Well, last week I started the message by talking
about Greek culture in the first century. And
the point was to continue to paint a picture
for you of what Paul was faced with when he first
came to the city of Corinth. And I want to continue
that theme this morning by just sharing with
you as an appetizer this morning, two snapshots
of Greco -Roman life. that further illustrate
for us Paul's mindset at this time in his life.
The first snapshot is of this particular guy.
His name is Philostratus of Athens. Whoop, there
it is. Philostratus of Athens. He lived in the
late 2nd and early 3rd century A .D. He was a
man who came from a long line of sophists, what
we call philosophers. And he spent much of his
career moving in elite circles in Greece, sometimes
even imperial circles during the reign of Marcus
Aurelius and some of his successors. And in addition
to teaching and being a sophist himself, he was
also a biographer of the people that ran in his
circles in that day. One of his biographical
works has come down to us. You see the title
there. It's called The Lives of the Sophists.
I'll just give you one example of many of the
type of men that he spoke of in this particular
work. He speaks of a philosopher by the name
of Skopelian. Now Skopelian was a Greek thinker
that was from the East in Asia Minor. And listen
to the verbiage that he uses as he describes
the philosophy of this man. He writes, he was
clever and quick -witted, skilled in flashy dramatic
tricks and epigrammatic turns. fond of witty
paradoxes, striking figures of speech, and smart
wordplay. That's all. He writes about how this
Scopelian had enormous drawing power. He was
able to bring big crowds as a teacher and debater
in the city of Smyrna, attracting catechumens
from all over Greece and Asia Minor. He talks
about one famous episode where Scopelian came
to a small city and refused. refused to speak
there, calling it, ready, quote, a cage in which
a nightingale like him could not be expected
to sing, whereas Smyrna was a proper grove for
such a bird. Wow. Philostratus even described
the way Scopalian would ascend to the stage in
front of his audiences, saying, not with the
bearing of a timid speaker. but as befitting
one who was to win glory for himself and was
confident that he could not fail. It's ridiculous,
isn't it? It's all ridiculous. I share that with
you because it helps us to understand just how
taken the Corinthian people were by the power
of public speakers in that day, how important
philosophy and rhetoric was, the tricks and the
gimmicks, the flourishing of rhetoric, the self
-glorifying nature. of the culture. As Paul was
walking into Corinth for the first time, that's
what he was competing with. Now, the other snapshot
I want to provide this morning is a little more
sobering, but it takes place in the exact same
timeframe as the life of Philostratus. On the
Palatine Hill in the city of Rome, somewhere
around the year 200, an unknown student carved
graffiti. what we would call graffiti, into the
plaster walls of his schoolhouse. And little
did he know as he was scrawling this into the
wall that what he was drawing would become one
of the most important archaeological findings
of the 19th century. It's a simple sketch. I'm
going to put it on the screen. It's going to
be a little bit hard to see. It's a simple sketch
that has a few mocking words attached to it.
Here's what's important about this. This graffiti
is the oldest artistic depiction we have of Jesus
on the cross. Sadly, it was drawn in order to
make fun of Christianity, which was, again, normal
in Roman society at that time. And if you look
at that picture, what you see is a man is standing
on the left side, and in the image, he's got
one hand that is raised towards the central figure.
And that central figure is a man, apparently
on a cross, but with a donkey's head. And scratched
below it is written in classical Greek, which
translated means, Christ being pictured as a
donkey. It's appalling to us today, but back
then, that is what Greeks and that is what Romans
thought about the whole idea of a Jewish savior
dying on a cross for you and me. Even kids in
that day would mock the cross. So on the one
hand, you see what's impressive in Greek culture,
sophistry and rhetoric. On the other, you see
there is no respect whatsoever for the word of
the cross and the gospel of Jesus Christ. So
again, if you're Paul, how do you approach this
culture? Grab your Bibles, and we're going to
see some of the things that he says today in
1 Corinthians 2. Raise your hand if you've seen
that image before. A picture of that. Okay, you
might have been taught something about that.
It's really an interesting archaeological find.
All right, as you're turning there, I'm going
to do something this morning I usually try not
to do. We're going to take a little sneak peek
ahead in Paul's letter because there's something
in chapter 4 that has a bearing on what he says
here in chapter 2. When we get to chapter 4,
and I looked at the schedule, we will be there
late May, early June. Lord willing, we'll get
there. But when he comes to chapter 4, Paul is
going to rebuke the Corinthians using something.
