Trusting in the Decrees of God

Amen. We've been looking for the last few weeks, at Paul's letter to the Corinthians, his first letter. And, we're gonna look at that for a few more weeks to come. The main re reason we are doing so is, because this letter, especially the first four chapters, they show us what a church should expect of its pastor. And it shows what a pastor should expect of its church.

And and what a church should really be what what's the foundation of that church? One of my former professors and friends, he was the, he was the warden at Tyndale House, which is the research library at Cambridge. And he would lead excavations every year to Corinth. He has spent his life studying the Corinthians, and and God just kinda caused our paths to cross and we became good friends. And over and over, he would always tell me, when you get a church, Joel, when you're finally pastor of a church, what you need to do is take time at the very start and go over the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians.

So it is absolutely crucial, and he's Australian, and he would say, especially for a church in America, especially for a church in America, you need to go over those first four chapters. And so we're gonna do that. Actually, we're gonna look at the whole book, but we've been concentrating on these early parts. 3 weeks ago, I gave kinda the background to Paul's letter to the Corinthians, and this is extremely important if you want to understand what's going on. Paul stayed in Corinth for about 18 months establishing this church, which was a lot longer than he would normally stay in other places.

But Corinth is a very important city. It's a it's a port city. It would get lots of traffic through it. So so you have all of these merchants traveling through. It's a very young city, it's less than a 100 years old at this point, and everything was new, everything was growing.

It's actually larger than Athens. It's 500,000 people. And it's one of the very few cities, in the Roman Empire where you could actually go up or down in your social standing. And all the other cities that have been there for so long, your your social status is fixed. But here it's a new city.

Money's being pumped in here. People, they can they can get wealthy or they could get poor. Their social standing is everything to them. And so people would go to Corinth for that reason, to see if they could rise up that ladder. And it was here that Paul planted a church.

It was a church that was small, but it was a church that was growing. And after 18 months of establish establishing this church, Paul, he leaves, and the church begins to stray begins to stray. And the problem is not so much that Paul, he established this this church in the midst of this environment in Corinth. It's it's that Corinth was beginning to work its way into this church. The, the city was, instead of the church impacting the city, the city was beginning to impact the church.

And so Paul fires off this letter that we looked at, it was very impromptu, I mean, very just spontaneous. And we, we saw that when he'd say, I hadn't baptized any of you except for this person. Oh, and maybe except for this person. Oh, and, well, if there was any others, I can't remember. And you could just he writes that in the first chapter and he could tell he's just flying through this letter.

It's very important to get this to these people very quickly. The gospel's at stake. One of the ways, in which the, the, the, I guess the, the way of Corinth began to creep into the church was through these people called Sophists, which were these orators, these, these, rhetoricians, speakers who would come into a city. These were self proclaimed wise men. They would enter into a city, and they would give a speech at the gates, and people were enthralled with them.

We have records of thousands of people coming to hear these speeches at the city gates. Thousands coming as an orator would come in here, as a sophist would come in. And we looked at a few weeks ago, they had great physiques. I mean, they they pumped weights, they shaved all their body hair, they they rubbed oil in to try to look like gods as they came in, and they would show off their wisdom. The the first thing that they would do is when they entered a city is they would give this prepared speech to wow everybody.

And which they wanted to, to boast about their nobility, boast about their social standing, boast about their wisdom and their power. And then after they wowed the people with that, they would say, no. You introduce the topic. You've seen how good I am, but this is you haven't seen anything. Now I'm gonna do a little impromptu act.

You introduce the topic, and I will speak. I will show you my wisdom in all things. And so people would give him a topic, they would give this orator a topic, and he would jump right off the bat, and he would speak on it. The rewards for a Sophist, if he was a really good Sophist, were great. If they were accepted into the city, and not all were, but if you were really good and you were accepted into the city, parents would pay a ton of money to have their children study under you.

These children, they would be called disciples. You were their teacher, you and they were your disciples, and they would be completely under this Sophist leadership. These Sophists would instantly become one of the elite in the city's, society. They would often be given a position of power, even in government, because they could control the crowds. They'd be given a position like a lawyer, given some civic responsibilities.

And people were in awe of these people. They were the embodiment of wisdom, which is what we looked at last week. Wisdom mentioned 22 times in 1 Corinthians, just the first three chapters, 22 times. These sophists were the embodiment of it, of wisdom, of wealth, and of power. That's the background you have to understand when reading this.

It's crucial to understand this because now you know what the expectations were when Paul went into this city. Paul goes into Corinth, he goes into the city gates, he begins to speak. So instantly there are expectations put on him, Here's another Sophist. They expect a leader. They expect one who could wow them with their, you know, their speaking skills.

