We're going to pick up our study in this important New Testament epistle written to the Church in Corinth. First Corinthians chapter 2. We'll read the first five verses for our text today. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
But and rather my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The apostle Paul returns at this point in his writing to the preaching ministry that he had in Corinth when he first went there. The historical data for this is Acts chapter 18 verses 1 through 18.
We're not going to read that today, but it's helpful if you're not familiar with it to go back and see the background. It will give you insight as to what Paul means as he writes these five verses for us. Actually he introduced the subject in chapter 1 verse 17 where he said, Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel. And then Paul began to digress regarding the wisdom of man versus the wisdom of God.
But as he comes now to chapter 2 verse 1, he returns to that theme of his preaching ministry among them. The apostle Paul does something I think that is very important. He becomes transparent before these people. He is willing to allow the Corinthians to see inside his heart so that they may know what he's really like. That's a need among us, isn't it? Because all of us tend by nature to throw up disguises. We masquerade.
We come to church and we act as though our lives are perfectly put together and we have no problems that we face. And yet the truth is there's not one of us here today that isn't fighting some kind of a battle in his life, at least one battle. And many of us are fighting many battles. Many of us roar on many fronts. For some of us it's personal problems. For others it's problems in the home or problems in the business or financially. Maybe spiritually we're going through a tough time.
What we really need folks is to become more open to one another. So when we hurt and when we have needs and weaknesses and when we fall flat on our faces as we all do, we're willing to allow others to see that. Now I'll tell you why that's important. It's important for us, first of all, so that we're honest and we're not being deceitful. God hates deceit. And God knows what we're like. We're not fooling him. It's possible for us to be self-deceived.
That's perhaps the worst kind of deceit that there is. But it's not only important for us that we be transparent, but it's important for those around us, especially as important for new believers or even for non-believers. Here there are some times when new Christians come to a church and they look around and they see people dressed in their nice suits and dresses and they have this angelic look on their face and they see them as people who have no battles and no problems.
And they say, man, I just can't relate to that. That's not my world because I'm fighting things. I have problems and weaknesses and temptations. And I think that because we sit in church and we look very pious that we have overcome all of our problems and we have no difficulties to face. But we know the truth, don't we? It's important that others are able to see that we have needs. And there are things that we ourselves are struggling with on the inside.
Paul was willing to admit this to the Corinthians. I respect him for that. He was willing to open up his heart so that they could see how he really felt when he came to Corinth. It was good for them and it's good for us that we see Paul's heart because it gives insight as to how Paul ministered. And it tells us how we can be more effective sharers of our faith. How we can be better witnesses.
I don't think there's any of us who know Christ this morning who don't want to be more effective in this matter of sharing our faith with our friends, our neighbors, and even our enemies. How can I be a more effective witness for Jesus Christ? Well, we can if we look at what Paul was like in Corinth and follow some of his example. Later on in the book, Paul is going to say to the Corinthians, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
He was not suggesting that they should imitate his outward movements, his actions, try to be little Pauls. He was saying that they should imitate what he really is on the inside, the substance of Paul. There's a certain school that I'm familiar with and which I respect a great deal in the South, but you can always tell when a preacher comes out of that school. And the reason is that all those preacher boys preach exactly like the founder of that school.
If you closed your eyes, you would think it was that far out there in the purple. And I suppose that all of us at times have that tendency, don't we? And Paul does not want us to imitate what he was like on the outside or his actions, but he doesn't want to match his personality as he does want us to imitate what he was on the inside. As we have these insights into Paul and these five verses, let's follow them and learn how to be more effective sharers of our faith.
In verse one, we have the declaration of Paul. He says, our brethren came to you, declaring the testimony of God. The subject of Paul's declaration was, those last three words in the verse, the testimony of God or the witness of God. Some manuscripts and some translations read the mystery of God. The thought is the same. It's referring here to the gospel of Christ.
Paul says, I came to you and I declared to you the saving message of Christ, that Christ died for our sins, who was buried, and that he rose again, the third day. That is the witness or the testimony of God that Paul preached. Now, in that sense, was this a witness of God? What is God trying to witness to us by the work of the cross? God's testimony or his witness to us through the cross is at least two-fold. The cross in the first place tells us how much God hates sin.
We say Jesus Christ, God's beloved, pure, holy, sinless sin, became sin for us at the cross. He bore the penalty and the guilt of my shame and sin and yours. So let's say that God turned his back on his son. Jesus on the cross cried out, in Psalm 22, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And yet in the very next verse in Psalm 22, we learn to say, but thou art holy.
