Can You Make The Cross Empty? - [1 Corinthians 1:17]

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In sales, pretty much, whether I work for Duracell Batteries or operating room companies, it was always about the bottom line.
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It was about the quota and reaching quota. And pretty much how you got there, it didn't really matter.
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Oh, certainly, I remember an IBM selling school. They would teach you, summarize the situation, state the idea, explain how it works, reinforce key benefits, and close.
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But none of that mattered if at the end of the year you met your quota or you were above quota. One time
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I remember I worked for Duracell Batteries and our competition was Energizer. And before I went into wholesale,
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I was in retail. And so there was a certain way that you could make sure Energizer batteries were not in the local retail market.
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And that is if you notice the brand new display bin sitting over in the cardboard box in the back of the drugstore, if you notice you went over there and picked up that very expensive nice rack all in cardboard, put it over into the green pressing machine for trash, looked around to make sure no one was around and you just hit the red button and the thing would just go and just smash that thing.
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And so that was a way to get good numbers for Duracell Batteries. And frankly,
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I don't think my boss cared as long as you met the number. We are bottom line people, aren't we?
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What have you done lately for me is a sales kind of marketing approach. And at the end of the year, if you look back and you had to kind of lie a little bit, kind of some white lies, if there are a few indiscretions, you told the company, well, we'll ship tomorrow even though we know we don't have any product as long as you get the numbers.
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Interestingly and contrastingly, Christianity is way different. Jesus is quite concerned about not just the bottom line, but how you get there.
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In other words, there's nothing in this universe, according to Abraham Kuyper, that doesn't have
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Jesus say over it, mine. That's mine. Not just the end, but the means.
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Not just the bottom line, but how you get there. Everything is God's, and especially in ministry,
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God is not just concerned with how do you get there. I mean, where are you, but how do you get there?
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Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 this morning and take a look at how God in Christ demands everything.
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Christianity is not ultimately pragmatic. There is a way to do things to the glory of God.
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And when it comes to the bottom line, oh, yes, it could be important to the Lord. But how we get there in life is very, very important.
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Paul is writing to the Corinthians, and they have all kinds of problems. They're not living like Jesus is
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Lord, especially in their church. They've got all kinds of problems. There's divisions.
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There's immorality. People are suing each other. People are just doing all kinds of strange things.
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And Paul wants to try to tell them there's a way to glorify the Lord at home, at work.
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In this particular case, in 1 Corinthians, in the local church. And he gives an introduction in verses 1 through 9, stressing the lordship of Christ Jesus.
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If Jesus is Lord of the church, then he demands everything. There's no nook.
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There's no cranny. There's no little smidgen of area that somehow you can relegate to secular life.
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Oh, I will be a good Christian on Sundays, but when it comes to Monday morning in business,
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I've got another agenda. When Jesus saves you, he gives his all. He gives himself as the ransom, and then he demands all.
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Christianity is all, or it is nothing. And so Paul is trying to tell that to the people at Corinth.
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If you're new here today, basically what we do is we pick a book of the Bible, in this particular case 1 Corinthians, and then we just systematically teach through it.
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And the good news is, it keeps pastors from always preaching on their hobby horses. I have hobby horses, but now my hobby horse today is 1
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Corinthians 1, verse 17. And I love the bells. I love it how people can play bells with only one shoe.
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I love all kinds of things about the bells, and I thought, this is just wonderful. But I kept thinking today,
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I can't wait to just get up and preach this passage, because it is literally life changing.
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If you're not a Christian, you need to know one day you'll stand before God, and everything in your fabric and in your being says, this is how
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I should live. I have to be good. I have to be better than I used to be. I'm driving this way down this freeway that says north, and everything in my life, all my friends, all my relatives, my co -workers, they all are on this road that says, just be good, be better than Hitler, be better than Stalin, be better than someone else.
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And that's just how we're born. You don't even have to teach a kid that. Kids know, earn favor by doing, by being good.
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And here we have God that comes along and says, I demand perfection. I demand complete obedience.
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I'm telling you, you try to live according to the law, you will fail. And so here comes Jesus, and he shows us, demonstrates that the way to heaven is not the way you were born to take.
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It's a supernatural way that says there's only one person who can work his way into heaven, and that is the person of Christ Jesus.
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And since he's God, he can't just work himself into heaven. He doesn't need to, but for the sake of analogy, his goodness, his righteousness is so wonderful because it's an infinite righteousness.
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It's a divine righteousness. All those that believe in his works are allowed to go to heaven as well.
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And so Paul says, you people at Corinth, you live this natural way, this works way, this kind of floating downstream, least common denominator way, and there's a different way to live your life when it comes to God.
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And so Paul says at the very beginning in chapters one, two, three, and four, he deals with this problem of division.
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He says, you might like to have divisions in political parties, at work. There's the inside group.
