WWUTT 1431 Christ the Power and Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24-25)

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In 1 Corinthians 124 we read that to those who are the called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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We believe in Jesus, the power of God for salvation, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you Becky. We come back to our study in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. As with last week,

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I'll begin by reading verses 18 -25 still in the legacy standard

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Bible today. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

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For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.

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Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

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Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know

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God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

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For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach

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Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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Where we finished up last week was there in verse 23. I'll read verse 22 and 23 together.

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For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.

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The Jews asked for a sign and Jesus said to the Jews that no sign would be given to them except the sign of Jonah.

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It was in the belly of a fish for three days and three nights, so Jesus would be in the heart of the earth for three days and would rise again on Sunday morning.

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So the sign that Jesus said that he would give this wicked generation was going to be his resurrection from the grave, that he was going to die on a cross, that he was going to take the wrath of God upon himself as an atoning sacrifice and die.

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He would be dead. They would take his body off the cross. They would wrap it.

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They would put it in a tomb. It would be sealed. He would be there the whole Saturday, that whole day of rest,

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Sabbath. That's when Jesus was in the tomb fulfilling the laws of the Sabbath, all the types of the shadows of the law from the

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Old Testament, Christ is fulfilling even in his death and his resurrection. On Sunday morning, he rises again and his resurrection from the dead, conquering death,

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God showing that he received the sacrifice of his son by raising him from the dead. This was going to be the sign that Jesus was going to give that wicked generation.

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Of course, he did many other signs and wonders in their presence, which they did not believe.

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But the greatest miracle would be his own death and resurrection.

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So this was to the Jews who were demanding signs, this was the sign that Jesus gave them.

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The Greeks search for wisdom. And as we looked at in Acts chapter 17, the apostle

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Paul preaching at the Areopagus, preaching to a group of men, who it says there in Acts 17, we're just searching for new wisdom, new thoughts, new philosophy, that I can sound more intelligent, that I can out -debate the other guy.

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Right? Paul talking to this group, looking for new wisdom, standing amidst their false gods.

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He says the one true God has shown by whom he is going to judge the whole world by raising him from the dead.

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So the sign that Paul gives the Gentiles is also the resurrection.

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The sign Jesus gives the Jews is the resurrection. The sign that Paul gives the Gentiles, the

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Greeks, is the resurrection. The Greeks searching for new wisdom, Paul tells them about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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And they mocked him for that. They mocked Jesus for talking about how he was going to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days.

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They mocked him for that. The Greeks mocked Paul for saying that there was a resurrection of the dead.

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That was when they went, oh, come on, resurrection of the dead, no way, impossible, could never happen.

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And that was the moment they were like, this preaching is just absolute foolishness. So Jews ask for signs,

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Greeks search for wisdom. And notice that that's the same sign that was given to both. It's the same wisdom that was given to both.

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To Jews, resurrection. To Greeks, the resurrection of the dead. And both scoffed at it.

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Both did not believe that the dead could rise again. They considered it to be foolishness.

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But Paul goes on to say in verse 23, we preach Christ crucified. To Jews, a stumbling block, and to Gentiles, foolishness.

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And you understand here, Christ crucified is everything that's wrapped up in that.

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So it's not just talking about Jesus became flesh and died. It's also talking about how he died and rose again.

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The word of the cross that's talked about in 1 Corinthians 1 .18 is exactly that.

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It's not just stopping with the cross. It's also talking about how Jesus fulfilled everything on the cross and was raised from the dead.

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Remember Paul talking in Romans chapter 8, that the same power that raised

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Christ Jesus from the dead is the same power that is at work in you. The spirit that raised Christ is the

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Holy Spirit that dwells in each and every one of us. Who has brought us from death to life.

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So this is all wrapped up in the message of the cross. That Jesus died and rose again. That the spirit that brought him back to life is the

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Holy Spirit that dwells within you. This is not, again, so this is not just talking about the crucifixion and then just leaving it at that.

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Because as Paul will say later on in chapter 15, if all Jesus did was die and he did not rise from the dead, then your faith is futile, it's worthless and you're still in your sins.

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So it is necessary not only to believe that Jesus died, but also that he rose again. And there are many times when that part of the message is left out.

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Think back to the passion of the Christ. I don't know if you saw the movie or not. The whole movie is about Jesus being beaten and crucified and you barely get the resurrection at the very end.

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It's in there, but it's like a footnote. It's certainly not the subject of the movie.

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It's Christ's crucifixion that becomes the subject of the film, rather than putting much emphasis on his rising again from the dead.

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Apparently there is a sequel coming out of the passion of the Christ and it's covering that Jesus was in hell between his death on the cross on Friday and his resurrection from the grave on Sunday morning.

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So this is going to become some kind of like a supernatural thriller with Jesus in hell fighting the forces of darkness in hell.

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That's not how that went. Jesus went to be with his father in paradise. That's exactly what he said to the thief on the cross that was next to him.

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Today you will be with me in paradise. So he did not go into hell with like his spiritual sword and shield and start fighting demons and stuff.

