Oh, Father, we couldn’t offer up a better prayer than one that Your Son Jesus prayed. Let Your will be done. Not our will, but Your will be done, Lord.

So we offer up a prayer of thanks, Father, that Your Son Jesus came and He perfectly obeyed Your will, that He in all things lived for Your glory, He in all things was righteous, He in all things was pure. And all that for Your glory to save sinners like us, Lord. Just thank You for our undeserved place as disciples of Jesus, as sons and daughters of the living God, as Your representatives here on earth. Lord, You’ve called us far beyond our station and we don’t want to neglect that or think light of it, Lord. Raise us up all the more this morning. Equip us, prepare us in spirit and word that we would be Your people, that we would speak as Your people, that we would do as Your people, that we would think as Your people, O God. So we pray for open ears, eyes that can see as Your Spirit teaches.

We pray for our tithe and our offering, something that we do regularly. It may feel like something we just do because we’re supposed to, but Lord, I pray that even what’s been offered up in tithe and offering, Lord, is blessed, it’s anointed, and Lord, we’re worshiping as we give back to You and we trust You to be our true sustenance for all things, Lord. And we just praise You for Your provision in Christ. And it’s in His name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Good morning. It’s good to see more of you. I know COVID’s been, knocking us out and staggering everybody getting back, but it’s good to see a few more people each Sunday. So it’s good to see you. Praise the Lord for the beards healing and still be praying for the bergsogles. I think they’re mostly out of the woods, but still struggling a little bit. So praise the Lord that I think everyone is doing better. We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians again as we continue on. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17. If you have your Bible, want to turn there with me?

1 Corinthians 17 to 31. I’m going to read it for us.

Paul says, For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

If there was a passage of Scripture I wish I could just stand up and read and then say, Amen, let’s go home. It would be this one. It would be this passage. And I’m tempted to do it. You know, we live in an age of sensationalism. Sensationalism. Everything’s got to be big and everything’s got to be bright and new. You think about things even from special effects in movies. We just want to see things just, just even more amazing than they were, you know, in the last decade. And every piece of technology, it’s got to be that much flashier or interesting. And we just thrive off of being, wow, but the funny thing is, it’s never enough, is it? It’s never enough. We’re always wanting that next best thing. We’re always wanting just a little more. Paul says to the Corinthians, the Gospel is enough. And any desire, any desire, any move for the Gospel to not be enough for the soul of a man to satisfy you truly, Paul says that’s false. You’ve not heard the Gospel. Paul says that his Gospel, it’s enough. It is enough. If we have the ears of the Spirit, it’s more than enough. It can’t be dressed up. It can’t be spun. It can’t be improved upon. The Gospel is the Gospel and the Gospel of God is enough. That’s Paul’s condition. That’s Paul’s intention to these Corinthian believers.

He says in verse 17, he sent me to preach the Gospel not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Paul’s mission was really a plain mission to him because the Gospel was plain to Paul. And now not in the sense, like plain like something’s common or boring plain, but plain as in you know a thing well. You know, like people who spend their whole life on one instrument and learning like that instrument and they know music theory. They know every technical aspect of music. And what can they do with music or their instrument is create beautiful, wonderful, complex music because they know it well. And so in the same way, Paul is a missionary. Paul is a church planter. Paul is a follower of Jesus. Because he knows Jesus and His Gospel well. That’s it. He knows the beauty and power of God’s Gospel. He doesn’t need to, I think as false Christians would, as a novice Christian would, you know, an immature believer would, this desire, this willingness to embellish it, to make it something it’s not, to use some human means to make the Gospel of Jesus attractive. As if man, who is flesh, could take God’s Spirit, spiritual Gospel, and make it attractive by fleshly means. It’s not possible. I think we say, well, don’t we care enough about people though that we need to meet people at their level, you know, and share the truths of the Gospel with people in a way that connects with them in a people group just right? You know, absolutely. For instance, I’m not going to share the Gospel with someone on the other side of the world that has no context of Christianity. You know, you’re not remotely saying mindset of me is, you know, the western part of the world. That’s going to look very different than how I share the Gospel. I’m not going to share the Gospel with someone across the street who’s grown up in the Bible Belt and has these familiar ideas with Christianity that just never responded to it right. So that would look different. But that’s not at all what Paul’s talking about. Paul’s talking about dressing up the Gospel in such a way that you think you’re helping the Gospel. You’re giving the Gospel some kind of push it doesn’t have on its own. That’s the issue here. And that is what Paul says is an impossible thing. As if, as if salvation depends, it depends on the quality of the orator. You must say it just right. As if the Kingdom of God hinges on the capacity to stir up just the right emotions, to thrill, to impress, to wow someone, to use logic and reason in just such a way that you wow, you just bring someone to their knees because you just undid them with your argument. Paul doesn’t really say it cannot be that way. Paul says it must not be that way. If the Gospel is to be the Gospel, you can’t add to it, take away from it either in content of truth, nor can it be fancied up with human speech and tactics, human argumentation, man-centered reason. Paul says when the elements, when these elements are present, the Gospel will be, he says it here, emptied of its power. Empty of its power. That means literally devoid of significance. Think about that. It becomes devoid of significance. I’ve been reading about John Cotton. John Cotton was one of the first and earliest preachers, theologians in the American colonies, Massachusetts Bay Colony. And he had, you know, the best Cambridge academic rhetoric, you know, education you could have in England. He was one of the greatest preachers in England in his time. And he came to America and became one of the greatest American preachers, theologians at the time. But he learned along the way this isn’t how God saves people through standing up here, which would have been the very popular thing to do in British culture, and use erudition. Sound as amazing as I can with my words and be a wordsmith and wow people with my language and my articulation. He believed in the plain style of preaching. And that’s when he started seeing souls saved. Similarly, people would say in England in Charles Spurgeon’s time, there were a great many famous preachers. And you would walk out of their services saying, wow, what an amazing preacher. But you would walk out of Charles Spurgeon’s service saying, wow, what a wonderful Christ. You see the difference?

