. He came with humility.

He never wanted to communicate that he was better than any of them. When you give the gospel, this is just inevitable.

When you give the gospel, even if you give it in the right way with the right heart attitude, people will think that you're coming with an air of superiority.

Don't let them ever be right though. Don't let them ever be accurate. Sometimes they are.

Christians can get this air of superiority. We can get this pride, and it's wicked.

And when you proclaim the gospel, you're not pointing to yourself.

You're pointing to someone far higher than you. Superiority of speech and wisdom were treasures to the

Greeks. They loved it. Boy, when someone could speak well, when someone knew rhetoric, when someone could argue well, they elevated that person.

They praised them. Wow, you can really argue in the marketplace. You should come over. We should have connections.

They praised those who possessed these traits. But Paul says,

I didn't come to you with what you thought was valuable. I came to you with what was truly valuable.

The testimony of God. That's what he says here. Proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

That's what's valuable. That's what's superior. Some manuscripts instead have the word mystery here, the mystery of God.

Came to you proclaiming the mystery. In the ancient world, a mystery was some mystic ritual.

It was something that was only accessible by secret. However, to Paul, whether it be here or in his letters, he often demonstrates a mystery is something that God previously had hidden, but has now revealed.

Okay, and Paul always personifies this mystery as Jesus Christ.

This is the mystery of God. That mystery that was hidden from long ages past, but has now been manifested to his saints,

Jesus Christ. In verse 2, the apostle says the mystery is Jesus Christ crucified.

And of course, the salvation that results from it. Now, one theologian states regarding the mystery of God, he says it's the divine plan of God is too profound for human ingenuity.

No matter how clever to discover or unravel on its own, and it cannot be imparted by any other way but by divine revelation.

The mystery is truth revealed by God, not truth discovered by human investigation and argument.

You see that the truth can only be revealed by God. It is the mystery.

Man can't go on a journey. You can't go on a high mountain. You can't go to some place with relics and find the mystery of God.

He must reveal it to you. Humans do not find this truth.

It finds them. The mystery of God goes against all human reason because it is above all human reason.

And human cleverness only seems to make the mystery recede farther away into obscurity.

You know, it makes me think of a child who finds a beautiful stone.

And I'm saying this example because I know I've done it in my life. You know, you find this rock and you cup it in your hands and you think it's the most beautiful rock in the world.

And maybe your siblings or other kids are playing nearby and you say, oh my goodness, I've just found the most beautiful rock.

You've got to see this. You've got to see this rock. This is a great crystal. Look at this. And all the kids run over and they want to see it.

Show us. Show us the rock. And instead of showing the rock, you kind of wait and you go, are you sure you want to see it?

Yeah, we want to see it. Are you sure? Show us the rock. And after this child has soaked in all this praise, like, okay, you've got something that we want to see.

After they've soaked in all the attention, say, okay, I'll show you what

I've found. And the child opens the rock and it's just like a basic white quartz. And the kids walk away.

They shrug. They're like, that's not even that special, right? That's nothing. They know it's not something.

But the person who truly finds something that's valuable doesn't want to hoard it and go, oh, look at me.

Oh, I've got the rock. Oh, keep looking at me. Ask me for the rock. The person who truly finds something that's amazing, that's marvelous, that's worth looking at, they don't delay.

It's a rarity. It's incredible. They know they're nothing. But this, this thing that they found, this is something they say, hey, everyone come look at this.

And they go, look at this. Look at the object. Look at the thing. This is incredible.

And together people come over and they don't marvel at the messenger. They marvel at the message.

They marvel at the object of the message. They marvel at God. They consider the glory of God, not the glory of the man in front of them.

That's what every evangelist, that's what every preacher should do.

Hey, come hear the message. Come see the glory of God.

Not come see my glory. Hey, come hear my superior speech. Come listen to me.

Oh, wait, let me, I'll get to the mystery soon. No, man, you know the mystery. Share it.

Open it up. Give it to people. Stop pointing people to yourself. Look at him.

That's how Paul delivered the gospel to them. He made himself so small. Paul made himself so insignificant.

