This month has gone fast, hasn't it? Let's pray together. Father, we stand amazed in the presence of Jesus, the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love us sinners, condemned, unclean. How amazing is your love and your grace. I pray, fathers, we look into your word today. Our hearts will be open. May the Holy Spirit be mightily present to be our teacher. We pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
My wife and I were privileged to be in Minnesota for a few days this week, and the reason for that is going to be on the screen right there in the lower right-hand corner. Her name is Taylor Genay, and she was born a couple of weeks ago, so we were able to hold her in our arms and enjoy her a little bit this week. And my grandson, Jordan, demanded equal time because he wasn't put on the screen last November.
And so we were giving that to him, and he and his folks are with us this weekend, and we're excited to have them here. He came to celebrate the first birthday of his cousin. And so we've had a great time with our family this weekend. While we were in Minnesota, by the way, the North Pole and Minnesota are not the same. Did you know that? You can see the North Pole from there, but it's a little south.
But anyway, my cousin, my grandson, Connor, was trailing behind me as I was headed off to the restroom to get myself cleaned up for the day this week. And so I turned around and I said, Connor, you wanna see a picture of a monkey in my mirror? He says, yeah, so I showed it to him. Great old grandparent trick, right? He was not happy about that. He didn't like it. So I looked and I wasn't happy either. I wasn't happy either because mirrors, you see, show us what needs to be adjusted.
A mirror for a messy face is a good thing, but what do we have when our attitudes or our thinking are messy? Well, the answer is God has given us a mirror in His word. In your notes, you have a text from James chapter one. It says, do not merely listen to the word. Listening is good, but do not merely listen to the word. And so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it, he will be blessed in what he does. Paul gets out a mirror now for the Corinthian church because you see, this church was messy. There was quarreling going on.
They were spiritually immature. It was showing. They were harboring some bad attitudes. Things were ugly in Corinth. They remain locked in the wisdom and the way of thinking of their culture, their pagan culture, out of which they had been called to faith in Christ. Even though they were believers, they were still focused a lot on themselves and their fleshly desires. They still had evidence of subtle pride in their lives. What's the middle letter of the word pride?
It's I. Pride is when I am in the center. Instead of dividing around the preferences of human leaders, they should have been united and connected with God and focused on God alone. And so Paul holds up a mirror for them so that they can take a closer look. He reminds them again of their calling. Paul has mentioned the fact that they've been called several times already. I invite you to open your Bible and look with me as we begin in verse 26 of 1 Corinthians chapter one.
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. The word think there is literally see. He's using a word that means more than a quick glance. He says, I want you to see by meditating, by contemplating what you're looking at. Take a look in this mirror and don't quickly glance away. Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential.
Not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things. And the things that are not, the things that are nothing, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him, God, that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God. That is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
Therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. Paul reminds them of their calling in Christ Jesus. Now, that is a theme that Paul uses here. What does he mean by this calling? Here's how I would define it. The calling is God's sovereign action. You may want to fill in the blanks in your notes. The calling is God's sovereign action, whereby he summons a sinner to respond in faith to the gospel, enabling him by grace to believe on Christ. That is the calling that we receive.
When the gospel is preached to us and we respond in faith to Jesus. Paul further emphasizes this whole idea of God's calling of us by three times in the text I've just read saying, God chose. God chose, he chose. What if God had not called? Well, the result might be what John Allen, who used to minister for the Salvation Army and another generation said on his deathbed. He said, I deserve to be damned. I deserve to be in hell, but God interfered. Folks, I want to tell you something.
If God's calling had not been extended to you and me, if he had not interfered in the direction we were heading, we would never have turned around and believed on Christ. Paul says, I want you to remember God's calling. There is no room for human pride at the cross of Jesus. None of us can say that our salvation is because of something we did. It is God who is the initiator of our salvation. Paul says, I want you to look in the mirror and think more carefully about your calling.
He wants us to have a closer look at our calling. And I'll warn you this, I'll warn you about this, that a closer look at your calling to follow Christ may result in an attitude adjustment. Just as looking in a mirror may call for an adjustment in how you've combed your hair, or it may call for you to remove something from your face.
I don't know what it is about getting older, but I'll be sitting across the table from my wife during a meal and she will go, why can't you feel crumbs on your cheek anymore? You understand this? I don't understand this. You look in the mirror and you see things, oh my, look at that. This camera gets too close as far as I'm concerned. When you and I take a closer look. Don't tell anybody you went to the terror movies this weekend. Anyway, a closer look at your calling.
