 Here in 1 Corinthians chapter one, we'll begin reading at verse 26. I'll read to verse 31, and then we'll look at that. Spend some time looking at that and then move on into chapter two, the first few verses, beginning at verse 26, chapter one, first Corinthians. Paul writes, for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. Now, as we begin, we need to remind ourselves what Paul has just written in order that we can have a context and then move on in to the verses in front of us. We know that Paul had just made a statement that he said, Jews request a sign and the Greeks will seek after wisdom. Now, in doing so, what he is actually doing is he's dividing the world into two segments, Jew and Gentile, Jew and Greek. You need to remember that during the time of the writing of the old and New Testament, humanity was divided into two groups, just two basic groups, at least biblically. You have those who are the covenant people of God referred to as the Jews. And then you have everybody else that are referred to as Gentiles. And so what he's basically doing is dividing humanity into two segments, Jew and Gentile. And so the world is divided into two groups. You have the Jew, you have the Gentile. And what's interesting is later on, Paul is going to give to us a new insight because there's a new entity that was created through Jesus Christ. It actually takes the Jew and the Gentile and makes them into one. And that new entity is called the church. So you have the Jew, you have the Gentile, and you have the church. In Ephesians chapter three, verses four and six, Paul said it like this. He calls it the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are errors together with Israel, members together of one body and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. So at one time you have Jew, then you have Gentile, Jew and Gentile, but now you have the church. The church is made up of all believers in Jesus Christ, both Jew and Gentile. Those who believe the message of the gospel are brought into what is called the body of Christ or the church. It's like what you'll say when we get to chapter 12, what he says in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink. And so it doesn't matter if you are born as a Jew or born as a Gentile. When you get saved, you're basically part of the body of Christ. You become a member of the church. And so before receiving Christ, both Jew and Gentile are equally separated from God. Both Jew and Gentile exhibit rejection of the cross of Jesus Christ in their own particular way. The Jews request a sign. The Greeks seek out wisdom. The signs would reveal God's power. Man's wisdom for the Greeks actually would leave no place for God. And so what the cross does is it brings together both Jew and Gentile under one message, under one banner. The banner would be Jesus Christ. The message would be the gospel. And so Paul has been speaking concerning that, and that's why he said in verse 23, we preach Christ crucified. In other words, Jesus Christ on the cross qualifies him to be the savior of the entire world. And this, he says, is the wisdom of God that has been revealed. Jesus crucified as the atonement, as the atoning sacrifice for our sin. When Jesus was speaking on one occasion, it's recorded in John chapter 12, verses 32 and 33. Jesus said this, he said, but I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. And John hastens to add, he said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. So Jesus was lifted up in order to draw all men into himself. Paul says to the Jew, a crucified Messiah is a stumbling block. To the Gentiles, a crucified savior is moronic, it's foolishness. One commentator said it like this. They laughed at the story of a crucified savior and despised the apostles way of telling it. They sought for wisdom. They were men of wit and reading. Men that had cultivated arts and sciences and had for some ages been in a manner the very mint of knowledge and learning. There was nothing in the plain doctrine of the cross to suit their taste nor humor their vanity, nor gratify a curious and wrangling temper. They entertained it therefore with scorn and contempt. They thought that the cross was foolishness. It made no sense whatsoever that Jews couldn't get behind the idea of a Messiah that actually died and that's why the Apostle Paul says it's a stumbling block to them. But he goes on to say to those who are called both Jew and Greek, it's Christ who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. So Jesus is what the Jews and the Greeks were looking for. They were looking for power and they were looking for wisdom. And this is all going to be disclosed to them through the preaching of the cross because preaching of the cross is a call to faith in God through Jesus Christ and is the ultimate sign and wisdom from God. And we've been seeing that as we've been going through first Corinthians and now we've arrived at verse 26 and Paul continues by saying, for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. Now, when he speaks here, notice how he says it in verse 26, not many wise, wise according to the flesh. In other words, these people are not wise according to the standards of the flesh. That's the reality of the Christian faith. The Christian faith is not appealing to those who are self-sufficient. He says these people who are self-sufficient do not find the cross attractive. They don't see the message of the gospel as being attractive. And so that's why not many wise, which is in reference to philosophers, not many mighty, which are men of dignity and power and not many noble, which are men of nobility or high birth