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That wasn't what happened in the three days that he was in a tomb. So anyway, what was

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I mentioning there? Okay, so the passion of the Christ gives more emphasis to the message of the cross and very, very little, if anything, on the resurrection.

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It doesn't even tell you what it is that's happening. It would pretty much just be left up to you to figure out that that's what is being insinuated at the end of the film.

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One of the greatest movies ever made is a film called Ben -Hur.

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And I'm not just saying it's one of the greatest movies ever made by my own opinion. It is a great movie.

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I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was the it won more Academy Awards than any film in cinema history until Titanic.

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And then I think it was Return of the King, the Lord of the Rings, third film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, tied the number of Academy Awards as those two films.

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So there was a time when Ben -Hur was the most decorated film in cinema history.

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One of the greatest movies ever made, an incredible epic. And if you know anything about the movie, if you've seen it,

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I'm talking the original with Charlton Heston, not the awful remake that was made a few years ago. That one was not a great, that was not an epic movie.

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But anyway, the one with Charlton Heston, Christ is a character in that film. Now, the interesting thing about it is you never see his face.

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You always see his form or you see the back of him or you hear people talk about him, but you never actually see

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Jesus face there in the movie Ben -Hur. But the film ends with Jesus dying and he never comes back again from the grave.

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So in the movie Ben -Hur, as great a film as that is, and one that is even touted by evangelicals and Christians as being such an epic film.

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There's no resurrection. Jesus dies, but never rises again. I think the film even ends with focusing on the three crosses there on a hill, but you never actually see the tomb opened or that Jesus has risen again.

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That part of the story is totally left out. There was the rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, which was a very, very blasphemous opera.

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It was absolutely awful. Tim Rice was the lyricist. Andrew Lloyd Webber was the guy behind all of the music.

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Two very incredibly talented guys, but they hate God. And as great as that rock opera is hailed, it ends also with Jesus crucified and not rising again from the dead.

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In fact, Judas gets a resurrection scene, but not Jesus. So the resurrection is often downplayed.

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It's the crucifixion that gets all the emphasis most of the time. Not that Jesus rose again from the dead.

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And people today even have a problem understanding the resurrection of the dead, that it's even important.

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And like I said, we get to that here in 1 Corinthians. Paul directly confronts that because there were people in the church in Corinth who thought the same thing.

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It just wasn't that big a deal. It's not that important. What difference does it make if he rose from the dead or not?

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Again, some of these guys are just Greeks that are looking for the next new philosophy that is out there.

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And we like what Paul says, and all of it kind of comes back to this Christ guy. So we're going to believe in Jesus Christ because this is the new philosophy that's out there on the scene.

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But they didn't want to believe that Jesus could rise from the dead. Even today in modern evangelicalism, we have evangelicals doubting that Christ rose from the dead.

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Martin Luther King Jr., well, he denied that Jesus was even God. But of course, he also denied that Jesus rose from the dead.

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And he preached about that in a sermon on Easter Sunday of all days to say that it's really not that big a deal if you believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ or not.

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He preaches that sermon on an Easter Sunday. Astounding. And it's one of his more popular sermons, and the church where he preached it is a historic landmark.

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N .T. Wright, when he was the Bishop of Durham, he was quoted as saying that you can be a

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Christian and not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once again, Paul says in 1

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Corinthians 15, no, you can't, because if Christ did not rise from the dead, your faith is worthless.

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So if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, but you don't believe he died and rose again from death, then what's the point of following Jesus?

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If Jesus doesn't rise from the dead, we don't rise from the dead. And if we don't rise from the dead, why follow him?

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Why listen to Jesus? Jesus is the answer to the biggest problem that every single person faces.

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Everyone dies. That is one statistic that is true of every single person.

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Everyone dies. One out of every one person dies. It is a 100 % consistent statistic.

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Consistent statistic. That's hard to say. Anyway. So everyone is going to die.

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What's going to happen to us when we die? We don't know. Well, we wouldn't know if it wasn't for the fact that Jesus tells us about what's on the other side.

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It's in the very beginning of the Gospel of John. We read in John 1, 18, no one has seen

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God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.

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Jesus is God incarnate who put on human flesh and dwelt among us. And he told us about heaven, hell, the kingdom of God, shows us the

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Father, the coming of the Holy Spirit, the promise of eternal life. All of this is in the message and the testimony of Christ who came and spoke these things to us from heaven.

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You know, when you read in Luke 16, the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man dies and he goes to a place of fiery torment,

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Lazarus dies and he gets carried by angels to Abraham's side. And then there's that conversation between the rich man in this place of torment and Abraham in this place of paradise.

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How would Jesus know that conversation? Because he witnessed it. He was there. Right? So he shows us what is on the other side, what happens on the other side of death and tells us there are two ways that you can go.

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You're going to go to torment or you're going to go to paradise. You're going to go to hell or you will go to heaven.

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And the way that you go to heaven is by doing the will of the Father. He said that in the

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Sermon on the Mount. But we can't do the will of the Father. Nobody can can keep

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God's will and do so in a holy way that is pleasing unto the Lord. Because once again, as we read in Romans chapter three, there is none righteous.