But Paul really tells us why in verse 18 that it is that it is a fool’s errand to try to dress the gospel up. He says the word of the cross, it’s folly to those who are perishing. The Greek word for folly, it sounds awfully similar to our word for moron. He’s saying it’s moronic. The gospel, it is moronic. It means wildly nonsensical to all people everywhere. And for us as Christians, it’s not a thing to be embarrassed of. It’s not a thing to spite. It’s a thing to be embraced. God’s gospel is a foolish message to all. It’s like, I got this square, it’s got all these sharp edges on it. I can’t get it in this round hole. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll sand off the edges and then I can get it in the round hole. But you no longer had the thing you had.

Conversely, Paul says God’s foolish gospel, just let it be what it is. Let it be what it is and then it will be the wisdom and power of God into salvation. Or to say it another way, the gospel of Jesus Christ, it’s a heavenly message. It’s a godly message. It agrees with the heart and the mind that’s been opened by the Spirit to its truth. It’s never going to make sense as it is to man. It’s just not. It only becomes beautiful and wise and powerful when we see it as God allows us to see it in the Spirit. Fleshly perception cannot do that. As much as heaven and earth are opposed. As much as God and man are opposed. It’s not even like someone could say, yes, I hear your heavenly gospel and it’s quite wonderful, but I’ve found this other religion and I like it slightly better. It’s not that. Look what Paul says in Romans chapter 8 verse 7. He says, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So Paul makes it that opposite. Man’s capacity to think and to reason in God’s gospel. So that’s the problem isn’t it? When you and I as Jesus’ people, we start to think with non-heavenly minds about how we’re proclaiming the gospel. We think things like, and people do, and churches do, well, maybe we shouldn’t emphasize sin so much. People don’t need to be hearing about how they’re sinners. You know? Maybe we just focus on inspiring people. That’s what people need. They need a little bit of inspiration in their life. Maybe less Bible, more anecdotes, more stories, more big picture principles. Make people feel good about themselves. People need to pick me up in life. And all of a sudden, when you do things like that, you’ve got a gospel that makes sense to the flesh. You’ve got a gospel that doesn’t resemble the gospel. You’ve told the itching ears, Paul says, what it wants to hear. But look what Paul does in verse 19. He’s quoting the prophet Isaiah. He says, no, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. It means I will bring your human discernment the way you think you can understand and reason. He says, I will expose it as it means fraudulent and invalid. I will destroy your human wisdom.

