Let's open tonight's service
with a hymn from the softback, number 59. 59, and let's all
stand together. Hallelujah, Christ is reigning. The name of the Lord is our great
and high tower. We run to him, trusting his infinite
power. Hallelujah, Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. Our Savior, who died to atone
for our sins, is exalted on high, and He sovereignly reigns. Hallelujah! Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. Though tempted and tried, we
are not in despair. Our Savior is ruling, so why
should we fear? Hallelujah, Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. Yes, Satan may roar, but he cannot
devour. For Jesus has broken the serpent's
dread power. Hallelujah, Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah, our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
you. We trust you, our God. God's sovereign decree, and His
covenant shall stand, and all who trust Jesus are safe in His
hand. Hallelujah! Christ is reigning. Praise Jehovah,
our God. Sovereign Savior, we will praise
You. We trust You, our God. Please be seated. Good evening. I want to welcome
our brethren back from Sarasota. They took a few weeks off during
the holidays and they're meeting back again tonight. So, um, joining
us online. I want to read a passage of scripture
from Hebrews chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13. Carla, it's good to have you
and Bob here with us. Always a blessing. We'll begin reading in verse
8 of Hebrews chapter 13. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday
and today and forever. I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. He's not. He's immutable. He doesn't change based on circumstances
like we do. He remains the same. He's established
a covenant of grace whereby he has committed himself to save
his people, and that cannot be changed. Nothing we can do to
add to it. Nothing we can do to take away
from it. I am the same yesterday, today and forever. Be not carried about with divers
and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart
be established with grace. Oh, I hope the Lord will establish
our hearts with his grace, causing us to cast all our care upon
him, not with meats which have not profited them that have been
occupied therein. Touch not, taste not, handle
not, all the rules and regulations of man, profit a man nothing. If the heart is not established
with grace, then everything else is works. We have an altar, whereof
they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle, This altar
is not in the front of the church. This altar is in our hearts. And that's where the rule and
reign of the Lord Jesus Christ in his grace takes place. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the camp. All those old Testament
sacrifices were typical. of what would happen when the
Lamb of God came. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he
might sanctify, make holy the people with his blood, suffered
without the gate. They took him outside the city
to Calvary, to Golgotha, and he suffered there. Let us go
forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. If we're going to know anything
about His grace in our hearts, it will be outside of man-made
religion. For here have we no continuing
city, but we seek one to come. Oh, Lord, don't let me put down
my roots here. Don't let me cling so tightly
to the things of this world that I lose sight of my goal, my hope. That heavenly, heavenly city
comes down from God. By Him, therefore, by Him, therefore,
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to His name. Let's pray. Our heavenly father, how thankful
we are that you've provided for your Children, an advocate surety,
one who has secured our salvation by the sacrifice of himself on
Calvary's cross. Lord, we pray that you would
draw us to him. Lord, we are in such need of
thy grace, more than we could even know. Lord, we thank you
that your spirit has caused us to know that our sin lies in
our unbelief. Lord, we pray that you would
increase our faith and grow us in your grace and in the knowledge
of thy dear son. We pray that Christ would be
lifted up in our hearts and that we would worship him as the true
circumcision rejoicing in Christ Jesus and having no confidence
in our flesh. Father, we ask that you would
prepare our hearts, the hearts of our friends and brethren that
will be traveling here from other places and prepare the hearts
of Todd and Joe. to preach the gospel. Lord, that you would meet with
us next weekend and we would experience your grace, your mercy,
the light of the gospel shining in our hearts, the bonding of
our hearts together with thee and with our brethren. We ask
it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's all stand together again.
