Alright, brethren, let's go there
to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I have about three passages I
want to preach, and I'll probably end up preaching them all. I
will try to stick to my notes. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. I won't
read it again, brother Ben just read it. But I want you to see
here that what Paul is declaring and what I want us to see in
this message is that God gives faith to His people by His power,
by His power. And He does it through the preaching
of Christ in Him crucified. He does it this way, the gospel
of Christ in Him crucified by the power of God, and it's not
just when He initially gives you faith, it's all the way through
your life. He keeps you in faith, keeps
you trusting Him, grows you in faith by His power, and it's
through the preaching of Christ, Him crucified. The gospel doesn't
need man's wisdom. Doesn't need man's wisdom. just
needs to be declared. Preach the word. We only need
to preach the gospel of Christ and Him crucified. It's God that's
going to quicken His people, going to reveal Christ in His
people, and it's going to be by the power of our Lord alone.
Now, the Corinthians were being impressed by excellency of speech,
They had heard some preaching, and they were impressed with
their preaching. Men like Apollos, learned men. And then some were
criticizing Paul. They were criticizing Paul for
the manner in which he preached. Well, Paul's determination. What
is it? He tells us here, first of all,
his determination was to preach only Christ and Him crucified.
To preach Christ and Him crucified. He said, when I came to you,
brethren, And I think it's important to note he said brethren because
there was a lot of sin and problems going on at Corinth. And Paul
called them brethren. He assured them from the very
outset of his letter that God had called them and confirmed
them and gifted them and in nothing they came behind in gifts. They'd
been enriched by God and they would continue to be enriched
by God. He declares here, I was determined
to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
He said, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The
gospel is the testimony of God. That's what it is, it's the testimony
of God. Somebody gives their testimony,
they're bearing witness, they're declaring something that they
know. God's giving us His testimony. That's what this word is. That's
what the gospel is. It's God giving us the testimony
of His Son. Of His Son. Bearing testimony
of His Son. If God is pleased to reveal Christ
in the heart, if He reveals Christ in the heart of someone for the
first time today, or if He speaks into the heart of anybody that
believes Him, it's going to be by the power of God. It's going
to be by the Spirit of God. It's going to be by God bearing
testimony in the heart, and this is what it's going to be. You
won't hear words, you won't hear the audible words of God speaking,
but you will surely know, and you will hear God saying to you
in the message, the sum and substance is this, this is my beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased, hear Him. believe him, trust him,
follow him. That's what God speaks through
his word when he gives the testimony of his son. Paul knew this. Paul
knew this. So he was determined not to preach
with excellency of speech or of wisdom. Excellency of speech
and wisdom of man involves changing the word of God to take the offense
out of the gospel. changing it to take the offense
out of the gospel. It's to mix the grace of God
with man's works to make sinners think they make themselves be
born again of God, or they make themselves righteous, or they
make themselves holy, or they do something of themselves apart
from God. It's to exalt the sinner, to
give him some reason to glory, and anytime we do that, we're
abasing God. We're bringing God down. It's common to hear preachers
say things like this, and you've heard this. They use all different
kinds of, it's like they're always constantly coming up with new
ways of trying to take the edge off and tone the gospel down. One of the popular things is,
you know, to say Christ came and laid down His life and made
salvation possible. Well, that doesn't offend anybody.
If it's possible, He died for all men and made it possible
for all men, that's not offensive. That makes it up to me, that
leaves it in my hand, that I can take it or leave it whenever
I get ready. That's not what the gospel declares.
Paul said, if I pleased men, I should not be the servant of
Christ. He said, God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ by whom the
world's crucified unto me and I unto the world. So Paul himself,
the reason he knew this power of God is he had experienced
the power and grace of the Lord Jesus himself when the Lord called
Paul. That's why he said, I have this
one determination. I'm determined not to know anything
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Christ is the
truth. He's the gospel. He is the gospel. When he prayed there in John
17 to the Father and he said, sanctify them through thy word,
thy word is true. Then he turns around and says,
for their sakes I sanctify myself that they may be sanctified through
the truth. You know what he's declaring?