So the first thing I want us to say to us on this is, if the gospel is to be enough for us, it must remain a foolish and weak gospel. If the gospel is to be the gospel, it must remain a foolish and weak gospel. Verse 12, Matthew chapter 12, verse 38. It says, then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them, an evil and an adulterous generation seeks a sign. Paul goes on to say, where’s the debater? Where’s the wise person? Hasn’t God made all these things foolish? The Greeks, they want to hear. They want to hear wisdom. The Jews want to see a sign. But this shouldn’t be, for us, because we spent three years in Matthew, this shouldn’t be too enigmatic, what Paul’s saying, what Jesus means, right? The Jews, they were exiled by Assyria. They were exiled by Babylon. They were overlorded by the Persians and they were overlorded by the Greeks and the Syrians. And then the Romans, they want in a Savior, somebody with an iron fist. That’s who they want. That’s what they want to see. They don’t want whatever Jesus is selling. They don’t want it. Jesus has already, has he not, all throughout his ministry up to this point, he’s done so many signs and wonders. He’s healed sicknesses. He’s calmed storms. He’s already proven that he was who he was, but they weren’t exactly his idea of the kind of Savior they wanted. They wanted to see military strength. So in their own scripture in Zechariah 9-9, they would have liked the first part, but not the second part. He says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation. Is he great? Second part, humble, mounted on a donkey. Uh-oh. On a colt, the foal of a donkey. See, Christ wasn’t the kind of power they wanted.

They didn’t want a king that was born into a humble manger. They didn’t want a lowly carpenter. They didn’t want an unimpressive commoner who spent his time among common people. They certainly didn’t want one hanging on a cross. Where’s the power in that? Where’s the glory in the cross? And I think you and I, if you’re like me, and you’ve grown up in the church, you hear like, the cross of Jesus. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s salvation. If you’re in their time and you hear the cross of Christ, you just hear like, what did you just say to me? The cross of Christ. The cross is where they put, people who are like, just the worst of society, like the worst criminal. What are you talking about a victory? If you’re talking to me about somebody on a cross, like, they lost. If they’re on a cross, they lost, and they lost naked and ashamed and embarrassed in front of everybody. So this was an embarrassing gospel for Jesus to preach, for Paul to preach to Jews. And so he says for the Jews that it’s what? It’s a stumbling block. Because it didn’t make sense with the kind of Savior they wanted, but it’s really amazing because it tells us that for God it pleased Him. It pleased the Lord to save man this way. It was to their great hate, but it was for the Lord a pleasing thing. It says it in verse 21. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. It pleased God for the greatest of the Jews, the Pharisees, the religious leaders to say, that makes no sense according to our erudition, according to our knowledge base, according to our wisdom, yet it was God’s means of salvation. And it pleased God. And it’s not a new thing. Very popular scripture in Isaiah. And we read these around Easter. Isaiah 53.10 Yet it was the will of the Lord, or you could translate that, it pleased the Lord to do what? What did it please the Father to do? It pleased the Father to crush Jesus. It pleased the Father to put Him to grief.

Not the iron fist, but the humility of the cross of Christ. That’s the power of God. For in that humility, Jesus left heaven. Jesus assumed the flesh. Jesus lived the perfect life we couldn’t do. Jesus carried the sins of the world on His back. Jesus defeated Satan and sin and darkness for all time by His new and resurrected life. That is the power of a humble Christ. Not an iron-fisted Christ. That is why the cross of Christ is the power of God. Because in it, only Jesus could have been the pure, perfect sacrifice that He was to save sinners like us. And yes, Jesus will come back at the end of time. And Jesus will come back with an iron fist. But friends, you better be surrendered to the cross. You better be surrendered. And in agreement with the power of God in the cross of Christ when He comes.

So the Jews demand a sign, but then Paul said the Greeks, they seek wisdom. Now, Greek culture at that time, and we talk about Jesus lived in the Roman Greco world. In the Roman Greco world, what was all important was rhetoric. Like your ability to stand up and use language and arguments and reason and convince me or beat your opponent because you can just out-talk me. That would have just been a mainstay in Roman Greco culture. High culture, logic, reason. One very popular philosophical movement and this was something Paul addressed in Acts. He deals with the Epicureans if you remember. And the Epicureans believed life is all about just living in the moment. It’s happiness. It’s avoiding pain. It’s avoiding suffering. God may exist, but He’s distant. You can’t change tomorrow. Just accept life. Life as it comes. And then you will achieve happiness. More famous than that is Stoicism. Emphasis on the rational. What makes sense. What you can prove to me by empirical obvious proof.

One dictionary defines it as the logic and progression towards the certainty of things and it’s being safeguarded by an entire system of thought. That’s Stoicism. There’s no afterlife. It’s just what you can perceive and prove to me right now.

