Well, the Savior's already been
exalted this morning, and I enjoyed very much the beautiful music.
And, you know, the Lord chooses the weak, as our message this morning will
emphasize. When you think about it, it ought
to be the easiest thing in the world to exalt the Savior. All
you got to do is just talk about Him. Say what He said. And yet, we can't do that without
His grace, and we know that. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 this
morning, if you would. Verse 3. I guess we'll look at
the verses 1 and 2 as well. Sometimes it's good to sort of
emphasize Passages in the scripture that we don't normally maybe
even notice Or maybe we pass over a little
bit but to see them in the context Of the ones we do tend to focus
on is sometimes a great blessing and I pray that it will be by
God's grace this morning. Let's read from verse 1, but
we'll look at verses 3 through 5, Lord willing. In 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, and I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony
of God. And it's important that we put
these two things together. We often quote the scripture
where Paul said, I determined, which is the next verse, I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And rightly so, because that's
the apostle, as he often did, telling us what he preached,
what his message was, and what our message by God's grace is.
But putting the two things together from verse one and two, listen,
how do you say nothing but Christ? How do you do that? Just by declaring
what God said. Declaring the testimony of God,
it's the same thing. If you say what God said, if
you speak according to the words of the book of this prophecy,
there's nothing here but Christ. There's nothing we need but Christ.
One thing is needful. There's nothing we want, once
we have him, but Christ. But Paul also tells us here,
very plainly, how he came with that message. Verse three, and
when I was with you, I was with you in weakness and in fear and
in much trembling. And right off, I want us to understand
that this is the way every preacher of the gospel comes. This is
not a game plan that Paul came up with. He didn't sit down and
figure, well, how am I going to present myself to these folks?
Remember who we're talking about here. Christ had confronted the
apostle Paul. Christ himself confronted him
and put him out of business. He arrested him on the road to
Damascus, told Paul what was gonna happen, put him in the
dust, and said, here's what I'm gonna do with you. Paul wasn't
calling any of the shots here. So this is not something, when
he says, I came not with excellency of speech, nor with wisdom of
man's words, but in weakness and fear. He's not saying this
is my method. This is God's method. This is
the only way. that the gospel can be preached
just by nature of the gospel itself. And that means that this
is how all who speak for God come. And if they don't come
that way, they're not speaking for God. The nature of the gospel
demands that it be done this way. And let's look at this word
weakness. It means want of strength or lack of strength. It means not having the requisite
capacity It's from a root word that means
impotent. That's how we come. This is not
Paul saying, well, I was sick when I came and so I was in weakness.
Or he wasn't referring to the fact that apparently he was about
half blind. From some of his writings that's
been deduced. I guess whether that's right
or not I don't know but this weakness in which Paul came with
the gospel is Exactly what he was talking about in 2nd Corinthians
2 15 he said for we are unto God a Sweet savor of Christ in
them that are saved and in them that perish To the one we are
the saver of death unto death and But that's still a sweet
savor of Christ unto God. And to the other, the savor of
life unto life, which is a sweet-smelling savor of Christ unto God. And
who is sufficient for these things? I lack the requisite capacity. That's exactly the same thing.
I don't have the capacity to do this, and nobody does. Then
how, Chris, is it not a disaster? How do we not fail? Second Corinthians
3.5. Not that we are sufficient of
ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. That will be apparent when a
man preaches the gospel. That will be apparent. Who also
hath made us able ministers. It's not the preaching of foolishness,
but the foolishness of preaching. foolishness to this world, and
foolishness in another sense. We'll talk about, I believe,
in a minute, Lord willing. But we're able to get the job
done for one simple reason. It's the very last words of the
Great Commission. Everybody's memorized the Great
Commission. Do you remember the very last part? Lo, I'm with
you, always, even unto the end of the world. That's why we don't
fail. Not because God picked some able
people. He makes able ministers. He didn't
find them. The false preacher of man-centered
freewill religion comes with a purpose. He comes indoctrinated
by a seminary on how to build a successful church. And the
so-called success of that organization they call a church is completely
dependent upon the outreach program the free busing of children,
the Mother's Night Out programs, the activities organized for
the young people. I've been involved in it, I know
what I'm talking about. It's the involvement of everybody
in something. You're in the choir, or you're
a Sunday school teacher, or at least you can run the Saturday
raffles, or the garage sales or yard sales, the sales of products
in the lobby or the church bookstore or the vacation Bible school.