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There's the outside group. There are the wannabes. There are the populars. Here we are all redeemed by the same
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Christ, and when it comes to the cross, we are equal. And he says, I want you to act like that.
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And he's been dealing with this reaction to divisions in verses 10 through 17, which brings us to a verse today that I'm quite confident that most people skip over.
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That's why I was so excited to preach it today because I thought, this is great. We just got to kind of park here.
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We're going to go to chapter one, verse 17, and if I had a huge anchor, I would throw the anchor overboard right now.
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Why would that be? Because that means we're just going to just kind of sit here. Every word is weighty.
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Every word is good, and I especially like to preach passages that in the past, I've just kind of sped, sped read a word, it's two words,
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I just, with haste, I've read, but not seen just the juice and the morsels and just the good nutrition that are found in here.
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Makes me hungry. How about you? It's like you take just a good raw steak, and I mean it raw as possible, and you just kind of take your fork and you press down on that steak and just the juice and the red juice and the blood just comes out and you go,
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I can just start, my mouth is starting to water before I even get that to my mouth. I think, oh, this is good for the soul, and this is going to be meat today for you.
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This is not one of those, oh, well, we'll just kind of skip through. This is meat, but it's good for you, and so get your molars ready.
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Let me read the verse, and then we'll dissect it a little bit so you can understand this verse.
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It's my goal this morning. First Corinthians 1, verse 17, for Christ, the
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Messiah, did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, and then with words that you should ask yourself the question, why would these words be here?
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Not in cleverness of speech so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.
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Let me give you two essential truths today, two facts from 1
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Corinthians 1, verse 17, that every preacher, that every Bible teacher, that every
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Sunday school teacher, that every evangelist, yes, every Christian needs to wrap their arms around and digest.
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Two essential truths. The first one, whether you're a preacher or a layperson, you need to understand that there are priorities in ministry, that there are priorities in ministry.
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There's good, there's better, there's best, but there are priorities, and here you'll see from Paul's priority that although there's something might be good to do, there's something the best to do, the ultimate to do.
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Before I even get in here, I could ask you the question this way, do you think it's better to preach the gospel to your unbelieving friends, or do you think it's better to invite them to church?
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Now, I know which one's easier, well, why don't you come to church? You know, there's not a verse in the
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Bible that says, invite your unsaved friends to the church. Oh, it's good, and if you're unsaved and you've got a friend here and they invited you, welcome.
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But there's something better, there's something more important, there's a higher priority, and I think we'll learn from the apostolic example here of that priority.
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Preaching the gospel is the highest calling, even over baptism. Look at verse 17, for Christ did not send me to baptize.
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Baptism true or false is important, absolutely. I think you should only with reticence call yourself a
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Christian if you're not baptized. Oh, can you be a Christian without being baptized? Yes, but with reluctance you should say,
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I'm a Christian. When you can't even do the first step of obedience, God doesn't say through his scriptures, believe and give, believe and attend, believe and evangelize, believe and sing, believe and work to the glory of God, believe and be baptized.
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It is way up there on the priority pole, but it is not all the way up there.
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He says, Jesus didn't send me to baptize, why? Because the preaching of the cross is more important than that.
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By the way, on a side note, and it's not in the text, but it's way easier to baptize. Anyone can dunk, anyone can sprinkle, anyone could triple dunk.
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I've been in baptisms before where it's a triple dunk, I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the
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Spirit. You're big enough, you can baptize people. Paul wasn't sent for this reason.
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Baptism is important. Matthew chapter 28, the great commission in verses 18 through 20, there's a commission and that commission is not to go baptize people, but there's a higher commission both grammatically and theologically.
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We are to go make what? Disciples by subordinately teaching, baptizing, et cetera.
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The official duty of Paul the apostle as he was sent out by Jesus on the Damascus Road in Acts chapter 8,
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Acts chapter 22 is go preach the gospel to the Gentiles. How did
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Paul get on the subject? Well, if you see in verses 13 through 16, baptism did come up.
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Remember, they were putting themselves in different camps. Look at the shock statements of Paul in verse 13, has
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Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?
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Are you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.
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Now, I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other.
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Then he leads in, for Christ did not send me to baptize.
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Baptism is inferior to preaching the gospel. We are saved not by being baptized.
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If you think for one moment that you're going to go to heaven because you had some water placed on your head when you were a baby and then now you just live the life however you want to live, for one moment if you think when you go to a certain kind of other denomination, other religion, and they say at people's funerals based on the baptism they received as a baby they're going to heaven, you do not understand
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Christianity and you need to be born again. If it was so easy to sprinkle babies and in they go, then
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Paul would have been sent to what? For then I was sent to baptize people.