You see, that's the reason that God turned his back on his son, because God is holy and he was offended by the very presence of his own son, because his son became sin for us. And we now think of the cross. That might not be just a romantic kind of thing that we sing about, but the cross is a place that witnesses to us of God's holiness and is hatred for sin. It also witnesses to us of something else, of God's love for the sinner. For God despises sin. It's an offense to him.
God loves the sinner. Put with me John 3.16, and we have the proof text for this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God so loved the world of sinners, including us, that he gave his only begotten son. God loves us, despite the fact that we're sinners, and he gave his son to die for our sins. And so the message of the cross is a two-fold witness of God.
It witnesses of his holiness on the one hand, and it witnesses of his love on the other hand. His offense and hatred of sin, but his desire that the sinner be saved from condemnation. Paul says, I came declaring that subject. Now, once you'll notice the sense of responsibility this man felt. He says, and I, brethren, when I came to you declaring this message, notice those pronouns, I or I. Later he speaks about it being his gospel. There are some people who say that Paul created Christianity.
These are the liberal school. These people say, I don't mind Jesus so much, but as Paul I can't stand. They accuse Paul of taking the life of Jesus and creating a whole religion around it. And nothing could be further from the truth. When Paul is speaking about the gospel being his gospel, it means that God has committed this message to him and he feels a personal responsibility to give it out. Now, once you'll notice he mentions two things. He says, I came and I declared.
If it are going to be witnesses, effective witnesses for Christ, it involves those two things. We have to go and tell somebody. There are very few people that are going to come to us and seek us out and say, how can I become a Christian? Occasionally that will happen. But the pattern of the Bible is that we are to go and tell. Do you remember the story about the lepers in the Old Testament who were outside the walls of Jerusalem?
The city was besieged, the enemy was camped outside with its multiplied thousands of soldiers. They were starving the city of Jerusalem. There was a bad way to fall. Finally, these lepers said, look, we are going to starve to death here, sitting outside this city wall. If we go there, the soldiers may kill us, but let's try it out. So, early in the morning they went over to the enemy camp. But what happened? During the night, God had performed a miracle.
He had caused those soldiers to hear a sound as though Israel was all around them. They stampeded in terror and panic. They killed one another and they fell, they were all gone. And here was a whole camp of food that God supplied for a starving city of Jerusalem that had been besieged. One of the lepers said, after they had eaten a little bit, they said, we do not well. We must go and tell that there's food here for everybody.
Folks, we don't do well if we just come to church and listen to the gospel and go home and sit there all week. That's not well. The pattern of the Bible is that we must go and tell people about Jesus Christ. And Paul had a deep sense of personal responsibility for that. And notice the simplicity with which he did it. He said it was not with eloquence of words. It was not with powerful arguments of philosophy. They were just a simple declaration of the gospel, he delivered the truth to them.
Do you ever feel like you don't have enough words to explain the gospel right? I've heard people say that and I've felt that sometimes. There have been people I've talked with and I've said, you know, I just don't have the kind of background that I need to reach this person. I don't know the right kind of arguments to reach him. Folks, our witnessing does not depend upon our arguments and our skill with words.
Our witnessing, the crux of our witnessing depends upon our communication of the simple message of the cross. That's it. No fancy words, no powerful arguments, just the declaration of the truth. In fact, Paul says back in chapter one, that if we surround the gospel with a lot of fancy talk and philosophical arguments, we rob it of its power. The gospel is best presented when it's simple. I didn't say simplistic, it's profound.
But when it's simply communicated to people, that's when it's best communicated. That's how Paul did it. We are now going to be more effective witnesses if we will follow Paul's example regarding his declaration. Now in verse two, notice his determination. He says, I determine not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Paul was a man of single purpose. What did he say in Philippians? This one dozen things I do, right? No. He said, this one thing I do.
He said that we'd all be better off if we would say, this one thing I do, rather than these 10 things I dabble in. Most of us get caught up in a lot of activity in life, don't we? And we forget our priorities. Here's where Paul comes to give us a good example. He says, you Corinthians, I want you to know this. When I came to you, I had one thing in mind, period. And that was to give you the gospel. A single purposed man determined to get the job done. That's what it takes.
Paul was determined, and I want you to notice this, to communicate Jesus Christ and him not crucified. Three important thoughts there. He wanted to communicate Jesus, the person of Christ Jesus, that he was born in Bethlehem, that he lived those years in Palestine, that he went through the cross, that he died there as God substitute Jesus. He wanted to communicate Jesus Christ, the one who fulfilled that Old Testament office of the Messiah. The word Christ is the Greek word for Messiah.