You could at least put a Big Bird costume on and run around
on stage at vacation Bible school. But most of all, their success
depends upon the subtle, carefully crafted lies that the preacher
tells. Paul said, I come to you impotent. I come to you helpless. I come
to you unable to personally accomplish anything and not trying to, not
trying to. We're not gonna make the church
of God successful by our activities or our business acuity. We're
gonna depend on God and we're gonna wait on him. We're not
gonna get anybody saved. We're gonna see what God does
this morning, if he'll maybe reveal himself to somebody. We
come with a message from the king of glory and we're not even
worthy to deliver it, much less have any claim of boasting in
the success of it. We don't measure success monetarily,
we don't measure success numerically, but we see success spiritually. Always. We're assured of success
by the one who sent us. We're assured of it. He always
causes us to triumph. His word cannot return void because
it's his word. Not because he sent us with it,
but because it's his. He always causes us to win because
his word, like the rain he said that falls from heaven, will
not, cannot return unto him void, but it accomplishes always the
very thing that God sent it to accomplish. Isn't that wonderful?
When we meet here together this morning, we know that by his
promise, if we come together in his name, and I believe two
or three of us have, probably more, don't you think? If we
gather together in his name, that is for his glory, for his
sake, to learn of Him, to exalt Him, to worship Him. He said,
I'm there with you. That's a win right there. That's
a win right there. And what a wonderful promise
from God and just a wonderful thing. When I come here, every
time I get behind the pulpit, I give myself about a 90% chance
of completely messing everything up. Some of that's based on experience. But it's a win because if the
Lord comes, He's got a way of exalting His Son. And He gives
us the privilege of doing that at times. But whether we're very
good at it or not, He's going to exalt His Son. His Word is
going to go forth. And it's going to be a win for
all of us. For all of us. The sweet savor of Christ unto
God, whether sinners are saved by it or whether sinners are
damned by it. And all of that is done by God
and not us. All of it. It just simply boils
down to this, really. In God's church, we're not trying
to get anybody to do anything for God. What in the world are
you going to do for God? He can do anything, he knows
everything, he owns everything. What are you gonna do for God?
He said, if I needed anything, would I ask you? That's a rhetorical
question. What we are doing is what God
told us to do, preaching the gospel of his son. Christ said,
whatsoever I've commanded you, you tell them, and whoever believes
you, I'll save them. And whoever don't believe you,
I'll damn them. Because we're speaking for Him. And when we
do this, when we preach the gospel, we're trusting that God will
do something for sinners. Not trying to get sinners to
do something for God. And it's not that people who
worship the God of the Bible don't serve. We're privileged
to serve. We serve with our hearts. And
we serve willingly in the day of His power and we count it a privilege to
do so. It's just that when we preach or teach or claim or give
or cook something, just be an encouragement to somebody.
You remember Dorcas in the book of Acts, She was said to be a
woman full of good works and you know what the one example
of that given in scripture when she died they all showed each
other the coats that she had made for them and rejoiced and
wept over her loss. It doesn't matter what you do
in the ministry of the Lord if you do it for his sake by faith
in him and wanting to be a blessing to his people, he said, if you've
done it to the least. I don't know what the least of
one of his brethren would be except me. I couldn't pick any
of them out. But if you've done it to any
of his brethren, he said, you've done it to me. Again, is that
amazing to you? Do you ever think about that?
I know religion says we're going to do something for the Lord.
And we shouldn't think of it that way because you know and
I know that whenever, like right now, is this me doing something
for God? This is God doing something for
me. He had to do something for me or we wouldn't be here. I
wouldn't be here. You would. And we know that. But to just be a blessing to
one of his people. Can we think about that and not
just pretend that he never said that? Can we think about that?
How can I be a blessing to one of his people and thus do something
for the Lord? That's what he said. So if we do anything, if we're
involved In helping with the ministry,
Paul said of some, they're profitable to me for the ministry. Profitable
to me. He said of one family, they're
addicted to the ministry of Christ. If you could ever, by any wild
stretch of the imagination, say that about us, we're going to know that's not
us doing something for God. God did something for you. And he must have the glory. We give him, I say we give him
the glory. That's not us doing something for him either. So weakness, weakness. He said,
I come in weakness. I'm empty. I'm needy. I'm dependent. But blessed, granted the honor
to serve, waiting on God to save and knowing he's going to get
all the glory and being happy about that. being happy about
that. That's what this is. And he said, and in fear and
in much trembling. Now, everybody who's ever preached
knows what this fear is. And he's talking about when he
came with the gospel, he preached Christ determined to know nothing
else but Christ. and who He is, God in human flesh. He's the Lord. He's the captain
of salvation. He's the invincible Savior who
saves everybody He came to save. And what He did, His precious
blood redeemed, accomplished, obtained eternal redemption for
His people. And He said, here's how I come.