Paul has a gift of sarcasm in his writing, in
case you didn't know that. It comes out in both
1 and 2 Corinthians quite strongly. Listen to
what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 4. I'll
put it on the screen. He says, you, Corinthians,
are already filled. You've already become rich.
You become kings without us, meaning the apostles.
You become kings without us. We, the apostles,
are fools for Christ's sake, but you, you are
prudent in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong.
You are distinguished, but we are without honor.
And what we're going to see is that the Corinthian
believers were somehow under the impression that
the word of the cross that they'd received was
just like this elementary principle of their
faith, and now they wanted more advanced things.
In other words, with this pesky problem about
sin dealt with, they thought, well, look, we're
filled now. We're rich and prudent and strong
and distinguished. In fact, we've become like
kings. And so they were like, well, what's next,
Paul? Give us something interesting. We want
something more advanced. They're still thinking
like classical Greeks and not Christians. And
so the idea of the weakness of the cross and
the foolishness of the cross, the humiliation
of the cross. seems to have drifted from their
hearts and minds. So what Paul's going to have
to do here is correct them and rebuke them. They
are baby Christians, and yet here they are asking
for advanced things. So he's going to have to
deal with their pride and their focus on earthly
things, their self -reliance, their boasting,
so many things he's going to have to deal with.
And it's going to become obvious as we get further
into the letter that many members of the Corinthian
church were not all that pleased with Paul. Didn't
think much of him. Found him to be a little too
basic, a little too simple. He was lacking in
the charisma and the charm that they love to
see and hear in their favorite public speakers.
So with all that background, let's look at the
first five verses of 1 Corinthians 2. It says
this. When I came to you, brethren. Now he's
talking about his first visit, which would have
been. more than 18 months earlier. When I first
came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority
of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the
testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing
among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
I was with you in weakness and in fear and much
trembling, and my message and my preaching were
not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit. So just five verses, but all kinds
of practical principles that impact the way we
operate in the church today, the way we preach,
the way we teach, the way we listen to sermons,
the way we prepare to go out and share our faith
with others who need to hear the good news. All
kinds of interesting stuff in here. So let's
work our way through it. Let's go back up to
verse one, where it says, when I came to you,
brethren, I did not come with superiority of
speech. Now, I know the ESV says, I did not come
with lofty speech. And I actually like that better.
The Greek word here refers to something that
is elevated. It's higher than normal. So this
idea of lofty speech. And basically what it means
is that Paul didn't come with the typical sophistry
in his speech that the Greeks were sort of used
to. He didn't come with lofty wisdom, he says.
Instead, what did he come with? He says, I came
as a witness. Nothing more, nothing less. A witness
to what? The testimony of God. So what Paul's
doing here is correcting the mindset of the Corinthian
believers who think, well, when this guy first
came, he wasn't all that impressive in his communication.
And he's telling them here, that was my intentional
posture when I first arrived in Corinth years
ago. And by the way, in case you'd forgotten,
it was that humble posture and the very straightforward
message about Christ that led to your salvation.
Do you remember that? When you got transformed
from being a pagan to a redeemed saint. But it's
interesting they'd sort of forgotten about that,
right? And how wonderful that was. See, Paul
realized that when he first arrived in Corinth,
he was going to have to challenge everything
that that culture valued. And the vast majority
of his listeners would just hear him briefly
and say, that's foolishness. And they would walk
away. And not many were saved. Scholars have
looked at this and tried to estimate how many
converts were made in the city of Corinth through
Paul's ministry. We can't know for sure, but
based on the population of that city in that
day, it wasn't that many. Scholars have guessed
anywhere between a few dozen to maybe 200 at
the most. So victories were hard to come by,
but still Paul understood that God would draw
those that he had marked out to be saved. So
he wasn't going to change the message. And he
wasn't going to try to depend on his own cleverness
and communication for the sake of maximizing
results. And that's an important principle that
applies even today. Not going to change the message,
not going to depend on clever communication techniques
in order to maximize results. He understood that
his task was to simply confront this people with
the message and a message they didn't want to
hear. and then leave the response of the people
up to God and be able to move on and say, look,
I've done my job. I've been faithful to the gospel.
and then leave it in God's hands. Now, we know
from reading Paul's letters that he was a very
deep thinker, right? He was capable of making
strong, logical arguments. He was capable of
using language in powerful ways, right? We know
from his background, he was a man of intellect
and wisdom, and he could have used all kinds
of philosophical arguments in order to sell the
gospel. And there are many people in the church
today who would say, Paul could have done a better
job of this. Honestly, you could read people,
you could see people actually writing that. Well,
you know, he could have used this technique or
done this or done that in order to maximize results
to sell the gospel. But Paul understood where
the true power lies. And he knows the difference
between winning disciples to Jesus versus winning
followers to himself. So he comes to this Greek
city, this notorious... for its love of philosophy,
knowing that if he just employs all of his strong
rhetorical skills, he could become a really popular
teacher. He could draw really big crowds. And
we see this happening all the time in the church
today, right? Preachers and teachers with strong
communication skills, with charisma and personality,
and they're carefully choosing topics to preach
on, carefully crafting talks. Not necessarily
sermons, but talks that move the emotions and
create experiences for the audience. And we know
that kind of high -level skill does draw crowds.