And so Paul says, I want to communicate to you the person of Jesus, his office as the Christ, and the fact of his work that he was crucified for our sins. Paul said, I'm determined. I was determined that that was going to be my accomplishment among you. What are your determinations? What have you determined that you're going to do with your life for the grace of God? It's a matter of decision for us, a matter of priorities.
Our determinations in life forge the accomplishments that we someday can look back upon. Because what we're determined to do is what we get done. Paul said, I determined to communicate Jesus Christ and he did it. If we determine to get rich in this life, we can sometimes do that. The apostle warns us that if we set that as our goal, we also will have many, many sorrows.
First Timothy chapter 6. We can determine in life to have many nice things in a big fancy house or a certain position in the company. But all of those are so unimportant compared to the eternal things, aren't they? The eternal is the most important. Paul said, I determined that my life purpose was to communicate Jesus Christ. What's your life purpose? I believe that our decisions are based upon our convictions. There are certain reasons Paul determined to know Christ and to make him known.
I believe Paul has some convictions that we need to share today. Let me just list three convictions that we'll need if we're going to be effective communicators of the gospel. If we will have these three convictions burning in our hearts, we'll be determined to get the job done. Conviction number one. We will need the message I have.
If we are not convinced that the world is lost and the people outside of Jesus Christ are headed for an eternity of suffering in hell, if we are not convinced that people need that message so that their eternal destiny can be secured for heaven and their lives be put together now, if we are not convinced they need our message, we'll never communicate it. Are you convicted about that? Do people need the message you have? Conviction number two. God has called me to share this message.
I don't know why he chose Greek vessels, yes I do. We'll talk about it later. He's chosen us, you, me, for the Christ. We're not apostles, as Paul was, but we're our ambassadors. We have a commission to fulfill. God has called us to communicate this message. Are you convinced of that? If you're not, you'll never communicate the message except in a haphazard, slipshod way. Third conviction.
That the greatest thing I can give someone, and the greatest thing that can happen to them is for them to hear about Jesus Christ and trust him. That's the greatest thing a person can decide about. If I'm not convinced that's the most important thing a person needs to hear in this life, then my witnessing probably will be without much conviction and determination. If I want to be an effective share of my faith, it begins with some real deep rooted convictions.
Those convictions then make us determined. Verse 3, the apostle here shares with us his demeanor. He says, I came to you, literally, in weakness, in fear, and much trembling. Now here's a real human touch. The natural thing would have been for Paul to say, when I came to you, I came with a lot of self-confidence. And I was bold, and I was strong. That's human nature. But Paul's honest here. He didn't come that way. He said, when I came to you, actually I was fearful. And I trembled.
I was nervous. I had weaknesses. When was the last time you admitted a weakness or a fear to anybody, maybe even yourself? Have you admitted a weakness to your wife lately? If you haven't, she'll give you the list and you can pick one and admit it to her. When was the last time you admitted a weakness or a thought to a fellow Christian and said, you know, I've got a real body in this area, and I wish you'd pray with me about it, and just help keep track of me so that I do a better job.
Makes it accountable, doesn't it? We need that. We need that. That's the real world. You see, every one of us has fears and weaknesses and trembles. We're no different than Paul. We stop fooling ourselves if we're trying to. Every time I walk on this platform, I'm nervous. I'm fearful. I don't amount to mind admitting that because I know you feel the same way. But I'll tell you what I'm more scared than when I'm walking on this platform.
It's when I have to face one person and share the gospel with them. You know the feeling? Sometimes it's easier to communicate to a class than just to one person. Paul said in both my personal preaching and in my public preaching, I was scared. Now you have to think back with Paul a moment. Shortly before he arrived in Corinth, he was in Asia. And over there, you remember the Holy Spirit wouldn't let him go in one direction than another, and finally he was in the city of Choraz.
And he had this vision. And a man from over in Macedonia in Europe said, come over and help us. And Paul said, that's God's will. And they left and they went to Philippi. Maybe it's taking a great revival to break out and lots of people to be sold. What happened in Philippi? It was beaten and thrown in jail. A few people sold. And after he left Philippi, they went to Thessalonica and then Beirut. What happened in both of those cities? He was chased out of town.
And so finally he went down to Athens. And he preached the gospel before those intellectuals of his day. And what happened there? They laughed at him. They mocked him when they heard about the resurrection. They said, Paul, we'll hear you some other time. And they heard that at the time Paul left Athens and got to Corinth, here's a man who's frightened. What was going wrong? May have gone through his mind. What's wrong with me? He was nervous.