One who could put them in a good social standing. One who would be the very embodiment of wisdom. And Paul could do this if he wanted to. Paul had, you know, we we've seen Paul has had an amazing training. He has had a great education. He is intelligent. He is a gifted speaker. He has spoken spoken to rulers. He has spoken to mobs. He he is a very gifted man.

Paul could do this, but look at how he does enter Corinth. And actually, look how he enters Thesalonica first. Because he enters Thesalonica the exact same way he would later enter Corinth. He's moving down, and he enters Thesalonica first. First Thessalonians 2.

Listen to this chapter verse 1. Says, for you yourselves know, brothers, that are coming to you, and that's a technical term that coming to, that's the entering in of the gates here, was not in vain. But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or attempt to deceive. But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed. God is our witness. Nor did we seek glory from people. Now go back to 1st Corinthians. Look at chapter 1 verse 17.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Look at verse 22, For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Look at verse 26. For birth. Those were the three boasts of the of the Sophists.

Remember? That they were of noble birth, that they were powerful, that they were wise. Says, look at you. None of you are that. Says, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. And look at chapter 2 verse 1. And when I came to you brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God. Did sorry. And when I, and I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

For I decided to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ and him crucified. You don't introduce, you don't give me a topic ever when I come into the city. I have only one topic. I know only one thing. It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. No Sophist would boast that. And my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And we could go through a number of these texts, all through the New Testament, in Paul's letters. Paul is very purposefully here trying to be the anti Sophist very purposely, which I think is the exact opposite of what the American church does.

We we try our hardest to be seen as very wise and very sophisticated in society. That's the front we want to put forward to the world. You know, you can see this if a celebrity ever becomes a Christian. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, you know, Deion Sanders becomes a Christian, which, I know very genuine, I'm sure. The next week, he's in a pulpit. The next week. You see that over and over with celebrities. Why? Why would you do that? Because we're enthralled with status.

Look. Look. The church, we really are somebody. You know why we're somebody? Deion Sanders. That's right. Deion prime time is here. And you see Christianity isn't just for those outcast losers. Look, we got people like this. Kirk Cameron, you know, we got we got all these people here.

And and so we we pull our celebrities up there. We instantly throw them behind a pulpit because we have an inferiority complex. And we want to impress the world. We come up with very slick brochures, billboards, websites trying to impress people. Paul told the Thessalonians that he did not come attempting to deceive.

He was very I didn't come to deceive you. Think of what most of American evangelism is based on. I can't tell you how many times I've thought I have picked up a $20 bill on the ground. Wow. It's a $20 bill. That's a track. You know, you're like, you know, you flip it over, and it's like, you want real wealth in heaven? You know, or the evangelistic Frisbees. You think you're just throwing a Frisbee. No, it's an evangel Frisbee.

And it and it walks you through the gospel. And you know you invite people, Come to this Super Bowl party. It's gonna be a whole lot of fun. You did this as a youth. They would all come and wait before we watch the Super Bowl, we're gonna listen to this speaker for 30 minutes.

And it's a bait and switch. The church deceives anything to get them in the doors. You look at a lot of the church billboards and it advertises their coffee and their doughnuts. One one church I won't name, I saw a billboard and it advertised a supermodel coming next week. Come hear the supermodel and Starbucks.

Anything to keep them in the door. Get them in there. We're the same way. And we think it's all justified. We can justify it because we think anything, so we can we can justify it because we think anything so we can share the gospel.

Anything to share the gospel. And and the fact is when we look, God has worked through those things, or I would say God has worked despite those things, because he will always work. But is it really honoring to him? Is this how he wants to work in power? Is this why the American church is a mile wide and an inch deep?

Paul's gonna have none of it. None of it. He goes to great lengths to distance himself from this group because he wants the people's faith not to rest on the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. Look at chapter 1 verse 17 again. This is an amazing verse.

Paul's confidence is in the gospel, the wisdom of God, which is what Jeff did a great job explaining last week. Says, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be empty of its power. Do you see the contrast? Words of eloquent wisdom, if you choose that, you empty the cross of power. And just let that sit.

I mean, what what is it we push so much as the American church? To be eloquent, to be slick, to be to be, you know, very loud and bright and shiny and bring people in. He says, you do that, you empty the cross of its power. That shows where you're putting your faith. As a church, we can only trust in one of those two things, either words of eloquent wisdom, that's worldly wisdom, or we can trust in the cross.

And I want us to trust in the cross. My my job as a pastor is not to wow you. It is not to, to come up with the world's best marketing campaign to get people in here. That's not it. My my my job as a pastor is to point to the cross because the power is not made, the power is in the message.