We see it all the time. It can very easily build
a big, prominent church if that's the goal. And
for too many Christian leaders, that is the goal.
And that's a sad thing. But then when that happens,
when it's built on that model, who gets the attention?
And who gets the glory? Is it the man in the
pulpit or is it God himself? Paul says, look,
I've only come as a witness to the testimony
of God. I'm a herald and an ambassador. I'm not
a salesman. All that matters to a herald is that
he takes a message and passes it along. All an
ambassador does is represent the message that
the one who sent him gives to him. Nothing more,
nothing less. But for the sophist of that day,
the focus was always on impressing the audience.
And that means the message could be tweaked a
little bit here and there. It could be changed
and adapted in order to generate the right response
and the big result. But that's not true of the
gospel, is it? Now, it's true that a good evangelist
will approach his audience in a unique way based
on who he's talking to, the culture and traditions,
because he wants to be sensitive to his hearers
so that the message of the gospel can penetrate
the heart. But the content of the gospel message
does not and cannot change. It does not and cannot
change. So here in verse 1, Paul is simply reminding
the Corinthians, look, when I came, I wasn't
trying to impress you. If you're discouraged
with me, you don't think I'm all that impressive,
I didn't come to impress you. I didn't come to
bring you my spin on the message given to me.
I only came to give you the testimony of God.
Simple and straightforward. Now, good time to
ask the acorns. Acorns, are you out there? What
is the gospel? Who remembers? Okay, that works.
The good news of Jesus Christ. Say it again.
What is the gospel? Well done, well done. Okay,
so what is the gospel? What is the testimony
of God? What is Paul a witness to? Look at verse
two. He says, I determined to know nothing except
this one thing, which is what? Jesus Christ and
him crucified. In spite of the temptation that
he must have felt, because he's a human being,
right? He's fallible. to roll into town and to
try to compete with the skilled philosophers
of the day, Paul was not going to engage in their
bag of tricks. He wasn't going to use flattery.
He wasn't going to emotionally manipulate people.
He wasn't going to try to produce applause or
create a big following. In fact, Paul didn't
mind coming across as unimpressive. He didn't
mind coming across as weak. He knew exactly what
the Corinthians wanted to hear, but he was not
going to give it to them. Now that is not seeker
sensitive, is it? That goes against everything
the rule book says about doing church. I know
what you want to hear. I'm not giving it to you.
Because what you want will not transform you.
It will not change your heart. So I won't give
it to you. I'm not going to stoop that low. So
he made up his mind before he arrived about how
he would communicate. The word there in verse
2, he determined his method. That's krino in
the Greek. And it has a wide range of meaning,
but it's often rendered as to judge or to pronounce
an opinion. So Paul judged beforehand, before
he arrived, that he would know nothing in their
midst except Jesus and the cross. And here's
the key. That simple message didn't produce results
because the results aren't up to us. Did you
know that? The results of preaching are not up
to the guy in the pulpit or to you when you're
sharing your faith. The result is not up to you.
That's too heavy of a burden for us, right? That's
the work of God alone. Okay, speaking of the
cross, acorns, acorns. What did Jesus show us
on the cross? His love for us. Well done. Excellent.
Good. Now, understand the language here in verse
2. Don't take it too literally. Paul's not saying
that, okay, well, the cross was the only thing
I ever mentioned to anyone during 18 months with
you. Okay, that would be silly. Paul believed
that there were many things that needed to be
addressed in the church. In fact, this letter.
is proof of that, right? He's going to go on
to talk about all kinds of things. What he's
doing here is speaking comprehensively, meaning
in everything he taught, and there's all these
topics in this letter, in everything, he would
always come back to gospel basics. That's an
important principle. Coming back to the idea
of sin, coming back to our need for forgiveness.
coming back to the mercy of God and the love
of God, coming back to the atonement for sin
that was purchased on the cross, and so on. So
for Paul to preach Christ crucified is to constantly
speak of his identity, right, as God incarnate,
and to speak of the work that he did on our behalf,
the person and work of Christ. By the way, that's
still the model and the goal of preaching and
teaching in the church today, right? Even if
we go out and we explore a variety of themes
in scripture, or if we focus on applying certain
biblical principles to modern day situations,
we must never lose sight of Christ crucified.