When I do preach, here's how I do it, fear, fearfully. We fear because of our weakness. I'm not afraid that the gospel
is insufficient or going to fail. Aren't you glad that you don't
have to preach or hear the gospel of this religious world? I have
to sit there and tell sinners, now if you do this and if you
do that, now God wants to. God's trying. I'm glad I, I'm
glad I don't have to say that this morning. That's embarrassing. Embarrassing. Elijah mocked that
God. He mocked that God. But we fear in our flesh because
of our weakness. We fear because of the magnitude
of what this is. Always, by God's grace, may we
realize what this is that we're doing here this morning. This
is sinners huddled together in the only refuge we have in this
world, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're hiding in the rock this
morning. We need His comfort. We need Him to speak peace to
our hearts. We need to hear again of Him
and His precious sin-atoning blood. We need to know again,
tell me again, Chris, how that my sins are washed away in that
precious blood. We need him for strength. How
does this world, how do people who don't know God sleep at night? How did we, before we knew that
we could say with David, I will both lay me down in peace and
sleep for thou only Lord, make us me to dwell in safety. And
so we just gathered here to worship Him. He's worthy. This is in
honor of Him. Now we come here needy. We come
here to receive from Him. But this is a question of honor
too, isn't it? If you deliberately choose your business over His,
you're dishonoring the Savior. You can paint it however you
want it. But we fear because of how consequential
what we do is. As we just read, the savor of
life and the savor of death. Would that not make you tremble
a little bit? And the hearers should tremble too, not just
the preacher. We ought to tremble before Him.
We are in His hand to do with as He will. It's not the other
way around. We're not here to see what will
you do with Jesus. We're gonna find out what he's
gonna do with you. That's what we may find out. But he's gonna do something with
us. We're not gonna do anything with him. And so you see why we tremble. And it ought to cause us to tremble
to sit and listen too because God is speaking. God is speaking. Don't despise the message or
the king who sent it because of the appearance or the personality
or your like or dislike of the messenger. Paul said we have
this treasure in earthen vessels. It's like a precious gift in
a plain box. Now a child might well open the
box and take the toy and throw it off to the side and play with
the box. But somebody old enough to have any idea about the value
of the gift is never going to do that. Never going to do that. It doesn't matter what box it
came in. We're going to realize that the pearl of great price
is ours. And we'll give everything we
are and have to lay hold of Him. We fear because how shall they
hear without a preacher? And yet look at it, here we are.
He's chosen the base and the weak and the foolish. We fear
because we're fools and yet we have to tell a sinner who God
is and how sinners are saved by his son and his precious blood. But this fear doesn't cause us
to cower in our work or to be derelict in it. We tremble but
we don't fall because we're in his hand. Our sufficiency is
of God. We tremble but we don't break
because we're in the vine and His strength flows in us. This fear is not a bad thing.
It's a good thing because it keeps us looking to and leaning
on Him who is our strength. Paul said, when I'm weak, that's
when I'm strong. The Lord said, he cried unto
the Lord, Deliver me from this thorn in the flesh. And that
word, if you look it up, it's not like a rose thorn. He had
a spear in his side, spiritually speaking. Can you imagine walking
around with a spear stuck in you? And every step you take,
it's excruciating pain. God, deliver me from it. And
the Lord said, my grace is sufficient. And you remember what Paul's
response to that was? I will therefore glory in mine infirmities,
that the power of Christ may rest on me. If I try to do anything
in my flesh, it's gonna be insufficient. It's gonna be worse than that.
It's gonna be a disaster. But if Christ will use me and
do something through me, glorify himself in the weakness, in the
inability, then everybody wins. Everybody wins and we pray for
that We tremble And yet we know our sufficiency is of God And
we lean on him who is our strength and when we are weak in our flesh
and know it and come that way Waiting on him depending on him
empty in ourselves not getting anything done and but by God's grace, doing what
he said, bow to my son, believe on my son,
he's the door, he's the way, he's the bread, he's the light,
preaching him, exalting him, then maybe God will do something.