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That's not how disciples are made. Disciples are made by preaching free grace, free sovereign grace, substitutionary atonement, literal resurrection,
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Christ dying in the place of sinners, being raised from the dead. And Paul says, in light of all this, now that I'm talking about baptism,
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God did not send me to baptize people. Paul says, don't let the cross lose its central position.
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The cross should be front and center, not just for Paul, not just for preachers, but for you.
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If you're a person here who's a Christian, you should say to yourself, I have priorities in life, but I have the ultimate priority.
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Why don't we just hold you under when we baptize you? Remember MacArthur always says that, you know, somebody gets saved and now it's my privilege and my pleasure to baptize you in the name of the
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Father, Son, and Spirit, and you just hold them under until they drown and then they go to heaven. Why do we let people back up?
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For lots of reasons, theologically, civilly, legally, because you are, whether you're a homemaker or you're a nuclear physicist, pastor or layperson, you're here to preach the gospel.
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You say, well, that was just Paul's priority. No, that's Paul's priority and it's your priority. Some things are better than other things.
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You can do good things, you can do better things, and here is the best, Paul was sent, the Apostle Paul, and like Paul says, you watch me praise
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God, you praise God. You watch me put baptism at the very top, no way, no way.
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I remember when I first got here, oh, many said, we know your top priority is preaching, but many thought my top priority was visitation.
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My top priority was administration. My top priority was being a good old boy, just kind of a guy's guy.
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Friends, may I say, and you already know this because you've sat here for long enough under my ministry, if you can get a pastor who's qualified according to 1
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Timothy 3 and Titus 1, who's able to live a godly life and is able to preach the gospel, anything else you get is what?
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It's gravy. That's why we're back on this food thing again today, aren't we? If he's a good old boy, if he's not a good old boy, if he's one of the guys, if he's the kind of guy you want to invite over to watch the
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Patriots lose or not, I mean, you can just, whatever. There's a priority, and the priority is the gospel front and center, feeding the souls of the sheep.
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I get calls from people in New England, could you help us find a new pastor? Churches are always looking for a new pastor.
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There's one way to look for a new pastor, and it's according to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, not with some kind of committee thrown together by a bunch of people who have no idea what they're looking for, except they just want to find someone they like.
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Does that person preach the gospel and feed your soul? If not, I don't care what he looks like, how he acts, what kind of guy's guy he is, it matters not.
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Paul said, like the way I look, like the way I talk, it matters not. It is the priority of the gospel because it saves souls and it sanctifies people.
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First Corinthians chapter 15, Paul knew it and reiterated it by saying,
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I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that you should be baptized for our sins according to the scriptures.
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No, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.
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Paul says in chapter 9 of 1 Corinthians, woe to me if I don't baptize, true or false?
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Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. Are baptisms good? I think we might have a baptism next week.
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Will we all rejoice? We only clap at this church for baptisms and handbell choirs. That's basically all we do, but we'll be clapping and rejoicing.
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We love baptisms, but baptisms aren't the pinnacle. Actually, you can, better save that.
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True or false? Jesus baptized people with water.
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Don't you think if baptism was the sine qua non, the apex, the Mount Everest of everything baptizing people, don't you think our
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Lord would have baptized people? Listen to John chapter 4 verse 1 and 2. Therefore, when the
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Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John the
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Baptist, parenthesis, verse 2, although Jesus himself was not baptizing but his disciples were.
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Paul is just like Jesus in the fact that there's a bigger issue. You can be baptized and go to hell, but you can be born again and not baptized and still like the thief on the cross enter into heaven.
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I think it's good to ask yourself the question as you live your Christian life, what's a good thing to do at work, at home, school, in the church?
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What's a better thing to do and what's the best thing to do? For Paul, it wasn't even close.
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Second truth, as we glean these truths from 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 17. This is really the tenor of the passage.
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This is really what Paul is after with intention, is what I alluded to in my introduction.
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And that if you're a preacher or a layperson, Bible teacher or evangelist, Sunday school teacher or mom who wants to teach her children, it is important what you say about the gospel and it is important how you say it.
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Both the way and the manner are important along with what the substance is.
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Not just theology but also methodology. Not just what but how. Methodology is critical.
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And you say, well, what do you mean by that? Well, let's all sing great is thy faithfulness to the tune of Barney the
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Dinosaur, I love you, you love me and see if it still means the same. Or as MacArthur says, let's sing holy, holy, holy to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy.
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Methodology is important. Jesus is Lord over all and it's not just what you preach but how you preach it.
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You're going to be amazed like I've been amazed. You can preach the gospel, the real gospel, and do it in such a way that you make it void.
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How can you make it void? The voidness we're going to see from Paul here is the methodology is not biblical, it's not
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God honoring, it's not good. You preach the cross, Jesus died for sinners.