Well, how foolish the gospel because the gospel is not the story of a distant, far off impersonal force. It’s the story of a very personal Savior. It’s the story of God not even remaining in the heavens and talking clearly. It’s the story of God leaving everlasting and coming to me and washing my feet and spilling His blood for me. That’s the story. And then the story tells me that Jesus’ didn’t come and live a life of happiness and tranquility, even though He was the King of Kings. Jesus came and suffered and died and it was through His suffering and death that peace came. And more than that, He says, hey, if you want a life of peace and everlasting life, you pick up your cross and daily follow Me in suffering and pain. And in that suffering and pain, you will find true life and everlasting life. The gospel of Jesus went head to head with the popular thoughts of Greek and Roman culture entirely. Oh, and by the way, no, I can’t empirically prove it to you. Jesus rose from the dead. Do you believe that? Do you believe that?

So the gospel is nothing like anything that you would have come up with. It’s nothing like anything I would have come up with. It’s nothing like anyone would have come up with because it accords with the Lord’s mind and the Lord’s wisdom and the Lord’s power. The gospel is otherworldly. And I can’t get out my sandpaper and start cutting off those corners and lose the gospel entirely. Church, I pray that we would let the gospel be the gospel in all of its foolishness. Because only then is it present in wisdom and power. You know, you’ve heard it said you can’t reinvent the wheel. I think that’s no more relevant than here. You can’t reinvent the gospel. You can’t renovate the gospel. You can’t embellish the gospel. To do any of those things is to ruin the gospel. Is to ruin the gospel.

But I want to say, I want to say to you on that, Paul is very happy to say in other places in scripture, you know, you really ought to be seasoned. You ought to know how to share the gospel. You ought to know how to defend the faith. So in other words, you and I need to be inflexible on the truth and we need to be very plain in our language, but we need to be able to speak the plain gospel to people in a way in which, hey, we’re setting it forth and we’re not making any promises. We’re not saying anything. We’re not doing anything other than saying, this is the gospel and let the gospel be the gospel. And I think there’s really great encouragement in this scripture for personal evangelism because it doesn’t have to do with you being this certain class. Like, man, I’m somebody with a quick tongue and I just, man, if I’m witty, so you think you’ve got me pinned and I’m one of those people that can like turn it back on you. I’m not one of those people, you know, somebody says something like, oh, I don’t know. I have to go look it up. Like, that’s okay. Like God is using what’s weak. God is using what’s foolish. What matters is your willingness, your availability to say, Lord, here I am. And I’m foolish and I’m weak, but I’m willing to speak your gospel. Lord, use me. That’s a place where God is willing to work.

This passage also affects the way that we govern church life and how we view people. When people are customers to win, we are willing to do a lot of different things, aren’t we, to get their quote unquote business. But when I see people as souls on their way to heaven or hell, I see them as the sick that need medicine. And I’m going to give them the medicine. You don’t argue with the doctor. You say, doctor, what do I need? And he doesn’t make any bones about saying, you need this medicine for your healing. So in the same way, when we see that people only need the gospel, why, we’re willing to only give them the gospel and not seek their praises and not seek their approval.

The second thing I want you to see from this passage is the gospel is enough

when, as we said, it’s foolish and it’s weak. But secondly, it’s enough only for foolish and weak people. I think it’s Paul’s second point in this passage. The gospel is only enough for foolish and weak people. 26, he says, consider your calling brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. He chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world. Even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So he describes the gospel, but now he describes the kind of people the gospel is for. Looking back at Matthew again, chapter 11, 25, Jesus says,

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you’ve hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such is your gracious will. And it’s not something that Jesus comes on the scene and that changes. It’s really just how God moves in human history. Think about Abraham. Who was Abraham? Oh, no. Just super obscure guy that God said, hey, through you I’m going to bless the nations. It was super obscure. It was super random. And think about Abraham. He had to live his life just roaming around like he didn’t have pomp. He didn’t have all this just stuff. He didn’t have anything. He was just kind of a nomad with his family moving around. The Lord took care of him, but he wasn’t established as he wanted it to be. He didn’t get to have the land in his life. Nor did his sons. And you think about the Lord passing over Esau for Jacob. He chooses the second boy. Why would he do that? God is always making a point that he’s not working the way that we think things should work. You think about when Samuel comes to anoint the new king after Saul has failed, and he’s lining all the boys up, and Samuel’s going, is this the best you got? And Jesse’s going, yeah, look, there’s the strong wind, here’s the tough wind. He said, you don’t have anybody? He said, well, I’ve got this. He’s a ruddy old kid out in the field. And Samuel says, there, that’s God’s king. That’s God’s king. It’s how God works. It’s how God works. And we see that again in the very life of Jesus. He was born into a manger. Remember when we for a long time looked at Jesus? He was a fugitive. He had to run to Egypt. He’s on the run from King Herod. He doesn’t have any royal courts to speak of. He doesn’t have any servants. Jesus didn’t have an elite education. And when Jesus starts his ministry, does he travel to Greece? Like, alright, we’re going to have a big debate and see who has the greatest powers of rhetoric and erudition, because I need some disciples. Who among the Jews? What rabbi? Who has the best student who really knows the Tanakh? The Old Testament. That’s the one on my team. I need the sharpest people among us. That’s what happens. He goes and he gets a bunch of teenage fishermen.