Number 48 from the softback teminal. Number 48. Grant to me, O gracious Lord,
true submission to your word. As your servant stands to preach,
give him words my heart to reach. As he unfolds the blessed book,
give me faith on Christ to look. ? Looking on your blessed son
? ? Cause my heart or sin to mourn ? ? Looking still on Christ
the lamb ? ? Stir my soul to praise his name ? ? By your grace
through Jesus' blood ? ? I'm redeemed and heir of God ? Grant
that others here may see Christ expiring on the tree, risen and
exalted high, so that we might never die. Send your Spirit now
in power, and awake the dead this hour. When the message is
declared and we've in your worship shared, let us from this house
depart joyful and refreshed in heart. Let us daily seek your
face, daily live upon your grace. Please be seated. I've titled this message, Do
I Have the Mind of Christ? Do I Have the Mind of Christ? Our text will come from 1 Corinthians
chapter 1 and chapter 2. We're going to move through these
two chapters in hopes that the Lord will give us an understanding
of what's being said. There's one theme being drawn
out in these two chapters and it has to do with knowledge and
speech. Knowledge and speech. Who do I know and what do I say? That reveals whether or not we
have the mind of Christ. Notice the last verse of chapter
two, for who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct
him, but we have, we have the mind of Christ. Now the church
in Corinth, as you know, suffered many problems. They had a lot
of issues, had a lot of horrible sins that had to be addressed
and had to be dealt with, not the least of which was sins of
fornication. We had believers taking one another
to court, believers getting drunk at the Lord's table. contention
and strife between them. It was like us, a messed up church. You know, just messed up people.
Sinners. struggled in so many different
ways. There was a lot of competition
between them over spiritual gifts. There was a lot of confusion
about the second coming of Christ. There was a spirit of stinginess
when it came to giving. All those things are addressed
in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. But it's important to notice
that the first issue that was addressed had to do with knowledge
and speech. Had to do with knowledge and
speech. Who do we know and what do we say? And before the Lord
addressed any of those other problems, He begins with the
beginning. And my hope is that the Lord
will will cause us to realize that that's really where it begins. That's what we need to, that's
where we need to start. Who do we know and what do we
say about who He is? Notice in chapter 1 at verse
5 that in everything You are enriched by him in all
utterance and knowledge. So that's the theme of these
two chapters. Utterance, that's our speech,
what do we say? And knowledge, who do we know? What do we know? The Lord tells
us in chapter eight of this same book that knowledge, Man's knowledge
puffeth up. That's not the knowledge he's
talking about here. He's not talking about being well-educated.
He's not talking about worldly knowledge. He's not talking about
the knowledge of a lot of earthly things. Matter of fact, he says
those who espouse that kind of knowledge, they just are puffing
themselves up. And he goes on to say, love,
on the other hand, edifies. Love edifies. He's talking about
the knowledge of Christ. He goes on in verse 2 of that
same chapter to say, If any man think that he knoweth anything,
he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. No, we don't go
around boasting in our knowledge. We want to know Christ. This
is life eternal. that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Paul said,
I've not yet apprehended that which has apprehended me. He
said, oh, but that I might know him, the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of his suffering. I want to know personally that
when Christ died on Calvary's cross, I was crucified in him.
and that I died in Him and my sins were put away through the
sacrifice of His body on that cross. I want to know that when
He raised from the dead, I was in Him, that He was the firstborn
among many brethren, and that He considers me to be His brother. He that sanctifieth and they
that are sanctified are all as one, whereby He is not ashamed
to call them His brethren. I want to know that I've been
sanctified. I want Him to call me his brother, and I want to
know him as my friend." That's what he's saying. This matter
of what we say, utterance, is based on who we know. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. Oh, I want to have that confidence.
And I want that confidence to be expressed in my speech. That's why, you know, when believers
come together, what's more encouraging than to talk about Christ and
who He is and what He's done? What a great joy it is. And then
believers will be fellowshipping together about Christ and somebody
will come in and they can't talk about Christ because they don't
know him. So they want to talk about everything else. It's like
throwing a cold blanket over everything, isn't it? I mean,
it's just, oh, I want, we're going to have a lot of other
believers joining us next weekend. And I want this to be the spirit
of that weekend. I want us to know Christ. I want
to hear Christ preached. I want us to talk about Christ.
I want us to rejoice together with our brethren in Christ. And he goes on to say in chapter
8 verse 1, But if any man love God, he is loved of God. If any man love God, it's only
because he's been loved of God. We like to talk about things
we love. If you want to know what's important to a person,
just listen to what they talk about. You'll find out real quick
what's important to them. Listen to what the Lord said
in chapter 3, verse 18. He said, a good man, I think
this is in 1 Corinthians, No, I think it's in Matthew.