He is the truth. He is the gospel. He is the word. He is the salvation. He is the
truth. He's the word. He is. He came and worked out salvation
for His people, and He's the one we preach. Paul had experienced
this power of God, so he preached Christ as God. He preached Him
as God, as the one who's all-powerful God, who knows where His people
are, knows how to save His people, and who can save His people. He preached Him as God, God in
human flesh. That's who Christ is. He's God
with us. Came down. Paul preaches Christ
as the one mediator between God and men. There's just one. There's
only one that can satisfy God and give a new heart to the sinner
and bring us together and mediate for us and bring us together
and make us one in His righteousness, in His holiness, and He is that
righteousness and that holiness. It's just one mediator. God didn't
send Christ to condemn us. Christ said that. I didn't come
to condemn the world. God could have. We were guilty.
We deserve nothing from Him. But what did God do? He provided
a mediator in His Son. He provided one to come forth.
And what did He do? He satisfied His own justice
for us. Rather than condemn us, the guilty
criminal, He came and took the sin and satisfied His own justice
for us and provided us His own righteousness. In doing so, He
made us see who God is. He made us see God's righteous.
He made us see God is a merciful Savior, a just God and a Savior. And by doing this he satisfied
God, he exalted God, he manifested the glory of God, and at the
same time he justified his people. And it's by Christ reconciling
us to God and then coming and making us in our hearts to be
reconciled to God that he brings us together. The God we offended
now can receive us because Christ is the mediator. He did this
for his people. Paul preached the necessity of
the Holy Spirit regenerating us to life and teaching us the
things that are freely given to us of God. He says there in
the rest of the chapter, in verse 9, Well, look at verse 6. Let's start there. He said that
he's not preaching the wisdom of men, but he said this, how
be it we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, among them
that have been called and given faith, we speak wisdom. This
is the ultimate wisdom to preach Christ's name crucified. It's
not the wisdom of this world. It's not what the world is preaching.
Those that claim to preach Christ are not preaching Christ's name
crucified. And it's not the wisdom of the unregenerate world that's
looking out for philosophy and worldly wisdom. It's not of the
princes of this world that come to nothing. And I don't have
any doubt there that when Paul speaks of princes, he's saying
this in sort of a paradoxical way because Christ makes his
people princes. He makes us kings and princes,
kings and priests unto God. We're pre-princes. But the princes
of this world, those that made themselves princes by their works,
this is not wisdom to them. This is not wisdom to them, but
their wisdom comes to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery. It's hidden wisdom, which God
ordained before the world unto our glory. None of the princes
of this world knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. If any, when you know Christ,
you quit rejecting Christ. And if they'd have known Christ,
they would have bowed to him and fell at his feet begging
mercy. But as it is written, I have not seen nor heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things that God prepared
for them that love him. How do we know them then? God
hath revealed them to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God. What man knoweth the
things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even
so, the things of God knows no man but the Spirit of God. God
has to reveal it. God has to tell us His purpose
and His grace, and that His Son is the fulfiller of all. Now
we've received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words
which man's wisdom teaches, which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual things. We're going from one
scripture to the other scripture to show what God says in His
Word. This is the true wisdom. This
is the true wisdom. So Paul's preaching the necessity
of the Holy Spirit. He's saying that we have to be
taught this of the Holy Spirit of God. Christ has got to be
revealed. It's only by divine revelation
that we know Him. Paul was determined to preach
Christ and crucify because Christ had called him and made him to
know the vanity of all his former confidences. Everything he had
put confidence in before, when Christ called him, he made him
to see it all was vanity. Every bit of it. Look over Philippians
3. Paul had all that confidence
and He makes the statement there,
in verse 3, that we're the circumcision which worship God in the spirit,
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. And
he said, but I could have confidence in the flesh. If any other man
thinks he has where he might trust in the flesh, I more. circumcised
the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning
zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness within
the law, blameless. But then the commandment came.
What was the commandment and who gave it? Christ spoke. We see it on the road to Damascus.
