Open this morning's service with
hymn number 35 from your hardback hymnal. Let's all stand together.
Hymn number 35, Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven. Praise my soul, the King of heaven,
to his feet thy tributes bring. Ransom healed, restored, forgiven,
evermore his praises sing. Alleluia, praise the everlasting
King. Alleluia! Praise the everlasting King! Fatherlike, He tends and spares
us, well our feeble frame He knows. In His hands He gently
bears us, rescues us from all our foes. Alleluia, widely yet
His mercy flows. Alleluia, widely yet His mercy
flows. Angels in the height adore Him,
ye behold Him face to face. Sun and moon bow down before
Him, dwellers all in time and space. Alleluia, praise with
us the God of grace. Alleluia. Praise with us the God of grace. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to
be in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 this morning. 1 Corinthians chapter
2. Let's bow together and ask the
Lord's blessings on His Word. Merciful Heavenly Father, we
come before Thy throne of grace in the name of Thy dear Son.
Thanking you that we have not only acceptance, but that we
have your promise, your love, the hope of our adoption. We pray, Father, that you would
send your spirit and power to open our hearts, open your word. to open the windows of heaven.
Pour out a blessing on us, Lord. Reveal to us the glory of Thy
Son. and cause us to find him to be our all and to find him
to be in all. We know that in the volume of
the book it is written of him. And so we ask that you would,
that you would anoint your word and reveal to us the mystery
of your gospel and your grace and your mercy. For truly father,
we come to you as sinners. Oh, how we need. Your grace,
how we need Lord for you to have mercy upon us. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. When Paul said in verse 2 of
2 Corinthians chapter 1, for I determined, it was my resolve,
it was my judgment, that's what that word is most often translated,
judgment. I made this judgment. I made
this resolve. I made this determination. that I would know nothing among
you save Christ and him crucified." Now certainly Paul was a very,
very well-educated man and had knowledge of many other subjects. But he knew that the one thing,
the one thing that that we need is to know Christ. And the one
place where we know Him most completely is at the cross. Christ and Him crucified. All
the glorious attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ are revealed
most clearly and most powerfully at the cross. His immutability
that now we work we were talking about this before the service
the one it seems to me that the one attribute of god that manna
pervert and change well a pervert change all of them but it seems
like it starts with immutability uh... god doesn't change he's
the same yesterday today and forever The Lord Jesus Christ
went to the cross because it was God's purpose from before
time ever began that that was the means by which we would be
saved. Even in the garden when the Lord
said, Father, if there be any way this cup can pass from me,
let it be. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.
It was the will of God. It was God's immutable will,
God's unchanging will, God's unchanging purpose that would
send the Lord Jesus Christ to the cross. I am the Lord and
I change not. The God of man's imagination
is a God that mutates. A God that changes. I've had
people say to me, well, you know, God must not be finished with
me. He's still got things he needs
me to do. God doesn't need anything. We're in need of Him. And we
don't give to God anything. He's the glorious I am. He's self-existent. He's independent. He's not derived
or dependent or contingent on anything. He is the immutable
God of glory, and we see that most clearly at the cross. Why would the Son of God go to
the cross and be crucified except that it was the purpose of God. Men talk about God's plan of
salvation or God's plan, God plans this or plans that. They're
speaking from ignorance because they're suggesting that a plan,
if you have a plan, well you've got a plan A and a plan B and
a plan C and plans change, don't they? The scriptures never speak
of God having a plan. Our God is a God of purpose,
and He's immutable. And when Paul said, I profess
to know nothing among you save Christ and Him crucified, we
see the immutability of our God most clearly at the cross. If there was any other way, No,
there's no other way. This is the purpose of God. There's
no plan B. There's no other option. For
this cause was I born, and for this reason came I into the world,
to bear witness unto the truth. I am the truth. The Lord Jesus
Christ set His face like flint towards Jerusalem. The purpose
of God cannot change. Our God does not mutate. He's
not depending upon us to do anything in order for Him to be able to
accomplish His purpose. His purpose stands. Paul said,
I profess to know nothing among you. I've determined, I've set
this as my judgment. We could talk about a lot of
other things, but of what value would they be? of what good would
they be for a sinner to hear of any other subject other than
the God who is and the God who changes not and the revelation
that he's made of himself most clearly at the cross. Look how
he starts out this chapter, he said, I brethren when I came
unto you came not with excellency of speech You can look it up. That word speech is the word
logos. It's the word for word. And Paul said, I didn't come
to you with fancy words. I didn't come to you trying to
impress you with big words. You know, doctors and lawyers
use big words. You know why. They could explain
what they have to say a whole lot easier than they do, but
it's job security. you know if i use a word that
you can understand then you're dependent on me to interpret
that and know what it means and preachers do exactly the same
thing they do exactly the same thing they use big words and
flowery speech in order to try to impress men and uh... self-professed theologians you
sit there and listen to him and if you don't know christ you
don't know the truth and the simplicity of the gospel you'll
sit there say and you'll be impressed Boy, that's deep. I don't know
what he said, but it sure sounded deep. That's what Paul said.