So that when he gave the gospel, it would be huge. He goes, I'm nothing. But look at the gospel.

Look at Christ. Look at Jesus Christ crucified. But nowadays we live in an age of social media

Christianity. And we often marvel at the messenger more than the message.

Oh, boy, I love that guy. Wow, he's incredible. He says it right.

They don't go, wow, that truth about God that he just said, amazing. No, we kiss the feet of the messengers.

We can be just like the Corinthians. We want the bells. We want the whistles. We want the outstanding rhetoric.

We want the elegant and eloquent speech. We want persuasive arguments. That's not what

Paul came and delivered. It's not what he came to deliver. Verse 2, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

That's it. I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I determined. That word is judicial. He says, I judged to make you only know this.

I discriminated against all other things that I could have told you so that you would only know

Jesus Christ crucified. And it's not that the apostle's ignorant of other parts of knowledge.

It's not that he was wise before his conversion. But now he's a dumb believer.

And we're often criticized. Christians are often criticized as being anti -intellectuals.

It's not true. In fact, some of the most profound inventors and scientists throughout the centuries have been

Christian doctors. And so Paul made a purpose choice.

No messenger ever gave you everything they knew. They gave you everything you needed to know.

And that's what would happen in the Old Testament. They'd come running. The messenger would run. They'd give the news to the king or whoever was in command.

They'd come up and then they didn't start going, well, this is how my day's been going. That run was really difficult from the battlefield.

Boy, this has been really hard. This is what I think about your policy about this. No, the messenger comes and gives exactly what he needs to report to his superior or even to the inferior, the subordinate person that he needs to talk to.

That's how it's done. Paul knew tons of things, tons of knowledge, tons of wisdom.

But he sought to discriminate against all else and make sure that these

Corinthians only knew Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's important. It's so important.

And believers can get so caught up in proclaiming something different.

We must proclaim what God commanded, not what we think people want to hear, but what

God commands to proclaim. We get caught up in talking about morality, you know, talking about things that are going on with the election.

Then we talk about morality with people. We talk about the abortion topic. We talk about gay marriage topic.

And these are the discussions we can have with people and think that it's giving the gospel. We talk about rights and wrongs, but forget to say the only right one took our wrongs.

And we do this sometimes because it really is a scandal. I said that in the past two weeks.

Paul called it a scandalon, a scandal. It doesn't appeal to the world's wisdom. Jesus Christ, the

Son of God, the eternal Son of God on a cross, dying for sinners. The world doesn't get it.

The world thinks it's foolish. The world thinks it's stupid. And you all follow Him?

Ridiculous. Unreasonable. And that's what they think.

It's a scandal. And so what we do because we're nervous and because sometimes we fear men, we change the message.

We don't give the offensive, Jesus Christ came and died for sinners and you need the atonement of Christ.

We don't give that. We change things. We go to morality. You must determine to make nothing known among the lost except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

We are to live and breathe the atonement church because you can't replace

Jesus Christ crucified with just your testimony. People often really get dogmatic about that.

I never give my testimony. I only give the gospel. No, that's okay.

You can give your testimony, but you must accompany it with the gospel. You must accompany it with the gospel.

But it's not only your testimony, right? People come up, this is what God did for me.

And it's like, okay, God did that for you, but how can He do that for me? And the answer is the gospel.

But sometimes we only give our testimony. It must be both. You can't replace

Jesus Christ crucified with Him being just one of many roads that lead to God.

You can't replace Jesus Christ crucified with the best music performance, the biggest stadium church, the 20 -minute life booster talk from a guy on a stool and an altar call at the end or raising your hand or repeating a prayer.

You can't replace Jesus Christ crucified with the best church environment.

You can't. It says, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And just like how Jesus sets aside great displays of His deity or the radiance of His glory and took on human flesh and even more was killed in one of the most gruesome ways the world has ever invented a true messenger of Christ does similarly.

A true evangelist, a true gospel sharer does what Paul did.

Tries to make him or herself look small, insignificant. Jesus set aside

His glory to do what He did. You set aside anything that you think is glory about you so that you might show the glory of God to someone else through the

Word of God. Paul didn't put on an act for self -promotion nor did he tap into something that the world thinks is best.

