Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: how will you follow Jesus in prayer and dependence on God this week? the Power of God, Christ invites us to receive truth with humility, practice repentance, and walk in faithful obedience.
Main Points
Let me begin with a discipleship question: how will you follow Jesus in prayer and dependence on God this week? In this lesson shaped by Calvary Boise's teaching on DISTRACTED: Human Hype vs. the Power of God, Christ invites us to receive truth with humility, practice repentance, and walk in faithful obedience.
Sin and Salvation
we are in first Corinthians starting in the second chapter as you're turning there let me remind you how we get here we started. two weeks ago a new journey through the Scriptures by looking at the letter of first Corinthians written by the Apostle Paul who was. also the first church planter to come into Corinth established the Christian community and about five years after he went and preached the gospel. and helped establish the church in Corinth he wrote them a letter because he'd heard that there were some things they had to kind. of work out now it's been five years since the church has been planted and now he's retro actively writing them to say hey. I hear there's some stuff that you're thinking about there's some disputing there's some divisions there's some arguing there's some questions that you have. about how this whole thing is supposed to work so Paul writes this letter to help bring clarity to their church and I find. this letter so comforting because in my journey with Christ in church and the community of Christ and my own walk with the Lord. sometimes clarity is not always the season that I'm in I can get distracted I can get discouraged I can get burdened and if. you're like me it's nice to have the word bring my focus back to the Lord so week one we really looked at this. letter to the church in Corinth and realize that Paul starts by saying the focus of every believer in every church must be Jesus. and from there all other secondary issues will make sense and then we look last week at the message of Jesus glorified in the. cross the message of the Cross bringing clarity to who we are and today we're really going to look at one of the distractions. that takes our focus from those things and we're going to look at starting in verse one something that Paul will now point out. as what can be a replacement to the clarity of the Cross starting in verse 1 it says this and I brethren when I. came to you did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God for I determined not. to know anything among you except jesus Christ and him crucified I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words.
Faith and Obedience
of human wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power and here's why here's why Paul is writing to remind them how. he came to them his style and his method in the way he preached he says here's why it's so important to remember the. beginning verse 5 will be the key verse of our study this morning so that your faith should not be in the wisdom of. men but your faith should be in the power of God and I find oftentimes when we go through the season where we can. take our focus from Christ take our focus off the cross and be distracted by something else we lose the power of God and. we look at all this other stuff and it's gonna cause division and disputing and discouragement and all of the other things that will. come when you lose focus and so Paul is saying do not be distracted by the wisdom of men and when you think about. what he's trying to say in the context of the culture that he's speaking into the season of their church I want to try. to put it into words that we can understand what was happening in first century Corinth well it's clear that this church was living. in a cultural context that if you've heard this city describe to give it a modern day comparison it's almost like a Las Vegas. the city of Las Vegas is this city where cultures come together and it's high on entertainment and it's high on fun and it's. high on ideas and it's high on all of these things that will give you a flash experience and it seems that Corinth was. very similar it's a port city with lots of money being made and the city had a reputation of enjoying to spend that money. through partying having fun it was also a city that loved not far from Athens the philosophy of the day not only entertained through. revelry but also give us all the knowledge that we could come up with and teach us what the wisdom of this world is. and Paul has to remind this church that they were not brought together saved by the power of man's wisdom and in this if. we could use a word for our culture to describe the atmosphere of that church which I also think will describe some of your. church experience or the atmosphere of our 21st century church.
Sin and Salvation
I want to use the word hype you guys familiar with the word hype let me give you the definition of it's the extravagant. or intensive publicity or promotion of something that's hype and you can sometimes feel the world that we live in is always giving you. this intense moment of promotion and publicity that you would look at something give you an idea give you a truth and maybe the. best version of that is on your bulletin cover this morning is the little device that we keep in our phone that in any. minute whether you're focused on school or work or your family at any minute the hype machine might come up and give you a. notification or a vibration or a ringtone or a bell that says look at this how many of you even this week we're doing. something that you set out to do and then the hype machine notified you there's something you need to know about and so you. pulled out your phone and started looking and it's a priority and your focus shifted from your work or your school or your family. or the thing you were focused on to this news story that you needed to hear about or this person that immediately needed to. get your attention or your friends feed that came up and you didn't realize they're on vacation but here they are or in all. the other ways that we hype our favorite restaurants through reviews hype each other through our dating profiles we hype the world that we. live in and we're constantly looking around vain well what else is out there what am I missing out on your phone is a. hype machine and that's what it is and the danger of this and when church becomes a hype machine or your experience with God. is more of a experience with the hype about God than God himself here's the danger and it's another word that flows from the. word hype and it's the word hyper and when you get a lot of hype what you find is hyper people let me read. you the definition of hyper now it says this is an adjective that makes someone hyperactive or unusually energetic here's it used in a. sentence eating sugar makes you hyper experiment for the parents as you leave church and you go to lunch let your kids pick what. you're gonna eat let them have anything from the.