I didn't come to you with excellency of words, with flowery speech. I didn't come to you with hard
to understand things. I came to you with the simplicity
of the gospel. In another place he said in 2
Corinthians 11, I fear lest by any means I fear less by any
means as the serpent beguiled Eve through subtlety, so your
minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ
Jesus." And that's what he's saying here. Paul could have boasted of his
degrees. He could have boasted of his pedigree and all the knowledge
that he had, that he had learned He said, I determined, I determined,
I set it as my judgment not to know anything among you save
Christ and Him crucified. All the glories of Christ speak
unto you with a wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God. Don't you love it when Peter,
James, and John went up with the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration
and there was an appearance made of Moses and Elijah, the law
and the prophets, and the veil of our Lord's humanity was taken
away and the radiance of his deity shined forth like the noonday
sun so that the disciples were forced to the ground. They buried
their face in the dust. And the Lord conversed with Moses
and Elijah about what would be accomplished at the cross. That's
what He talked to them about. What was going to be accomplished?
Everything that Moses represented. The law was going to be satisfied. It was going to be fulfilled
through the immutable sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ would
make of Himself to the Father to satisfy the demands of the
law. What about Elijah? Elijah was symbolic of all the
prophecies that God had ever made from the very beginning
when he said that the seed of the woman, speaking of Christ,
would crush the head of the serpent, which was the devil. And that's
what the Lord Jesus came to do, to destroy the works of the devil. and to go into the very pits
of hell and bring forth those are held captive by him and uh... and that's what he conversed
with moses and elijah what he would accomplish at the cross
and uh... peter foolishly wanted to build
three tabernacles remember one for moses one for a larger one
for christ and that whole story ends like this and when they
looked up They saw none but Jesus only. Jesus only. We're not looking for Moses.
We're not looking for Elijah. We're not looking for excellency
of speech. We're not looking for human wisdom. We're not looking for philosophy.
We're looking for Christ. If you're a sinner, you're in
need of a savior. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
everything to you. He is all and He is in all. And here the Apostle Paul, one
of the most brilliant minds that ever lived, said, I determined. I didn't come to you with excellency
of speech. Rhetoric was uh... what was very very popular uh... made by the greeks in uh... in the first century uh... flowery speech using play on
words and to impress men with uh... with with with lectures
that was that was very very popular among the greeks and that's what
paul's referring to it's very popular today particularly in
religion particularly among self-professed
theologians. Rhetoric, that's all it is. They just want to wow men with
flowery speech. Paul said, I didn't come that.