He just came with that message of the cross. Go to verses 3 and 4. He says,

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the

Spirit and of power. So the first two verses, verses 1 and 2 that we just went over were the content of the apostle's message.

It wasn't superiority of speech or worldly wisdom. It was the mystery of God. It was Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

That's the content. Paul says, this is how I came to you. I gave you the right content.

But now, this is how Paul gave it.

That was what he gave. This is how he gave that content. First he says,

I was with you. I was with you. You've got to be there among the people.

You can't just stay in your home. You have to go there for, as Jesus says.

You have to go out. You have to be with the lost. Traveling to places that the lost are at.

If it's best to tell someone bad news in person, then how much is it equally important to tell someone good news in person?

I think that's important. He says, I was with you in my own strength, my own self -confidence and my own boasting.

No, that's not what he says. He says, I was with you in weakness. I didn't come to you as a bard telling you a captivating story.

I didn't come to you as an emissary of a king with a proud procession of people behind me.

I didn't come to you, Corinthians, whilst in the command of a strong army.

I didn't come to you as a king. I didn't come to you as a commander. I didn't come to you as an amazing storyteller.

I didn't come to you as a philosopher. I was with you without strength.

No strength. The world would have seen me, he says, as weak, as needy.

You know, by the time my grandmother was about to die, her name was

Eleanor. She was the most amazing Christian woman I've ever met to this day. And when my grandmother was soon to die, she needed to lean on me.

She had to grab my arm, and I had to help her walk. And I think that's how the

Lord wants us to approach these gospel conversations. I think that's how the Lord wants me to approach this pulpit.

I need to lean on Him. I need to come up to a gospel event limping, recognizing

I need God's power. I need His presence. I need Him to give me the words.

I don't have it figured out. You don't have it figured out. We need Him. We need

Him to bear our weight. And the Lord expects you to lean on Him.

He expects it. God won't use you if you don't need

Him. He won't use you the way that you expect if you don't think you need

Him. If you're arrogant and if you think, I've got this, I can come up to this pulpit,

I can go to my work and give the gospel to my co -workers,

I can go to general conference, I can go to the abortion clinic, I can call up my family and give them the gospel and I can do it because I'm smart.

I'm intelligent. I've studied this very well. I've been a Christian a long time. I know better than the new guy.

And maybe it's not that overt, but we often think that. We're prideful.

We've got it figured out. We've got to come leaning on Him, needing Him, relying on His strength.

In his other letter, the apostle says, boast in your weakness. We don't know if for him that was an unimpressive presence so that God would be seen as impressive or that he refused to play the crowd and embrace their temptations to give him praise because he knew only

God should be praised. It might just be that the message of the cross renders, when it's done rightly, the message of the cross will render not only the hearer, but the proclaimer as weak.

Weak. When you recall sin and the

Almighty's holiness in a gospel conversation, does it make you weak again?

Have you become jaded? When you think about what it took for Jesus to die for you, to give you eternal life, to forgive your sins, does it make you weak again?

Goodness. Lord, help me to see that again. I'm starting to think that I deserved

His death on that cross. Goodness, let me see my sin again. Let me see His holiness again.

When I give the gospel to someone, when I come up here, when you do it, does it make you weak too sometimes?

Do you remember that first weakness that you had when you saw

God as who He was? Kind of a fear of the

Lord, you know? Isaiah 66 verses 1 -2 Thus says the

Lord, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where then is a house that you could build for me?

And where is a place that I may rest? For my hand made all these things. Thus all these things came into being by me, declares the

Lord. But to this one I will look. I'll look at this person. To him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at my word.

Essentially, the Lord will not use men and women who think they are stronger or greater than Him.

Or who are prideful enough to think that they can make something for the Lord better than He can.

His hands made it. His hands can do it. You think He needs you? You think

He can't just make someone regenerate right there? He can do it.

This is the mode. This is the medium He has chosen and it will give Him the glory. But He doesn't need us.

But He uses us. But He'll only use you. He says, I'll look to this person.

