The title of this lesson here
is Faith in God. Faith in God. Now Paul continues
here in this chapter, which the Bible was not written in chapters,
you know, Paul didn't write his letter in chapters and verses.
I'm glad it is broken down in chapter and verses because it
makes it easy for us to follow. But it was written as just a
letter. But here in this chapter, chapter 2, Paul continues to
stress that his preaching of the gospel was not an excellency
of speech. That the gospel does not need
the wisdom or the teaching of men. I thought about this, this
kind of hit me this morning. What the Pharisees and the scribes
were to the Jews, that's what the philosophers, people like
Aristotle, Plato, that's what they were to the Greeks. And
Paul is saying, I'm not coming to you in the teaching, the philosophy
of men. That's not the way I come to
you. I come to you preaching in simplicity,
preaching the gospel in simplicity. And I tell you, we need to strive,
us who preach especially, we need to strive to keep it simple. Just keep it simple. Because
salvation is not in my delivery, how I deliver it to you, it's
not in my persuading you, it's in, as Paul says here, the demonstration
and power of the Spirit. It's in the power of God. Your
faith, your salvation stands in the power of God, not in my
persuasiveness. I was thinking this morning,
again, the power of words. You know, Paul was speaking here
that he didn't come with excellency of speech, and I thought of the
power of words, and the power of words in the hands of someone
who has the ability to speak, an orator. They can convince
you of something that's, and at the end of it, you're like,
what did he say? Why am I convinced? It's just
the power of some people's ability to use words and persuasiveness. And Paul said, I didn't come
that way. I did not come that way to you. When the gospel comes
in power, it comes by revelation from God. And that's how you
understand the gospel. You do not understand the gospel
because I explained it to you, but God revealed it to you. God
revealed it to you. Now, when Paul came to Corinth,
he says here, he came not with lofty words or human eloquence,
and Paul could have used persuasive words, but Paul was not a salesman. He was a preacher, an ambassador,
and all that he was doing was delivering a message. That's
all I'm doing this morning. When I stand to preach, I'm just
delivering a message from God. And Paul made a conscious decision,
for he says here, I determined. I determined to put the emphasis
on Jesus Christ and Him crucified and nothing else. Nothing else. We're not going to talk about
and debate about nothing else. The emphasis is going to be on
Jesus Christ, who He is, and Him crucified. That's what He
did. He said that's where the emphasis is going to be. Paul
never catered to his audience. He never catered to the Greeks,
and he never catered to the Jews. He spoke the truth, whichever
audience he was speaking to, he spoke the truth. Paul never
catered to them and he never got caught up in what they call
human rhetoric. I was looking that up this morning
because I've heard that word thrown around in politics. It's
the art of persuasive speaking. It is overblown meaning of words. That's what it is. It's meaningless
language designed to persuade or impress. And Paul's saying,
I have not used human rhetoric. I've just spoken the truth in
simplicity. Paul told us earlier that the
Jews require sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but that did
not matter to Paul. It didn't matter to Paul. It
did not matter what the Jews were seeking after. It did not
matter what the Greeks were seeking after. What mattered to Paul
was that Paul, when he stood to preach, he preached the truth. That when he finished preaching,
he at least told them who Jesus Christ is, what He did, who He
did it for, where He is now. Now if I can do that when I preach,
I can leave this pulpit with a good conscience. Paul said
in one place, he said, I am free from the blood of all men. I
have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God. No matter
who's in the audience, or no matter the audience, Paul's saying,
I never shunned to declare the whole counsel of God. If Paul
stood in an audience and was a bunch of free willers, he's
going to preach God's will. It's not of him that willeth,
nor him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. We don't
cater to the audience. That's what Paul's saying. He
said, I didn't cater to the audience. Paul stuck to the preaching of
the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now he says there in verse 2,
he makes this statement that he did not want to know anything
among them. He said, "...not to know anything
among you." Now he's not saying that he was not interested in
them. He's not saying that. But what he is saying is that
the main issue, the main reason, I'm here. And the main reason,
I am here. is to preach Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. The Lord Jesus Christ was His
singular focus in preaching. And it's still that today. It's
still our singular focus in preaching. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything
we will learn from the Word of God, we will learn through Jesus
Christ, listen, and Him crucified, in His person and His substitutionary
work. If Jesus Christ is not our message,
then we have, I wrote down here, we have missed our calling, but
if Jesus Christ is not our message, we haven't even been called.
