we turn tonight in the scriptures to the book of first corinthians we're continuing our study in first corinthians and we come to chapter two tonight i have never preached through first corinthians and i am having a blast um first five verses tonight we'll read through verse nine this is found on page 12 11 in your pew bible let's give our attention to the word of the lord and i when i came to you brothers did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of god with lofty speech or wisdom for i decided to know nothing among you except jesus christ and him crucified and i was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of god yet among the mature we do impart wisdom although it's not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away but we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of god which god decreed before the ages for our glory none of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him. We'll end the reading of God's Word there. My great goal in this sermon series of first corinthians is to recover is to build upon is to encourage you to have real confidence and excitement in what we do here as the body of christ i say that because in my years of ministry i've i've noticed a growing dissatisfaction among those who have been members of reformed churches churches maybe for a long time maybe even generation after generation after generation and i'm going to give you a brief assessment of what i think and why that is and what that where that has led i realized that it's a generality there are much more maybe different nuances that could be added to this but that dissatisfaction in reformed churches could happen and has happened I believe for a few different reasons. I have no doubt that many people walking away from reformed churches in our tradition did it over time over some pretty bad legalism and I think we have to be willing to say that. Heavy handedness with the law, mere bad preaching. You have a lot of reasons that you could you could say here up front and I had to get my head around this up north in a city where on every corner there was a reformed church and in that kind of community i was shocked over how much antipathy there was toward anything reformed i mean it grew and it got really bad even down at the dry cleaner you know i was confronted once you're a reformed pastor it took me more than a few years to get a handle on why was that so strong why was there such a reaction the sad reality was is that what i witnessed what others witnessed what people had seen over a long extended period of time was a lot of fighting a lot of church splits a lot of abuses a lot of hatreds a lot of contentions a lot of jealousies underlining it with a hard kind of legal spirit that showed nothing of the joy of jesus christ it was there no expression the approach seemed to be when asked well why do you why do you guys do things that we've always done it that way and two sorts of things i believe happened in reaction to that two two sorts of responses the first was that many people ended up walking away from the church altogether, or they jumped to the opposite extreme. I had an old reformed minister tell me one time, isn't it a strange thing that when our people leave, they never end up going in a more reformed direction? It's always in the opposite direction and sometimes as far away from it as it can be. So in strong reaction, they threw out the entire reformed label what did that look like well all doctrinal convictions seem to be abandoned as they desperately latched on to anything that didn't remind them of their perceived legalistic past so so think of the words if i just started going through the words tonight how do they make you feel when i'm saying them discipline commitment doctrine catechism formal evening worship ties coats organs all of that all of that was reacted against and all of it because it was perceived to be tied to the abuses whatever they experienced and they tied all that into and brought all that into what they considered was legalistic, a word that is never properly defined. That was one response. The other response that I saw then was that there was an entire generation that then stayed in the Reformed church, but they sat there very disgruntled. Why did they stay? Cultural reasons, family reasons. It was grandpa's church. It was great-grandpa's church. And they stayed. And hey, loads of grandkids and loads of people were baptized in that particular tradition. We can't hurt our parents. We could never do that. It didn't facilitate, though, a lot of excitement about being in church, did it? The problem was that that kind of dissatisfaction and frustration was then communicated to the next generation their children who in that generation weren't as concerned about pleasing their parents and they left and down the street there was churches offering you whatever you wanted secretly that's what the parents wanted and as the young people began to leave everyone began to panic it makes sense children value what their parents do why would a younger generation stay around if no one's happy why would a younger generation stay around if they're looking at their parents incredibly disgruntled with the tradition so those who remained in the reformed church seeing this thought well we got to revamp the model we got it we got to fix the model this is what i saw happen widespread and make it look more like what the new hip church doing is doing down the street well that kind of created a giant class clash of generations just to keep the young people But when Reformed people try to be contemporary, ooh, it just doesn't work. It's like 10 years behind. I just had a friend call me from a Reformed church and said, we tried everything under the sun to make us as relevant and hip as the big church down the street. The whole thing's about dead now. About dead. Okay, why do I give that assessment? tonight. It's a bold assessment, I realize. I'm not in any way saying we can't do things better or that we've arrived or that the Escondido URC is the perfect church. No, that's not my intention at all. But the sad, tragic thing in all of this, in all of this, is that it seems like everyone is looking for real power in the Christian life, real life-changing power. And I don't care whatever category you fit in whether you're the older the baby boomers the children the gen xers everyone seems to be looking for power today in all the wrong places and the church by and large seems to have forgotten in all of this