Good morning brothers and sisters in Christ. Spring has finally come to Maine and I'm loving it. We still have huge mountains of snow, but each day it seems to be melting a couple inches and I hope we will have bare ground by the end of April.
Leanna and I want to thank all who have joined us here today on Paltalk, and also for those who have read these sermons on Christian and secular sites. Also we want to thank all of you who have been watching these sermons and listening on the new u-tube channel that I created a couple weeks ago and I see they have been re-shared from some. Praise God! We continue today on this series "Who Are We In Christ" from the book of 1 Corinthians, and if you will please open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1:18 which is the verse where we left off last week. I purposely ended there for a couple reasons. One, because verse 19 I figured would have to be explained in more than a few minutes, but 2, I wanted to see what replies I would get out of this very important verse. I got a few, but not as I expected. Before we read that verse, I want to recap a bit on what we looked at. We saw a big part of why this epistle was written was because Paul had received word that there were some very strange things being taught. As we get further into this study, we'll see that there were people from all over bringing their own flavor of what should be allowed in Christian living and including much immoral behavior. 1 Corinthians 1:18 KJV For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. This verse stirred up a few discussions after the message was posted in written form and through the video. Of course it was mostly with the so-called atheists. I think with what I just said and what verse we are looking at, it speaks for itself. Amen someone? To discuss the Bible and the miracles, and especially that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead sounds crazy to someone who isn't saved. It's not like anything that we're used to in this world. Amen? Turn if you will to John 15: 12. What about you? Do you that share the gospel message to the unbelievers? Do they ridicule you? Maybe mock you and especially mock Jesus? Does that really surprise you? It shouldn't, and we'll see that in this passage we are about to read. I was only going to have us read a couple of verses in this passage, but there are so many key things in what we are about to read that we'll read more. Praise the Lord! John 15:12-21 KJV This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. (13) Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (14) Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. (15) Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. (16) Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. (17) These things I command you, that ye love one another. (18) If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. (19) If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. (20) Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. (21) But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. Wow! This is so powerful. Christ proved His love to the world by laying down His life for it in redemption work. His love to us should always be the standard of measure of our love toward others in service for Him. Amen everyone? Let's look what Jesus says in Matthew 10:39. Friends, Jesus is our friend. He's a friend that will never leave us when the tough times come. We are His servants and He stands with His servants in all their trials. He takes notice of every insult we're called upon to endure. He honors you and me in this life for our witness of Him and will abundantly reward us in the next life for all our faithfulness. No cross, no crown. No gall, no glory. No pain, no gain. Amen? I'm not ashamed of Christ. Are you? I'll proclaim Him as my Lord and Savior even to my dying day. Praise Jesus! Romans 1:16 KJV For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Matthew 10:19-23 KJV But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. (20) For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. (21) And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. (22) And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. (23) But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man become. We're now seeing pictures on the secular news channels and hearing of the horrors that Isis is doing to Christians throughout the world. I almost every day am sent news clips of these barbaric acts, and it does many things to me. It disgusts me because no human life should be treated like that. It sickens me because I hate to see anyone suffer, and especially to death. It worries me because there are those who I know that would throw eternal life with Jesus away to not go through it. But friends, for me it strengthens my faith in Christ. We just read what Jesus said some 2000 years ago what would happen. Amen? But friends, why did Paul say "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness?" I think we'll see in the next few verses. 1 Corinthians 1:19 KJV For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. So let's look at where Paul got this statement from. It can be found in Isaiah 29:13-15. Isaiah 29:13-15 KJV Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: (14) Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. (15) Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Here's what was happening during this time in a nut shell. There was a man named Sennacherib who was a very mighty king in Assyria. And He wanted to conquer Judah, the land of Israel. And so they decided to attack Judah. God, through the prophet Isaiah, says to Judah, "Don't worry, you won't be delivered to Sennacherib as he will fail in his conquering". But God said, "It won't be because of your wise men. It won't be the strategy of the political advisers to King Hezekiah who was the king of Israel at the time or the king of Judah. It won't be because of the political cunning and the secret trickery of these wise advisers. You're not going to escape the hand of the Assyrians because of your wisdom". Listen to this, church. God says, "I will do it Myself because I want to demonstrate to you that when you rely on your own strength and your own wisdom, you fail. When all of your wisdom has run its course, I'll just destroy it all. I'll put it down to nothing and by Myself I will do what all your wisdom couldn't do". Do we get a picture of what was happening some 700 years before Jesus was born and even after Jesus died and was resurrected? And even now, and especially now during our time? Let's continue in 1 Corinthians. Let's look at some more of what Paul, being led by the Holy Spirit, had to say about wisdom. 