In Jesus Christ may result in some adjustments needing to be made in your attitudes. Paul says, I want you to take a close look in the mirror. And first of all, consider us whom God chooses. He talks about this in verses 26 to 28. And he frankly says, those who receive God's calling and who inherit salvation are not those whom the world's wisdom would have selected. The world has a certain way of evaluating people. Have you noticed this? The beautiful people. The A list. The talented people.
The people who are worthy. If the world were going to select the people who should get the gift of salvation, who would they pick? They would pick the wise. They would pick the mighty. They would pick the noble. The ones Paul points out here. The intellectual elite, the educated. They would pick the mighty. That is those who are the political elite. The powerful, the influential. They would pick the noble. Those who are the well-born. Those who went to an Ivy League school.
Those who are on the A list, the A social list. The ones who are the most admired people in the world. Those who are the most listened to, the most honored. And it's these people who often boast of themselves as well. Paul says, not many. And that whole category has God called, not many. Lady Huntington, who lived in another generation and was a friend of the Wesley brothers, said that she was saved by an M. Because she said the verse says that God did not call many.
Thankfully, it doesn't say God didn't call any. Because she was elite, she was wealthy. She was one of the aristocracy in Britain. But God had called her to faith. Saved by an M. Then who does God choose? Those who receive God's calling are those whom the world discards and discounts. Who are they? The foolish, Paul says. The weak things, the lowly things, that is those who are low-born, probably meaning slaves. Many slaves came to faith in Christ in the Roman Empire.
He says God calls the despised things. Those are not thought very well of. He calls the things that are nothing. The nobodies, the zeros in society, the outcasts. God calls those who are below the bottom rung of the social ladder. Those include the Dalits of India. They include the hillbillies of the mountains. They include the illegal immigrants. They include the orphans of the world.
The lonely, the poor, the oppressed, the desperate, the hungry, those who often have no hope in this world and are looking for something. God's calling goes to them. Aren't you glad for that? Because what that means is that God's calling has come to us. There are not many of us who would fit into that category of the well-educated and the social elite and the politically powerful.
Some may, and I will say to you, if that's you, then you of all people should be thankful for the grace of God, because God has not called many of you. God's calling primarily goes to those in the world who the whom the world discards and despises. May I say to you, welcome to the family of God? Where do you fit in? To anyone who begins to feel heady about his status with God. Paul says in essence, get over yourself. It's not about you.
Look at those whom God has purposely called out of this world to belong to him. Consider those like us who've been called by God. Look at that in the mirror. Does it fit you? Have you been called? Then there's really no reason for pride, he says, because this calling comes from God. God chose us. It wasn't something we did. It humbles us. It causes us to say great is the mercy and the love of God. Amazing grace. Paul says, I want you to look in the mirror and consider those whom God chooses.
But he says, secondly, I want you to look in the mirror and consider why God chooses people like us. There are three reasons why God chooses the poor and those who are despised. Why God chooses the outcasts of the world to shower his grace upon. Why God chooses people like you and me to be his people in the world. There are three reasons. In the first place, God wants to shame the thinking or the wisdom, the way of looking at things of the world.
Verses 27 and 28. The wise, the strong, the some bodies of this world are put to shame by what God does. They're disgraced. Their wisdom, their way of thinking is nullified. It's reduced to absolute nonsense. What God can do through an unlettered, insignificant, nobody upsets the world's evaluation of who's important and who can succeed. The world, frankly, would look at most of us and say, you don't have what it takes. God looks at us and he says, let me show them.
And so, God and his grace looks down on a little street boy in Korea. Born of an American serviceman in a Korean prostitute, perhaps, cast out onto the streets. No shoes, no food, he begs, steals, does whatever he can to survive. One day, he's picked off the streets, put into a home, and a couple from Minnesota adopt this little boy. And they're Christians, and they raise him to know Christ as his savior.
And this little boy grows up to be a good athlete, goes to college, decides to drop out for a while, never gets back to school, doesn't have a degree even to this day, but God has used him and his testimony. He had nothing going for him. And yet today, without a degree, he's an executive in the company, and people with master's degrees are answering to him. God says, I'll show you what I can do.
God looks down upon a family that is very poor, they have nothing, absolutely nothing, except a little boy. And from the time he's seven years old until he's 13, he's often left in the care of a neighbor, a man who sexually abuses him. He complains about this to his parents, they don't believe him. They can't imagine their friend would ever do this. And so whenever they leave him with the neighbor, they say, now you do whatever he tells you to do.