Faith and Obedience
store or your house let them pick cake because they will or cookies or whatever ice cream or fun sugary snack that you have. and you'll see what hyper does to someone or sugar does something it makes them hyper and when you're hyper you have a lot. of synthetic energy happening and then very shortly after you crash you become grumpy and you become upset or you literally just fall asleep. it happens with the sugar diet of our physical lives it will also happen if you live in a spiritual diet of hype you. will be a hyper believer that's really excited and then Monday comes or trial comes or actual testing of your faith comes and all. of a sudden your sugar diet crashes and you don't know what to do and Paul I believe has noticed that this church is. falling into some type of the culture and because of that they're a very hyper Church and we know that by reading the rest. of the letter they're disputing basically about everything has become a big deal everything has risen to the top of priorities and divisions and. disputing can't be deal with because everyone is hyper focused on themselves and so what Paul is writing to this church and what I. receive so freely from the word for our generation of church is we got to remove the hype we got to go back to. just the simplicity of what we actually have in God and it says in verse 5 that our faith would not be on the. wisdom of men or the cultural values of the world that we live in or the hype machine but our faith would be on. the solid and sustainable and unmatched and glorious power of God if we actually could get into the all and the presence in a. relationship with God that brought us power now that's a sustainable faith to know the power of the one who created the universe with. his word now that is a faith that will survive Monday morning that is a faith that will survive the trials and the ups. and downs that will come that a spiritually shallow sugar diet person will not sustain and so how do we do that in the. first five verses that we read Paul brings out on to the table a retroactive look at the beginning of this church and points. out three things in their founding that were completely unhype and.
Sin and Salvation
he's calling them to return to the simplicity of these three things so that they can return to the power of God the three. things that we find in this are is the completely unhype t' message of the cross we're gonna talk about that briefly this morning. but we really emphasize that last week so I don't want to belabor it the second unhype t' Avenue that Paul wants to return. this church to is the untyped messenger Paul says I came to you this is what I brought look at my example when I. was your messenger and then he says a completely unhype method of bringing it so in the message and the messenger and the method. we find our battle ground for the power of God and the hype of humans and that is exactly what I experienced sometimes when. I'm engaging in the church culture that we live in sometimes it feels like whether it's the message or the messenger or the method. that the hype belongs to the actual avenue of delivery and not the actual power of God so we start with the unhype message. when we look at chapter 1 verse 17 and as I say this I'm gonna change the word that I'm using from unhype to. something that Paul continually uses throughout this letter but I think it's getting at the same thing what he's going to say is the. message is foolish that's how non why is a non exciting and non glitz and glamour this message is to the world that it. was brought to it's actually gonna come across as foolish it's the opposite of hype and he says that in verse 17 for Christ. did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel within the gospel Paul say to the church and Romans the gospel itself. has the power and then he says not with wisdom of words lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect for. the message of the Cross is foolishness if you just think about the message itself the proclamation that God made through the cross to. the world that He loves us and he has the perfect plan to reconcile himself to him it's foolish to those who are perishing. it's completely unhype to the lost world to those who are dead in their sin the cross makes no sense it is not something. that you can present to someone and have them say well I've.
Sin and Salvation
been waiting to just do that with my life anyway the cross is a foolish message void of hype because in the cross for. those of you who have not accepted it as the power of God it's perishing but those of you who believe by the power. of God the Holy Spirit's you see the cross and you realize that it is God's instrument to display his love to you it's. the power it's the power of God for some the message is foolishness but for us the power lives in that foolish message and. I want to point out very briefly how foolish it is by reexamining verse 23 from last week it says we preach Christ crucified. those two words represent coming together why the message of the Cross is an absolute paradox that will always fly in the face of. human wisdom those two words Christ crucified now the first word the Christ is actually something that the wisdom of this world can accept. the Christ in this in this context that the Christ simply means the Messiah the coming one the Anointed One of God that will. come as say you're to restore God's people to bring God's peace to bring God's justice now that sounds like the wisdom of the. world that you would hope that someone could somehow come as a knight in shining armor to make things that are going wrong go. right and the wisdom of this world is okay with the coming one and that's why we are always looking for the next good. king or good politician or person to come in and make things right or if you're a sports fan you're looking for the next. great quarterback or great head coach or whatever your Avenue have seen and touching with the perishing world is you think yes we need. someone to lead this thing if we found the right leader the ship would be led well the Christ of the world comes but. the Christ comes crucified now that's where it becomes foolish who's waiting for the politician to come and to bring victory for the people. not through the political and economic plan but by actually taking on defeat and death and taking on all of the failure and absorbing. it himself to be a model of death and then rebirth that is where we have a foolish message but it is the message. of the wisdom of God his plan is that his.
Faith and Obedience
son would lay down his life so that we could have ours the Christ would be crucified so that we could be made alive. that's a foolish message that is lost Christ crucified listen to how one commentator says the context for the first century audience must have. felt preaching the Christ in the first century made perfect sense everyone was waiting for the Messiah to come to bring victory and prosperity. to the people but preaching the Christ crucified in the first century must have sounded like a contradiction of terms it must have sounded. like boldly declaring hope in frozen steam or hateful love or upward decline or godly adultery except much more scandalous and I find as. much as I'm a grateful that I understand by the power of Revelation of the Holy Spirit that it is the cross of Christ. that saves me and is by bearing the cross of Christ and my daily life that disciples me too the perfect image of his. son sometimes I'm like a first century audience where I'm like yes come into my life and then bring me prosperity and victory did. you hear those two words everybody wanted the Christ to bring prosperity and victory and if I had to bring this message into the. 21st century church kingdom of God people this is how the cross of Christ can be made of no effect that we would package. the message of the gospel into a wise man's version for this world to make sense of it because it's much easier to say. to you here's the gospel believe in a good God and you'll have a good life here's the gospel put your faith in a. God that is faithful and you'll have a blessed life is that true of course but ultimately the goodness and the blessing will never. be fully experienced until we meet him face to face and on the way to heaven we're gonna have suffering and some of us. are gonna die of disease and we're gonna have all sorts of trials and tribulations where life gets really hard and those are our. cross moments so we are not preaching prosperity and victory now always and I'm grateful that we live in a culture that seems to. be awakening to the reality that it is the cross the foolishness that it's the death and life of his son that gives us. as an example to die and live for one another that is.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.