Christ spoke from heaven. A light shined. and blinded Paul
of everything he thought was his righteousness and his goodness
and his acceptance with God. He was blinded on the road to
Damascus. And the spirit of our Lord Jesus
spoke in power to him and said, why are you persecuting me Paul? It's not just my people you're
persecuting. It's me you're persecuting. It's
hard for you to kick against the pricks. You can't kick against
me, Paul. That's what he said. The commandment
came. He beheld the Lord Jesus Christ,
his righteousness. You know what happened? All of
this that he thought was gain became loss. Done. Worthless. Verse 8, doubtless I count all
things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do
count them but dumb that I might win Christ and be found in him
not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that
which is to the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. that I might know him, and the
power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings,
being made conformable unto his death." This is what Paul had
experienced himself from Christ. He had experienced the power
of God. Christ, the power and wisdom of God. And so he knew
that if the Lord gives somebody faith, there's only one way it's
going to happen. It's going to be through the
gospel that exalts Christ to the highest and abases man to
the dust. There's just two points to the
whole message of the gospel. All flesh is grass. Behold you
God. That's it. That's the two points
right there. Whatever we preach, that's it. Our flesh is grass,
sinful, that's all it is. God blows upon it and it withers
and passes away. Behold you God. He's salvation. He's salvation. So Paul preached
Christ and him crucified because he knew he was only a sinner
saved by grace. Look here back at 1 Corinthians
2, 3. He says, I was with you in weakness and in fear and in
much trembling. That's how Paul's hearers, when
he would preach, that's how those that despised Paul, that's how
they saw Paul. That's exactly how they saw it.
They said in 2 Corinthians 10, 10, Paul is quoting them. He says, they say his letters
are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and
his speech is contemptible. I guarantee you that Apostle
Paul is nothing like what we might imagine in our minds. I
guarantee you that if we saw him, we'd think this is the Apostle
Paul. This is the one God used to preach
so and turn the world upside down and write three-fourths
of the New Testament? Why did God choose to use unimpressive
men to preach the gospel? Why did He choose to use this
means of preaching of Christ and Him crucified that the world
calls foolishness? Look back there at 1 Corinthians
1. Paul said, Verse 26, you see your calling brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble
are called, but God had chosen the foolish things of the world
to confound the wise. That's why God's chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
What are these things that are mighty? These things that is people. It's people that reject
Christ, it's sinners that think they're mighty in themselves.
He's chosen base things of the world, things which are despised,
His people, His preachers and His people, His church, hath
God chosen things which are nothing to bring to naught things that
are. Here's why, that no flesh should glory in His presence.
That no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him are
you in Christ Jesus. This is what you're going to
learn through the Gospel. It's of God that you're in Christ Jesus. It's of God that He's made unto
us all. It's of God that we know Him.
It's of God that Christ is made unto us wisdom. It's of God that
Christ is made unto us righteousness. It's of God that Christ is made
unto us sanctification and redemption. So that according as it's written,
he that glories, let him glory in the Lord. This was Paul's
answer, right here. To men, to those in the church
of Corinth, looking to the preachers and preferring one over another.
because of the way they spoke, or the way they looked, or the
way, you know, Lord was blessing this one and giving a measure
of grace above this one. They were looking at those things
and saying, well, I'm of him, I'm of this one, or I'm of that
one. And this was Paul's answer to it. None of us are anything. None of us are anything. And
Paul said, and I myself am weak and contemptible. It's true,
Paul said. This is what God's chosen. This
is how God's chosen to save and who God's chosen to save so that
He can bring to nothing things that are. So that nobody will
glory in His presence. No flesh, no sinner can glory
in God's presence. Everything's of God. It's of
His power in Christ Jesus. So that we glory only in the
Lord. The grace of our Lord Jesus had taught Paul he had nothing
about himself for which to boast. Nothing. The Lord had shown Paul
he had no strength in himself? Absolutely none. I think that's
what Christ meant when he said, without me you can do nothing.
Isn't that what he meant? We have no strength in ourselves,
brethren. And Paul had been taught that.
He knew his strength was the power of God who saved him and
who kept him. He said in 2 Corinthians 4, 1,
seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy. And
he's saying there, the same way that we received this mercy,
the same way we were called, the same way we were given this
faith is why we don't faint. What is that? It's the power
of God. It's the Spirit of God. It's
God teaching us and keeping us. That's why he ended up down there
and he said we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency
of the power may be of God not of us. And he went through that
list of trouble and affliction, all the things he suffered. And
he said, why does God let us go through these things and direct
us through these things that we have to go through where we
become so weak and helpless and undone and the world despises
us and men despise us and they reject us because they say, you're
just a sinner. You're just a contemptible sinner
who stutters and stammers and is nothing. Why does he do it?