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You're a sinner. God raised him from the dead to prove his power over sin and Satan. Jesus is the only
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Savior. He's coming back to judge the living and the dead. And you can preach that gospel in such a manner, in such a mode where this is rendered void, empty, and inoperable.
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Well, can't you see that? Take a look at verse 17. Not in cleverness of speech. He says,
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Christ didn't send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. Not a half gospel, not a non -lordship gospel, not an
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Arminian gospel, but he says to preach the gospel with good news, to proclaim the good news, but not in cleverness of speech.
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See, that's all manner, that's all mode, that's methodology. Why don't you want to preach the real gospel in a wrong manner?
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Answer, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.
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The issue here is not preaching a heretical, faulty gospel, oh, believe and do good things.
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God helps those who help themselves. This is the gospel preached in a wrong way and it comes out void.
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Too often in Christianity, we say, well, we want real gospel preached, but we don't really mind too much how it's delivered because we like the bottom line, we like pragmatism.
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Here he says, preaching the good news of the gospel, but in a wrong manner of style.
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Listen to Leon Morris, the excellent commentator, the faithful preaching of the cross results in men ceasing to put their trust in any human device and relying rather on God's work in Christ.
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A reliance on rhetoric would cause men to trust in men. The very antithesis of what the preaching of the cross is meant to affect.
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There's a way to preach the gospel so people aren't thinking about Jesus of the gospel, but they're thinking about the person who's preaching the gospel.
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That's what Paul goes on to deal with in verses 18 through 31. The culture they lived in back in those days was this
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Greek, oratorical, rhetorical kind of teaching where everybody said, we don't even care what you talk about, but you sure talk about it well.
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That's what we want. I'm not blasting Dale Carnegie or Toastmasters, but for those kind of classes, what you talk about isn't so important, it's how you talk.
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Paul says, of course, use persuasion when you preach and use eloquence and use articulation, but when it comes to manipulating people so all the attention goes to rhetoric, style, oh excellent speaking, the cross is made void, the real cross.
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A style, a method, a mode, a manner that somehow obscures the cross, eclipses the cross isn't good.
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Some kind of manner that casts a shadow against the cross, Paul says,
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I'm going to jettison that. Some kind of sophisticated speech and everybody goes, what a great speaker.
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And the Corinthians lived in that culture, that's what they wanted to do. That's what they respected before they were saved. Let me give you some ways that you could either evangelize or preach the real cross, but make it void.
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These are cross voiders, if you will, cross emptiers, rendering void the cross.
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How you can dress up the cross in such a way that Paul says it's void, number one, the gospel can be made void or empty when you dress it with the clothes of fashion.
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I call this the Armani gospel. When you speak the gospel either from the pulpit or evangelism behind the scenes in such a manner where your goal is that you want to look good, that you want to look good.
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You're concerned about the way you speak, your rhetoric versus content and you want people to say, what a speaker, how dynamic, what a great preacher.
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Remember Will Willeman who is a chaplain to Duke and he says, when I preach, I'm voted one of the number, one of the top 10 preachers in all
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America. And when Jesus preaches, he gets crucified. Interesting.
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Trying to enhance one's prestige, prostituting the gospel for your own fame, selling the cross for self -promotion, using
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Calvary for self -glory. It empties the cross, thinking that you're all out there and I'm looking for the
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Olympic signs to be held up, 9 .5, 10. And when you say afterwards, that was a great sermon, pastor, and I just go, you better believe it, it was more than great.
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By the way, that's why it's not good to feed the sinful lusts and desires of a pastor. Do I want you to think
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I'm a great preacher? Well, who wouldn't? You say, well, I'm a mom and I raise my kids and I want to be known as a really bad mom.
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That's my goal in life. No, but see, even this, you ought to be thinking, that was only a great sermon.
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When that sinful, frail preacher got up and said, I'm not your savior,
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I didn't die for you, you weren't baptized in my name, I didn't make up the gospel, but I'm here to tell you about Jesus, the great one.
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And if you walk away thinking, Jesus is great, his word is great, the apostolic message that Jesus sent to me is great, then that's what we're after.
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That amplifies the cross, that doesn't take away from it. So don't say to me, that was a great message.
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First of all, if it was a lousy message, you would be lying if you said that. Second of all, I don't need to hear that.
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It's like Spurgeon who said to a lady after the service, she said, Spurgeon, that was the best sermon I've ever heard in my entire life.
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And he said, why? Thank you very much, ma 'am, but Satan's already told me that as I walked down the pulpit steps.
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So if you say that was a great sermon, would you please add the conjunction that says, or no, not because of the conjunction, forget grammar, just say, because you showed me
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Christ today and I understand his word more. Paul's going to go on to say in verses 18 and following, if you preach the real cross, people will deride you and hate you and they'll think it's foolish.
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So how can you get up and talk about the foolish cross and everybody goes, you're wonderful? Can't do it.