I had to correct myself this morning. You didn't just miss
a calling, you haven't even been called. If God calls a man, He
calls the man to preach Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is His
message. We cannot exhaust the Lord Jesus
Christ because he is the wisdom of God. Can we exhaust infinite
wisdom? No. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
scripture says, is the wisdom of God. If he's not the message,
it's evident we've not been called. And it's evident we don't have
the message. And he says here in verse 3,
"...and I was with you in weakness." He's going to point out here
the way he came, and the way he appeared to them. "...I was
with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling."
Now I don't believe he was saying that he was afraid of them, but
I do know this, Paul was a man. Paul was a man. In one place
they let him down out of a window so he could escape out of town,
because they were after him. Paul was not with them in arrogance. He was not with them as one lording
his power over them. He was with them as a servant
of the Lord Jesus Christ, one in weakness in body. And it may
be this that I think he's speaking of. He's referring to the violence
that he always suffered over the gospel. Everywhere he went,
he said the Holy Ghost had revealed to him that he was going to be
in bonds and imprisonments. So people come into town, they
check out the local motel. Paul had to check out the local
jail, because that's probably where he was going to end up,
was in jail for preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Much trembling, much trembling.
And my speech, my preaching, and my My speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom or man's teaching.
Enticing. Enticing men to do something.
Enticing men to make a decision. Enticing men to accept Jesus
as their personal Savior. Hey, I didn't come that way.
Paul said, I didn't come that way. But in demonstration of
the Spirit and of power. The efficacy. What he's saying
here, the efficacy. of my message was not in the
way I delivered it and what I had to say, the efficacy of my message
was in the power of God." You believe. You believe the gospel
because of the power of God, not because of the way I presented
it to you and I persuaded you. Paul's preaching was not of this
world. It was not a human-designed message. In other words, it didn't come
from man, it came from God. And the power of it is of God.
The words he said here that I used were not enticing words, but
here's what he used, words of truth. If God is going to save
sinners, the truth must be preached. of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth." Not the word of persuasion, truth. You believe
the gospel, you who believe. You believe the gospel because
God, you've heard the truth, and God has revealed Christ,
who is the truth, to your heart. And that's why you believe. You
and I don't believe because we are more intelligent than anybody
else. We believe because God has taken
hold of us and revealed the truth to us. And I tell you this about
faith, and you know this, you who believe, you know this, you
cannot help but believe. You can't help it. For me to
say, I don't believe, I know this, I'd be lying to you. Because
I believe and I can't help it. God has made it known to me.
God has made it evident to me. And He's made it evident to you. And He did that by His power.
Christ said, Thou hast given me power over all flesh, that
I should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given me.
He has power over you. And from that power, He has exerted
that power over you to the very point that you believe Him. And
you can't help it. That thrills my heart. I'm telling
you the truth. That thrills my heart when I think of that. I
believe God because I can't help it. I'm not trying to believe
God. I believe. I believe. That father said, Lord, I believe.