Never lose sight of the basics and the essentials
of the gospel. And listen, I realize, and I've
heard this before, people are like, I kind of
feel tired of hearing the same thing all the
time. You know, it's always about sin and Jesus
and the cross and as if that message could ever
become tiresome. But that is the model that we
see in preaching in the New Testament. And we
should acknowledge that if Christianity ever
loses that focus, the centrality of the cross,
then we put ourselves in serious danger. Serious
danger. And by the way, history tells that story.
You can go out there and pick from any number
of... in the world today who still call themselves
Christian, air quotes, Christian, everything
from United Methodist Church to the Mennonites
to Episcopalian to AME churches, and you will
find an interesting history. You will find a
time when people in those churches believed the
gospel, that it was central to what they believed,
right? Christ crucified, Christ raised from the
dead. But in the next generation, What happened
after that is those gospel essentials began to
be mixed with things like social work and cultural
issues and political positions. And the theology
of Christ crucified began to take a little bit
of a backseat to activism. To activism. Based
on things that Paul would call human wisdom.
And then in the next generation, guess what happens
after that? Folks begin to equate Christianity
and life in the church. only with those cultural
and social issues and yeah there might be a smattering
here or there that sort of remember their original
creed or confession but for the most part people
in those churches in the third or fourth generation
they don't know what the theology is they don't
even care most of them don't believe it And that
can happen, guys. When you lose sight of the
essentials and you start focusing on peripheral
issues, it's only a matter of time before those
peripheral issues become the central issues.
And what should be essential gets lost in the
pages of history. So we have to be careful with
this. So Paul says here, look, all I did was
I zeroed in on Jesus and the cross and I stayed
there. I stayed there. And if Paul could walk
in the door and we could ask him a question,
I think he'd say this as well. He said, look,
I did talk about other things, but when other
issues came up or questions came up about how
do I apply Christian principles, I was happy
to address all of those things. But eventually,
I always came back to the gospel, back to the
cross. That is our home base. That's where we
have to sit and stay. Does that make sense? And
look, there's a reason for this. It's obvious.
Without the cross, without a savior being sent
to us, without his atoning death, without the
father's gracious drawing, not one of us would
be here this morning. None of us would be here.
We'd all be sons and daughters of disobedience
like everybody else. We would still be in our
sins. We would be living and dying under the
wrath of God Almighty. So when people say, I
don't understand why we keep saying the same
thing. Guys, it's because without that, there
is no Christianity and there is no church. Acorns,
one last question. Speaking of the cross, why
did Jesus have to die? Do you remember? So our
sins can be forgiven. Well done. So we love the
cross, don't we? I said it a couple Sundays ago.
I'll say it again. We love to read about the
cross. We like to talk about the cross. We love
to teach about the cross. We love to pray in
fellowship in light of the cross. And we even
love to sing hymns about the cross because that's
where God's wrath was satisfied for us, right?
That's where peace was established between us
and our creator. That's where the righteousness
of Christ was imputed, given, reckoned to our
spiritual accounts. So the cross is our delight
and our joy and our hope. It is everything to
us. And it grieves us when we look around our
world and we see all these people. Remember Paul
said they're perishing. Sometimes family and
friends, they're perishing apart from the cross
every single day. And that's got to be our urgency.
It's the same urgency that Paul had when he came
to Corinth to share the testimony of God, to
speak of Christ crucified with everybody that
God puts in our path. Amen? So let's take a look
at verses 3 and 4 now. Paul says, hey, Corinthians,
I was with you in weakness and in fear and much
trembling, and my message and my preaching were
not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. And more simply,
in demonstration of the Spirit's power. Now,
we talked about Paul's state of mind when he
first came to Corinth back in our introductory
sermon in this series. The backdrop of his entry
into Corinth comes from Acts chapter 18. And
do you remember what happened before he came
to Corinth? Well, let's see, he was in Philippi
and he got run out of town there, his life under
threat. And then he went to Thessalonica and
the same thing happened there. And then he went
down to Berea, but some people from Thessalonia,
they tracked him down in Berea and they chased
him out of that city. So his life has been threatened.
Everywhere he's gone, he decides to leave Macedonia
completely, travel south into Achaia. He goes
to Athens. We covered that a couple weeks ago.