Until he was 13, he was able to stand up for himself. And then in high school, he came to faith in Christ. God called him. This little guy who was a nobody, he was a little guy who was a little guy. Who was a nobody, somebody's toy. God calls him to himself. And this little guy has the ability to speak. And he grows in his faith and when he gets into college, he begins to debate communists and atheists on his campus, in the public forums of his university. He goes on in life to write books.
And most of us here have read his books, helped us to understand the foundation of our faith. He doesn't have an advanced degree, but God's given him a mind of a researcher and a photographic memory. I have one too, but unfortunately the film never got put in the camera. But he's got the real thing. Never forgets anything he reads. Today he speaks all over the world. He's written books that have been sold to millions of people.
Now the world's wisdom would have said, here's a victim, he can never amount to anything because of the terrible abuse in his life. God says, oh yeah, let me show you my wisdom. Let me show you what I can do. You see, God's wisdom takes the nobodies of this world and makes them somebody. And in doing that, he shames the world and its wisdom. Secondly, God does this in order to stop boasting before him. God says, there's going to be no boasting before me.
The story is told of a proud woodpecker who was tapping away one day at a tree, an old dead tree in a forest. And while he was tapping away, the clouds roiled up and a thunderstorm moved in. He kept on working and it wasn't long before a lightning bolt came down out of those clouds and shattered that tree into a hundred pieces. And that slightly scarred and scorched woodpecker flying away, yelled to his feathered friends, look what I've done, look what I've done. And that's just how we are.
So often, look what I've done. But the truth is that anything good that happens through us is the doing of God, right? Can you say amen to that? It's God doing it. You see, God chooses people like us so that when good things happen, no one can boast before him. We can't say, look what I did. We have to say, oh God, I am amazed at what you're doing. A third reason that he chooses people like us is to show the glory of God.
The fact is that if anything meaningful is accomplished, it is God, it's not us. Paul quotes this verse from Jeremiah chapter 9. It's verse 31 here in 1 Corinthians. Therefore, as it is written in Jeremiah, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. If we're going to boast in anything, it needs to be in our God.
The one who has saved us, who has called people like us into his family and says, I'm going to take you with all of the hardship and all of the difficulty and all the brokenness of your life, and I'm going to make something of you. You're going to be my poem, my work piece, my masterpiece in the world. And we look up and we say, oh God, to you be the glory. Great things you have done. Paul says, look in the mirror.
Before you get stuck on yourself, look in the mirror and see those whom God has chosen out of this world and understand why God chooses people like us. Paul says, I want you to look in the mirror and consider also what God's choice of us means, what it means to us. The ramifications of it in our life, we find this in verse 30, where he says, it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
Literally he says of him, you are in Christ Jesus. Again, he emphasizes the fact you are in Christ, not because of something you've done to gain that, but because of God and his choice. That's the only reason. But because of him, you are in Christ Jesus and you have God's wisdom in Christ in your life. You see, the Corinthians were still playing around with the wisdom of their age.
They were still allowing themselves to be conformed to the thinking of the world around them, out of which they had been called. Its values, its belief system was still impacting them, even though they were believers. And that's why they were in the trouble, that's why they were in the mess they were in. That's why Paul is calling them to look in the mirror.
He says, I want you to put away the world's wisdom that is causing all of these problems, and I want you to understand that you have the wisdom of Christ. All of God's wisdom is yours in him. The sum of it is this, Christ himself is all we need. Christ himself is all we need for anything, in this life or in the life to come. There's a paragraph I've put down for you. I think it's in your notes, it's also on the screen. I'd like you to read it out loud with me.
It says, God's wisdom in Christ is more than cognitive truth. It means possessing all that is needed to live life well as his child. It is having the mindset, the worldview, that provides understanding of who we are, the world we live in, and what the future holds. Think about that. You see, the wisdom of God is more than cognitive truth, it's more than theology. It's understanding that comes from that. It's understanding who we are, the world we live in, and what the future holds.
In other words, God's wisdom basically answers, fundamentally answers, the very questions that the world wisdom has searched for millennia to answer. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? And where am I going? What comes after life? Is there anything after life? We gain three life-changing benefits from our union with Jesus Christ. These benefits essentially parallel and answer the three questions I've just mentioned. He says, you have the wisdom of God in Christ.