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The Greco -Roman people prized the speaker's ability and those speakers wanted to be admired.
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They wanted to be famous. Garland said, clever rhetoric is superficial. It shortcuts the transformation of listeners by simply gaining their assent.
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It appeals to emotions without touching the spiritual depths. It may reap numerous baptisms, but not many true conversions.
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Say, well, I don't preach. How about Sunday school? How about Bible study? Do you do it for applause?
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Is that the main reason you work and study and pour out your heart? No, you do it because you say, I've got a great savior.
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And you're a great sinner, but there's a greater savior. Let me give you another set of clothes that I think people put on the gospel to make it void.
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The first one is kind of the Armani gospel, wanting it to look good.
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Secondly, I call this dressing the gospel with clothes of ease or comfort.
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Maybe I'll call this the cashmere gospel. My mother gave me a cashmere sweater.
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The good news is it was a man's sweater that she bought for herself. But to this day, I've kept that cashmere sweater. And the kids, if I ever put it on, they just like to come up and just feel it.
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My mom used to say it's a feeling good kind of material. You ever go shopping and you just feel something that feels so good?
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Well, that's all fine and dandy. Until you preach the cross in an environment where your goal is to make people feel good.
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Have you ever heard of a felt -needs message? They don't call it sermons.
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They call them talks, little message -ettes for Christianettes, kind of a sharing time.
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By the way, if you ever want to offend me, tell me that was a nice talk or I liked what you shared today.
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Because this is the herald's position to proclaim the truth. And you go to churches today and it's basically life management 101.
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Oh, would they deny the literal resurrection, substitutionary atonement, sin? No. But they preach that cross in this light of, you know,
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I know you're lonely. Let me give you some steps for feeling better. I know you've got kind of a rough life.
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Let me give you seven copers to get through the next week. Best life now kind of things.
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Jesus fulfilling your felt needs. And basically, it becomes a Christianized Oprah, a
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Christianized Dr. Laura, or a Christianized Dr. Phil. Where the God that is worshipped is not the triune
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God of the universe, it's the person in the pulpit. Well, that could be too, a person in the pew is what I meant to say.
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Here's the gospel and it's meant to make you feel wonderful, warm, fulfilled.
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As they say in the old Disney movie, making a dollar a minute. Managing relationships, fulfillment, coping with stress.
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And basically, you know what that kind of gospel is? It's a you are special gospel and God is so lucky to have you, made
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God's day. Mark this and mark this well, people can have excellent marriages, excel at work, and have good health without the gospel.
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And so if you go around saying, you know what? I know you've got trouble in life and you're in trouble with this, that, or the other.
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And let me now give you the gospel. What do you do when you meet a person who has no trouble in life?
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And they feel good, they look good, they act well, and everything is high and fine.
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And they've got a great marriage, they love their wife, they're faithful. And now what do you have to offer them? Nothing.
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But if the greatest need is this, forgiveness of your sins, an assuaged conscience, a
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God who is no longer at war with you but loves you and is your friend, and a
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God who calls Jesus your brother because of the cross. Then you say, compared to a good marriage,
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I have forgiveness. Be careful when you have the word of God couched in this kind of language of felt needs.
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Every unbeliever needs to deal with sin. Every unbeliever needs to deal with hell. We can't preach the gospel so we act like God is lacking if you don't accept
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Him. We preach for the glory of God, not the felt needs or the perceived needs of the congregation.
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Last time I looked, 1 Peter 2, verse 8 says that Jesus and His cross are called the stone of stumbling and a rock of what?
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Offense. You just stub your toe hard enough on a rock one day down at the beach and have it split open and you'll know that's the scandal of the cross.
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For they stumble because they're disobedient to the word and to this doom they were also appointed.
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I hate to say this, but if you preach the cross to an unbeliever and you don't offend them with the gospel,
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I don't mean offensiveness, I don't mean you don't put on your deodorant and you're just obnoxious and you're saying to the unbeliever, you're going the wrong way.
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Your life is counted for less than zero. It's demerited work that you have and you need a
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Savior. Not too many people I know go, oh thank you, may I have another one of those kind of lovely comments.
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You say God hates sinners like you and you better run to the cross. God has a gun.
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You're out in the middle of a field and there's no trees, there's no nothing and God's got a shot in that gun and he's going to get you and he never misses.
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And there's one tree in the center and it's a tree of Calvary and you better run behind that tree, that's your only hope. People go, well, you know,
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I'm not mad at God. Well, he's mad at you with a vengeful holy wrath.
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You go, well, if I said that to my friends, then forget Thanksgiving, there wouldn't be a Christmas time with them.
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Well, you're probably right. But I think Tozer was right when he says, the new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him.
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It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self -respect. To the self -assertive, this new cross says, come and assert yourselves for Christ.