Because God gets all the glory that way. It's only God that
keeps us believe in Him. Only God that keeps us follow
in Him. Only God that made us righteous and keeps us separated
under Him, holy in Him, preserved in Him, kept in Him. The Lord called Paul up to the
third heaven, showed him things. Paul said, it's not even lawful
for me to speak. Somebody was telling me the other day that
there's a believer that's not a believer, but somebody that
they know this person's a believer and somebody that they know.
has been telling them they were called up into the third heaven
and trying to tell them all about it. Everything they saw and everything
they heard. Well that's the first proof right
there they weren't called up because Paul didn't talk about
what he saw. He said it's not even lawful for me to utter what
I saw. But the other thing is this. Paul would have been puffed
up in pride by what he saw. How is it we're going to be kept
from being puffed up in pride? You know how much pride we have.
It's the leading driving force of sinful man. Pride and covetousness. The love of money is the root
of all evil. And it's covetousness, it's just
idolatry. It's just us trying to set our
nest on high and exalt ourselves so that we're self-sufficient.
Don't need God. What's going to keep us from
our pride? If God teaches us and reveals something in you
of the grace and mercy of God in Christ Jesus, what's going
to keep you from being exalted in pride to think you know something
better than that person that doesn't believe? What's going
to keep you from doing that? God giving you a thorn in your
flesh, keeping you knowing there's no difference between you and
the worst sinner. That sinner you see that's so
vile and so wretched, everything you see in that sinner is in
your flesh and in mine. And the only reason you're not
exhibiting it right now is the grace of God restraining you. That's so. So he said, he prayed
three times for the Lord to remove the thorn, and the Lord wouldn't
remove it. On purpose, he said, my grace
is sufficient for you, Paul. This is how you're going to learn
that my grace is sufficient. I'm not taking this away from
you. It's going to keep beating you black and blue so that you
don't have any strength in yourself and you can't exalt yourself
so that you know my grace is sufficient for you. My strength
is made perfect in weakness. My strength is made to be known.
It's made evident to you in your weakness. And so Paul said, I
glory in my infirmities then, that the power of Christ may
rest upon me. I take pleasure in infirmities
and reproaches and necessities and persecution and distresses
for Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong.
Then I'm strong. There's a reason God left us
in these bodies of death. What is it? To keep us knowing. were saved by the grace of God.
To keep us knowing it's the power of God that's saving us. It's
the power of God that's saving us. So there Paul stood and he's
fearful and he's trembling and he's weak. He's a nobody. He's
a nothing to these people. And he's preaching Christ to
them. But here's what his number one
fear was. This was his number one fear.
This is what made him tremble more than anything else right
here. That their faith would not stand in the wisdom of men,
but in the power of the Lord. He said in verse four, my speech
and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. He said in chapter one, the Lord
didn't send me to baptize. Paul was happy when people confessed
Christ and wanted to be baptized and he baptized some folks. He
was happy for that, but he wasn't going about trying to use persuasive
language and enticing men to make a profession just for the
sake of getting numbers. I guarantee you, you never heard
the Apostle Paul going around saying what you hear folks saying
in our day. Oh, we did a church plant over there. We planted
that church. You didn't hear Paul say that.
Because nobody ever planted a church but God. What's demonstration
of the spirit and power? Well, it's not the style in which
a man preaches. It's not being loud. It's not
being impressive. It's preaching the truth of the
gospel when you know the enmity of men's hearts that because
they hate God, they're going to hate you for declaring the
truth, and yet it gives you the strength and the power to keep
preaching it anyway. It's one thing to preach among
friends and among those that are receiving it. You find out
it's His power when you go into a place that doesn't believe
the gospel and you know people are going to be angry with you.
And you can still preach the gospel? That's the power of God. It's being enabled by the Holy
Spirit to declare the ruin of all men by the fall. to declare
that we're so ruined, we're just the dry bones, brethren, just
bleached dry bones, dead in sin. That offends men. To be able
to stand up and declare that necessity of being born again
of the Spirit of God by His grace and declaring that it's not something
a man can resist. When God enters in, there's life.
When God shines the light, there's light. When God gives faith,
you can't not believe Him. It's God that does that, though.
It's declaring in no uncertain terms that when Christ came into
this world, He knew who He was coming to lay down His life for.
He came for His particular people God gave Him. We don't say that
just because we're trying to offend men. We say it because
it's the truth of the gospel. We say it because this is the
message God's going to bless to humble sinners to stop glorying
in our flesh and saying, well, God chose me because of something
in me. Or, I believe because I made myself be born again.