The simplicity of Christ. I determined not to know anything
among you. saved Christ and Him crucified. When the angels came
and announced the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ to those shepherds,
what did they say? Unto you is born this day in
the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. So the very
beginning of his life here on earth was announced by these
angels as being the Savior. That's what he came to do. He
came to save sinners. Now whatever other problems you
might have, they're all rooted to that, aren't they? They're
all rooted to sin. That's the root cause of all
of our problems. and the Lord Jesus Christ came
to save sinners. Lord, do you need saving? Do
you need a Savior? You don't want to hear about
anything else. Don't use excellency as speech
preacher. Don't talk over my head. Don't
preach at me. Don't preach above me. Preach
to me. Tell me about Christ. when the
Lord Jesus Christ himself began his public ministry in Luke chapter
4. He went into the synagogue in
Nazareth and he opened up the scriptures as was the custom
and opened them up to Isaiah chapter 61 and read that passage. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. Now translated, that means I
am the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Savior of sinners,
the Deliverer of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me. And then he concluded after reading that, this day has this
scripture been fulfilled in your ears. And so what did the Lord
Jesus Christ do? He preached Himself. He preached
himself. And then when the Spirit of God
came, what did he do? He anointed the believers to
preach Christ. And the scripture says, daily
and in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach
and preach Jesus Christ. He's the sum and substance of
our message. He's the one we need to hear
about. Tell me about Christ. Do I lose sight of Him so easily? I get enthralled and enamored
and distracted with the things of this world. Point me back
to Christ. And the Lord said, As the serpent
was lifted up in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up. And if I be lifted up, Now he's
talking about the cross there, wasn't he? The serpent was put
on a pole. And those that had been bitten
by fiery serpents, that's a picture of our sin problem. And the one that was put on a
pole was made in the fashion of a serpent. Why? Christ bore our sins in His body
upon that tree. God made Him who knew no sin
to be sin for us. And the Lord said, if you look
upon that serpent, you'll live. You'll live. The venomous poison
of sin will not kill you if you look to Christ. And then the Lord said, and I,
if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself. Now there
he's talking about the preaching of the gospel. He's talking about
what Paul's talking about here. Preach Christ. Tell him about
who I am. Tell him about what I've done.
Tell him about my glorious accomplished work and my nature of immutability. I'm not dependent upon them for
anything. I'm not a God who needs your
will or your works or your wisdom in order to make what I've purposed
come to fruition. I've purposed it and I'm going
to accomplish it. What comfort, what hope. If you
have a God that needs you to do something, you've got every
reason to be afraid. You've got every reason to be
afraid. he's not able to save you all
by himself he's dependent upon you to exercise your will or
to accomplish a work in order for him to be able to do what
he wants to do in order for his plan to be fulfilled and that that's that's that's
the root that's the god of of religion gotta pray this prayer
you gotta do this work you gotta be gotta Act like this. Walk this way. Talk this way. I determined, oh Lord, give us
that determination. That's my prayer. I pray the
Lord would make us so determined. that we would speak of Christ,
that I'd be able to preach of Christ, that you would hear of
Christ, that you would hear His voice and follow after Him, that
Christ will become everything to us. It was in the New Testament
church. Christ was everything to Christ, and rightfully so. everything in heaven and everything
in earth he is all and he is in all and God has given him
preeminence preeminence in the church he's the immutable God
who fulfilled the purpose of God at the cross everything he
did was according to the purpose of God every word that he spoke
was not his own word it was the words on the father Every thought
that he had, every step he took, every decision he made, everything
he did was in perfect obedience to the Father. Why? Because God
Almighty had a purpose for his life. And he accomplished that
purpose. When he went to the cross, he
brought to fruition the purpose of the father laying down his
life for the sheep satisfying God's divine justice fulfilling
the law once and for all I determined I determined I've said it as
my judgment it's it's it's my passion not to know anything
among you now we we you know I I hope you you %uh are proficient
as proficient as you can be and continue to become more proficient
in whatever career you have in your life you should know as
much as you need to know as much as you can know about that but
what benefit is that to a sinner's soul we live in an age i remember
uh... years ago we used to play a game
called trivia pursuit you remember that uh... now you know you just turn on
your phone is just full of trivia and it's rightly called trivia
because it's trivial it's just all trivial isn't it just a lot
of information my uh... my mother likes watching uh... what's it called uh... jeopardy Jeopardy and I watch
these people on Jeopardy and I say, man you spent all your
life learning all that information just to win a few thousand dollars?
What, you know, what a way to waste your life. You know, just
accumulating in your mind a bunch of trivia. And knowledge puffs
up. Men love knowledge, don't they?
And they love to impress each other with how much they know. Paul could have impressed us
with a lot of information about a lot of things. What's he say? I determined. I have said it as my judgment. It is my resolve not to know
anything among you save Christ and Him crucified. Lord, make
that our resolve. Make that our determination.
He's the one we need to know about. all this other you know
it just didn't just wear you out to to be around somebody
just wants to just wants to espouse all the trivia of their knowledge
and you just think you know i don't know about that i don't care
tell me about christ let's talk about the lord jesus christ and
when believers are together that ought to be he ought to be the
the the subject that we want to talk about now everything
else What do you know about Christ? Tell me something about Him.