And I think we get so caught up in church life, in what we do and what we think, like we forget just, man, Jesus, you were so humble and you were calling like humble people and you made this thing so simple and you were just drawing in everybody. And he just spends his life with sinners. He spends his life with outcasts. He spends his time with the people that are just passed over in just of no account. And here’s what’s happened to the Corinthian church and it happens to us. They forgot that. They started thinking, we’re of a different stock. And Paul says, no, you’re not. He said, remember this, most of you were not thought of well by the world. That’s what he said. He says, in the eyes of the world, y’all were regular folks. You were just normal. Yet, here’s the powerful thing he says, consider your calling. That word calling in the Greek, it means a divine summons. So Paul says, as much as y’all were just regular old folks, you didn’t count, you didn’t have money, you didn’t have noble birth, you didn’t have big houses, you didn’t have influence, you didn’t have power. What did God do? God issued to you a divine summons to come to salvation in Jesus.

So let it be what Paul wants it to be for the Corinthians, for us. And it’s a heart check. It’s a heart check to say, who are the kinds of people that God saves? And the answer is people that are brought to the end of themselves. It doesn’t mean that God only saves poor people. It doesn’t mean that God, you know, only saves destitute people. It doesn’t mean that at all. It just makes the point, God is really into loving the kind of people that man doesn’t love and value. When we’re brought to the end of ourselves, friends, my own wisdom is forsaken. Whatever accomplishments I have, whatever power I have, it all must be seen as not, and God’s foolish gospel is wisdom from heaven to me all the time. It’s the puffed up heart that’s far from the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven we’re taught time and time again in the Gospels and the New Testament is full of people who are unconscious of self. I’m unconscious of myself. I’m unconscious of my accomplishments. I’m unconscious of what I’ve done in my life. I’m unconscious of how well other people think of me. And I’m conscious of Jesus. I’m conscious of His successes. I’m conscious of the cross. I’m aware of who He is in power and glory. I’m aware that only God has real and true wisdom. That’s the kind of people God’s drawing into His kingdom. That’s the kind of people God expects to fill His churches. So that God is seeing what? In His church. And He’s drawing the Corinthians back to that. And we’ll look at this more when we get further in Corinthians because they start to tear one another out. They’re starting to say, well, no, we’re a better kind. We’re a fancier kind. We’re this. We’re over there in that corner. And it doesn’t look anything like God’s foolish weak gospel.

Friend, if you are in the right place and you’re conscious of Jesus, you’re saying this. I’m here. I’m on the team. I got my certification letter, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Because I’ve looked at my life and I’ve looked at the things I’ve done and I’ve looked at the things I’ve thought and even whatever good I think I’ve done, it can’t begin to outweigh all the wrong I’ve done. And when I weigh myself against God’s law, I see I come up so short. So if I’m in the church, if I’ve said yes to Jesus, it is because God has looked down from the heavens and He has been gracious to a sinner like me. And that’s it. That is the song. That is the anthem of every single person in the local church, period. Look what God has done through His Son Jesus, through that foolish weak gospel.

When we live with that kind of consciousness, church, we will not live for self. We will live for the glory of God and we will live to make much of men so that they will glorify God. We will live to love men, to value them the way that God loves and values them. And it really speaks into here, doesn’t it? What a healthy church is. What’s a healthy church? It’s a place for people, people from, you know, cut from all different kinds of cloth. They can come and they can find family and they can find love and they can find forgiveness. This is God’s gospel. This is God’s people. This is God’s church. Someone once said, I was never of any use to God until I found out He did not intend for me to be a great man. He didn’t intend for me to be a great man. In this passage in the gospel, doesn’t it redefine greatness for us? Greatness is not what others think of us. Greatness is making God known. It’s loving people well. It’s doing what Jesus did, considering the other more significant than self, Jesus, Paul tells us. That’s what Jesus did. He considered other people more significant than himself. Paul says what? I count all things as a loss compared to knowing Christ.