In fact, he was so much filled with fear that Jesus appeared to Paul while he was in Corinth. Read about it, Acts 18. Jesus appeared to Paul and said, Paul, don't be afraid. And when I read this about Paul, frankly there are two reactions. First, I'm a little bit encouraged. I know that I'm not the only one who's scared when I'm showing my faith. Everybody is. It's normal. If Paul was scared, then it's not so unusual that I'm scared. Fear is universal.
If you're afraid to show your faith, join the club. But just remember this. What are the kind of fears? Courage. Courage is not the absence of fear. It's obedience in spite of it. It's doing the right thing even though we're scared to death. So even though Paul had fears inside, he nonetheless was a courageous man because he did what God told him to do. There's a second reaction I had as I see Paul's confession here. There's one of rebuke to me.
Because you know there are those occasions when I feel very competent and capable to handle the circumstances. Paul didn't feel that way, even with his great ability. In fact, Paul looked upon himself as nothing but an earthen vessel. Not even a vessel of gold or silver, as he writes to the Corinthians later on in the second epistle. He said, we are just earthen vessels that God has chosen to use. He looked upon himself as a weak person.
Maybe he's referring to the physical weakness that he had because of the foam of flesh. We don't really know. If Paul saw himself as weak, we ought never to see ourselves as very capable. Our confidence is in the Lord. It better not be in ourselves. Oh, there's a right kind of self-confidence. I don't mean that. When we feel that we can rely upon our strength and our wisdom, etc., etc., we're in trouble. That's Paul's demeanor. I can learn some things about my witnessing by verse 3.
Look at verse 4, Paul's demonstration. Paul did not demonstrate an ability to convoke people or to manipulate them when it came to a point. In fact, Paul was not concerned about his, quote unquote, converts. That's what Paul's a lot different than some preachers today. Paul abhored cheap emotionalism and superficial thinking and the use of tricky words to get people to convert. You see, the Corinthians would have picked up on that immediately. The Corinthians lived in a commercial city.
They were used to salesmen. We didn't get used to salesmen. Isn't that right? We can build up a resistance to sales, and salesmen are always going to more seminars to find out how to overcome sales resistance. Sometimes my resistance is very high and sometimes when it's pretty low. In fact, I've gone to some of the seminars where they teach salesmen how to sell so I can learn how not to buy and how not to be pressured. It's kind of interesting to see some of the mental tricks that are used.
We had a home show in Cincinnati several years ago and there was this place that sold our smoke detector equipment and heat detector equipment. They were selling these units for about a hundred bucks a piece. We didn't know what you could buy them from the drugstore. But of course, these were very special and had all these gadgets on them. They said, we will give you a free fire extinguisher if we may come to your home and explain to you how our equipment works.
I turned right then. I was not going to buy that fire detection equipment, but I was going to get that fire extinguisher. So I signed a card and sure enough about three weeks later, ring, ring, hello, I come out and show our equipment. I was like, yes, come on, die not the bird. He came in, sat down. For two hours, he used every trick in the book to try to get me to buy those things. He showed me pictures of children who had been burned.
You know, those whole guilt trip. Don't you love your children? He was so furious when he left there that he almost didn't give me my fire extinguisher. I got out to the car and got in an aerosol can and that was my fire extinguisher. So I was the sucker, I wrote, but I didn't buy his equipment. Paul said, when I came to you, I didn't try to use tricky means to get you to convert to my message. That was not the demonstration. He says the demonstration was the power of the Holy Spirit.
So did our witness be careful of using trick words or psychological packages so that people easily convert that's not genuine? There is to do that. You can get people to read a prayer or to say a prayer and it's no more a part of repentance and faith in their life than the man on the moon. Sometimes it is, but you have to be careful. Paul said the power is the proof of my ministry.
Now, look at Acts 18, you don't see one miracle. There's now one lame person who's healed, now one blind person who's given sight. That was the power then. That was the power of conviction as Paul simply declared the gospel. He didn't manipulate the crowds. Have you ever seen a crowd manipulating a preacher? I've seen preachers who get crowds to say amen to blasphemy. Literally. Because they were so capable of whipping up emotions and crowds.
Now Paul, he wasn't concerned about that. He did not manipulate. He preached the gospel. The Holy Spirit brought conviction and people were saved. Just that simple and that powerful and that profound. That's how we witness too. I believe also when he talks about the power, he's talking about the power that produced transformed lives among those people. The Corinthians were an interesting group of people. We're going to find that in a few chapters.
If you wanted to gossip, the place to go is the Corinth. Because you could look around in that church and see people who were in other sin that you can imagine. But God transformed their lives. They were rushed and they were sanctified and justified. And God did a wonderful thing in their midst. That was the proof of Paul's ministry. That was his demonstration. Now finally in verse 5, we see Paul's desire. Let me tell you first what Paul did not desire.