pursuit of relevancy and being relevant and and that god hid his power in something foolish there may be legitimate concerns that people have against reformed churches but the answer is never ultimately found in just changing the name or transforming the clothing or getting a better instrument it's not really the answer or getting an ultra hip pastor it's not it's it's not found in human wisdom the answer is found in saying you know what god said he said is foolishness then i think we better listen to him in what he has said because nothing we ever think will work will work or else it'll just produce loads of false conversions so that's what i want to do tonight uh i give that intro because this was the problem in corinth we have an immense problem tonight of of a church that was not trusting in god's design for ministry and instead they sacrificed it for the world's wisdom and its methods its ways and you know what paul's doing tonight what paul is doing tonight is he's deprogramming them in the first century already this is a massive book of deprogramming because the world had gotten into the church it had infiltrated the church and he's reprogramming them to think a lot about and to remember that god chose what he chose to build his ministry with is absolute goofiness folly foolishness it's stupid to the world and he did that on purpose and he wants you to know that he wants you to know that if that's true then the behavior and ministry has to be consistent with the message because when the behavior of the ministry when the form of the ministry when the way it's being presented to you if it's inconsistent with the message guess what you're stripping you're stripping the cross of its power and that's a big thing to do that's a tragic thing to do that's what we need to ask tonight that's what i want you to ask tonight are we confident in the lord's design for ministry or deep down deep down does our real attitude and spirit reflect that we really have no confidence in what he has put in place i want to unpack this tonight paul's explaining to them namely that what he did in ministry and coming to them he's he's answering the question i want you to think about how i came to you what i came with and why i did that how i came to you what i came with and why i did that look at verse one. And I, when I came to you brothers, did not come to you proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. What Paul is doing is continuing his thought from chapter one, where he said, Christ did not send me to baptize. This is a one verse 17. If your Bibles are open, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ, now listen to this, should be emptied of its power. He's picking back up right there. He took off a little bit on another thought, but now he's back. It's as if verse 17, chapter 2, 1 picks up right there. Whatever I do in ministry, I don't want to empty the cross of its power I am really conscious that my manner and my behavior and my presentation and my presence the way I do things can empty the cross of its power that is a scary statement I know I've been rehearsing this but it's important to understand the pressures here they're in a culture that was driven by superstars sophistry was the practice of using fallacious arguments to deceive this was the culture you would get amazing orators who could deliver and they had every technique under the sun with the goal of winning the audience that was the goal corinth was full of partisanship they had their favorite order hey a good night down in Corinth, was heading down to the theater to hear these guys. Remember the five steps of persuasion we looked at last time. Number one, get their attention. Number two, get them to comprehend. Number three, get them to yield. Number four, retention. And five, action. All Greco-Roman rhetoric was focused on number three. Get them to yield. You had to accomplish, this was the goal of the sophists, you had to accomplish winning the people with your message. And when they were convinced, they would then all nod in unison and they would clap. You had them. Sophists would travel from city to city teaching young men in the public spaces how to speak and how to debate. Listen to this. One author writes, sophists prided themselves on their ability to win any debate on any subject, even if they had no prior knowledge of the topic, through the use of confusing analogies, flowery metaphors, and clever wordplay. In short, the sophists focused on style and presentation this is what gets me even at the expense of truth for the ancient Greeks a sophist was a man who manipulated the truth for financial gain does any of this sound familiar? Paul's assessing this I want you he says to look at my manner I purposely chose to use none of their techniques in doing this I was purposeful that I didn't borrow from their wisdom how to win you when I came. None of what you're used to out there, I borrowed. Paul was so concerned. I'm not going to put myself on display. This is not about headlining me as the next Christian star who's come into town. This is not making you burn in admiration for me. I used none of their methods on purpose because I knew what would begin to happen. So in verse 3, he goes further with this. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. That is what everyone criticized him for. The super pastors he'll talk about in 2 Corinthians 11, the sophists, he'll mention later, they were looking at Paul and he was facing a lot of attack and they're saying, you're drawing in nobody really significant. I mean, look at who you're pulling in. Intellectually, you're just no genius. Where are the multitudes? Where are the numbers? If this is what it is, and you say God's behind it, is it really supposed to look like this? Really? Now you understand what Corinth was falling into. How are we even going to survive as a church and keep the next generation when our ministry looks like this, and they're doing that? You know what they said of Paul? In a source written in AD 160, I think this is the only description of Paul we have. Let me read it for you. A man small in stature, bald-headed, crooked in legs, healthy, with eyebrows joining, nose rather long. If I had a unibrow, would you tell me to shave it? You'd be worried about that. When I came to you, you know I was with you in weakness, fear, and in much trembling. There are a bunch of ideas as to what that could mean. You wonder what that means. Some take it that he was sick. Others that he was poor. Others, the