He has no positive response there. And then he
hustles off to Corinth. Now, with that backdrop,
put yourself in Paul's sandals for a moment.
See if you can feel what he would have been feeling.
His life is under threat. He is having to look
over his shoulder. look around every corner expecting
to be jumped, expecting to be attacked. And now
he comes to the city of Corinth. And this was
the big city in that day. And he's alone. He
is alone. That's something that often gets overlooked.
He's alone at that time. And there's no doubt
he's feeling very discouraged. You'd be like
you or I having a really hard time in ministry.
We've been evangelizing. We're finding no success.
And we suddenly have to go to Chicago or New
York City. right? The big city. And we look around
and we can feel the pulse of the wickedness of
the city. And it's just overwhelming to think
I've got to speak up in the midst of this environment.
So Paul says in verse three, look, friends, you
remember what I was like when I first came to
your city. He says, I came in weakness and in
fear and with much trembling. So there's no swagger
in Paul. There's no overconfidence in him as
he begins to share the gospel there. He intentionally
chooses to preach in a way that is opposite of
all the other traveling sophists, not in persuasive
words of wisdom. Now, this is an important distinction.
That doesn't mean that he lacked confidence in
the message. Paul himself was feeling shaky.
He was feeling fearful. But he still knew that
the content of the message would be effectual.
How do you know that? Remember we talked about
this weeks ago. The Lord appeared to him in a
dream. The Lord appeared to Paul in a dream and
said, do not be afraid any longer. Do not be
afraid. Go on speaking. Do not be silent, for
I am with you. How reassuring would that have
been? I am with you, and no man will attack you
in order to harm you. Look, for I have many people
in this city. I have marked out many to be saved.
And so the Lord brought him comfort in this moment
of need. And by the way, we should note as well,
not only did he get a vision from the Lord, this
dream, but then he also was given friends, Christian
friends, Aquila and Priscilla, right? That he
lived with and made tents with. And that's important.
Then Silas and Timothy come as well. And all
this is such an important principle. Listen,
you ready? Even the greatest of Christian servants
can't do it alone. We need fellow believers.
We need backup, right, to encourage us. When
things get hard, we need fellow believers who
will exhort us to keep going. And God provided
for that, first in the dream, but then through
these friends that came and strengthened him.
In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Calvin writes
this, and I think it's so insightful because
it speaks to the human aspect of Paul's ministry.
We sometimes think of him as some kind of superhero,
but he's a man. And so Calvin says, the servants
of the Lord are not so dull as to not see threatening
dangers. Okay? We don't live in a bubble thinking
everything's going to be just fine. No, we do
see the dangers out there. Nor so insensitive
as not to be affected by them. Again, we're human
beings. It's going to affect us. And in fact,
they must be seriously apprehensive for two main
reasons. First, that humbled in their own eyes.
they might learn to lean and rest completely
on God alone. So even in the threats, even in
the dangers, God has a purpose, doesn't he? To
cause his servants to lean into him. Next one.
And second, that they might be trained in true
self -denial, denying self. Paul, therefore,
was not without a sense of anxiety, but he controlled
it, such that he continued to be undaunted in
the midst of crises. So Calvin notes, Paul's
weakness, you ready, is actually good news. It's
actually good news. It causes him to have to
trust in God alone. And to trust in the promises
he got in that dream. Hey, I'm with you. I have
many in the city. Keep going. And we know that
God delights in working through men and women
who are in weakness, who trust him, who have
to trust him. But the most important thing Paul
has going for him is shown here in verse 4. In
spite of his fears, he knows that the Spirit
of God is in him and with him. And he knows,
if I'm just faithful to the message as a herald,
that the Spirit is going to take my preaching
and draw the hearts of those that God has marked
out for salvation. Friends, that is the beauty
of trusting in God's sovereignty. It guarantees
success in evangelism. Did you know that? God's
sovereignty guarantees success in evangelism
because if God has chosen that person and if
he's actively drawing them, he can use your very
feeble words, even your really poor presentation
of the gospel, he can use that as a tool to save
somebody that he's marked out. It doesn't depend
on us. We just have to be faithful to get out
there and talk about it, right? Beautiful. So
this is Paul's superpower, if we could use that
term. that the Holy Spirit is in him and is with
him and is active in his preaching and teaching
ministry. And this is what he desires more than
anything else. It's right there in the verse,
that his words will come with a demonstration
of the Spirit's power. Remember our call to worship
passage from earlier, what Paul wrote to the
Thessalonian church. Our gospel came to you Thessalonians,
not only in word. Not only in word, because words
won't get us to where we need to get to, right?