are actually coming to the cross of Jesus Christ. You see, these three claims to aristocracy, education, power, and nobility were the things that men actually would seek after my generation. I don't think it's much different than generations before. Most certainly couldn't be because I learned it from my father is the same kind of mentality. I think that many in the younger generation today have received and that is this. My dad would tell me, David, you have to take care of your health because if you don't take care of your health, you're not going to be strong enough to go to work. If you're not strong enough to go to work, you're not going to be able to provide for your family. So my dad would say you need to take care of your health in order to have wealth. My dad also said it would be a good idea, son, if you went to school, if you completed your classes, if you got your degree, because for my dad, education was one of the ways that you could actually make it in the world. And his wisdom, his advice, wasn't necessarily a negative thing at all. I think that you ought to pursue education if it's a calling that you have. Most certainly you ought to take care of your health in order that it can provide for your family and be strong enough to go to work, et cetera. But during the day of Christ, as it is true today, those things actually took the place of faith in God. And so what you would do is you would actually want to have the earmarks of nobility. And so you'd have the wisdom and you'd have the strength and you'd have the might. And these are the things that people pursued. And if you had those things, if you were wealthy and if you were well educated and if you are strong, if you had those things physically and emotionally, if you had those things mentally, then you would be a success. And so Paul is saying, have you noticed that not a lot of rich people are coming to Christ? Have you noticed that the self-sufficient, those who are mighty aren't coming to Christ? Have you noticed that these mighty men, these wise philosophers, these people of dignity and power are not coming to Christ? Well, the point he's making is the church isn't filled with the wealthy intellectual nobility. Instead, the church is filled with us. People who are not quite like that. It's filled with people who recognize that they don't have those things. The church is actually filled with people who recognize spiritual poverty. That's what Jesus taught us to do, isn't it? In Matthew chapter five, verse three, isn't that what he said the first step to salvation is? Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It's when you recognize that you are bankrupt, standing on a street corner with absolutely nothing of your own that you could ever call your own. You don't have wealth, you don't have an ability to take care of yourself. It's when you recognize spiritually that you are bankrupt that you get saved. As long as you think you can save yourself, you can never be saved. You just can't because you've got that strength within you to try and save yourself. It's when you get to the end of yourself. It's when you recognize that there's nothing within you that gives you the ability to actually say to God, God, you owe me something. I tried so hard. It's when you get to that point where you realize God owes me nothing but judgment. But what God gives to me graciously is his mercy. When you begin to understand that you really didn't have anything to commend yourself to God and that the Lord really, because of your sin and my sin, our sin has made a separation and it's called God, who is a righteous judge, put him in the position where he has to make a judgment concerning us. And yet because God loves us and doesn't desire us to be separated, God himself did something for us. There was a penalty that was ours to pay, which is the wages of sin is death. And what did God do? Well, the Bible tells us what he did about that. In order that we might have fellowship with him be reconciled to him, in order that we would be able to spend eternity with him, God did something he took upon himself, human flesh, he dwelt amongst us. And ultimately he paid the price that I couldn't pay for myself and that's called salvation and that's what redemption is and that's what Jesus Christ did. So no human being obviously could ever do as much as what Jesus did. But the problem is is when you're wise, when you're powerful, when you're noble, you have a tendency of relying on those things that have put you in the position to have those things. And so the humility may not be there because you have the capacity of providing for yourself in every way. In Jeremiah chapter nine, verses 23 and 24, Jeremiah writes, this is what the Lord says, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches but let him who boasts boast about this that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth for in these I delight, declares the Lord. So the church is not filled with wealthy intellectual nobility, the church is filled with those who recognize their spiritual poverty. Notice verse 27 how he continues and says, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. The standards by the standards of the world, we did not have a chance but the God of grace made a way for us. In Ephesians chapter two verses four and five, Paul said, but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ. Even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved. It is by grace, God's unmerited favor. We did not earn salvation. We did not work to obtain it. We didn't produce anything so good that God looked down and said, I owe him something. What we did is we