The power is in the message. You actually, most people don't know what the word gospel got its roots from, the very word gospel. You know, you say, What does gospel mean? And everybody's gonna say, Good news. Its roots are actually a lot deeper than that when a king, wanted to give a message to the people.

When He wanted to, He made a law or a proclamation. He would get a scroll and He would hand it to His messenger, and it would the scroll is called the Euangelion, where we get the word evangelistic or, it's it's where we get the word the euangelion is gospel. So I was translating into Greek. He would hand the gospel. And because you have a good king, that message, of course, would be good news.

Good news. But here's where the church has got it backwards. They think that the power of the message is with the messenger. It's the messenger who comes in, and you know has to clear their voice, and get all attention, and you know, and read it just the right way, thus saith the King. It doesn't matter who the messenger is.

The power is in the king who gave the message. And so you can go with fear and trembling, much trembling, and just speak it, but the power comes from the person who sent it. Paul understands that. He said that the power is not new. The power is in the the gospel message itself.

And when you are clear in presenting that, you honor the king. You don't distract from the king, and his power is present. So I'm not going to preach morality because that's not going to help you. I'm not going to preach self esteem, that's not going to help you. I'm not going to give you self helps because that will only damn you.

Only the gospel will save you and transform you. And so as a church, we're constantly gonna be pointing to the redemptive work of the cross. The Corinthians, they had a little too much Corinth in them. Look at chapter 3, we're finally getting there. Look at this first four verses again.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are ready for it for not ready for it. And even now, you are not yet ready. This would have come as a slam to the Corinthians. I mean, this would have just this was a, you know, right cross right there hitting them.

I mean, we're not spiritual? We're not spiritual? Our whole church speaks in tongues. We have every kind of spiritual gift there is, and you're telling us that we're not filled with the Spirit? I mean, anytime we want to study what does it mean to to look like a a Spirit filled Christian look like, we always turn to 1 Corinthians.

1st Corinthians chapters 12 through 14, there it is, all the spiritual gifts right there. The church of Corinth embodied that and Paul looks at him and says, You know what? No. You're babies. You're babies.

I I had I had to give you milk. I had to give you milk. And then Paul goes on to say, the reason for this says, for you are still the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you none of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

Now what in the world does Paul mean when he says, being merely human? We are human, but we're not mere human. You know the the church, this church, churches all over the world, are filled with people who seem to have the fruits of the spirit. Filled with them. You know the fruits of the spirit, you probably if you went to Vacation Bible School, I could sing you the song.

You know, I've got tree or fruit, whatever it is. I won't do it. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. It's been a while, but I think those are the fruits of the spirit. And you look at those qualities, you'll find those in the church and out of the church.

They're out of the church also because of common grace. You're gonna find kindness outside of the church. You're gonna find gentleness. You're gonna find self control outside of the church. I mean, don't you know some people who are really, really kind?

Some non believers who are really, really kind, more kind than you? Common grace. God, by his common grace, he he enables all of humanity to have some goodness in them. He showers His grace in all of mankind, so we're gonna see those qualities everywhere. But you don't have to be filled with the spirit to have those qualities.

A non believer can have joy. There's probably a lot of non believers who have more joy than some of you here in this room. Some of us have just learned these traits. We're kind not because the Spirit of God has made us kind, we're kind because we know kindness works. It works in society.

You know, you you you kinda wanna do well in your job, you gotta be kind. You wanna manipulate your parents growing up, you gotta be kind. You know, kindness goes a long way, and and it works in society, and so we've learned to be kind. That's not a work of the spirit, that's just a cultural learning. You know, or or it could be patience.

You you've you're patient not because of any special work of the spirit, you're patient simply because you know patience will get you what you want in the end. You're patient for very selfish reasons. And so I think a lot of people in the church, they look at it like, I've got some great, you know, spiritual fruit here because I'm really kind. You're like, no, actually that's not the spiritual fruit of kindness. You can find that outside of the church.

That's not a spiritual fruit of self control, you can find that outside of the church. You're fleshly, not spiritual. Some of us are resting in common grace, not in God's spirit. We're being merely human, like the rest of the world, the best of the rest of the world. That's merely human.

And so we all have these natural strengths and virtues. One of the ways that that I kind of evaluate, is this really a God given, Spirit filled fruit in my life, or is this just me? Well one I ask, am I growing, and are others other fruits being added? Some of you have, you know, you have hung your hat on self control for 5 years now. Yep.

I'm I've got that fruit of self control. All the others still stink, but self control. Got it. Filled with the spirit. If the Spirit of God is really working, you're growing in all of those.

You're always making progress. We don't need to be resting on common grace. Another one of the reasons that Paul says that they are behaving like mere humans is because they're trying to pick a leader to follow. Look at verse 4. It says, For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another says, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human?