He says, that is, number one, righteousness. Righteousness. Christ has made righteousness for us. Now the word righteousness reminds us of our past justification. The fact that when we came to Christ as Savior, God declared us righteous in His sight. It is a legal benefit that we have as His people. Our standing with God has been revolutionized. It's been entirely changed. You say, well, how does that relate to any of those questions? Well, the world is asking, who am I?
Wrapped up in this word righteousness is the answer to that. Let me tell you how. If I am declared righteous with God, it must mean that before that I was what? I was unrighteous. So I asked myself, why was I unrighteous? Where did that come from? Well, it came from the deeds of my life. Why do I do what I do? Because I'm a part of the human race. Why is the human race in the mess it's in? Because the human race is descended from Adam and Eve.
And you see it takes us all the way back to the beginning in the book of Genesis. And it begins to help us understand who we are. Who am I? I am a descendant of Adam and Eve, a member of the human race, marred by sin. And that sin causes me to be separated from God. I am unrighteous. I am hostile toward God. And because of that, I bear guilt and shame in my life. How can I be rid of my shame? How can I get this guilt off of me?
And the world's wisdom comes along and it says, oh, don't pay attention to that. That guilt and that shame is just self-induced. Or it says, well, you're a victim. You were abused as a child. You were born that way. It's part of your genetic makeup. It's because of this or it's because of that. You can't blame yourself. Don't feel guilty. God's wisdom says, I can fix your guilt. Because I can give you a whole new standing with myself. My son, Jesus Christ, is my wisdom. He's my way of thinking.
He's the way I look at things. And through him, I can make you righteous in my eyes. I can remove your guilt of sin. That's God's wisdom. Is that better than an excuse for what we do? It's to have a right relationship with God and to know that as far as God sees me, He sees me as righteous as His Son. Because you see, God took all of my unrighteousness and He put it on His Son at the cross. And He paid the price for it. And then God took all of His righteousness and He put it on me.
It's as though one night, I owed the bank a billion dollars and I earned the salary of $10,000 a year with absolutely no hope of ever paying that back. And in one moment, someone comes into my life and he says, I'm going to absolutely eliminate your debt. Oh my goodness, my debt's gone, absolutely. But that's not all. I'm going to put a billion dollars in your account too. Is that good? That's a good deal. That's what righteousness means. And I have no reason anymore for shame.
I don't have to walk stooped and shamed as a man. Because God sees me righteous in His Son. That's God's wisdom, folks. That's a benefit. You say, well, yeah. But I still do things in my life that I wish I didn't do. God says, I'll take care of that. Let me help you with that. He says, my wisdom is not only righteousness. He says, my wisdom is holiness or sanctification. And here's the second benefit of our union with Christ.
It goes to our present and the present transformation that God is making in our lives. This is the empirical benefit. The other was legal. It's a legal standing. Here's something I experience. The fact is that none of us are perfect yet. God has called us saints. He's called us holy people. But we know that we're not living up to that yet. We still have sin that lives in us. We're not perfect. God says, let my wisdom take care of that.
Because through my wisdom, I'm going to give you a new nature, number one. The world's wisdom says, let's clean up your old nature. Let's either make excuses for it or let's counsel it or let's give it shock therapy or let's drug it or let's dose it with alcohol or let's anesthetize your old nature with substances of some sort. We'll take care of what you're facing that way. God says, no, no, let my wisdom take care of it. Because my wisdom gives you a new nature.
It gives you the Holy Spirit who begins to work from the inside out to make you a new person. My wisdom gives you victory over satanic powers in your life so that when Satan comes to you with temptations or lying voices in your mind, you're able to deal with those voices and silence them. He says, let me make you what I want you to be. Because he says, my purpose in my wisdom is to make you like my son, to reflect his image. That's God's wisdom.
So the world is struggling with this question, what's my purpose in life? What's my purpose? Why am I here? God says, I'll tell you why you're here. I have made you to love me so that I could love you. And my purpose is to change your life from the inside out. If you want to be an engineer or a teacher or a maid or a cook or a preacher, then whatever you choose is fine. But my real purpose for your life is to make you like my son.
And I'm going to transform you little bit by little bit over the course of your life to be like him. That's your purpose. Progressive change from old patterns, the creation of new patterns in our life. But it doesn't stop there. God's purpose for us, God's wisdom for us in Christ embraces a third benefit and that is what he calls here redemption. Redemption. And I understand this to be a future expectation. He's dealing here with a hopeful benefit. He's looking to the future.
The world is struggling with this question. What happens after I die? Is there anything beyond this life? And it basically answers the question in our day by saying, no. When you check out, that's it. There's nothing more. You just cease to exist. You don't remember anything. You're not even in existence. God says, let me give you the real story. Here's my wisdom. Here's where I'm giving you in Christ. It is a future hope.