Someone who is humble in spirit, contrite of heart. Someone who trembles at my word.

I can use that. Someone who's lowly.

Trembling, just as Paul said. Paul said that about himself. He said, I came to you trembling. We see this as an appropriate response.

Paul delivered the Word of God to the Corinthians and he trembled while doing it. And I don't think some have said, well, he must have had anxiety.

He must have had fear. He must have thought that the Corinthians were going to kill him. And that's why he was trembling.

That's why he was in fear. Some have said, well, that was just Paul's personal countenance.

He was a trembling sort of weak man. I think

Paul gave the gospel this way because he understood its power.

He understood who he was. And he understood genuinely that he ought to show the magnificence of the cross of Christ.

Not himself. Not himself. He would show the power of the cross.

And the cross, really, it strips away all of our self -reliance. Strips it all away.

It removes the illusion of independence and autonomy. You think you've got this figured out?

You need the cross. The cross shows you you don't have it figured out. The cross shows you you're utterly dependent.

You need him. The cross, by the Spirit of God, forces a hardened sinner to fall to his knees and throw himself at the mercy of God.

God, I beg you. I see now. I see who you are. I see who I am. God, save me.

Pardon me by the blood of your Son. Forgive my iniquities.

Remember not my transgressions. Oh God, I see who I am. And that's what the cross can do.

This phrase, fear and trembling, is an old and New Testament formula to demonstrate true humility.

I came to you with fear and trembling. Fear and trembling. It's for humility.

Are you actually humble when you give the gospel? Because if you're prideful, then you aren't actually giving the gospel.

You're only giving words. Words that are just floating out into nothing. There are the living words of Christ crucified, and then there are the dead words of Wade Orsini.

See how critical it is? How important it is to prepare?

You know, I think about so much how important it is before these things to be in prayer.

To look at the Word of God. To remember who I am. Otherwise, I don't come to these things with power.

Not the power of God. I'm looking for power in myself. Verse 4

And my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom. He already said in chapter 1,

I did not come with cleverness of speech. Then at the beginning of our section, he said I did not come with superiority of speech.

Cleverness. Superiority. Now he says,

I did not come with persuasive speech. The source of that persuasive speech?

The wisdom of man. That's what it would be. It is combing the caverns of one's mind.

Finding arguments. Finding evidences. Finding emotional rhetoric to manipulate the hearer.

To convince. To win over. It's tapping into something that's earthly and fleshly.

It is giving the gospel in your own power, opposed to God's power.

The Corinthians have seen the intensely convincing arguments of the masters of rhetoric and philosophy in the marketplaces.

They've seen it. They've seen great displays of it. They've applauded before. They've seen men who can argue.

They've applauded these tactics before. But there is a difference in being convinced of the word of the cross in a natural way versus a supernatural way.

Maybe you can think about the parable of the soils with that. I don't know. You know? The word is given.

Maybe it's given wrongly. It has no power. No power. There's a difference being persuaded that way.

You know, that's what I was trying to think of. I remember I used to work in support at my old job, but there was a guy in sales before I came into the pastorate, and everyone used to laugh.

This guy could persuade anyone to do anything. I mean, he was so good at what he did. And I think he often used manipulation and even lying to do it, but it was just incredible.

We used to say that this guy at my old work, that he could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves on a hot summer day.

I mean, just something that's ridiculous. That he could get someone to take something, and they would think that it was their idea.

Wow, this was a great idea of mine. He could sell anything to anyone. And that's what the world tries to do.

That's what charlatans in the pulpit try to do. They try to sell you something that you don't actually need, something that won't actually save you.

But you'll think, wow, that was me. That was great. This guy's great. Wow, I'll take more of that.

Right? Persuasion. Paul didn't win them over with his oratory skills or his wisdom.

His message and preaching were in a demonstration, he says, of spirit and power.

It wasn't cleverness. It wasn't superiority. It wasn't persuasion. It was spirit and power.

This word demonstration means proof. He says, the proof of my message came from God.

Anyone who believes the gospel as a result of your preaching will only ascertain the words or be receptive to them and repent and believe by the spirit and power of God.