Not only in word, but also in power and the Holy
Spirit and with full conviction. That is what
Paul is trusting in. Listen, apart from the Spirit's
work, nothing eternal happens. I can talk to
somebody at Starbucks about all kinds of topics.
Look, I can even talk about the gospel. I can
talk about the cross. If the Spirit isn't active
in drawing that person, nothing eternal is going
on. It might be a good discussion. It might be
the first step in a longer discussion, but nothing
eternal is happening if the Spirit of God isn't
operating to draw that person to salvation. But
when the Spirit does move, using our witness,
using the word, the message of the cross, that
is when true power is unleashed. That is when
it's unleashed and when miraculous things begin
to happen. And listen, I don't know if you've
ever thought about this before, but maybe we
should. Our faith is built on the supernatural
and the miraculous. Did you know that? I know
in our sort of tribe of Christianity, that makes
us a little uncomfortable because we're so intellectual
at times about our faith. But our faith is built
on the supernatural and the miraculous. The scriptures
are clear about this. Every time a sinner hears
the gospel and repents and puts his faith or
her faith in Christ, it is a miracle. Do we believe
that? Or are we in the person that we just talk
people into the kingdom with our rhetoric and
with our logic? No, it's a miracle that that
happens. It's a supernatural move of the Holy
Spirit that honestly we can't explain. All we
can do is point to the Word and say, well, this
is what the Word says about it. But I don't have
a tangible understanding of how the Spirit brought
me to salvation. I just know He did. It's wild,
isn't it? If you take the supernatural power
of God out of life in the church, what do you
actually have left? Remove the supernatural,
remove the spirit. What do you have left? A gathering
of men and women going through the motions of
religion and trying to be good people in the
eyes of the world. Maybe you enjoy hanging out
together, but all that is is rearranging the
deck chairs on the Titanic, right? Without the
supernatural. So for us, yes, we want to stay
balanced. We don't want to fall into emotionalism.
We don't want to gin up our experiences. But
listen, we should not be afraid to glorify the
work of the Spirit among us. We should look forward
to that. We should all long to be filled with
the Spirit and led by the Spirit and sanctified
by the Spirit and worship and pray in the Spirit
and be taught by the Spirit and to bear fruit
by the Spirit, to preach, teach, and listen in
the power of the Spirit. Not be afraid of that.
Because if Paul needed it to empower his ministry,
why would we be any different? I can see the
wheels turning in your guys' faces. It's important.
Okay, last verse, verse five. And this builds
off verse four, caps it off, so to speak. In
demonstration of the Spirit's power, verse five,
so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom
of men, but on the power of God. So look, when
we preach the gospel or we share our faith, If
we are trusting in our own methodologies and
gimmicks, or if we're relying upon our own personality
and our logic to win souls, then we are depending
on the flesh. And again, the wisdom of the flesh
cannot change a human art. We have to reject
that. Spurgeon once said this. He said, the power
that in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence
of the preacher. Otherwise, men would be the
converters of soul. May it never be. Right? If
the power of the gospel lies in the eloquence
of the preacher, men would be converters of souls.
We might preach, he says, until our tongues rotted,
until we would exhaust our lungs and die, but
never a soul would be converted. There are churches
all over this world that don't believe that,
by the way. They believe the power is in the
communication. The power is in talking people
into faith. But that's not what scripture tells
us. If any man's faith rests solely upon the
persuasive words of men, it is destined to fail
at some point. It's destined to fail. It's just
a matter of time. And here's why. If an evangelist
like Paul can talk somebody into making a decision
for Christ through his style, through his lofty
speech, what happens when somebody rolls into
town who's a better preacher than Paul and has
a better argument than Paul? Well, I'm abandoning
what Paul says now. I'm going to get talked into
this new thing over here, the false gospel, right?
There's always a better preacher. There's always
a better communicator. So if it rests on what
the man does, it's destined to fail because somebody
better is coming along. Leon Morris, who's a
New Testament scholar. says this, a faith that
depends on clever reasoning may be demolished
by a more clever argument, but the faith which
is produced by the power of God can never be
overthrown. Do you see the difference? Do you
see it? It's a big difference. So Paul says,
look, I don't want your faith to rest on my words.
There's no power there. Let it rest in the power
of the Spirit. Not only can the Spirit transform
you, He can keep you. And that's important, right?
So unlike many preachers and evangelists of today,
Paul refused to play the Holy Spirit in the lives
of his audience because it would empty the cross
of its power. He wants people to run to Christ,
not to him. Okay, great passage, right? Lots
in there for us. Let's talk about some application
here. What does this specifically tell us about
our preaching and our teaching today? What does
it tell you about how you should approach lost
people in your lives, whether that's at work
or at school or whatever? How do you do that?