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No, not even one. And so we have Jesus who perfectly kept the will of the Father. He dies in subject to the will of the

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Father, in submission to the Father's will. He is buried and the

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Father raises him from the dead. All of this is in the word of the cross.

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This is all in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can't leave parts of it out. It is

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Christ incarnation, his life, death, resurrection, his ascension back to heaven where he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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It's his return for he is coming back to judge the living and the dead. Remember that Paul said that to the

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Greeks there at the Areopagus, that Jesus is the one that is going to judge all of the world.

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And God has shown that he is going to judge mankind through Christ by raising him from the dead. That was the message that Paul had at the

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Areopagus. All of this is wrapped up in the gospel. You can't leave any part of it out. All of it is the word of the cross.

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And it's all of it that the Jews and the Greeks find foolishness. Jews ask for signs,

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Greeks search for wisdom, and the answer to both of those things is in the resurrection, which neither the

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Jews or the Greeks, the Gentiles, wanted to believe in. And so Paul says, what do we preach?

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Verse 23, we preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.

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To Jews it's a stumbling block because they don't want to believe it. And so it actually comes to their judgment because Christ was given to them.

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It was to the Jewish people that Jesus came. Back to John chapter one again, he was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him.

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He came to what was his own and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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For those of you taking notes, that's John 1 verses 10 through 13. But because the

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Jews rejected him, this is a stumbling block to the Jews. It's going to come to their judgment, to their destruction, because they did not believe in the one

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God sent to them that he prophesied about or that was prophesied about before Christ came and they did not recognize him, but they put him to death.

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The Gentiles did too though. You had Jews and Gentiles conspiring together to crucify the son of God, Jews and Romans together.

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So to Jews, the message of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to Gentiles, it's foolishness to both.

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It will be to their judgment because they would not believe it. But to those who are the called, verse 24, both

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Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, we go right back to verse 18 again, for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God and among the saved are both

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Jews and Gentiles. Those two groups of people that were conspiring together to crucify Christ, God has shown mercy to us and given us salvation by faith in this very thing that we once thought foolish.

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That was once a stumbling block that was once foolishness to us is now the power of God for salvation to all who believe it.

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Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to those who believe to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek, to the Jew first because it was to the Jews that Christ came to also the

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Greek because it's now to the rest of the world that the message of the gospel is gone forth. And once again, back to verse 21, first Corinthians 1 21, for since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know

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God. We didn't come because we deduced what the right answer was going to be and we settled on that's the one

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

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It is all to the glory of God, not to our credit at all. If left to us, we would crucify the son of God again, but it is by the mercy and grace of God that our hearts have been transformed from people who rebel against God to now people who love

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God and worship God and humble ourselves before God and ask for the mercy and grace of God.

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And he gives it to us through his son, Jesus Christ, because verse 25, the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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You know, I find it fascinating that we've been looking at this section right here for the last few weeks now,

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I think we're going at it a verse at a time. We managed to get through two verses today. How about that? So in verse 25, where Paul says at the beginning of first Corinthians, Paul says that the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men at the end of second

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Corinthians. So the next letter that Paul writes to the Corinthians at the end of that second letter,

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Paul talks about a time when he was reminded by God of his own weakness.

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Paul was reminded of his weakness that he might rely on the strength of God.

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This is second Corinthians chapter 12, starting in verse seven, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations that he received as an apostle for this reason to keep me from exalting myself.

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There was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself concerning this.

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I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he has told me, my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness.

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Paul goes on to say most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

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Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions and with hardships for the sake of Christ.

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For when I am weak, then I am strong.

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So we consider once again, this verse in first Corinthians 1 .25,

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the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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Even though the things that we would consider to be the weakest things of God, by any sort of of human perception, by any sort of worldly standard, we would call those things of God weak and puny.

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That is way stronger, way more powerful than any man. Remember that Jesus said in Matthew chapter five that not a dot, not an iota will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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So even the weakest things, even even little strokes of the pen in the law of God that has been given is way stronger than the wisest musings of mankind that we would consider from a worldly perspective.

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This is the word of God, the Bible, the creator of the universe speaking to us through these pages and all of it pointing to the cross, the word of the cross, foolishness to those who are perishing.

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But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Consider this from Burke Parsons, pastor of St.

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Andrew's Chapel in Sanford, Florida. He said pastors who preach God's word faithfully will be called boring only by those seeking something besides the faithful preaching of God's word.

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Foolishness to those who are perishing, the power of God to those who are being saved, we preach

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Christ crucified. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this good word and thank you for humbling us that we would believe this word turning from our sins, falling on our faces at the foot of the cross, asking for forgiveness and receiving it by your grace and your goodness.

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May we not shrink back from the more unpopular parts of this message that we have heard preached from the word of God, but that we would share it with others.

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For we know it is only by faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ that a person is saved from their sins and has everlasting life with God forever in glory.

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Keep us steadfast to this message, growing in it, marveling at it and being bold to share it.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. You can find a complete list of videos, books, devotionals, and other resources online at www .tt