What kind of church do we want to be at Providence? I’ve said it many, many times and I’ll say it more.

As we go, I’ve been here three years. As we’re building up, what we do now, I think in these stages, it’s going to be who we are for many more years to come. It’s very hard to reverse engineer the DNA of a church. That’s what I want us to see now. That’s why I use that phrase so often. We keep using it. Christ-centered community. That’s what a local church is. It’s a place where Christ is in the middle and we’re all following Him. We’re mimicking Him in the way that we love and treat one another. And then how we love and treat one another is how the world is going to perceive the goodness of God. What kind of church do we want to be? What kind of witness do we want to have? Who is the person? You may have to think about it a little longer. Who is the person? I don’t know if it’s their personality. I don’t know if it’s their skin color. I don’t know if it’s the way they talk. I don’t know if it’s their political affiliation. Who’s the person that you would rather not see walk through the door on Sunday morning? Okay? Got that person and then beg and plead God to give you a heart for that person the way Jesus loves that person. I think that’s where you’ve got to live and stay. That’s where you’ve got to live and stay. Lord, I want to consider other people more significant than myself. I don’t want to tear anyone out. Jesus is King over all and He has brought me in here and He has loved me.

Verse 30. We’ll close here. He says, and because of Him you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Paul says it so plainly there. You are in Christ. The Gospel is enough for you. It’s enough for us because it’s God’s Gospel. There’s a lot of Gospels. There’s a lot of good news out there. But when we talk about Jesus’ good news, there’s no news like Jesus’ news because it’s God’s news. It’s the news of what the Father has willed to happen through the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s because of what God has done that we hear the Gospel and we’re made wise unto salvation. The power of God lives in us to sustain us. It keeps our church. It reaches the nations. We’re grown up in righteousness. We’re grown up in sanctification. We know redemption and our boast is a boast in the Lord alone. The Gospel is enough. Is the Gospel enough for you? Do you really believe it? Do you want to see the Gospel all on its own come alive in your heart and mind? Do you want to see just the Gospel come alive in your local church? Do you want to see the Gospel at work in the lost world around you? It gives me the power to do that. It gives me the picture of Moses in the Old Testament. And I always love this passage because Moses is up the mountain and Moses says, I don’t know why he thought to say it, but he said, I want to see your glory. I want to see your glory. And God says, go stand on that rock and I’ll pass by. And really I don’t think this is anything different, friends. This is you and I getting in the place that God tells us to get so that we can see His glory pass by. It’s God’s Gospel at work through the Spirit. So yes, I’ve got to go and I’ve got to preach it and I’ve got to teach it and I’ve got to work the fields and I’ve got to pray and I’ve got to do all this stuff. I’ve got to get on the rock. I’ve got to be in the place God tells me to be. I’ve got to do the things God tells me to do. But at the end of the day, God’s glory passes by. It’s God that will bring salvation. It’s God’s Gospel that’s enough. Do we believe that? I want to say this to you and I say it to you sometimes and we need to hear it all the time. Do you preach the Gospel to yourself on a regular basis? It’s so easy for us to assume the Gospel. Oh, the Gospel, that’s the basics of the Christian life. It’s not the basics of the Christian life. It is the pinnacle of the Christian life. You need to remind yourself about what God has done in Christ Jesus daily. It is your focal point. It is your lifeline. It is everything. Let’s stay focused on together. The Gospel. Amen? Alright, let’s pray together.

Father, we praise You for who You are. We praise You for what You’ve done. We praise You for what You have accomplished, what You have willed in Christ Jesus.

Lord, we pray if our hearts would be wowed, if our minds would be amazed, if anything was to be sensational, it would be just the truth of Your Word. It would be the reality of Christ crucified. And resurrected, it would not be anything that any person could do. It would simply be what Your Spirit reveals to us.

So, Lord, I just pray for a fresh awakening for us. I pray for a fresh joy. I pray for a fresh boldness to proclaim the Gospel. A new desire to make Christ known. A willingness to part with things. That aren’t helping us get where we need to get to serve You, Lord.

I pray that as Your people, we would seek Christ above all.

Lord Jesus, we love You.

We just pray that we would abide in You as You would abide in us. We just worship You and thank You for Your sacrifice. And we just pray in Christ’s name. Amen. I want to invite you to stand with us.