Help thou my unbelief. But I do believe. Now what Paul
is doing here, he is rejecting any reliance on the preacher's
ability to persuade sinners to believe by human wisdom. That's
what he's doing. He's rejecting any reliance on
the preacher's ability to persuade sinners to believe. He's trusting
God. As I stand here and preach, I'm
not trusting my ability to convince you. I'm standing here preaching
the truth, and I trust God. that he will save whom he will. And there's not a person in this
room that is beyond his power to save. And I can't save any
of you. I can't save myself. Paul relied
on the Holy Spirit to save sinners. He relied on the Holy Spirit
to give power to his preaching. You have heard me pray, and you've
heard other preachers pray, but you've heard me pray often, pretty
much every time I stand to preach. Lord, enable me to preach in
the power of your spirit. I don't want to stand here alone. This is way over my head. Paul
says in one place, he writes in one place, Who is sufficient
for these things? But our sufficiency is of God. There's no man who is sufficient,
who has the ability to handle matters of life and death. There
is no man who is sufficient, no matter how long he's been
in the ministry, at no given time, Is any man whom God has
called to preach sufficient to stand on his own and preach at
no time? God is our sufficiency all the
time. He's the one who enables us to
preach, and He's the one who enables us to believe. As Paul says here, he says that,
let me read this again, that he said, in my speech and my
preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Paul's responsibility was to
preach. He said in one place, woe is
me if I preach not the gospel. My responsibility is to preach.
It is the Holy Spirit's responsibility, if I can say it that way, in
order to make a point, to save through the preaching of the
gospel. That's His. Mine is just to tell it. And here's the reason why it's
done this way. In verse 5, "...that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom, the teaching, the power of men,
but in the power of God." That your faith, the reason you believe,
and I've already hinted at this, the reason you believe is because
God has enabled you to believe, not because some man stood in
his pulpit and persuaded you to believe. But God did. That's why you believe. And if
God enabled you to believe, that faith will carry you all the
way home. If a man persuaded you to believe,
sooner or later, it will fail. It will fail. Any preaching that is focused
on the wisdom or the teaching of men And we're talking about, especially
in our day and time, entertainment. They get into entertainment.
They get into emotionalism. They get into human personality.
All of that will get a response. Now listen, it'll get a response,
but it will not get spiritual results. It won't do it. Only God, commanding life through
the preaching of the gospel, gets results. Only God. We are not trying to lure people
into believing, and that's what Paul said, I didn't lure you
into believing. I didn't hoodwink you into believing.
We're not trying to do that. What we are trying to do is preach
the unsearchable riches of Christ and leave the results in the
hands of the Holy Spirit. You're not gonna see me, by the
grace of God, let me put it that way, by the grace of God, you're
not gonna see me begging someone to come down here and accept
Jesus as their personal Savior. I'm gonna preach the truth, and
we're gonna go home. And I'm gonna trust the Holy
Spirit to save such as should be saved, as it says in the book
of Acts. If your faith as I've said, is
in the power of God and in the demonstration of the Spirit,
it'll last. It will last. It'll last through
every storm, every trial, all the ups and downs. It will last
if it's of God. Yet, Paul says here in verse
eight, yet we do speak wisdom. Now, we do speak wisdom. But
the wisdom we speak is not of this world. It's a higher wisdom. It's infinite wisdom. It's wisdom
that's of God. It is a much higher wisdom. It is wisdom that's from above. You're not gonna get this in
some seminary. It's not where this comes from.
Not where it comes from. We speak wisdom to those, and
he says here, we speak wisdom to those who are spiritual, those
who are mature. Those of you, now listen, those
of you, you've grown in grace and in knowledge of Christ. When
I stand here and preach the gospel, you understand, don't you? You
understand. You hear. You hear the wisdom
of God. You hear the wisdom of God in
the gospel of Christ. You understand how God can be
a just God and a Savior. You understand how God can justify
you and still be God. You understand how God can forgive
you of all your sins. You understand that. That's what
he's saying. How be it we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect, them that are mature, those whom God has
saved, and they've grown in Christ, they've grown in grace and in
knowledge of Christ. We speak wisdom, we preach the
gospel of wisdom, and you understand it. I mean, the wisest, what
we call the wisest minds of this world, when they hear that, they
say, that's foolishness. You say, no, that's not foolishness.
That's the wisdom of God. Yet not the wisdom of this world,
nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught, or that,
I like what one translation said, that's being liquidated. He says
that the princes of this world, the rulers of this world, are
being liquidated. They're passing away. Now, why
did the rulers of this world not recognize God's wisdom in
the gospel? Why do they not recognize that?