Well, let's start with an important observation.
Because we are fallible human beings, we are
always under the temptation to play around with
the message that we're given. We're easily distracted,
easily fooled, and so we start manipulating the
message. And by the way, this temptation hits
church leaders. and it hits those of you doing
personal evangelism. We tend to think if I just
package the message in this way or that way,
if I make it a little bit less offensive and
dress it up to make it a little more attractive
or maybe strategize on how I can get my presentation
just right, then people will respond. We've all
been through that. It's okay to nod and go, yeah,
I've thought that before. I did. I get it. But
that is not what scripture tells us. Jesus himself
was really clear about this, right? In John chapter
six, he said, no one can come to me unless the
message is packaged just right. Red flag, right?
The uneasy laugh there was great. No, he said,
no one can come to me unless the father who sent
me draws him, right? So that's what we rely upon
in preaching, teaching, evangelism, the drawing
and regenerating power of God. So how does this
impact church? We'll get practical. First of
all, it impacts everybody who stands in this
pulpit at Oak Hill to make sure that we have
the right mindset about our preaching. And boy,
whether it's Adam or Jeff Steele or myself or
anybody, I can tell you that we take this really
seriously. And we know the power is not in our
words. We're not that good. We know that God
has to move for any change to happen, whether
that's bringing somebody to salvation or growing
in sanctification and maturity. The power is
not in what I say up here. The power is with
the spirit moving. So it impacts those of us
who preach and teach, but also impacts those
of you listening. How do you listen to a sermon?
Do you listen from this perspective? We know
from scripture that the natural man wants only
to have his ears tickled. He wants. sermons that
he enjoys, sermons that make him feel good. So
what he'll do is he'll go from place to place
and look for some guy who's gonna preach what
he wants to hear and the way he wants to hear
it. Or maybe he'll gather other people who are
like -minded and they'll say, let's find a preacher
who will. preach what we want to hear, and preach
it in the way we want it. And there's always
some willing pastor dude out there who says,
ooh, I see a need, and I see a possibility of
success, and he will go to those people, and
he will change the message, and he will adapt
it in a way that meets the needs of the audience.
And that ministry ends up being based on what?
The preacher's style? The preacher's philosophy?
possibly on his charisma, his personality, maybe
his good looks, his communication skills, his
ability to project confidence and success. And
you know what? That church may grow really, really
big. Because again, that stuff will draw a crowd.
On the outside, it's going to look big and successful,
but on the inside where it matters, it is a church
built on the foolishness of human wisdom and
human cleverness. And those churches are... more
common than you think. We literally have a test
case for this. Raise your hand if you've heard
of Willow Creek Church. Some of you have. The
younger generation, maybe not yet. Willow Creek
Church is still around, located in the suburbs
of Chicago. If you've never heard of it, you
should look it up. It's an interesting story.
Back in 1985, 1985, Willow Creek became the groundbreaking
model of what we call the seeker -sensitive movement,
and it swept through megachurches all over the
country. And I will spare you all the ugly details,
but this church was literally built on every
single thing that Paul warns us about in this
passage. All of it. Shapeshifting every message,
shapeshifting every aspect of ministry based
on what? The wants and desires of the audience.
Based on the wants and desires of unbelievers.
I kid you not. In fact, their whole ministry
for, I don't know, 40 years was built on doing
surveys among people who were unbelievers. And
the question was asked, why don't you go to church?
And they took the survey results and they said,
well, here's the top 10 reasons people don't
go to church. Well, and they said, well, let's
adapt the church message to those things. That
should shock you. And it was wildly successful
because it was appealing to the flesh in every
way. That's what people wanted. And to make matters
worse, every single pastor in pastoring a church
of 100 people and struggling looked at that and
said, I guess I need to do that too. And this
was a disastrous trend in the so -called seeker
-sensitive evangelical church for some 40 years.
Now here's how the story ends. The leadership
of this movement has now admitted after 40 years
that the whole model was flawed from the beginning.
They've come out and they've had to admit it.
Just recently, the former senior pastor, Bill
Hybels, came out and said the whole thing was
flawed. It was built on human innovation, not
on the word of God, not on the cross. And because
it wasn't built on the power of God, you know
what? So many people who went into this building
and thought they were saved later on fell away
from the faith. They actually never had faith,
but they completely walked away for obvious reasons.