But anyway, a good man out of the good treasure in his heart
bringeth forth good things. And an evil man out of the evil
treasure that's in his heart bringeth forth evil things. For
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Do you want
to know what's in a man's heart? Just listen to him speak. Listen
to what he talks about. That's what's in his heart. Oh
Lord, would You be so real to me that I just want to talk about
You? I want to declare, I want to
rejoice in You. I want to tell people about who
You are and what You've done for me and listen to what You've
done to other brethren. I mentioned chapter 3. Look at
chapter 3 verses 18 and 19. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth
to be wise in this world... Oh, he's got lots of worldly
information, lots of worldly knowledge, and he just wants
everybody to know how much he knows. Impressing and trying
to intimidate people, lifting himself up, If any man seemeth
to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may
be wise." In other words, let him consider all of the knowledge
that he has, not about Christ, to be foolishness, because that's
what it is. It's just foolishness. It's vanity. When Christ comes into the conversation,
when Christ is talked about, when He's thought about, When
he's reflected on, everything else becomes just vanity. That's
what this is about. It's about speech and knowledge. What do I know? Who do I know? And what am I talking about?
Look at verse 19. For the wisdom of this world,
all the knowledge of this world, is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh
the wise in his own craftiness. All right, let's go back to chapter
1 of 1 Corinthians. I want us to have the mind of
Christ. I want us to be thinking about Christ. And I'm not suggesting
that we try to feign our conversation to discuss something that we
don't know what we're talking about. I'm talking about the
Lord doing a work of grace in our hearts so that it just...
Well, what did the Lord say to the woman at the well? If I give
you of this living water, it'll be a well of water springing
forth out of you and that's what it is when the Lord gives us
the drink to drink from that water that's clear as crystal
from the throne of God and we experience his grace and he gives
us his mind it just bubbles forth as a well springing forth living
water how encouraging that is when believers are able to experience
that kind of fellowship and how discouraging it is when somebody
just wants to talk about worldly things. It's foolishness. It's foolishness. All right? Go back with me now to 1 Corinthians
1. Paul, verse 1, called to be an apostle of Jesus
Christ. So he's speaking for God. He's been called out. When it
pleased God, Paul said, who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by his grace to reveal Christ in me. So now the apostle
Paul has been anointed by God to give us the word of God. This is God's word. It's not
Paul's word. It's not my opinion or your opinion.
It's what God has to say through the will of God and Sosthenes,
our brother. Now, if you go back to, I think
it's Acts chapter 18 when Paul first goes to Corinth. And one
of the problems with Corinth is Corinth is not far from Athens. And Athens is the center of Greek
intelligentsia. And you know what's worse than
those who are exalted in their own mind like the Athenians were?
You know what's worse than that? The wannabes. The Corinthians
were Athen wannabes. And that's who he's dealing with
now. They're not far from Athens and they're looking up to all
these philosophers and all this new knowledge that's come into
the world and it's crept into their conversation. Sosthenes was the ruler of the
synagogue and was beaten in Corinth when a riot broke out over the
gospel. Paul went there, he preached
there for a year and a half. Chapter 18 of Acts tells us he
spent one year and six months in Athens. And at the end of
that year and a half, the Lord told Paul when he went there,
he said, do not be afraid for I have much people in this city.
And he left him there for a year and a half to preach the gospel.
And the church grew. I mean, it's a big church. There's
a lot of people. And now it's beginning to influence
everybody in the city. And so now the animosity comes
against the gospel. A riot breaks out. Sosthenes
is beaten and thrown out of the synagogue. And so now I suppose
he's traveling with Paul because he's part of He's writing this
letter back to the church in Corinth. They all knew who he
was. He was the leader of that church for a year and a half.
Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus. There's so much about the gospel
right there and that isn't there. This letter is to those, not
to those who are trying to get sanctified. Not to those who
are trying to make themselves more holy. I can't tell you how
many times I hear people say, well, don't you think we should
be trying to keep the precepts of Scripture and trying to do
this and trying to do that? Look to Christ. Trust Christ. Rejoice in Christ Jesus. Worship Him in the Spirit. Have no confidence in your flesh.
And live like you want. Live like you want. Don't put
me under precepts. We are sanctified. We're perfect
in Christ. I know that statement makes a
lot of people uncomfortable. Because they're living by the
law. They got precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little,
there a little, and they're measuring themselves and judging themselves
by verses of scripture out of the Bible, believing themselves
to be getting better or whatever. We are sanctified in Christ Jesus. We're free. We have to them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, called saints. God calls us saints, that's what
we are. We're not waiting for the Pope
to make us a saint. God says you're in Christ, you're
a saint. You've been set apart. With all
that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our
Lord, both theirs and ours. We're gonna have brethren coming
and visiting us next weekend and they worship the same Christ
we worshipped. We worship and we have we have
a bond together in Christ. I hope the Lord will grow us
in his grace. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not suggesting
that we take any part of God's Word and say that it's not important.