Peradventure, I like that word in scripture, don't you? Peradventure,
God. will give us repentance to the
acknowledging of the truth. If by God's grace I tell you
the truth this morning, God just might wake you up and cause you
to say, that's the truth. That's the truth. Paul in saying what he did in verse one there, adds this word 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. The word enticing there means
to be persuasive. Now does that ring any bells
with you? That's all religion does. They're constantly trying
to persuade. Let's sing one more stanza of
Just As I Am, even though we could sing it in our sleep by
now. I like the song in spite of the fact that I had to hear
it eight million times when I was a kid. One more stanza. Somebody here, you know, needs
to make a decision for Jesus. No, they don't. Nobody here needs
to do that. We need God to come. We need
His will imposed upon us. That's what needs to happen.
So persuade, to persuade somebody to do something. That's not the
Gospel. That's not how we come with the
Gospel. That's not how we determine to do nothing save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. When a sinner is saved, it's
not because somebody talked him into it. What did happen then? The Spirit. A demonstration,
or that word is to make manifest or prove When God saves somebody
in this place or anywhere on this earth, it is a demonstration
of the power of God's Holy Spirit. That's what it is. It's not a
persuasive... It's not a preacher being persuasive
enough. Proof of the power of God, not
of the preacher's ability to persuade. If you talk somebody
into making some kind of a decision for God, I started to say it
accomplishes nothing. It's worse than that. It accomplishes
sinful dishonor unto God to presume that you can do something for
God. All that you've done for God is the reason you're going
to hell and need to be saved. Nobody is saved until God the
Spirit comes and births a sinner from above. That could not be
clearer in the Word of God. A sinner which is born of the
flesh must be born again of the Spirit of God in order to have
life before God. That's why we don't try to coax
people down an aisle or into making a decision. You can't
decide to be saved. You can't find salvation at the
front of a church. Salvation is a miracle of God's
grace. And as Paul is plainly saying
here, these are two different things. Waiting on God, exalting
Him, waiting on a demonstration of His power, and persuading
people to do something for God are two different things, and
they are the result of the preaching of two different messages. One
of them's the gospel. And that's what God, when God
said he would do something for sinners is when the gospel is
preached. It pleased him by the foolishness
of preaching this gospel to save them that believe. When Christ
is, read Romans chapter 10 at your leisure. God's got to send
a preacher. They have to preach the gospel. Somebody got to hear them. They
have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, gotta be mixed with faith
in them that hear it. They believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that's not of themselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And then they call upon the Lord,
and then the Lord saves them. That's how it works. Salvation
is of the Lord. And this whole matter is proof,
that's what that word demonstration, proof and a manifestation of
the power of God to save. He regenerates sinners by his
Holy Spirit. It's a work of his power. The
disciples, when they perform that physical miracle, making
that lame man able to walk, all of the miracles are pictures
of how God saves a sinner. And they said, why are you looking
at us as though we did something today? Christ hath shed forth
this that you see. And that's what we say when we
preach. Not the power of the preacher to persuade, not the
power of the sinner to decide. Power, look at that word power
for a minute, and then look at verse five in regard to that.
We see whose power it is. That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, the wisdom
of men, the tactics of men, the deceptions of men, the inventions
of men, because where do you see any of that in the scripture
about walking aisles and saying prayers and repeating this and
that and making decisions? Why do we come professing our
impotence in our inability. Why do we come in awe and reverence? Why do we preach in such a way
that our preaching is a demonstration, not of our persuasive ability
or of our mental ability, but a demonstration of God's power
to save by the message and blood of his only begotten son? Why
do we come like that, that your faith should not stand in the
wisdom of men? but in the power of God. What
I believe, by God's design and grace, and because of the way
the gospel, by its very nature, because of who the gospel is,
the way it came to me, I believe not what a man said, I don't
believe because of the excellent way that he said it, but I believe
God concerning his son. My faith rests in the ability,
the authority, the saving power in Christ of God. Is that your testimony? And look particularly at the
target of the faith that God gives, the power of God, the
power of God. God's able. He's able. The preacher can't
get me saved, but God can save me. The God he preaches, if he does,
is able to save. And Paul said, I'm not ashamed
of that gospel, for I know whom I have believed. and I'm persuaded,
not by a man, because of who? You think about
that. We just saw that word enticing,
which means persuasive, the persuasive words of man's wisdom. Paul said,
I'm persuaded. What has persuaded you? I'm persuaded
that he is able. I'm not persuaded of what I need
to do to be saved. I'm not persuaded that I need
to make a decision. I'm not persuaded to walk an
aisle. I'm persuaded that Christ is
able, that your faith should rest not in the wisdom of men,
but in the power, the power, the power. What did Paul say?