simply threw ourselves upon the mercy of God and said, God be compassionate to me, I'm a sinner. Forgive me and God listened to our prayer and it's through his grace. The Bible teaches us that God searches out and God restores those who are unloved and those who are unwanted. And by selecting those the world had no use for, God revealed the depth of his wisdom. It's interesting how it's put here because it says in verse 27, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. That word foolish is the word moros in Greek. It's way to get the word moronic. It literally speaks of something that is impious or foolish. It also speaks of something being godless. So those who are foolish, the foolish things are the things that are just that. They make no sense to people. The word weak there is obviously without strength but the picture is this. It's a picture of somebody who was unable to save themselves. It's like my two-year-old little granddaughter, Bella. What chance would she have against a lion or a bear? What chance would I have? But what chance would she have against a ferocious dog? She would have no chance whatsoever, would she? I mean, a little two-year-old baby girl can't take care of herself. She's unable to save herself. Somebody has to save her or else she's dead. Well, I don't care how big or how strong, how mighty, how wealthy, how intellectual a human being is. They're no match for the enemy. They're no match for Satan. They can't save themselves. There's no way they could. He's a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and he's on the prowl to destroy and to kill. That's what he does. Why does he do that? Because he hates God and he hates you and he doesn't want you to have joy so he'll do everything he can to destroy you. That's what he loves to do. If there's such a thing as love in Satan, he loves to destroy. He enjoys it. He gets something out of it. He's an unbelievable foe who's constantly at you to destroy you and then you have God. Now the enemy who is against you is beyond your strength. There's nothing you can do. But you have a God who's able. So we're unable to save ourselves and it's foolish to think that we can. We can't pay our own price of admission into heaven. It's in, I cannot do enough good to do that. So God did it for me. So one time I may have thought of the crosses being foolish but I at the same time was weak. I was unable to save myself. So it's God who saves and it's God's strength that preserves. You see God's salvation that he gives to us is intended to bring glory to him. And that glory is to go to God and not the vessel that has been saved. And when they see what God does in that vessel it causes the world to wonder. I've shared this often over the years. Perhaps you've heard me. But when it speaks of God doing this incredible thing that God again, I'll read in verse 27 and 28. God chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. The base things of the world and the things which are despised. God has chosen the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are verse 29 that no flesh should glory in his presence. Listen, if you wanna be used by the Lord let that settle into your heart. Let it settle. When you see some of the people that perhaps in your Christian life as a believer you look at them and you say, I admire their walks with the Lord. It's nice to have people who can serve to be a model of faith to you. My own pastor Chuck Smith is that model of faith to me I've watched him as he has faithfully served the Lord. He went through chemotherapy just last week and after chemotherapy he's on the radio answering questions, you know, that's Chuck. This is a man who had a knee replacement after he'd been hobbling on a bad knee for 60 years. You know, he finally had a knee replacement and where was he? He's supposed to take six weeks off in order to recover. Within three weeks he's up there in the pulpit given the Bible study. He can't stay away from teaching the word of God and some of you heard that he stumbled and actually fell on the platform because he couldn't hold his own weight up because his knee was really not strong enough to support him and he hits and rolls and he gets up and I hear about it and I write him and I say, Chuck, what happened? He says, oh, I hit, I rolled, I got up, no big deal. That's Chuck, you know, that's Chuck, you know, and I look to him and I say, that is a model. That's a model of a man who's in love with ministry. That's a man who doesn't let anything get in the way of serving the Lord. And so all of us have people that we look at, I'm sure, and say, now that is a model to me of what a Christian is. I wanna be, when I grow up, like that. I wanna grow up to be strong like that, to have faith like that and we see that. Thank God for men like that. But when you look into the history of our movement, our Calvary movement, the Jesus people movement and you see whom God is used. Guys like Steve Mays who, he was shot and he's got a bullet in him and he, you know, he's just, it's in his leg, I believe in. And you know, it's festering in all and he decides to go to sleep in a gutter because he didn't have any place to live and the people who live in the house are backing up when they see this young man who was about 19 years old laying in a gutter and they stop their car and they climb out and they look at him and they ask a question like, what are you doing here in the gutter? And they take him into the house and he takes a bath and they throw him in the car and they take him to one of the Calvary Chapel houses we used to have and he gets off and they say, you're going in there, you need some