God's Word is precious to our hearts. This is the problem that
was in the church at Corinth. They were going around boasting
in what they were doing, keeping certain precepts and keeping
certain laws, and the Lord starts out by telling them, put all
that aside. Put it away. Look to Christ. Look at the next verse. That
in everything you are enriched by Him in all utterance and in
all knowledge. Whatever knowledge you have of
Him, it's because He enriched you with it. He gave it to you. And if He's in your heart, if
you have the mind of Christ and He's in your heart, you're just
going to want to talk about Him. You're just going to want to
talk about Christ. You're not going to want to try
to intimidate someone else by pretending that you're keeping
a particular rule or regulation of the scriptures better than
other people. You're going to want to talk about Christ. Even as the testimony of Christ
was confirmed in you, the testimony of the gospel was confirmed by
the knowledge of Christ in our hearts. so that you came behind
in no gifts waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's what we're doing. We're waiting. We're looking
for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
We're waiting for the Lord to return. That's our, and we should
rejoice together with one another over anticipation of our Lord's
returning. and the excitement and enthusiasm
about him returning. It just puts everything in perspective,
doesn't it? Who, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall
also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in
the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. How is he going to confirm us?
He's going to confirm us by causing us to look to Christ, to know
Christ, to talk about Christ. This is the confirmation of our
faith. And that's our perfection before God. Religious people
go around pretending that they're perfect, or that they're better
than someone else, or they look down their self-righteous nose
at one another, or the Greek who boasts in his worldly knowledge
and wisdom. And here's what the Lord's comparing
all of that to. You look to Christ. You know
Christ. You rejoice in Christ and talk
about the Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you
were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. He's faithful. He called us out
of darkness into his marvelous light. He gave us a love for
Christ. And we fellowship together with
him and with one another. Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing. And that there be no divisions
among you. We're not here to compete with
one another. We're not here to contend with
one another. We're here to lift up Christ
and to rejoice together in Him. He said, I beseech you, brother,
you start talking about yourself and what you know and what you've
done and what you haven't done, then that's when contention comes. That's when contention comes.
Strife and vainglory always go together. Always. When there's
strife, it's because somebody's promoting themselves. Somebody's
promoting themselves. That's going to cause strife.
And that's what, here's what the Lord begins with all the
problems that the church had. He's talking about the unity
of the Spirit in Christ, in our knowledge of Him and in our conversation,
our utterances about Him. We're not talking about ourselves.
We're not talking about what we know. We're not talking about
what we've done or what we haven't done. We're talking about Christ. And so he says, I beseech you,
brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all
speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you,
but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and
in the same judgment. If you've got the mind of Christ
and I've got the mind of Christ, we've got the same judgment.
We know what we are. We know that everything about
us is sinful. We know that He's put them away
once and for all. We know who He is. We know where
He is. We know that He's coming again. And we're rejoicing together
in Him. I want that so much for our fellowship. And I want that to be experienced
next weekend when we have other brethren coming here. Don't talk
about yourself. Don't talk about what you know.
Don't talk about what you've done or what you haven't done. Don't try to intimidate one another
with your law keeping. Don't do it. That's what they
were doing in Corinth. Don't do it. Talk about Christ. Have one mind and one spirit
and there will be no divisions among you. And Christ will be
glorified. Now I say that every one of you,
I'm sorry, verse 11, I want you to see this in verse 11. There's
an important lesson here in verse 11. For it hath been declared
unto me of you, my brethren, and notice the next phrase, by
them who are of the house of Chloe, that there are divisions
among you. It's probably never right to repeat something unless you
can tell who you heard it from. Say, well, you know, they say,
or I heard, or it's been said. Paul's getting right to the heart
of the issue. You see, what that does is it causes division. It
causes dissension. Well, I wonder who said that.
And then all the imaginations and all the accusations and all
the implications of that. If you've got something to say
to somebody, tell them where it came from. And if you can't
tell them where it came from, keep it to yourself. Paul said,
it's been told me from the household of Chloe. She was a member of
the church at Corinth. So he's identifying her. That
there's divisions among you, and I believe it. Is Christ divided? Is Christ
divided? No! Was Paul crucified for you? No! Or were you baptized in the name
of Paul? No! I've skipped verse 12, I'm
sorry. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul,
I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas. And then of course there's the
real spiritual ones. who say, well, I'm of Christ.