You know, like I said, in our careers, in our world, whatever
we have to know and do, fine. But my soul and your soul, if
you're a child of God, you need to talk about Christ. You need
to hear about Christ. You need to think about Christ.
And just leave all that other stuff alone. you all you're doing
is boring people with it. Isn't that true? Look at verse 3. For I was with
you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. When I consider the gravity of
the subject that we are in need of. When I consider the glory
of Christ, who am I to speak of Him? How can we even scratch
the surface, much less plumb the depths of the glory of who
He is? Yet the Lord has given us His
Word. And so, everything we know about Christ, we learn about
Him from His Word. We know about His immutability
from His Word. We know about His justice from
His Word. God's satisfied with Christ. He's put away the sins
of His people once and for all. He did it at the cross. We learn
something about the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ from
His Word, don't we? Holy, holy. That's why Paul said
I came to you with much trembling and my speech was not excellent. Why? Because I'm talking about
something that's beyond my comprehension. He's holy. He's holy. He's other than we are in every
way. He's not like us in any way. If we're left to ourselves, what
are we going to do? We're going to create a God that's
like ourselves. Here's where you erred, the Lord
said. You thought that I was altogether
as thyself. I'm holy, holy, holy, the Lord
God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
my glory. I'm not like you in any way. I don't mutate. Everything we know about mutates. Everything. In time, this metal
stand will be back in the soil of the earth. It'll rust and
it'll return to the earth. Yeah. In time you're about your,
you'd see your body mutating every day. Don't you? Uh, you
know, this building one day will not be here. It won't be here. Everything, everything is changing
except there's one thing that never changes. And he hath done
whatsoever he wills with the armies of heaven and all the
inhabitants of the earth, and no man can stay his hand." Oh,
what a glorious God we have. When he went to the cross, he
glorified the holiness and the justice of God. And he did it
immutably, unchanging. We learn something about the
righteousness of God at the cross, don't we? We see the righteous
words and actions of the Lord Jesus Christ in His life, but
we see most glorious His righteousness at the cross, where He offers Himself up to
God. And God accepts the offering
that Christ makes of Himself. Why? because he was righteous,
perfect, sinless, harmless, separate from sinners, offered himself
perfectly to God. I determined not to know anything
among you. I did not come to you with excellency of speech
declared unto you. Notice in verse 1, back to verse
1, the gospel is called the testimony of God. In the first chapter
is called the testimony of Christ. You know, men love to give their
testimony. Our testimonies are subjective
at best. They're our own experience. Let's
talk about the testimony of God. Let's tell because that we have
the we have the revealed truth of that testimony made for us
in Scripture. Christ is the testimony of God.
He's the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Everything we're ever
going to know about God we're going to discover it in the glorious
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, we see the meek and
mild Savior reaching out and healing people and speaking kindly
to sinners, but we learn most clearly about the love and grace
and mercy of our God at the cross. At the cross. He would go to
the cross and suffer being forsaken of God? Because of his love for
his bride, for his people, the mercy of God, the grace of God,
the love of God, it's most clearly revealed at the cross. That's why Paul said, we're going
to preach Christ and Him crucified. Because the crucifixion of the
Lord Jesus Christ is where, well, even the word cross in the English
language We get it, we get our word, it comes from the word
crux. And when we speak of the crux of the matter, what are
we speaking of? That's the heart of the issue. That's where it all comes together.
And that's where everything comes together at the cross. It is
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the crux of the matter. We have reason to tremble. We
have reason to fear when speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ and
what He did at Calvary's Cross. It doesn't keep us from speaking
of Him. We're not saying, well, I'm too afraid to speak of Christ.