help. This is an unbeliever who walks in and some little scrawny guy looks at him and says to him something like, you know what, you're really lost and you need Jesus, put your head down, you're gonna pray and get saved. And Steve gives his heart to the Lord and now Steve has got this huge church of something like 12,000 members in Los Angeles and you think, man, what did you do Lord? Well, that no flesh would glory. You got somebody like Mike McIntosh who took so much acid that he thought that his head had been blown off, that somebody had put a gun to his head and blown off half of his head. And he was just some freak of nature, some weird miracle that enabled him to continue existing with half a head. And he started going to Calvary Chapel Coast of Mesa and they had prayer and he walked up to Pastor Chuck and he said, excuse me, sir, I know that you pray for the sick here and Chuck says, yes, how can I pray for you? He says, well, he says half of my head has been blown off and I would really like it if you would pray for me so that my head would be healed. And Chuck's looking at him thinking, half of your head's not gone, the whole thing is gone, son. You know, Pastor Chuck prays for Mike McIntosh and God miraculously heals Mike. And Mike has a tremendous ministry in San Diego that's birthed hundreds of churches and he does tremendous work and God uses him. We all know the story of Greg Elori, a young man who's an artist and basically he hears the gospel through a young man named Lonnie Frisbee. He comes to Christ and now he does these crusades and everything and has a tremendous ministry. You're all priests, you can go on and on and on and on. But what is the common thing about the men that you might think of and be aware of? The common thing about them is they are nothing without Jesus Christ and that's where people make the mistakes. They think, oh, they're intelligent or oh, they're strong or all they have this great testimony. No, what they have is a mighty God so that no flesh will glory in his sight. And the reason God uses these men and others isn't because they have so many natural qualities, it's because God is so great and so wonderful that he chooses to use them out of his own grace and when we understand that, we can be used by God. Until we get to the point where we say, I am nothing and you are everything, we're just gonna be frustrated in our walks. But when you finally say it's all of you and none of me, watch what the Lord can do through you. Watch what God can do through you when you finally just say, Lord, it's all of you and I promise you, I will not touch your glory. It belongs to you and I will not take it. You see, humility is the result of coming to Christ. We do not deserve salvation. God has chosen this sort to bring to nothing the things that are thought to be something. He chose people of this sort to show the wonder of his grace and the amazing power that he has to transform the useless into that which has value. He goes on in verse 30 to say, but of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. God has provided for you in Jesus wisdom, wisdom that flows from God himself and gives you insight into divine things. God has provided for you righteousness which results from being justified. It removes condemnation. God has provided for you sanctification, meaning that he has set you apart, you being made into a holy vessel through the cleansing of the blood of Jesus and God has provided for you redemption because he paid the price to set you free from the power of Satan and of sin. And why so that when we glory, we glory in the Lord because you can say it is none of me and all of him, it's none of me and all of him. Now with that as a backdrop, he moves into chapter two and he says, and I, brethren, verse one, when I came to you did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. As an evidence of the power of the gospel to change lives, Paul reminds them of their first encounter. Notice how he says, I didn't come to you with impressive speaking skills. I didn't come to you with human ideas of salvation. I didn't give you human wisdom dressed up, dressing up ordinary ideas in an impressive suit of clothes. What I gave you was God's word. I gave you God's revelation of salvation in Jesus Christ. I simply gave you the testimony of God that's revealed in the message called the gospel. Do, boy, I get really worked up in this. I have to tell myself, calm down for a second here because this is where I could raise my voice. Calm down, okay, breathe. In our day, it's almost as if we're ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's almost as if preachers are afraid to give the message God entrusted to them. It's a sad fact that some have given themselves over a great many to the quest of honor from men and respect from the world to the degree that because the gospel contains an offensive message, the gospel actually contains a message that causes people great discomfort. When you give the whole counsel of God, you have to give the A to the Z. It isn't difficult to speak about the good things that God wants to do, the blessings that God wants to provide, the promises that God gives in scripture. It isn't difficult to really emphasize the goodness and grace of God, the mercy of God, the compassion of God, the power of God, the love of God, the peace that comes from God, the joy through the spirit. There's so many wonderful things that God provides for us. But in order to have those things, you actually have to hear something that isn't flattering. You have to hear the other portion, the portion that will bring you to the place of being able to have those