The Spirit of Grace
James Bryson
The Spirit of Grace • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 17 viewsNotes
Transcript
Thankful to be here! My name is P. Bryson
Just want to introduce those who came with me from the states.
Paul was in a church where there was comparisons, and party spirits.
These party spirits breed divisions.
I’m of Apollos I’m of Paul I’m of Christ.
Paul said is Christ divided.
One of the number one objectives from Satan is to cause division.
Its interesting something as a style or way of preaching could cause this kind of strife but it can.
This whole book of second corinthians is all speaking on unity.
Any thing that can hinder unity Paul is against. Or anything that can cause disunity Paul is against.
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.
This is the trap for many Christians today, you have someone who is fluent, persuasive, and has a bit of intelligence, and the tendency is for us to yield to that intelligence.
Excellence of speech meaning Paul didn’t come with superiority of speech. Or preeminence of speech.
He didn’t try to wow them with words.
His speech wasn’t condescending. He didn’t have a speech that was so fancy you could barely understand what was being said.
You ever talk to someone and they are always using big words lol haha You say to your self you didn’t even have to use the word “demonstrable” right there lol haha.
I didn’t come to impress man but I came in the Power of God!
Paul said, “I came declaring to you the testimony or the mystery of God!
He didn’t come with plausible words of wisdom.
He didn’t come with these overwhelming statistics. You know 3 out of 20 kids end up smoking crack by the age of 16, okay what does that have to do with the gospel!
Origen: If our Scriptures had persuaded people to believe because they had been written with rhetorical art or philosophical skill, there is no doubt that our faith would be said to depend on the art of words and on human wisdom rather than on the power of God.On First Principles 4.1.7.
If our faith depended on the arts we would have to continue to build on the arts. Rhetorical art and philosophy etc. etc.
- The arts should lead us to Christ but it isn’t Christ.
But our faith is built on the testimony of God. Which is Christ!
For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
What does that mean? Talk to your neighbor about this verse.
Paul is saying I’m resolved completely in my mind!
Paul is saying I’m not going to front load my accomplishments, I’m not going to front load my eloquence.
But its all about Jesus.
Paul is fully persuaded. He has a unwavering conviction that He would no nothing among his people except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
The crucifixion is the heart of the gospel.
Paul said I’ve excluded my knowledge, my years of study but its this central truth we should be preoccupied with, because it is the power of God.
For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;
but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Paul divides mankind into two ethnic groups: The Jews and the Greek (meaning gentiles)
The Jews represented religion. He had a God-given religion. The Jews felt like they had the truth and they did as far as religion is concerned. But the scriptures where no longer life is became ritual and tradition. The power was gone! The mystery gone.
*When Christ came they looked for a sign rather then turning to the scriptures and evaluating what Christ has done through the lens of the scriptures they demanded a sign because they no longer believed in the scriptures. The scriptures weren’t enough.
This is Jesus heart towards signs
Matthew 12:38–40 (NKJV)
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The Lord Jesus gave to them the sign of resurrection.
The Greeks were the Gentiles. They represented philosophy. They were the lovers of wisdom. They said they were seeking the truth; they were searching and scanning the universe for truth. They were the rationalists
While the Jews ended up in ritual, the Gentiles ended up as rationalists and had to conform to a pattern of reason.
“What is truth?” asked the fatalistic Pilate. Bacon asked the same question, and philosophy is still asking that question. Philosophy still has no answers to the problems of life. “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?”
In the ESV it says “For the Jews demand a sign.” You ever demand something from God.
This is the worlds way of doing life. We demand from God.
The greek looked for a new Philosophy greater then there own.
The Jews claimed to have the truth and the greeks where speculators and seekers.
It was not on mans terms
But really what both the Jews and Greeks need is the cross, because it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
Bewitched- means to be mislead by pretenses as if by magical arts. Who has cast a spell on you.
Paul is saying why do you embrace teaching that declared the cross of Christ unnecessary. Thats why he called them foolish because they where thinking irrational.
The Savior was clearly portrayed among you as crucified.
Portrayed “to write for public reading” as with the posting of a public announcement
Some of the Galation church clearly seen Christ crucified in front of them and they forgot.
What does the cross mean practical for me?
But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Paul means that he did not think it fit or his business to know anything for his message beyond this “mystery of God”!
Paul didn’t exercise his mind with things that where to high for him.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
Demonstration of Power. Chrysostom: It does not belittle the gospel to say that it was preached without wisdom. On the contrary, this is the gospel’s great glory, the clearest sign that it is divine and that it comes from heaven. When demonstration is made by the wisdom of human words, the worse argument often overcomes the better one, because the one who argues for it has greater rhetorical skills. But in this case it is not so, because the Spirit does not enter an unclean soul, nor can he ever be overcome, however much clever speech is used to attack him. The demonstration by works and signs is more powerful than mere words. Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 6.3.
1 Corinthians 2:5 (ACCS 1-2 Co): Wisdom’s Boast. Chrysostom: Human wisdom denied the cross, but faith proclaimed the power of God. Wisdom not only failed to reveal the things which people sought after, but also it encouraged them to boast of their own achievements. But faith not only gave them the truth, it also encouraged them to glorify God.
Human wisdom rejected Christ and His cross.
God cannot be found by human wisdom or man’s mere pursuit of Him. It takes The Spirit of God.
From the Beginning. Chrysostom: Paul is keen to point out that God always loved us, even from the very beginning, when we did not yet exist. For if he had not loved us, he would not have foreordained our riches. Look beyond the broken relationship which has come in between, and you will see that God’s love for us is more ancient still.
What If Christ Had Not Died? Augustine: But if Christ had not been put to death, death would not have died. The devil was overcome by his own trophy, for the devil rejoiced when, by seducing the first man, he cast him into death. By seducing the first man, he killed him. By killing the last man, he lost the first from his snare. The Ascension 263.