It wasn't built on the power of God. Quite a
few members of the senior leadership of this
church have deconstructed, walked away from Christianity.
Some of them were literally prosecuted for misconduct.
It's an absolute mess. It's a disgrace. But it's
completely predictable based on the passage we're
reading this morning. Predictable. Because the
essential gospel message, the testimony of God,
was completely missing from that place. It was
a hollowed out church with no life in the spirit.
But boy, did it look good on the outside. Man,
25 ,000 people a weekend at this church. Satan
rejoices. when we do this, when we leave the
Holy Spirit and the power of God out of the equation.
He would love for us to believe that it's our
models and our strategies that can transform
lives. When we do stuff like this, we're helping
Satan devour people. So here's the thing, friends.
We have to think about these things. Whether
you're at Oak Hill or someday you move out of
the area, you're looking for another church,
this matters. The question of our motives, why
do we do what we do, is unavoidable in this issue,
both in church life and in the way we do evangelism.
We have to ask ourselves the hard questions.
What are we really after? What's the goal? And
to be honest with ourselves, what is the goal?
Are we trying to get worldly success or are we
seeking to please God according to his word?
Do we truly care about the souls of people, or
are we just manipulating things so that we can
boast about numbers? Are we willing to risk offending
with the truth in order to preach the truth of
the gospel, or are we just people -pleasing?
Ultimately, are we seeking our glory or God's
glory, His praise, or ours? We have to ask those
questions. Now, one final caveat, and I promise
I'll be done. Because if we're not careful, we
can get out of balance with this. The principles
are true, but let's look at the balance. It is
true that we don't want to put our trust in human
wisdom, but at the same time, we shouldn't ignore
the role that wisdom can play in effective ministry.
And this is a touchy thing, right? So what does
it mean to employ wisdom and to think strategically
while at the same time embracing the offensiveness
of the gospel and trusting only in the power
of the Spirit to transform lives? We have to
be able to answer that question. Paul didn't
preach to entertain people or to get applause,
but there's no question that he preached to persuade
people, right? So he had a strategy to persuade.
He says that in 2 Corinthians 5 .11. He says,
we seek to persuade men. So here's what I'm saying
about this. The passage for this morning does
not give us a rationale to just preach boring
sermons, right? It doesn't give us a reason to
be lazy in our preparation. or to not think about
how we can approach somebody who needs to hear
the gospel. We should always strive to give God
our best and to work hard at these things and
to think carefully about how to approach the
work that God has given to us. So I have to think
every week about how do I lay out a sermon in
a way that is not going to mess with the content,
but is going to be delivered in a way that draws
your attention to the cross. And if you're evangelizing,
you need to think and pray about how can I best
approach that person at work that now seems open
to the gospel. It's not bad to strategize is
what I'm saying. But we don't mess with the message,
right? The content remains fixed and the strategy
is personalized. Above all else, always, always,
always, we remember what the determining factor
of our effectiveness is. Right? It's not going
to be our method. It's not going to be our approach.
It is a demonstration of the power of the Spirit,
period. Period. We faithfully preach, we teach,
we witness, and we trust Him completely for the
results. We trust that He is going to use us
and move according to His sovereign will so that
anybody who ever comes to saving faith through
our ministry or through our evangelism, that
his or her faith rests on one thing and one thing
only, on the power of God and not on us. Amen?
If you have any questions about this or you're
confused, if I've confused you this morning or
you want to bring up a scenario to me, that practical
scenario, please find me after the service. I'd
love to talk some more. Let's bow our heads.
Father, thank you for the challenge of this text.
I praise you for Paul and for his discipline
in the way that he approached this difficult
issue which is so tempting for fallible men and
women because we want applause and we want to
please people and we want to see results in the
things that we do. And it's so tempting, Lord,
to mess with what you've given us. Thank you
for Paul's discipline. Thank you for the promises
that you gave him. And Lord, I ask now for us
here at Oak Hill, as you work in and among us
in this local body, that you would give us that
same discipline to understand what it is that
brings about true effectiveness in the ministry,
true, true effectiveness in our evangelism. that
we would constantly be looking to your spirit,
that we would not trust in ourselves or our methods,
but we would give that to you and say, Lord,
your will be done. And we praise you that you're
sovereign in salvation, that we can just strive
to be faithful and know that you will work. Lord,
don't let these things slip from our minds and
hearts as it was already slipping from the Corinthians
in the first century. Keep us focused on the
essentials. Christ crucified. And Lord, we pray
that you'll keep glorifying yourself through
us as we strive to be faithful. Thank you for
our time this morning. We praise you in the name
of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.