Or, I have faith in my faith. Or, I'm making myself more and
more holy. I'm taking time to be holy and
I'm doing all this myself. It keeps us from glorying in
our flesh when the gospel is preached in truth. We have nothing
to glory in. Nothing at any point from beginning
to end. Ever. Ever. And Paul feared,
he feared, he feared that they wouldn't be looking to Christ
only. They would see that this gospel is a single, solitary
Savior, Christ the Lord. And it's the simplicity of the
gospel. What we saw this morning, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's not
enough for a world's religion. It's not enough for the world's
religion. I fear, lest by any means as
a serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should
be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ Jesus. He preached
and said about Israel, he said, I desire that they might be saved.
I bear them record they have a zeal of God, but it's not according
to the knowledge of God. What are they doing? They're
going about to establish their own righteousness. They wouldn't
have said that. They wouldn't have said we're going about by
these works to establish our righteousness. Men wouldn't say
that. Men do have the audacity to say,
we're working out our holiness and making ourselves holy before
God. Or at least say we're doing it in a co-effort with God. Men
do say that. But it's not by human wisdom
that this gospel is believed. It's not received by human wisdom
or strength. It's by the regenerating revelation
of the Holy Spirit. And when He reveals Christ in
you, He makes you know He is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. He makes you know He has thoroughly
purged your sins so that the law now is your friend and says
you are righteous. You are righteous in Christ,
by Christ. The Lord asked Simon Peter, He
said, Who do men say that I am, Peter? Or He said to him, Who
say you that I am? Peter said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. And Christ said, Blessed art
thou, Simon Barjona, flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven. That's how you know
this. Power of God. Here's the chief concern Paul
had. Verse 5. He said that your faith should
not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Where
does true conviction of sin come? And what is it? What is a true
conviction of sin? It's to see ourselves as nothing. It's to see ourselves as a sinner.
From top to bottom, inside, thoroughly, completely, totally, a wretched
sinner. A wretched sinner. And that's
revealed by showing us Christ. It's revealed by seeing Christ
on the cross, bearing our sin, bearing our curse, bearing the
wrath of God in our place, so that we are brought to confess.
We are the dogs that compassed him about. We are the wicked
for whom he was on that cross. That's what we got to be made
to see. When our Lord said, dogs have accomplished me, the assembly
of the wicked have enclosed me, they've pierced my hands and
my feet. Brethren, do you see that's you? Do you see that that's
who we are? We're the dogs by nature. We're
the wicked by nature. That's what Christ was on the
cross dying for, to save us from us. And it's only the power of the
Lord that makes us know this, that our sins are purged forever,
that He perfected us, that now God receives us and we have boldness
to enter the holiest of holies. After the Hebrew writer said
in Hebrews 10, by one offering Christ has perfected us forever.
He perfected them that are sanctified by His one offering. He said,
whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness to us. He comes in power and
bears witness to you. God in a covenant He said, I'm
going to write this gospel on their heart. I'm going to write
the gospel of faith and love and righteousness and peace on
their heart. I'm going to write it on their
heart. And He said, and their sins and
their iniquities will I remember no more. Do you believe God?
That He doesn't remember your sins or iniquities anymore? This
is the joy of salvation. You know, this is the amazing
thing. He shows you you're nothing but a sinner. That's all. And then he shows you because
of Christ and who he is and what he's accomplished for his people.
God remembers your sins no more and iniquities because they're
gone. They're put away. Iniquities are us trying to come
to God by our righteousnesses. Our sins are all our immorality
and all our wickedness. God says, I remember your iniquities
and your sins no more. Now where remission of these
is, where God has put them away and remembers them no more, there's
no more offering for sin. But now you have boldness to
enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. That's what he teaches
us. It's only by the power of God
that we're sanctified and continue to be grown in grace and knowledge
of Christ in our new man. And it's through the same message
of Christ in him crucified. I know that the scriptures say,
scriptures tell us to mortify the deeds of our flesh. Scripture
tells us to mortify through the spirit the deeds of our flesh.