Because I want you to know that not only have I forgiven all of your sins and given you Christ's righteousness, not only have I given you the Holy Spirit and a new nature and I'm making you a new person little by little so that you'll be like my son. But I'm giving you something to look forward to. That's what Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8, when he talks about the redemption of our bodies when Christ comes. He says, someday I am going to resurrect even your body from the grave.
What I have given you in the wisdom of my son is not only for this life, it's forever. There is hope in the future. You can expect that to take place. The world says you're an accident. That what you are is by chance and your life has no purpose whatsoever. And when it's over, that's it. Oh, what despair that is. What despair that leads to. This last week, we had another teenager in our community who committed suicide. That's because the world has no answers.
But for those of us whom God has called, there's redemption. A week ago, yesterday, I went to visit Gail Barnes. Gail has been a member of our church and the last five years has battled against cancer, bravely, courageously, with wonderful faith. But it was very clear that she was getting close. I said, Gail, it looks like the Lord's going to call you home soon. And she said, yes, and I can hardly wait. Friends, that's God's wisdom. Later in the evening, I went to see Al Cheney.
By the way, a service for Gail is going to be held this Friday night at 7 o'clock at Central Christian Church. And so you can mark that down if you know her and her family. But I went to see Al Cheney, who's also dying of cancer, a longtime member of our church. I walked in the room and Al said, well, Pastor, it looks like this is final. I had heard that. I said, well, Al, how do you feel about that? He said, I am so excited. Can you imagine anything better than going to be with Jesus?
Folks, that is God's wisdom. That's the redemption Paul is talking about here. It's the hope of the future, that there's something beyond this painful, brief life, and it brings joy to us. I picked up a book for my wife last fall as part of a present. It's by John Ortberg. It's called The Life You Always Wanted. And we like it so much, we got it for our kids. And I would urge you to get the book, The Life You've Always Wanted.
John Ortberg preaches up on the peninsula these days at Meninal Park Presbyterian. There's a paragraph in the book, as I was reading it this week, that captured my attention. He says, to a large extent, joy overflows from a certain kind of thinking. That's what Paul is saying. Thinking like God does. Thinking about God's wisdom. It goes on to say, the New Testament writers were engaged not so much with some form of positive thinking as in what might be called eschatological thinking.
That is, they viewed all events in light of the resurrection and the ultimate triumph of the risen Christ. That is God's wisdom. Are you looking at your life that way? Let's title this together. I began by saying, we need to look in the mirror. When we look in the mirror, it often requires some adjustment in our lives. This morning, we've been looking into God's mirror and what His Word says about our calling as the followers of Jesus. Who we are. Why we're here.
What God's purpose is and what the end of all things is. If you haven't looked at your calling in Christ for a while, your life can become untidy. It can become messy and disorderly. Your behavior can get in disarray because we're living by one wisdom or the other. Paul says, I want you to think like God thinks. I want you to see your life through God's wisdom. The fact is that just like the Corinthians, all of us can be divisive and get ourselves out of balance.
Like them, we can become proud and think that things are all about us. Like them, we can act out wrong thinking and ways, behaviors and patterns that dishonor the Lord and destroy others. We can also get discouraged with sin in our lives. We can think that life is about having fun or getting things. We can even fall into depression and despair about the aging process or the end of our lives. What does God want us to do?
It is to turn away from the world's wisdom and turn to God's wisdom for our lives. When you and I do that, our lives will be changed. We will build others up, not destroy them. We will avoid disaster. We will experience the abundance of life that God wants us to know. That's why Paul writes as he does. The bottom line in the message is this. I need to know who I am so that I can become who he wants me to be. Paul says, you have gotten it all messed up, Corinthians. Look in the mirror.
See who you are. See the benefits you have in Christ. And then become who God's called you to become. In doing that, you will save your own life and you will save the lives of others and be a blessing to the world. Folks, that's the life that God calls us to live. Christ is all we need. Let's not depend upon the things of the world, only upon Christ. Father God, show us where any of us have begun to think and thus behave like the world. Help us to see that in Christ we have everything we need.
And to begin viewing life through your wisdom, not our own, not the world's. Oh Father, I pray that you'll help us to turn away from the world's wisdom. And to follow after the wisdom you give us. Help us to see who we are in Christ that we might become who you've called us to become. And this I pray in Jesus' name. I'm going to sing a closing quote.