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To the egotist, it says, come and do your boasting in the Lord. To the thrill seeker, it says, come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship.
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Tozer says this insightfully, the Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to.
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That's a way to preach the gospel that would make it void. One man said,
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Jesus couldn't even give a marriage seminar without opposition. Same man said, men fearing preachers treat the gospel so lightly, touch it so gingerly, speak of it so generally, plead it so weakly, believe it so loosely, that the truth is neutralized down to nothing worth getting excited about.
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The day that you sit there and have you done this? I've done it. You sit there and it's in the middle of the night, you wake up and you think,
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I was running headlong into perdition and God stopped me. And more than that, his son died in my place.
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More than that, before time began, he chose me. Based on his own free will, he chose me.
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That will keep you up at night with what? Joy. If you've got the gospel that says, well, God looked down the quarters of time and sees all this and that, and therefore chooses you, that doesn't do anything except make you fall back asleep.
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It's like counting sheep. But if you say, God chose me, that's worth getting excited about.
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Wow, that God did that. It goes without saying that the gospel is about God, not about us.
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I'm glad it includes us. We need to preach the gospel so people understand the great salvation.
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Say, well, I just loosely talk about sin because people know they're a sinner. Why don't you talk about the depths of sin and preach
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Romans chapter 3, verse 19, where people are finally shut up with the law. Shut up. They can't say anything anymore because they go, based on what you say, if that's true,
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I'm not going to heaven. And then you give them the Savior. And so instead of rescuing them out of some one foot deep, shallow baby pool, you rescued them from 20 ,000 leagues under the sea of depravity.
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And they go, wow, fresh air. If you preach the gospel in such a way where you say,
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I don't really want to step on anybody's toes. I don't want to offend them. I don't want to say something that might get me in trouble at work.
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After all, it's lunchtime. I know I can say what I want, but this is going to cause me trouble. Then friends, you are tending towards the voiding of the cross because you want to dress it up in Armani or you want to dress it up in cashmere.
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Let's look at it from this angle. When we look back in church history, who are the preachers you respect?
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Who are the missionaries you respect? Who are the lay people that you respect? The ones that said with all humility, with all candor, with all lack of deserving grace, this is the only gospel.
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And I will tell it to you whether you kill me. Aren't those the people we look back and say,
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Susanna Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, Mary Slessor, William Carey.
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How about John the Baptist? How about Ezekiel? How about Jeremiah? Dressing it up, going number one rule of all churches, don't step on anyone's toes.
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That's avoiding the cross and voiding the cross. Let me tell you another way you could dress the cross up in a way to avoid it.
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And I call this dressing the cross for success, dressing for success. Now, when
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I first tried to get a job in corporate America, I was told to have successful appearance.
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Cut your hair, wear black wingtips. This is early 80s.
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Wear a navy suit, maybe a little pinstripe.
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And then a nice red power tie with a white button down shirt. That was how you show yourself successful.
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Dressing for success. How do some people dress the gospel for success? They so want success that they cut the corners.
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Are they deliberate in such a way that they will get their numbers? They will get the baptisms. They will get the attendance.
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And they take their eyes off the only person that matters when you evangelize, teach Sunday school or preach from the pulpit.
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And that is God. You preach for God. It's not success.
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It's faithfulness. I hope you like the sermon today, but I'm preaching for God. Is that the way you say,
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I've got a friend at work and I hope they like this message? I hope they respond and repent and believe. But I'm preaching for God today.
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I'm not out for success because success in the Bible often is graduation unto glory by death, like Paul.
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We can't forget our audience. That's why this kind of nonsense from this saddleback pastor who says, we want to loosen up the tense muscles of the uptight visitors.
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When your body's relaxed, your attitude is less defensive. You must be willing to adjust our worship services when unbelievers are present.
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God tells us to be sensitive to the hangups of unbelievers in our services. We're in second assumptions 12.
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I mean, I don't know where that is found. If you're an unbeliever here today, we probably have cookies for you.
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I love you. Hope people were nice to you. Come back, you know, another day. We'd love to have you.
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But you ought to consider your end, your latter end. I want you to think not about somebody else and, oh,
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I'm caught up in Tiger Woods transgressions. I'm caught up in this, that, and the other. Consider your latter end.
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And if you hate me or you hate me in person, you'll think I'm kind of nice. But I still, when you look at me, I want you to think, that guy thinks
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I need to get saved. That's exactly right. The customer isn't right in the local church.
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And I'm not after trying to make your muscles relaxed. Frankly, I hope they're tightened up a big ball and you can't sleep at night until you do business with God.
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That's the best thing I could do for you. God is a spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and with unrelaxed muscles.
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Relaxed muscles, whatever. I read of things rather in Titus chapter one, holding fast the faithful word.