Paul did not want these people to place their faith in him or in any form of human wisdom. Human wisdom includes religion. Religion is a big deal. It's not only a money maker, but it's also a kingdom builder. A person can build a good kingdom in an area or in a country by starting a religion. But it's human wisdom. It's man-made religion. Paul doesn't want these people to place their faith in a man-made religion.
He doesn't want them to place their faith in their philosophies that they're argued about. Or in science or in politics. And politics was a big deal at Corinth. He says, I want you to place your faith, notice it, in the power of God. In the power of God. God's power can do what human wisdom can never do. It changes lives. It resurrects people from the dead spiritually and gives them eternal life. Human wisdom can never do that. But God's power does do it. Do you know what power in your life?
Has God saved you and given you a new heart, a new life, a new purpose, a new destiny? As we look over these verses, what are some of the lessons we can learn about witnessing? How can I be more effective in sharing my faith? Let me mention five things to you in summarizing our text today. Number one, as I witness, I need to stick to my subject and not get sidetracked. There are times when people try to sidetrack us. But I need to stick to the subject. What is it?
The testimony of God. Paul says, I came and I declared the testimony of God, the gospel in other words. We need to avoid our arguments over issues, over denominations, over secondary theological issues, and stick to the subject of the gospel. It's not always easy, but that needs to be our goal. The second lesson that I see regarding my witnessing is that I need to remember that it's my responsibility to go and to tell. And then it's the Holy Spirit's responsibility to produce the fruit.
We often get caught up in this thing. If I witness to somebody, they've got to make a decision today. No one. If they don't, they get depressed and blue and think, oh, we've blown it, and so on and so on and so on. The whole thing is a pack of lies. When we share the gospel with somebody, we have done our job. From that point on, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about conviction for sin and repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, we need to pray, we need to encourage that we ought not to coerce converts. Got that? My responsibility is to go and tell. I'd better do that. I've got to give an answer to Jesus Christ someday. But it's his responsibility after I've told the message to produce the fruit. Lesson number three. I will go and tell if I am convicted that it's the right thing to do. Because they made my message. God's told me to do it.
And the greatest thing that can happen to them is that they trust Jesus Christ to be saved. I will go and do that if I'm fairly convinced it's the right thing to do. Are you convinced about that? If you're not, we'll never go out and witness. If we are, we'll do it. Fourthly, I need to accept fear and weakness as a normal part of being a human being. Some people like to think that they are supermen. They're that they're big hoax, you know.
They are macho, no weaknesses, no fears, they're learning. I need to understand that the weakness and fear is part of being a human being. But that somehow God and his wisdom has chosen to use me anyway. And I cannot use my weakness and my fear as an excuse for not doing what I know is right. And finally, when I share my faith, I must be careful to do it for the glory of Jesus Christ and not for myself. I hear some people bragging about how many souls they've won to Christ.
And they're reminded that a gunfighter in the old west who has the matches in his gun, the people he's cut down, they have a soldier in the cavalry who had the scouts of the Indians tied to a saddle. When I share my faith in Jesus Christ, it is not for my credit or my glory, it is for the glory of the other women. That must be the motive if God is going to be honored and get his work done.
But in those lessons we watched Paul here, having looked into his heart because he made himself transparent, let us now apply these lessons. And as he tells us later, let's imitate him in our witnessing this week and be faithful communicators of the greatest message that any human being can ever hear, the most important message that he needs to hear, how to get from this place to heaven. Let's bow together. Do you know how to get to heaven? Are you on your way there?
If you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, or if you have questions today about what it means to be a Christian, we have a prayer room that's available for you, and when we dismiss I want to encourage you to go there. Stand on the hallway to your left as you go out the door. Someone will be waiting there for you to talk with you. They're not trying to pressure you, to force you to do anything. They simply want to do a help.
If we can pray with you or explain anything to you, please come. Heavenly Father, I pray that those who may be here today and who are not sure about heaven as their eternal destiny, know before they leave this church today, make that most important thing certain. Give them the courage, do the right thing. Continue to knock on their heart and grab them. I pray that someone, some friend who's here today will be saved.
And then, Father, may all of us who've trusted Christ, surely the majority of us, follow through on the example that we've been given. We thank you for Paul's willingness to admit his weaknesses. We can identify with Paul because of that. And with Paul, we want to be people of single purpose. God, forgive us for having so many other priorities and activities that make us people who have the single purpose of knowing Jesus and making him known. We pray this in his name. Amen.
We're going to close this minute.