We're all of Christ. But the point here is that they
were using that to intimidate one another. Well, we're not
getting involved in all that preacher discussion. We're of
Christ. We're in Christ. You see, it
was the spirit behind that statement. Yes, we're all of Christ. We're
not of Paul. We're not of Cephas. We're not
of Apollos. We're not of a preacher here or a preacher there. We're
not doing that. We're looking to Christ. The
preachers are just unprofitable servants who are just telling
us about Christ. That's all they are. I thank God that I baptized none
of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had
baptized in my own name. And I baptized also the household
of Stephanus. Besides, I know not whether I
baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel." Now, he's not suggesting in any way
that baptism isn't important. He's just saying that, you know,
that in his position, it wasn't a good thing for him to go around
because people would pride themselves. I've heard people say, well,
you know, Pastor so-and-so baptized me. Whoop-dee-doo. So what? For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words." We're
not here to make the gospel impressive to the ears of men. We're not
here to use big words and language. Anytime I make reference to a
scripture bringing out the original text, I always tell you exactly
where it came from and exactly how you can figure it out. You
know, we're not here to do that. We're not trying to impress people
with theological words and wisdom of men. We do that, the cross
of Christ should be made of none effect. The glory of the cross
is the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. Might God give
us knowledge and utterance of Him. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness. But unto us which are saved,
it's the power of God. Just preach Christ to me. Don't
preach precepts and laws and rules and regulations and don't
tell me how I need to improve my life. Tell me about Christ.
If there's any hope of my life reflecting His grace and glory,
it'll only be as I'm caused to look to Him. Otherwise, you're
just putting me under the law. That's all you're doing. The preaching of the gospel is
the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. Everything you know anything
about other than the Lord Jesus Christ is going to die with your
body. It's going to rot in the grave
with your brain. Everything you know about everything
other than Christ. Talk to me about Christ. tell
me about. Lord, out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh, and the wise man out of the good
treasure in his heart bringeth forth good things. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Don't you hate to be around people
that are always contentious and arguing and always think they
know it all and they want to tell you about everything? Where
are these people? I can't get away from that person
fast enough. I can't. Where is the dispute of this
world? Hath God not made foolish the wisdom of this world? When
you have the mind of Christ, you can only listen to somebody
talk about worldly things for a little while and then you realize,
you're just throwing out vanity. I don't want to hear it anymore. For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, All the knowledge that
a man can acquire in this world is never going to reveal God
to his heart. Never. Under any circumstances,
he's not going to know God. For after that the wisdom of
God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Preach Christ
to me. Don't preach at me. Don't preach
over me. But preach to me. Speak truth
to my heart. Speak comfort to me. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Speak from the good treasure
that's in your heart and speak to my heart that God would reveal
Himself to me, that Christ would be made known to me in my heart,
that I would have the mind of Christ. That's my hope. That's what I want. That's what
I need more than anything else. And everything else is vanity. It's just vanity. It's man puffing
himself up. And let me say this, if I can
dabble in psychology for just a moment. You know what's behind that kind
of speech? What's behind pride and puffing
up and talking about yourself all the time? There's a little
bitty person inside there that's scared to death. Insecurity is
what's behind it. It's not pride, it's insecurity. It's insecurity. Scared to death
of what other people think and always trying to impress people
with. You see, and that's where the gospel comes from. If I've
got the mind of Christ, then I'm secure in Him. And it doesn't
matter what other people think. I don't have to live my life
to meet the opinions or praise or anything of anybody else.
If God be for me, who can be against me? That's what the mind
of Christ does. For the Jews require a sign and
the Greeks seek after wisdom. The religious person wants an
experience and the intellectual wants worldly knowledge. But we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jew a stumbling block. Why is he a stumbling block?
Because the Jew is the religious man who is under the law. And
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ is a stumbling block to him because
it strips him of his righteousness. It robs him of his glory. Oh,
he's been puffed up so long. He's been impressed with himself
so long. He's been going around impressing
other people with how righteous he is for so long that the gospel
is a stumbling block to him. And to the Greek, it's just foolish. That's too simple. That's too
simple. We've got to get into the deeper
meaning of things and we've got to increase our knowledge on
things. but to them which are called."