Why did they not recognize it then and they still don't recognize
it? Well, it tells us here in verse 7, that we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery. It's a mystery to them. As I
was saying last week, Christ To the Jew, that meant power.
That was the one appointed of God to save. And crucified, that
means criminal. It means the worst of criminals. How do you put that together?
They couldn't do that. They couldn't put Christ crucified
together. It's two opposites. Well, the reason they don't understand
it is because it's a mystery. It's a mystery. Someone said,
a sacred secret that could only be known by revelation. It's
a sacred secret. And it's this hidden wisdom that
is now revealed through the preaching of the gospel. This hidden wisdom
of Christ, the Savior, the Messiah, being crucified in the stead
of a multitude of sinners. This hidden wisdom God's revealed
to you. God's revealed that to you. And he's revealed it to you,
how? Through the preaching of the gospel. How is it, how is
it that you can take a room full of people, and the gospel being
preached, and one person says, I see. One person says, I believe. And another person right beside
him doesn't see anything. God has taken that mystery, that
hidden mystery, that hidden wisdom, and just opened it up to you.
You remember Lydia, when Paul went down, there was some women
meeting down by the river, and Paul went down there and he preached
to them, and it is written about Lydia that God opened her heart. He just opened her heart. And there's others, no doubt,
that hear it, and they're just like, that's foolishness. Or
they have no interest at all. And yet you have an interest.
Don't ever get over that. Don't ever get over the fact
that you have an interest in Christ. Very few do. Cultivate that interest. That's
what I say. Cultivate that interest. Lord, make it grow. Make it grow
to the point where I can say with Paul, having a desire to
depart and be with the Lord. That I actually do have a desire
to leave this world and leave this life and go be with Christ. That the Lord Jesus Christ is
that real to me. He's not a religion. He's my
Lord. Paul says here that God ordained
this before the world unto our glory. His glory is our glory,
you know that? Whatever glory belongs to the
Lord Jesus Christ is ours in Christ. It's ours in Him. God purposed our salvation in
Jesus Christ and He purposed that you and I would believe
the Gospel through the preaching of the Gospel. through the demonstration,
through the power of the Holy Spirit, before the world began. And it's for our eternal glory,
our eternal good, which none of the princes of this world
knew. Be careful who you envy. You know, David said in Psalm,
I think it was Psalm 73, he was envious of the wicked, no bands
in their death and they just, you know, everything prospered,
whatever they put their hand to, they prospered. And he said,
then I went into the sanctuary of God and I saw their end. And he wasn't envious anymore. None of the princes, the rulers,
of this world new, Pilate, Herod, all of them, even now. For had they known it, had they
known this mystery, had they known who Jesus Christ is, he
says, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. They would
have refused to do it. This is the Lord. But because
of their ignorance and their sinfulness, they crucified Him,
not realizing what they were doing. All they were doing was
fulfilling God's wisdom, God's eternal purpose, God's wise decrees. The princes of this world had
no idea that they were accomplishing the purpose of God. And this
is how God brings the wisdom of this world to nothing. They
just accomplish God's purpose. They accomplish God's purpose.
Then He brings their foolishness, their wisdom to foolishness.
He makes their wisdom to be what it really is. Foolishness. God, in the saving of His elect,
when they crucified the Lord of glory, fulfilled His wisdom. Oh, don't you see the wisdom
of God in the Gospel? Do you see the wisdom of God
in Jesus Christ and Him crucified? It's infinite wisdom. I say,
I tell you this, Lord, give me a man Give me a man, and I thank
God He did for many years, I said under Henry, give me a man that
preaches the wisdom of God in the gospel and not the wisdom of this world,
not bow to the teaching and the philosophy of this world. You
know, there are so many so-called churches out there that will
not call a man to pastor unless he has a seminary degree or some
kind of college degree. I want to sit under a man whom
God has called and God has taught and God has given wisdom that
preaches the gospel of the glory of God, of God's glory.