Scripture tells us to put off the old man with his deeds and
put on the new man. Scripture also tells us, you
dry bones, live. And what did God say? You command
them to do it, and I'm going to send my spirit, and I'm going
to make them do it, and I'm going to do it in this way so they
know I'm the Lord. I'm the one that made you do
it. So we don't have any room to glory. If you put away any
sin, if you are brought to see your sin and hate it and loathe
it and flee from it, there is one that made you do that and
that is the Lord. And He does it in a way to make you know
He is the only one that did it. If you can go around and say
you put away some sin and you are better and you are a little
more better than you were back in the old days and you are more
holy than you were in the old days, be careful. Be careful. Ain't no flesh gonna
glory in His presence. Well, we're gonna glory in the
Lord. And I guarantee you from personal experience, God will
put you in the captivity of your sin and leave you there and show
you, you can't free yourself from it. But when He frees you
from it, easy peasy, you're freed from it. And He does that to
show you, you can't do it. You can't do it. And we do this
only through the hearing of His faithfulness. That's what I'm
telling you right now. This is the hearing of faith. It's declaring
to you His faithfulness in working this in His people. This is what
Paul had to tell the Galatians. Did you receive the Spirit by
the works of the law? By the hearing of faith? He said,
having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
The one that is working, ministering to you the Spirit and working
miracles among you. Is He doing it by the works of
the law, by the preaching of the works of the law? Or is He
doing it by the preaching and the hearing of His faithfulness
to you? God is just blessing a message
that gives Him all the glory. That is all there is to it. That
is the only message He is blessing. He said, here is how you do it,
even like Abraham believed God and he was counted in for righteousness.
Don't you love how Paul keeps bringing Abraham into it way
before God ever gave the law at Sinai? This is how we're grown,
this is how we're kept, just like Abraham was brought to believe
in the first place. It's all through faith, it's
all through the power of God. Faith's given and it's grown
by the power of God through the blood and righteousness of Christ
Jesus. You take everything the Lord works in His people, I'll
prove to you that you cannot overcome your sinful flesh. You
can't forgive a man unless God gives you the heart to do it.
You can't do it. It's an impossibility. Try. Try. You can't. You just can't. This living, vital union with
Christ is a hard work. It's performed in chosen centers
by the power and spirit of our God. Paul didn't want their confidence
being in them. That's what all this fussing
and fighting was. Confidence in self. That's all
it was. He didn't want their confidence
being in Him. He wanted their confidence being
only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what we want, brethren?
Don't you want all your confidence to be Christ only? Isn't that
our prayer? Isn't that what we pray to God
continually? Lord, don't leave me to myself. Don't let me glory in me. If you leave me to myself, one
of two things is going to happen. I'm going to fall away in just
wicked sin or I'm going to manage to somehow put away a little
bit of it in glory in myself that I'm righteous by something
I did. One of the two is going to happen, usually both. Paul said in chapter 1, it's
of God that you're in Christ, it's of God that He's made all
to you. We don't have anybody to glow
in but Him. He's a Jew which is one inwardly. It's the faith
God gives in the heart that makes the difference. God can make
Him the difference. It's circumcision of the heart,
it's in the spirit, it's not in a letter. It's the praises
not of men, the praises of God. I'm not looking for a praise
from a man. What would that be? Our praise is of God. He commends
the work he's done because he did it. He gets all the glory
for it. And when he, like he bore testimony
of Abel, he bears testimony he's made you righteous and holy and
made you know in your heart you're a child of God. And when he does
that, we know what happened, we give all the praise right
back to him. We're the circumcision which worship God in the spirit,
rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Our perseverance is the same way. We're persevering by the
power of God. Any work you do in the ministry
of God, whether it's anything that God's given us to do, that's
our ministry. I was talking to somebody yesterday.
And he said, our ministry is cutting the grass. That's what
we do. We cut the grass. Some people's ministry is to
play music. Some people's ministry is to greet people when they
walk in the door. Whatever your ministry is, the
only way you do it, if you really do it, if you do it in faith,
the only way you do it is by the grace and power of God. Paul
said, I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but
the grace of God that was with me. When Paul said anything about
himself doing anything, you don't have to read very much further,
and he quickly says, not I, but the grace of God. who hath first
given to him, it will be recompensed to him again. For of him, and
through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever. So he says to us, if any man
speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister,
let him do it as of the ability which God giveth. And don't criticize
somebody else's ability because God gave him that ability. that God in all things may be
glorified through Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion
forever and ever. Amen. All right.