things. And that portion speaks about my sinful condition without God, what I am without God, what I'm capable of doing without God's restraining power. And I have to tell you that there are many today who don't want to hear the whole counsel. It's interesting how the apostle Paul, when he was there ministering to the Ephesian elders as it's found in Acts chapter 20 in my leaders, when he was there speaking to them, it's interesting how he said to them, I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. He said to them, I have been with you in weeping and I have been with you in my trials and my tears. You have seen me in the moments that God was gloriously blessing my life and the times when I was under such intense stress in my life, you've seen it from the beauty to the times when I have been under the most difficult circumstances. You've seen it all. And in the midst of all of that, there is one thing that I can say to you, I am free from the blood of all men because I have not shunned to declare to you the entire counsel of God. I've told you the A to the Z and that's why I can now leave you and continue on to the destiny that God has for me in good faith knowing that I did what I was supposed to do. I gave you it all. I told you the truth. I held nothing back. Now, I've seen this for years in churches like this and in my church where some will come to church not expecting to hear that there's something called sin, there's something called righteousness, there's something called judgment. They don't want to hear it. I'm not quite sure what draws them to church outside of perhaps an invitation, perhaps curiosity. But then they hear a message and if we're going through the passage, the message may include a call for repentance and then some people say, you know, that's exactly what my problem is as I have this lack of humility within me. I really am not dependent on God. I really need to change my mind concerning who I am and who he is. They receive Christ and it's a wonderful transformation that takes place and then there's times and others may hear the same message and be greatly offended over what they heard. They get upset. Perhaps they thought coming to church was going to be something entertaining or fun and they didn't really understand that it's a message that'll change your entire destiny. It'll change your eternity. It changes more than the hour you're there. It changes the eternity that you're going to inhabit one day if you receive what Christ has to say. People don't want to hear that. People get upset over that. People get bored by that. Paul could have altered the message, but he didn't. He says, when I came to you, I didn't come with excellence of speech, of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. I didn't doctor the message up and try and make it something that you would hold fast to and enjoy. I didn't take an ordinary set of ideas and dress them in an impressive suit of clothes to try and make them look better than they really are. I gave you the testimony of God that's revealed in his message. In First John, chapter four, verse 14, we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. That's the basic message we have. In First John 5, 11, and 12, this is the record that God has given to us eternal life. This life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who has not the Son of God has not life. We basically have a message. Listen, if you have Jesus, you have life. If you don't, then you don't have life. It's that simple and people don't wanna believe that. So one, he says, I gave to you a message that wasn't dressed up with eloquence. It was just a plain spoken message. Two, notice verse two, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. That, by the way, for those of you who share the gospel, that's the essence of the gospel. A savior dying for our sins. Now, if you were to think for just a moment, you're looking at the book of First Corinthians. When you look at the missionary journeys of Paul, Paul had just gone to a city called Athens. The city of Athens was one of the main intellectual centers of the civilized world during the time of Paul. There were few cities that matched it in their pursuit of intelligence and philosophy and the sciences, very few. Athens was a premier city. When Paul went to Athens, the Bible says that he was there waiting for a couple of traveling companions, and his spirit was stirred up because he saw that the city was completely given over to idolatry. And when he saw this condition, he was so stirred up that he couldn't help but began to share. And as he began to share, some of the intellectuals of Athens began to listen to him and they began to speak amongst themselves. And they said, what does this babbler have to say? We need to listen to him. And they took him to a place called Mars Hill. And they said, why don't you share with us the things that you've been sharing down there? And Paul began to share. He began to share the message. But as he shared the message, he actually couched it in philosophic terms that the Athenians, the philosophers there, the Stoics and Epicureans, these men would understand. So he begins to quote their own prophets and he begins to speak to them concerning some of the things that they're doing. I see that you are completely a superstitious group of people because as I was here, I noticed that you have a bunch of gods that you worship and you even have one place that's called to the unknown God. Well, this unknown God that you worship in ignorance, I want to declare to you, and this is who he is. And he begins to share, but he never really, and read Acts 17, and you will