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Everywhere I go in the pastoral epistles, I hear this military language, this farming language, this soldiering language, this athletic language where you say, it's time to stand up and to proclaim the truth.
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Not to try to make you feel good. Not to try to say, I wonder if this will work. We had an elders meeting two
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Tuesday nights ago. What would you think if we met for five hours like we did? It's a longer meeting.
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We met for five hours and we figured out a strategy to figure out how are we going to get the church to work? And how we want it to grow.
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In five years, we want the church to be 10 ,000 people and having all kinds of land.
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That's what we want. Friends, if that's the way you do things and that's your number one goal, then you will figure out a methodology and a preacher and a board and a congregation to get there.
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But it won't be God's way to get there. I'll tell you that. Usually when the Bible, when people preached, there weren't that many people following.
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Well, you know, how many people are at your church? What's your attendance? How much money do you have in the bank?
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I don't think it's like that at all. When George Barna said Jesus Christ was a communication specialist, he communicated his message in diverse ways with results that would be a credit to modern advertising and marketing agencies.
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Notice the Lord's approach. He identified his target audience, determined their need, and delivered his message directly to them.
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By addressing the crowds in the mountainsides or Jews in the temple, he promoted his product in the most efficient way possible by communicating with the hot prospects.
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I think if you look at the text, you will say there should be an analogy for Christianity. And it's not retail, it's farming.
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I think you'd agree with me. It's not product, price, place, and promotion.
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Last time I looked, the church was a her, not an it. And if you say this is the real gospel, but you try to promote it in a way that's like retail, friends, you are voiding the word of the cross.
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Some kind of market -driven consumerism. I'll tell you what consumers want, fast, humorous entertainment.
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And Spurgeon was right when he said, pastors, you better make up your mind. Do you feed the sheep or do you entertain the goats?
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Make your choice. And by the way, I'm not that good of an entertainer. And if you want entertainment, the
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Wang Theater is certainly better than what I can provide. The Tweeter Center is certainly better than what we can provide.
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But there's one thing those other places, one thing they can't provide, and that is this. The gospel's free.
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Free, sovereign grace to offer to all those who would look away from themselves and look to Christ Jesus.
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It doesn't matter what sins you've committed or how many you've committed and against whom you have committed them.
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It is free for you to believe and to trust. Repent of your sins and believe the gospel. It's free.
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I plead for you to come to Christ. I beg of you to come to Christ. One day you'll hearken back. If you turn on my words, you'll say on judgment day as Jesus pushes you down to bow to him as it were.
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She said, there was the offer. There was the free offer. And I must repent. God, I don't believe, but help my unbelief.
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Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. When you study the life of Christ, I don't think you'll find a marketer.
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I don't think you'll find a pragmatist. I don't think you'll find someone who says, I'm really concerned about consumerism.
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Here's what you'll find. Oh, you're having problems? Then I'll give you a bigger problem. You say, well, what's that all about?
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Turn with me to John chapter six. We need to finish here, but I think it's going to rain and then get cold tonight.
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And who knows if it's going to storm. A year ago, we had the big storm. So I think we're going to be canceling service. And so here's my
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Sunday night sermon right here. If you need to go, you can go. If not, let's take a look at the words of Christ.
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John chapter six. Now remember, early in chapter six, the feeding of the 5 ,000 men. There are probably 20 ,000 total people.
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The women aren't counted in the 5 ,000. The children aren't counted. That's a lot of people to feed. You know how much food we need to feed a crowd of 300 here?
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Here's 5 ,000, nay 25 ,000. And so, you know, it's kind of nice.
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They perceive Jesus as a walking Costco. Remember, I got back from India and from South Africa.
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I'd walk into the supermarkets and I'd go, there are 9 ,000 kinds of potato chips in America. And so you just think of just how much there is, how little of that they had back in those days.
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And so they, hey, we want a king and we want this king to feed us.
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Verse 12. And when they were filled, he said to his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost.
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And so they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets and fragments from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten.
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I mean, they ate as much as they wanted. Then therefore, the people saw the sign which he had performed and said, this is of a truth, the prophet who is to come into the world.
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This is that mosaic prophet, Deuteronomy chapter 18, except it's not necessarily about forgiveness.
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It's about food. This guy feeds us. This is an amazing prophet. We need to keep this guy around. Say, how do you get that?
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Verse 15. Jesus, therefore, perceiving that they were intended to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone.
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He knew they wanted to cuff him, put a straitjacket on him and say, by the way, you just stay over here until it's dinnertime and then we'll use you again.
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And when evening came, verse 16, his disciples went down to the sea. And after getting into the boat, they started to cross the sea of Capernaum.
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It had already become dark and Jesus had not yet come to them. Watch this miracle. And the sea began to be stirred up because of the strong wind was blowing.