You can compare that with chapter 1 when it says, Some of you say, I follow Cephas, some Apollos, some Paul, some of you are saying, Christ, are we divided here? We do the same thing today. But we, we might not call them Paul or Apollos. We might say, Hey, I'm Baptist. Right here, Baptist. No, I'm Presbyterian. No, I'm Calvinist. I'm Armenian. And we just we that is who I am. And if you're not that, you're wrong.

You're absolutely wrong. And so we call them by different names. And and just as the Corinthians found their identity and their leaders, we might do it through a narrow theology, we might do it through a style of worship. You know what I, it's liturgical. I'm, I I believe in liturgical worship.

And other person's like, no, no, no, I believe in freedom. So you don't believe in freedom? And so you you you start dividing the church there. What happens is we we moralize these things. Like if you like liturgy, it's no longer, hey, I just I like liturgy.

It's, you know what? If I were to be honest, I kind of feel superior to those who don't like liturgy. Because, you know, I really It's not a moral issue, liturgy or non liturgy, hymns or praise songs. You know, we we, you know, Calvinists, I'm a Calvinist, and and and a lot of my friends do it all the time to Armenians. Oh gosh. Armenian. You look down on them. You've moralized it. It's not just a theological issue, it is now a moral issue. You're not being obedient.

You Armenian? That's what you're thinking, you might just say, mhmm, you're wrong. But we moralize things. I I listened to a message by Tim Keller. He said he noticed this in a wedding.

It was a wedding between a mixed couple. It was black and white, and, all the white people were there right at 6 o'clock when it started, and there was about 5 black people there. They all came in about 20 minutes late. And the reason is, like, late is a white term, because they came in right on time according to the the the black culture schedule there. And he said he could look around and he could see the whites restless, and like, how disrespectful.

I mean, well, I mean, it was 6 o'clock, and here they come in just strolling in. We moralize these things. That's just a cultural difference, but we moralize them because we want to fear spiritual. You know, an older generation sees somebody young wearing a hat in a church, moral issue. That person's sinner.

You're like, it's a hat. You know? And but we have these things because we want the high ground. We're always striving for the high ground, and we're gonna use whatever issue we can. We're gonna hold on to it, and we're gonna say, see, this is why I'm up here and you're down here. The Corinthians were doing the same thing. Paul says, no. I laid a foundation. It's the gospel. The gospel is grace, and grace dissolves all of that.

Nobody's on a pedestal before the cross. Nobody. Man, so much here, and we gotta I'll jump to the end. Paul says what he is building is a temple. It's a temple of the Lord, God's Spirit.

When Paul says in verse 16, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you, that you is plural, and that means when we gather together. It's not a singular you, it's when we corporately gather together, God's presence is in our midst. We are a temple. So don't fight. We'll go to the very end here.

Verse 21, So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours. And you're Christ, and Christ is God's. If I, ever have to preach at a funeral, this is the text I'm using right here. These Corinthians, they're they're they're wanting so much. They're they're they're fighting over nothing.

And Paul says, don't you know everything is yours? You don't have to fight it. It's yours. For as much as you are in Christ, everything is yours. As much as you serve Christ, everything else will serve you. It doesn't have dominion over you. And he says, you know, whether it's Paul or Apollos or Cephas, he says that, We serve you, you don't serve us. He says, or the world. The world is yours. Kind of a big thing there.

He doesn't say, will be yours, is yours. Present tense, the world is yours. Then he says, life is yours. Death is death. How is death yours? It's because when the people who, you know, when you die, and the people put you in the ground, all they are is a gardener. That's it. Because it's actually the beginning of your life. Death is no longer something to fear, death is yours. You own it.

You don't fear it. These things have been given to you through Christ. The present is yours, the future is yours, All of this is yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. Let's quit bickering. Let's quit trying to impress.

Let's quit trying to climb up there, or the the ladder. Be people of high social real And that's my prayer for us as a church, is that we come into a realization of these things, that we actually begin to trust the gospel, not just as the message you're saved by, but as a message you live by, and you never outgrow it. The gospel isn't milk, and then you move on to meat. The gospel is your meat. It's your milk.

It's your meat. It is your sustenance, and we never outgrow it as a church. That's where our confidence lies. That's where the power of God is. If you would pray with me. Well, I thank you for your word. It's on your word that we rest, certainly not on my ability. We're meeting in a gym. We've got almost no money. I look around, and we've got some gifts, but boy, not like other institutions.

We don't have much to offer, but that's okay because all we have to do is cling to Christ. We have the world. We have life. We have death. We have the present and the future in Christ. I pray that we would trust you in that, and I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.