That's what I want you to be. That's what I want to be. I want
to be called by God. This is the same word here that's
used for church. The church is the ecclesia, the
called out ones. And God's got to do the calling. And God uses the fullnesses of
preaching. How can they believe on Him whom
they have not heard, and how are they going to hear without
a preacher? Oh Lord, preach to me. Preach the gospel. Tell me about Christ. Cause me
to cast my soul upon Him, and to rejoice in Him. Is Christ glorified in your heart? And is He glorified in your speech? Does He get all the glory? Unto them which are called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom
of God. Christ is the power of God. You're following after rules
and regulations, precepts upon precepts. That's not the power.
Christ is the power of God. The only way that our lives are
any measure going to honor Him is if He's all the power and
He gets all the glory. Look how we've got to finish
this chapter. Look how this chapter finishes. Because the foolishness
of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger
than men. You show me the person who's
got the highest IQ and has accumulated the most knowledge of worldly
things, and he's a fool compared to our 10-year-old children who've
heard and at least can explain the gospel. He's a fool. We live in a world that highly
exalts knowledge and education, and that's what God's talking
about here. It is foolishness when it comes
to the gospel. It's just vanity. It's just man
puffing himself up. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many are wise after the flesh, not many are mighty,
not many are noble are called. Every once in a while, you've
got to call somebody with a high IQ. When he does, he's gonna
humble them and cause them to see how foolish all their knowledge
is. Every once in a while, God will
call out somebody that's very wealthy, very, very well off
in this world. And when he does, he's gonna
make them to see how vain all their possessions are. But rarely does God do that. Rarely does he do that. It's
hard for rich men to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It's easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Why? God's got to make you to have
nothing. Nothing. No righteousness. No possessions. No knowledge, Lord I don't know
anything, Lord I can't do anything, I don't have anything, I'm completely
dependent upon you. And the proud man, God can do
it, He does it. The disciples said, who then
Lord can be saved and what did the Lord say? With man it is
impossible, but with God all things are possible. But here
the Lord is saying, most of the people that God saves aren't
like that. I mean, they're rich in their
own righteousness and they're sinners and all that, but... God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. God has chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things that are mighty. The
base things of the world, the things that are despised, hath
God chosen. Yea, the things that are not. Now regardless of how much intellect
or education or wealth or whatever position you might have in this
world, here's a description of the person, of every person that
God calls. They realize they're nothing. They realize they're weak, they
can't save themselves. They realize that all their wisdom
is foolishness compared to the gospel. They realize that they're base. Why? Verse 29, that no flesh
should glory in His presence. We'll skip verse 30 for just
a moment. Look at verse 31, that according
as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That's
what I want for you. That's what I want for me. That's
what I want to happen next weekend. I want us to glory in our hearts
in Christ and in our speech. I want us to glory in Him. Just
talk about Him. Rejoice in Him. I want us to
hear about Him. I want Todd and Joe to preach
to us about Him. I want us to rejoice in Christ
Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. For God has made
Him to be for us all our wisdom. Whatever I know that's true. Whatever I know that's not gonna
rot with my brain in the grave, God's gonna have to give it to
me in Christ. God has made Him to be for me all my wisdom, all
my righteousness, Whatever righteousness I have, He's going to have to
give it to me. All my sanctification, whatever holiness I have, I'm
going to have to find it in Him. And all my redemption, if I'm
going to be redeemed, I can only be bought with the price of the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, our speech and our knowledge. Do you have the mind of Christ?
Do you have the mind of Christ? Ask the Lord for it. Ask Him,
Lord, give me the mind of Christ. Everything else is foolishness. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we're We're thankful for your word and Lord, we, we ask that you would be merciful
to us, that you would call us by your grace, that you would
reveal Christ in us and to us and enable us to rejoice together
in speaking of him. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Tom, 94 and the Sopacten. Now,
let's stand. Teach me, my Savior, how to live
on earth to honor You. Teach me to magnify your name
in all I say or do. Bridal my tongue by inward grace,
that I may not complain. Against my father's providence,
or cause his children pain. Jesus was thoughtful, kind, and
good while he lived here below. ? Enabled me by deeds of love
? My Savior's love to show ? Yet, Lord, I want more than a show
? Of outward moral Give me a heart of love and faith
to magnify my God. th th