That's the only way. That's the only way. That's it. It's not you.

Faith that is built on how entertaining or educational or convincing the speaker is, is no faith at all.

That's a sandy foundation. That gets planted on Sunday, and then it dies on Monday.

I've seen it. I used to live that way. That sort of false gospel, those sort of convincing, persuasive words that tickled my ears, it was planted on Sunday.

Monday came around, it was dead. It was dead. It needs replanting every week.

And the only thing that truly gives life is Jesus Christ crucified. And so Paul points back to when he first preached this message to them.

And when they first believed, he's saying, brothers and sisters in Corinth, you saw how

I came to you. You saw I wasn't like those who argue in the marketplace. You saw that I wasn't anyone special.

And you saw the demonstration of the power and spirit of God in my weak and God dependent posture.

And you believed. You believed. Not because of me. If that's how you believed,

Corinth, then why do you now set aside the true wisdom of the cross and the humility that Jesus himself displayed?

Why do you re -adopt the world's standards of wisdom and prideful displays and you're letting it destroy your church?

It's ruining your unity. Why do you elevate some men over others when

Christ alone should be elevated? And maybe some of the

Corinthians might have thought, well, Paul, some of the disciples and some of our leaders are more spiritual than others.

They seem more powerful. Should we not hold those men in higher regard than others?

But that's giving praise to the wrong object. A demonstration of the spirit and power should cause one to praise

God, not man. You know, if there's anyone here who seems spiritual, there's anyone here who seems gifted.

If there's anyone here who seems well connected to God, I don't praise that person.

You don't praise that person. You go, wow, the Lord has done something mighty in them. The Lord's done it.

No one here is super spiritual because of themselves. It's because God has sanctified you.

It's because God has worked in you. And so the praise goes to God, not man.

Paul often coordinates the spirit and power together in his epistles.

Sometimes they're interchangeable. You see, you can't have power, true power, without the spirit of God.

And you can't have the spirit of God without true power. They go together. This tells us that though you might rightly give the gospel with humility, that you may be spiritual while doing so, honoring

Christ while doing it, that alone won't change the hearer, okay?

You need to understand this. This is really important. You could be without sin in the way you present the gospel.

You could be connected to God. You could be filled with the spirit and power. And yet the person in front of you still does not turn, does not turn to Christ.

That's possible. Is that because you failed? No, it's not because you failed.

That alone, the way you are faithful, that alone doesn't change the hearer.

The power and the spirit must come over them. And trust me, we don't get to activate the spirit.

I've heard that before. I've heard people tell me, Pastor Wade, the reason why things are ineffective in the church is we've got to activate the spirit, activate the

Holy Spirit today. What do you do? Do you press a button? What do you do? It's ridiculous.

Well, you got to have faith. Man, what a statement.

That's really helpful. You've got to have faith. Activate the spirit. I hear that before.

But we have to understand, just as when God called us, just as when

God called you, it's His prerogative. He'll pour out

His spirit. He'll pour out the power. We simply be faithful and we be humble and we be led by the spirit and we give the gospel.

You and I can't make someone see the power of God. We can't. The power of God from God must come upon them because God wills it.

And it honestly will blow your mind when it happens just as much as the person on the receiving end.

In fact, I've seen it. I've seen it. I'll never forget.

And this is, I'm going to try to make myself small here. This is not about me. This is not me boasting.

But one time I gave the gospel to this man at the abortion mill in Tempe, Arizona.

And I was expecting him to reject everything that I just said. I told him about his sin.

I told him how Jesus took care of sin. I told him about who God is, what we deserve, but what we received instead.

And it was incredible. He didn't walk away. He said, well,

I believe that. I want to believe that. I think

I'm getting faith in that. And I'm telling you, I was like starting to walk away. Like, you know,

I'm just so used to being rejected. And this guy goes, I think I'm believing all that you just said.

Will you tell me more? And I was like, I was blown away. And I didn't walk away going, all right, notch on the belt.

I walked away going, God only you can do that. Boy, I know I did not do that rightly.