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Therefore, they had rode about three or four miles. They beheld Jesus walking on the sea, drawing near the boat and they were terrified.
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He said to them, in his eye, do not be afraid. They were willing, therefore, to receive him into the boat. Here's another miracle.
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And immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. He walks on the water, gets in the boat.
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Now the boat is at land. Next day, the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other small boat there except one.
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And Jesus had not entered with his disciples into the boat. His disciples had gone away alone. There came other small boats from Tiberias near the place where they had ate the bread after the
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Lord had given thanks. It's going to get hot. Watch Jesus, the marketing specialist.
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When the multitude, therefore, saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they got themselves into the small boat and came to Capernaum seeking some lunch, seeking
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Jesus. And when they found him on the other side, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you get here? Now, Jesus knows the heart.
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Jesus knows they're not interested in spiritual matters at all. Jesus answered them and said, truly, truly,
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I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate loaves and were filled.
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You are superficial followers. And you say, Jesus, where did you go? We want to follow you. Yes, because you want to feed your bellies, that's why.
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Now, that's a good way to have some people leave your ministry, don't you think? They're seeking.
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And Jesus says, no, you're seeking fleshly things. You're not interested in spiritual things at all.
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You just want a lot of bread. You see me as some kind of home buffet
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Jesus. You just eat all you want whenever you want. Verse 27, do
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I dare read it? Are you sure you love Jesus? Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the
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Son of Man shall give to you. For on him, the Father, even God has sent his seal.
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Therefore, they said to him, what should we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.
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You say, they're getting it. They're going to get it here. We've got it. Verse 30, they said, therefore, to him, what then do you do for a sign that we may see and believe you?
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Like walk on water, like have the boat go over there, like feed 20 ,000 people. Sign -seeking always wants more sign -seeking.
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Jews seek signs. Verse 31, you know what? You're nothing, Jesus, compared to Moses. You're small time.
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Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. How many years, by the way? 40 years. And you fed us lunch.
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If I was dramatic, I'd take my finger and put it in my mouth and go, pop, big deal,
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Jesus. That's nothing. He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.
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I did a calculation. That's 14 ,600 days of food God provided to the
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Israelites. And they say 14 ,600 to one. Actually, it's 14 ,600 to one third, because we only got lunch.
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Maybe one half in those days, he only ate twice. Outdo Moses or we won't believe you.
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And Jesus says, well, thank you for seeking. Let me kind of loosen up the muscles in your neck and you'll be in good shape.
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I mean, I just love Jesus. I love it when he's tender and compassionate. And he takes care of the prostitutes and the ladies and those that need healing.
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And he's just a compassionate savior. But when people come with their own agenda and say, you do this for us,
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Jesus, he just acts differently. Jesus therefore said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it is not
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Moses who has given you bread out of heaven, but it is my father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. The bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.
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World, Lord, evermore give us his bread. I am the bread of life.
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You're going to try to cross examine me. You're not satisfied with my answers. I am the bread of life.
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He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
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Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven so that no one may eat it and live.
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And then Jesus goes on to talk about his sacrificial death. And then slide down to verse 66.
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We need to wrap up. As a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and they were not walking with him anymore.
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And you have to mark this down in your theological mind. There are some offenses that are unavoidable.
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That is the offense of the cross. It is unavoidable. And when you preach the cross, you're not trying to be offensive.
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But you will preach the real cross with love and compassion. And it is an unavoidable offense.
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And you can try to wrap the gospel up in Armani and cashmere in some kind of dress for success.
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But Paul says there's a temptation to do that. But you just take the gospel that's powerful and you make it worth nothing.
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Because the gospel has its power. And therefore, Paul says in Romans chapter 1, therefore, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
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For what? It's the power. Not marketing, not consumerism, not the way I say it, not the four
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Ps of product, place, price, and promotion. It's the gospel. So know your gospel, preach it to the people, and watch the world explode for the glory of God.
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And then there are priorities in ministry and it's the gospel.
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But let's keep the gospel away from all the entanglements that the world says are good.
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All right, let's pray. Thank you. Father in heaven, we look to you.
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To do a work through the gospel. From the pulpit of this church and from the pews as we enter out into our mission fields.
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So thankful for this church who wants to learn and grow. I pray that you would bless her. I pray that you would never let us fall into things that so many others want to do.
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Winning people into the church and then maybe give them a big Bible study on Wednesday night. All kinds of man -made things.
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Lord, help us to be pure. Help us to be undivided. Help us to be united in our goal to preach the gospel.
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And Lord, then at the end of the day when people are offended, people leave, people don't want to hear our message at work, break time.
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Remind us that that's exactly what they did with Jesus. And that Jesus trusted in your sovereign hand and we ought to as well.
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You're such a good father, a kind father. Now empower us to be bold ambassadors for your gospel.