fear and trembling here is kind of interesting. Fear of failure. Jitters about crowds. Panic with this overwhelming task. anxiety over his own personal safety because he was being threatened all the time i have my take on this i believe it's easy to look at paul and say when you read something like this that he was against wisdom against intelligence against being good looking against you know these sort of things and that would be all wrong that's not what he's saying paul is saying i made a purpose choice among you a conscious decision that in every way my method what i do would be consistent with my message in other words whatever i did i didn't want what the world valued i didn't want to bring to you because i knew it would turn about me and that would destroy the message now i believe what he's saying is when i came in weakness and in fear and in much trembling paul is communicating and this is why i love this i believe he's communicating his own struggle i think he's saying this wasn't easy for me i know that when people looked at me they said he's weak i know when they heard me they thought he's he's powerless i want you to know that that that's not easy for a guy to take that caused me a considerable amount of fear that caused in me a lot of weakness i believe he's being completely honest with this church about how he felt in second corinthians he said this which is really fascinating in the same vein but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with god's word but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of god in our hearts we apostles we talked about this we had to take a stand against this hidden shame that welled up within us about what we do. We felt the challenge, disgraceful, underhanded ways. We said, no, we're not doing it. Why? If you're in a culture where all the super pastors and the sophists are just mesmerizing, and they're crafty and they're polished and they're eloquent and everyone wants that. I mean, everyone wants that. What do you think Paul's struggling with? I'm bald. I'm unattractive. I'm not so eloquent, sure. He wanted his message to work. He wanted it to be liked. he wanted to be received i mean we're human and you do have the ability to twist and turn your message downgrade your approach lighten the heaviness make it more appealing you do have that choice as a pastor in the study you're faced with that constantly i'm sure he was concerned what would be said of him when he's preaching sin in that culture i mean Can you imagine that? Preaching sin in that culture and all that was going on. What a downer this guy Paul is. Now, could we transfer this to today at all? You have seen the whole renovation of Christianity in the United States. You've lived in that time. Renovation. And what are the pressures? Well, who takes the cake? The guys who have the best sound systems, The best music, the best facilities, but even more so, the guy who can grab the audience the best and what will fill stadiums today. One who can tell the best stories, the one who is funny and relatable, the guy who gives us the most practical nuggets for life, the one who can lift my emotions above my circumstances. that last one's it isn't it the one who can lift my emotions above my circumstances because life is hard and no one can get around that now is all of that consistent then if you're starting to do that what's inconsistent with that not a christ crucified i remember years ago walking through a bookstore and i saw the title there was the new reformation i thought wow a book on the new reformation i want to read that schuler wrote we're done with the old reformation's emphasis on sin we're done we need a new positive reformation of self-esteem and what essentially happened was that the entire message in this country was recast and renovated around a positive view of the self. All of that with smiles and a glassy-eyed look. Well, think about the challenge here. I've struggled for years then, right? Paul would think. I've struggled as a pastor, some might say today. For years, you know, you have this pressure to lighten up everything. You have this pressure to make it something different because you live in a culture now where everyone is doing that and everyone is into that. And that's what everyone's about. And anything that seems serious today, I don't mean just serious is a problem today. Anybody who's serious is like an organ stop, as David Wells says. You know, it's important to say I'm not against humor and against stories and practical living. but the point of this is to say that what we do and how we the manner we bring it has to be consistent with our message and what message well that's what paul says now i came in a certain manner to you i chose a certain manner because of the message that i'm carrying verse two for i determined this was purposeful i decided to know nothing among you except jesus christ and kim crucifying, crucified. I can't be showcasing myself if that is going to have the right kind of effect. You see what he's doing here? It can't be about me. It can't be about the man if the cross is going to have real power in your life. I have purposely set aside my honor and desire to be liked. You know, there's nowhere in the pastoral epistles I find a qualification for what the pastor has to be like. It's nice when he is, and I hope you like me. But if it becomes about that, you lose something. I didn't purposely, says Paul, come with worldly ideas and techniques because then the necessity of the crucifixion, my manner then wrecks my message. How do I say this more clearly? What was Paul's goal in the ministry? Well, if the cross is God's wisdom, to say it. If the cross is God's power, you have to understand why you need it. What does that require? Preaching sin. If sin has blinded us to the wisdom of God, what does preaching of the cross expose? In other words, when you're confronted with the fact that God took His Almighty Son, and think about this, the Son of God, eternal in glory, and came here, took to Himself our flesh, fell into the hands of men, suffered, was beaten to a bloody pulp, punched in the face, mocked with the crown of thorns, and then the Lord of glory hung and nailed to the Roman cursed cross, the instrument of torture, and there He suffered the wrath of God on His soul. What are you confronted with? What in the world caused that? answer you human wisdom never goes there human wisdom never goes there it doesn't win anyone they think there's nothing attractive about that