I know I didn't have the power. I know I did not have the persuasive speech. I know it blew my mind just as much as that guy's.

And that's what it will do. That's what it does. It blows your mind. It's incredible.

It's the power of God. It's the power of God. Now, I don't think the context lends itself to, as some might think, that these are deeds of power or signs and wonders.

Some have said that. Some have interpreted this last verse, verse 4 here, where he says power and spirit.

Some say that these are charismatic powers, that this is how you rightly share the gospel.

This is the only way. For instance, some have thought that when

Paul gave the gospel to them, all of a sudden he was speaking in heavenly tongues. He's not talking about that here.

When he says power and spirit, he's talking about regeneration. He's talking about conversion.

He says, when I came to you lowly, when I came to you with humility, and I resolved to make nothing known among you except Jesus Christ and you crucified,

I came with the power and spirit of God. And what happened was you responded because of the power and spirit of God, the conversion, the regeneration, this amazing transformation that only

God can make happen. You see, the triune God determined men wouldn't change by staffs that are turned into snakes or water that's streamed out of dry rocks or fire from heaven or even by the worldly wisdom of humans or the stellar performance of a man.

But God determined that men and women would only change and regenerate by the power and spirit of God through the message preached of Jesus Christ crucified.

That's it. That's it. And so that would be going against everything he said.

If we're trying to say that those were charismatic gifts that were the proof to them, that would be going against what he said.

He said, I resolved that you would only know Jesus Christ crucified. The spirit and power is that miraculous act of regeneration in these

Corinthian believers. So let me organize this for us, okay? In the first two verses, the apostle demonstrated the what?

The content. You got two choices with content when giving the gospel.

You can either give something from man or you can give something from God. And Paul gave them what he called the testimony or mystery of God.

He called it Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's the content. That's the real choice.

That's the only choice. Next in verses three and four, Saint Paul demonstrated the how, the way he gave that content from God.

And he did so in God's way. He did it with humility, showing dependence on God, living out the cross while he shared the cross.

And it resulted in spiritual power, not from man, but from God. And regeneration flooded the

Corinthians from the only source that it can originate from the Almighty in heaven.

So go to our final verse, verse five. God's content was given and God's methods were used.

Verse five, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

This is so important. The word here, rest, is actually the Greek word ami.

It is a word of what is. It is a word of being. It is a word of nature. All of this was done this way by God so that your faith would not have its being in the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Because church, you don't want human faith. You want God faith. This is why the

Bible calls faith a gift. And the workspace groups hate this.

They hate the verses that show that faith is actually a gift. From God.

From start to finish, God acts. God works. God transforms.

God moves. God saves. God gives. So that he who boasts can only boast in the

Lord and not himself. That your faith would be founded not on the wisdom and power of men, but on God.

The apostle tells this church who's been boasting in men, remember, remember where and from whom your faith came from.

It's from God. You don't grow or produce faith from God by elevating yourself or elevating men.

You grow your faith by praising and knowing and loving the only

God. And when you preach that message, the gospel that produces faith, preach only what and how

God commanded it. You preach with humility. You preach with lowliness.

And you preach only Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's the word of God.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for today.

Thank you for your word. Thank you that it is such important and amazing truth for us.

This is wisdom. Your word is wisdom. It is power. It is what we need,

Lord. Because there's nothing in us. There's nothing in us.

All that is good in me is because of you, Lord. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, the gospel of Christ, in regular basic people.

We were not many mighty, not many wise, not many noble here. We made more mistakes than the apostles.

We made more mistakes than probably the Corinthians. And so,

Lord, we come before you today asking that you would help us. That you would help us live out this gospel with humility of mind.

Lord, with a leaning on you. As I said,

Lord, almost as if we're limping to the conversation, limping to the pulpit, recognizing we're weak.

We're weak without you. We're weak without your help. We need your power. We have nothing in ourselves that can accomplish this.

There's nothing in me that can convince a man or a woman to turn to Christ. Every single time someone turns, it's a miracle.

Every single time it's a work and demonstration of your power and your goodness. It's you.

And so, God, please remove our pride. Let us not boast in ourselves, but boast in you alone.