They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. Sounds like Paul's faith was
in the power of God. I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. In closing, always give special
attention to what the Lord says. I just mentioned the miracles,
the healing of that lame man. What did they say? They said
the same thing Paul did. Don't believe in men. The Lord
Jesus Christ shed this forth. The power of the one you crucify
has been exerted here. That's how sinners are saved.
But always give special attention in these miracles to what the
Lord says to the one in need. When he did miracles, he didn't
just go around putting on a magic show. He revealed how sinners
are saved needy sinners that came, Lord, I'm desperate. My son is grievously vexed. He
throws himself in the fire. He throws himself in the river
trying to drown himself. He's got a devil. He's full of
devils. If you can do anything, help
me, help me. Lord, my daughter is grievously
vexed with a devil. Lord, my servant is on his deathbed
and I love him. And I know you don't even need
to come under my roof. Always remember and take special
note of the Lord's response to the need for a miracle. To the blind man in John 9, you
remember what he said to him after the synagogue had thrown
him out? and said, he's a wretched sinner. We got no use for you here. And
it says the Lord found him. And they had been asking him
all these questions. Is he a sinner? We know this
man's a sinner. And he said, I can't answer your questions.
I just know this. I was blind. And then he came
along and now I see. He made me see. And the Lord
found him when they kicked him out. And you remember what he
said to him? Do you believe on the son of God? Do you believe
on the son of God? That's our text. Is your faith
in the power of the son of God? Do you believe on the son of
God? And he said, Lord, who is he? Who is he that I might believe
on him? To Zacchaeus, the Lord said,
come down, for I must abide at thy house today. And what does
that mean? What would it mean for the Lord
to come to your house? Well, the Lord described it a
little bit later in the context. You know how the Lord described
him coming to your house? He said, salvation has come to
this house today. That's what happened. to the ruler of the synagogue
in Mark 5, he said, be not afraid, only believe. Does your faith rest in his power,
in the power of his blood, in his godhood? If God died to save
sinners, then sinners are saved. If God died to save that sinner
right there, then that sinner's saved. Be not afraid, only believe. To the paralytic in Matthew 9,
the Lord said this, son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven
thee. He was still paralyzed. The Lord
hadn't healed him of that, yet he's still laying there on a
bed and can't move. And the Lord said, be happy.
Could you be happy, paralyzed? If your sins are gone, you can.
Real happy. Turn with me, please, in closing
to Matthew 9, 27. Look at what the Lord said, and
remember our text. Now, we're talking about your
faith resting in the power of God. Matthew 9 27 And when Jesus deported thence
two blind men followed him crying Can you imagine can you can you
picture yourself following the Lord Jesus Christ and crying
out crying? And Saying Thou son of David
have mercy on us Have mercy on us And when he was come into
the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus saith unto
them, Believe ye that I am able. Do I have the power to do this
for you? And they said unto him, Yea,
Lord. Can you think of a better answer
than that? Yea, Lord. Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying,
According to your faith, be it unto you. And their eyes were
opened, and Jesus straightly charged them, saying, See that
no man knoweth. Their faith was in the power
of the one. Can these bones live? You remember
that question? Ezekiel was asked, Can these
bones live? Do you remember how he responded
to that? Lord, thou knowest. You know why he answered that
way? What if somebody asked you, can
that person just walk in the grocery store? Can that man be
saved? The only one that can answer
that question is the one who has the power to give life to
dead bones. Thou knowest. Thou knowest. I tell you this,
if the Lord wants them to live, they're going to live. May he
give us faith in his sovereign, omnipotent, glorious power to
save. The power of his precious blood.
Paul said through faith in his blood, sinners are saved. Christ
and Him crucified. I determined to know nothing
else. And if you preach Him, there's
only one way you can do it. Lord, do something for us. Cause
your power. Save us. The best prayer a mortal
man ever prayed Simon Peter, when the waves and the winds
began to kick up, he said, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. He didn't need a chance. He needed
the Lord to save him. I pray he'd save every one of
us by his great power to save.