and that's what they were saying against paul are you kidding a crucified messiah from some deadbeat part of the empire but don't miss what paul understood is that all that mocking was a massive cover-up to listen to god's true wisdom in dealing with true problems instead they substituted worldly wisdom dramas plays oratory skills and left people left mesmerized and uplifted and their emotions off the charts. Paul saw that for what it was. Paul saw that for what it was. That was a massive cover-up in dealing with real problems. Same is true today. Look at a church given to entertainment, given to everything else under the sun, the fun stories. That is a massive cover-up and a denial of what God is calling us to deal with. And that He's answered for us in the cross of Christ. you know it's sad today that today that it just feels like the bar just gets lower and lower and and then there's no real appreciation of even why we're doing something like tonight you know i had i had a gal up north tell me she was raised in the church and they were committed to attending church twice on a given lord's day at some point the entire family stopped doing it so her family would go and every Sunday they would they'd start heading out Sunday afternoon it was family day and the parents would then oh you gotta go to church huh you gotta go to church huh and she looked at her father and says dad you taught me this I'm doing what you taught me what changed there's been a whole slope and lack of any sort of confidence in of what we're doing well that's the consequence of that kind of ministry that's a consequence when you've sacrificed the message of the cross you kill worship why do i go through all this tonight well this is what paul's saying here god is answering you in what appears to be foolish paul is saying when you see me in fear and weak and trembling when you think of me and what we're doing is powerless remember it comes this way because god made it seem foolish to the world but it is the message why because it's from a lowly servant from nazareth who was crucified for your sins there in the crucifixion there when he said it's finished when it seemed like it was over a victory was achieved god tucked that and hid that in the message preached and even says that did you notice that verse 7 we impart a secret and hidden wisdom from god it's hidden from the wise and it's revealed to the unwind so fascinating paul chose a word deliberately in verse 1 to have us think about how important it is that he chose a certain manner in coming to them he says when i came to you brothers i did not come proclaiming to you the testimony notice that our version says testimony some of the old other uh transcripts say mystery and i think that's probably right on purpose this is a mystery and in saying mystery he's reminding them that it's god's mystery the wisest men can't understand this mystery. No human technique can get to this mystery. It's a ministry closed to the world's wise men. It's a ministry closed to what the world values. Socrates could never get it. It's revealed to the, according to the world standards, unwise. It's open to the foolish. And that's what I want to close with tonight. My speech and my message. Notice this, what he says here in verse 4. My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. I don't want your faith to be a result from human wisdom. You hear that? I don't want your faith to be from the wisdom of men. I don't want your faith to be from the marketing of men. I don't want it from any of that. I don't want your faith to be from emotional manipulation of men. I don't want it. I want it to be from the message of Christ crucified. and now we're introduced to somebody who we'll pick up with the next time, who's introduced here. Who is it? It's the Holy Spirit. Notice how the Spirit is mentioned. No, God's wisdom comes to you in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. What does that mean? William Perkins once said, ministers must preach god's word in evidence and demonstration of the spirit of god now to speak in the demonstration of god's spirit listen to this is to speak in such plainness and yet such a powerfulness as that the capacities of the simplest may understand the boys and girls first plainness whereas an unlearned man perceives his faults his sin second powerfulness and that his conscience is so convinced his secret faults are opened up and his very heart ripped up that he says god is speaking through that man in other words you are confronted in the preaching with such a clear powerful direct presentation of the gospel you feel like the minister's talking right to you and you feel like how did he know my heart? How did he get in there? He ripped it up. So confronted with that that you say that's God's word that's the spirit speaking. You're not getting that through a coffee bar pastor. My single goal, and I have lots of goals in my time, however the long keeps me in the Escondido URC. If I were to ask the Lord, what do I want for this church? And what's my single great goal for this church? It is to have from all the members absolute confidence in the power of God's word preached so that they come, you come. You come believing this. The next generation sees you with joy in your heart, sees you knowing and tasting this power yourselves, finding the hidden pearl that once you find that pearl, everything else we're not talking about. We're done with all the other stuff. We found it. And that that wisdom would spill out of your lives so that your young people and the entire community sees in you the power of God. as you have received it through the preaching of His powerful gospel. That's my goal. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we bow the head and are thankful that You reveal these things to us and that You open up this mystery and we confess, Lord, that we have, in the course of our lives, looked for power in all the wrong places. We think it's in this or that and that's what will hold people. Forgive us. and we know that if we will hear your word and voice and listen to what you have said in your mighty word, that you will demonstrate this power through the preaching of your gospel to your sheep. So open wide every heart and mind to receive this truth and let this church be filled with people who are excited, who are excited to receive your word and let it spill over from generation to generation to generation to the praise and glory of your name. In Jesus' name we pray these things, amen.