1Co 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Catch this, friends. Paul answers this with a tremendous word in which he shows that the wisdom of men is of no avail. He sets it aside completely, and he says that in the church these insights of men are always partial and untrustworthy to a great degree, and that the Corinthians will never learn anything until they give themselves to the wisdom of God. Praise Jesus! Paul says by wisdom on their own understanding they will never know God. They will never get to the heart of their problems by trying to pursue the insights of current popularity or secular philosophers. The same goes for you and me today. Amen someone? Church, there are so many books out there about how to become godly, how to have the marriage that God intends, and the list goes on and on. Church, in your Bibles you have all you need to know about God. There are so many doctors and theologians that have all the answers, yet do they follow the Bible? Many think the big mega-churches will solve personal problems. Many of those churches have their own internal problems and now you run to them to help you? The church will never solve its problems as long as it constantly pursues this writer and that writer, this man and that speaker, thinking that it will gather from the efforts and knowledge of men the insights it needs to understand its problems. Friends, we're nothing without God. If not for our Creator, you and I would not exist. The world would not exist. It's all because of Him. Amen someone? If not for Jesus, the Savior of the world, you and I would be lost. We would be doomed to eternity in hell, but many church buildings that you go to won't allow the preacher to say that. Don't mention hell. Don't preach too much about sin, you might offend somebody. Do we have to hear about the cross and the agony Jesus went through and hear about the blood of Christ? Redemption, my friends, is all about these things. If not for the blood of Christ that was shed at Calvary, you'd be lost in your sins. Glory to Jesus. The blood needs to be preached. Hell needs to be mentioned, because Mathew 7 tells me many are going there. Sin does need to be discussed because this world is full of it and you and I, brothers and sisters, can be washed free of it. Church, when you and I get an understanding of this, we realize that we'll never begin to learn until we first learn that we don't know anything. When we come to know and appreciate the word preached of the cross, we understand that in the cross of Jesus Christ, God took his only begotten Son to die for you and me. As Leanna and I and some of you have been attending another Bible study on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights on Paltalk, we've been discussing whether Jesus lived in a way that He could not sin. What I mean is, was He capable of sinning? And through much conversation, I think everyone concluded that He could have sinned at any time, but He did not. "Why bring that up, brother Jim?" I bring that up because Jesus was here as a man. He ate, drank, breathed just like you and me. He had feelings and we can look at times where the Bible tells of those feelings and emotions that He had. Jesus identified with us in every way, yet there are those who will fight us on this. Then there are those who will say a man dying on a cross, if He did, because they never found His body, is useless as far as solving any of the problems of mankind is concerned. Do we get this? This my friends is part of what Apostle Paul was addressing to the church in Corinth and for you and me today. That the preaching of the cross, being saved by the blood of the Lamb, is why it looks so foolish to the natural man. Do we get this, friends? It isn't natural to the world. Even to the average mind, creation doesn't make sense. These things don't fit into man's understanding. And when we accept that, the apostle says we begin to discover that true secret. Hidden wisdom that unfolds little by little the answers to the problems of life. 1 Corinthians 1:21 KJV For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Church, It's all about our faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:6 KJV But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. While we just read this verse, let's look at Hebrews 11 starting with verse 1. You and I can't see a physical God. We didn't see Jesus nailed to a tree. But do we believe? That's what we put our faith in. Amen? Hebrews 11:1-5 KJV Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (2) For by it the elders obtained a good report. (3) Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. I love this chapter and book. So how do we get our faith? We spend time in the Word of God. Romans 10:17 KJV So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Last week we looked at scripture showing we should study it. Amen? 1 Corinthians 1:22 KJV For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: Again, Paul is sharing part of the division here. let's look at the next 3 verses, and I think it will sum up where Paul was going with all this. 1 Corinthians 1:23-25 KJV (23) But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; (24) But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (25) Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. The Jews couldn't understand the work of Jesus on the cross as to what they expected of the promised Messiah. They considered Him a failed attempt at a Messiah. This is hard for me to understand, why they didn't believe, as they had all the writings of earlier prophets. Yet, here the Jews were slaves to the Romans and this Man (Jesus) who professed to be the Messiah but couldn’t deliver on the expected holy war. To them, His death was an act of weakness, where they believed the Messiah was to operate in strength. For you and me who believe, we know He did. Amen, church? Then you had the Greeks who were so infatuated into wisdom. The death of Jesus in this barbaric way offends the sensibilities of both parties, one who sees his work as foolish compared to the wisdom of the world, and the other who sees Him as weak compared to the strength of the world. Why did Jesus come to earth? Why did He die? What Christ did on the cross took care of that separation from God. It dealt with the sin that separated us from God. Glory to Jesus. He attacks and defeats the root of what causes the world’s trouble, sin, evil, rebellion and deceit, and because of this, He allowed people to be free of the evil which bound them. Glory to God! And now we can live under the love and in the light of the God who created us. Do we get this, friends? Hebrews 10:10 KJV By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Hebrews 2:9 KJV But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. Revelation 1:18 KJV I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. In closing, I want to challenge each of you this week to read and meditate on the Gospel of John. I know some of you are involved in other Bible readings, but if you can, make time to read and spend some time studying these 21 chapters. Friends, we love you, and our desire is to see you grow in Christ. To be all He has for you. Next Sunday is Easter, and God willing, we'll be here same time, same place. As far as I know, we'll be continuing on in this series. If this has been a blessings to you here on Paltalk, please invite a friend to join in. For those listening or reading on one of the sites that I post these sermons on, again, please share, subscribe and comment. We love you. We thank you for joining in with us and may the Lord richly bless you.
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