No, we speak of Him. But we speak of Him in a spirit
of fear and humility and submission. We don't throw the name Jesus
around like you hear religious people talk about. If you hear
preachers talk about the Lord, they don't call Him the Lord
Jesus Christ. They don't speak of Him in fear
and trembling. They say, well, you know, Jesus
did this and Jesus did that. And they throw His name around
as if He was just another man. We speak of Christ. We talk about
Him. He's everything to us, but we
do it with great trembling and great fear. We know that when we talk of
Him, we're talking about the Lord. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom. I didn't try to
manipulate you. I didn't try to wow you. I didn't
try to, we didn't entice you with rhetoric
and with the wisdom of men. We prayed before we spoke and
we asked God to take his word. How are we going to speak in
the power of the Holy Spirit? These words are not by private
interpretation, but holy men of God wrote as they were moved
by the Spirit of God. Somebody asked me in the last
week, who wrote the Bible? So God wrote it. He used men
to pin the words, but it is nothing less than the Word of God. And
so if we're going to preach not with man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power, we're going to have to speak God's
Word. you listen to you listen to false prophets today and see
how much of God's Word they they actually refer to uh... and how much they speak about
Christ it's not where they speak about some dead theologian they
speak about some uh... uh... current event they speak
about pop psychology they they try to make things relevant to
your life and to your circumstances and uh... and they miss the demonstration
of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the demonstration
of power. We don't come with the wisdom
of men. Turn to me to 1 Thessalonians,
1 Thessalonians chapter 1. How do I know if Christ has been
heard in the demonstration of the Spirit and in power? How do I know if I've heard of
Him? Well, here's what Paul says. Here's what God says. Look at
verse 4, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Knowing, brethren, beloved,
your election of God. I know. I'm looking to Christ. I have great hope in knowing
that I'm loved of God and that the only reason I'm loved of
God is because He chose me in Christ before the foundation
of the world. He didn't look at me and see
something in me that He was impressed with or something in me that
He needed. Beloved, your election is of
God, for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also
in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. If I don't have assurance of
my salvation, God hasn't spoken yet. I want you to be sure. I don't
want you to just have some information. I need for the Spirit of God
to minister grace to my heart so that I know I'm a child of
God. I have assurance. I have hope. I have peace. I
have comfort. You say, well, I don't have that.
Don't quit until you do. Ask the Lord. Lord, speak to
me. Give me assurance. Give me hope. Don't let me fool myself in thinking
because I've got some Calvinistic information and knowledge that
therefore I'm a child of God. Lord, I need for the Spirit of
God. And God will give you His Spirit if you ask Him for it.
He promises that. He said if you being evil know
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask Him?
Ask Him for His Spirit. The gospel is not going to come
with assurance just because of the words of men. Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in
much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you
for your sake. For you became followers of us
and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with
joy of the Holy Ghost. The Word of God comes to you,
it's going to come in much affliction. It's going to reveal the affliction
of your sin. It's going to set you at odds
with everybody else and everything else in this world. It's going
to come with much affliction. You want to try to avoid the
afflictions of the gospel, you're going to have to avoid Christ. when he comes he said I did not
come to bring peace I came to bring a sword to set you at odds with members
of your own household and your own your that your your own loved
ones will become your enemy that's what the God that's how the gospel
comes so I don't want that we not gonna have Christ you know
I've Christ friendship with the world is enmity with God you
cannot have it both ways You cannot have it both ways. I'm
sorry, this is the Lord speaking. We cannot be at peace with men
and at peace with God at the same time. It's not gonna happen. Now how do I know if the gospel
has come to me in the power of the Holy Spirit? Number one,
he has set me at odds against myself. I loathe my flesh. My old man
is an enemy to me. He's a dead corpse that I'm carrying
around every day and the most clear evidence that I'm a child
of God is the acknowledgement of my old man who is nothing
but sin in me. That is, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. Second of all, he has set me
at odds against the world in which I live. I'm a stranger
in this world. I'm at odds with all the philosophy
of this world, with the standards of this world, everything in
this world, the values of this world, both religious and irreligious. I'm at odds against them. I'm
an odd man out. I'm a stranger. I'm just a weirdo. I don't fit. I don't fit. So I don't know if I want all
that. I want to love myself. And I want other people to love
me. And I just want to be at peace with myself and with everybody
else in this world. If that's what you want, you
will sacrifice peace with God. Paul said, I did not come to
you with excellency of speech. I didn't come to you with some
sort of philosophy. that's going to help you get
along better with yourself and get along better with the world
I came to you with the gospel and I profess to know nothing
among you save Christ and him crucified and he's all and he's in all
and if you're if the Spirit of God has brought the gospel to
your soul you know what I'm saying right now what God says is true
and he's he's everything to you in alright let's let's take a
break th th