see that at least in what has been preserved for us, he doesn't quote scripture. What he does is he basically shares with them on their own level, the things that helped him to connect with them. One of the things that people sometimes need to remember is the apostle Paul was the premier intellectual of his day. This man was not an ignorant man. There was nobody who could hold a candle to him. This man was brilliant. This man was a man who was fluent in all the philosophies of his day. He was able to speak about and he was able to quote them. He was a rabbi of rabbis. This is a man who sat under as a disciple of the greatest teacher of his time, a man by the name of Gamaliel. He even uses that in his testimony and he says, I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Concerning religious background, I'm a Pharisee. He says, concerning the law, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I'm from the tribe of Benjamin. He gave his credentials over and over again, sat under Gamaliel. Everybody knew who Gamaliel was. Gamaliel was the premier intellectual of his time. He was a teacher of teachers. And when you were a student of a man like that during that time, we can sometimes get confused and understand what that means and what Paul is saying. See what we have today is college classes with 30, 40, 50 students. But what they had was a small select group of men that they poured themselves into. And so it was enough that the student became like the master. And when you actually had attained, that meant that you were going to be as wise as the one who was instructing you. Paul was one of the premier intellectuals of his day. But as he was speaking there, he didn't boast in what he knew. He said, listen, the things that at one time I could look at and use as evidences of my greatness, I now count them as refuse for the excellence of knowledge of Jesus Christ. And I lost all of those things to gain one thing, which is the knowledge of him. Paul had to learn those lessons because there in Athens, he's speaking to these Athenians. He's stoic to these Epicurians, a variety of people who wanted to hear some new thing. But he didn't use the gospel. You don't see him quoting scripture. And so he left Athens with very few converts. He goes to Corinth. Now he's in Corinth. What does he say? I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I've brought the message, and I have boiled it down to its essence. What I need to tell you is who Jesus is and what Jesus Christ did. That's the preaching of the gospel. I determined not to know anything. I made a decision to keep focused on Jesus and his death and the reason for it. If I were using worldly wisdom with entertaining speech, I wouldn't exalt the cross. Whatever I felt strongly about would replace the message of God's love and replace his salvation. I made a decision to keep my message on Jesus Christ and what he's done for you. That is the essence of proper Bible teaching. Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ and what he's done for you. That's what changes your life. I can stand up here and I can give you my opinions about everything, because I got opinions about everything. I can tell you my favorite sports teams. I can tell you my favorite politicians. I can tell you how I feel about certain subjects. You're not interested in that. That isn't gonna help you a bit when you're going through a trial, is it? It isn't gonna help you a bit when you're trying to explain to somebody why it's important to have faith in Christ. So what do you keep the message on? Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ and what he's done for you. And that's what Paul determined. That's what I'm gonna have you to know. Verse three, I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. Well, that's very open, by the way. The gospel preacher is simply a human being, not some God on earth. And Paul trembled under the burden of the work to preach faithfully as he was there with them. Never, never expect your pastor, whether I'm your pastor or somebody else's, never expect us to be perfect. You're only gonna be hurt because we're not. We're just people. We're sinners in need of the grace that we share with you. That's what we are. Does it give me an excuse to go out in sin all the more? Because grace abounds, of course not. But I'm just being real with you. I take chances with this congregation. I'll tell you things that something, oh, this is me, this is who I am. Because I don't want people to think that I'm super Christian. I don't. I want people to know I'm with you. I'm in the same boat. I have the same desires and the same things. I deal with the same things you do. I just have learned over the years the penalty that I've exacted when I've blown it. So I don't wanna do that. So I have some experience to help you not to do the things that perhaps I've done and suffer it over. And so bottom line is, I like the humanity of Paul because Paul is basically saying, listen, you saw me for who I am. You saw the way I am. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. I went through things and I was under the tremendous burden but the trembling is especially the burden of the work to preach faithfully as I was with you. And so never look at a minister as being some kind of superstar. God forbid that we would ever have that belief. We're not, we're just people who have the same savior as everybody in our church and need him just as much as everybody does in our churches. And we've fallen his mercy just like everybody else does in our church. That's how it works. And then what we're learning to do is we're learning to walk in his spirit so that we don't satisfy the longings of our flesh. We've learned to die to certain things so that we might be an encouragement to others. But Paul's making it very clear. He's saying, listen, you saw the real person and you saw my burden and my burden was to be honorable to Jesus Christ. And verse four, continuing my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. I didn't come selling salvation like it was a product to be marketed. I didn't come promoting a feel good religious faith. I came giving you the truth. In 2 Corinthians chapter two, verse 17, I like how he says it. He says, we are not as so many peddling the word of God but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ. We're not like so many changing or adulterating the word of God for personal gain. We didn't change the message. All of us have seen the sad reality of that, haven't we? Where somebody says, send me some money and I'll send you some blessed water or some special prayer mat. I remember some guy who sent out an anointed prayer mat. I had it in my office. It was from Raul. No, I had it in my office. And it had four angel pictures of somebody's idea of what an angel looks like on the four corners. And it came with instructions. And the instruction was unfold the prayer mat, kneel down, take out your wallet, put your wallet in the center, then open your wallet, take out your largest bill that you have in it, put it down. If you don't have a large bill, a credit card will do. Pray and then send the largest offering you can to my ministry. And I guarantee you your financial concerns will be solved. And I thought, why don't you kneel down on your own prayer mat, put your own wallet down there, take out the largest bill you have, pray for yourself, because it's obvious you want me to solve your financial problems when what you're telling me to do would actually solve them for yourself. And the problem is, is we have people who do that. They rip off people in the name of Jesus Christ. And it causes God's heart to break. And it causes unbelievers to look at churches and say, look what you do. Look how you rip people off. You change the message in order to get rich off of the poor pilgrims who desire just to know God. Paul said, I'm not like some so many peddling the word of God. I don't change the word of God so that I can get money off of it. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom. There are so many sweet, caring, gullible people, you can rip them off so easy. During the time of Christ, the Pharisees unfortunately, some within the Phariseic ranks would have a widow come up and say, can you pray for me? And the Pharisee would say she basically had to give him some money. If she didn't give him very much, he gave very short prayers. If she gave him a lot, then he had long prayers. And Jesus spoke concerning the hypocrisy of you making your long prayers. And the reason they made the long prayers is the more money you gave me, the longer I pray for you. And so during the time of Jesus, he saw that. That's why twice he walks into the temple, he sees the money changers, and he fashions a whip and drives them out. It is written. My house shall be called the house of prayer. You have made it into a den of thieves. You have taken what was holy, and you have made it into something that is commercial. And you can't do that. And Jesus was upset at the beginning of his ministry and the end. And he still gets upset when those in his name rip off people. Paul said I didn't do that, and I don't do that. My speech and my preaching are not with persuasive words, but it did come with the demonstration of the spirit and of power. The Holy Spirit is present, and the power of God is manifest in my preaching, and it results in glory to God. It's like what he says in 1 Thessalonians chapter one, verse five, where he said, our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. It didn't come with just words. It came with power and an evidence of God's presence. And then finally, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The King James says it. Your faith is not to stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And that I like that, because the stand speaks of being secure or resting in. Your faith is to rest in the power of God. The only secure place for your faith to rest is in God's power. Not in man's wisdom. And it's only the gospel that can transform a human life. Please value that. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ where it is the power of God and to salvation, to anyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Paul said, I am not ashamed. The word ashamed in the Greek means I do not shrink back from it. I am not ashamed of it. I declare it. It's the only message that changes lives. Isn't it? The gospel is the only message that changes lives. I look out here and I recognize many of you and I know your testimonies. I know what you were. I look out there, I see some druggies. I see some drunks, lots of criminals. I know some of your testimonies. I know my own. And it didn't come because somebody convinced me one day that there's a better way. My testimony came because somebody showed me the better way. Jesus Christ and the power of transformation that comes through a message of a gospel, a message of forgiveness, a message of life, a message of compassionate mercy, of grace, of holiness and of power. That comes through the Bible. It doesn't come through my favorite book I just read. It doesn't come from a great movie I just saw. It comes through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, declared with confidence because it's true and it sets people free.