A Church Full of Losers Who Shall be Declared Winners

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

A Church Full of Losers Who Shall Be Declared Winners

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

he world considers those who adhere to the Faith to be losers … cripples in need of a crutch in order to live.  They see themselves as strong while viewing us as weak.  They think of the church as a bunch of losers; and perhaps they are correct.  So far as this world is concerned, we are losers.  We do not belong here.  As aliens and strangers, we abstain from that which characterises the world [cf. 2 Peter 2:11].  The inhabitants of this dying world consider it strange that [we refuse to] plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation … thus their abuse [cf. 2 Peter 4:4].  Yet the saints of the Most High God seem willing to sacrifice their relationship to Him who calls all things into being if only they may achieve a degree of acceptance by the inhabitants of this world.

Attitudes which characterise this perishing world have infiltrated even the hallowed precincts of the churches of Christ.  We adulate the great of this world, thinking that God must surely appreciate any help they can give to disseminate the message of life.  We will do almost anything to gain a patina of respectability before this corrupted world.  If we should be able to induce some noted individual to say something “nice” about God, about Christ, or about the Faith we convince ourselves that we have done God a favour.

Frankly, I find it pathetic to watch the professed saints of the Living God begging the rich and famous of this decaying world to say something “nice” about Jesus.  Somehow the spectacle of an athlete who undermines the Faith by drawing adoring fans to forsake worship so that they can watch his moves in a game each Sunday serving as a spokesman for the Faith is pathetic.  Such action conjures up an image of a gladiator in the Roman Circus induced to say something “nice” about the Christians just before they are fed to the lions.  The image of a contemporary musician who entertains in the bars and lounges of this world thinking they honour God because they conclude their show by singing I’d Rather Have Jesus Than Silver or Gold is disgusting.

We are not winners, as this dying world counts winners.  We are not called to invite the world to provide input into the Faith.  We are called to be holy, forsaking the accolades of dying men that we may honour Christ.  We have forgotten the admonition of the Hebrews author, which confronts us.  The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp.  And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.  Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.  For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come [Hebrews 13:11-14].  We have decided that we can remain within the gates, let Christ suffer alone outside the camp, and yet somehow please Him.  It cannot be done!

I am not called to please the saints.  God appointed me to demand of His people holy lives worthy of Him.  Part of that commission is to remind us that we must please Him.  This present world and all that live therein shall perish.  Nor should we imagine that the desire to be great in the eyes of this world is some new affliction for the church.  Since the days of the Apostles, saints have sought approval from the world instead of seeking God’s commendation.  We need to be reminded of our calling, seeing ourselves as God sees us so that we may serve Him without failing in the task we were assigned.  In order to accomplish our calling, I invite you to review the Apostle’s forthright words written to a church eager to be great in the eyes of this world … the Corinthian saints.

Our Condition When Christ Found Us — Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.  Lady Huntington is reputed to have said during a Methodist testimony meeting that she was saved by the letter M.  Making reference to this verse, she observed that it says not many, instead of not any.  We praise God for those among us who are considered wise by human standards.  We rejoice in each saint of God who is recognised as influential.  We glorify Him for every Christian who is of noble birth.  But we are nevertheless constrained to confess that it is true that not many of us hold such credentials.  It pleased God to choose men and women who are not recognised for the most part as wise, or influential, or of noble birth.

Without specific reference to the socio-economic situation each one of us occupied at the time Christ found us, it is nevertheless true that he found us as sinners.  There are nice sinners, and there are sinners who are not so nice; but we were each yet sinners and under condemnation of Holy God when Christ found us.  Such confession is not readily acceptable among polite company.  We labour to find euphemisms to explain away our need of salvation.  We were not that bad.  We were perhaps bad, but we were not sinners.  We had a few faults or even a few problems in life.  However one states the proposition, it remains that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [Romans 3:23].

Those words Paul penned in the encyclical we refer to as Ephesians still sting the proud heart. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions [Ephesians 2:1-5a].  The situation painted by these words is bleak.  All alike are sinners, and each Christian looks back on a life of condemnation when he or she was under sentence of death.

It is precisely because we were awful sinners that God’s grace is so magnificent.  It is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast [Ephesians 2:5b-9].

Read the pages of the whole of the Word and you will find no comfort for the thought that some among us were deserving of salvation.  Scour the Word ever so carefully and you will discover not a hint that perhaps some deserved mercy or grace.  One of the more humbling verses found in the whole of the Word of God is Romans 11:32.  God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.  Someone has well said that the ground is level at the foot of the cross.  We can only claim to be sinners saved by grace.  Since all were sinners, which of us can claim to be better or more valuable than another?  Since all alike have received mercy, ought we not to not receive one another as worthy of respect?

Though we would each agree that we were sinful and deserving of rejection by Holy God, we do not often think of the historical composition of the membership of the churches.  In part this is because the complexion of the churches has changed during this present century.  Within the churches of this nation are some which are generally viewed as churches for the elite of society and others which are less socially desirable, but generally the churches are a place where nice people are to be found.

If we wish to search out a new pastor we will make every effort to ensure that he is a graduate of an appropriate school.  Our pastor must have the highest degree possible.  Within one fellowship of pastors among which I once served, not a single preacher was to be found who was not Doctor somebody.  The amusing aspect of this desire to be great in the eyes of this world was that only two of those individuals had earned the degree.  All alike, except for the pastor under whom I served and myself, had purchased their title.  I was compelled to observe for the benefit of those opthamologically challenged men that the Master cautioned against seeking such adulation when He spoke against being called Rabbi [cf. Matthew 23:8].  The attitudes I witnessed within that isolated group over twenty years ago are systematic within the Church of the Living God in this day, however.

I recall challenging on one occasion a greatly respected leader within his denominational that he, and the various power brokers within that denomination, were more focused on credentials than on character.  What I said to him could likely be applied to every religious movement.  Certainly it applies to every denomination with which I have had contact.  He, of course, denied that such a thing could be true.  It was almost two years later that he suffered a disastrous reversal of fortune and was removed from the ministry.  His colleagues decisively rejected him, and Lynda and I, with but one notable exception, were the only people to reach out to this wounded man to minister to him.

In casual conversation some time after this he suddenly reminded me of my challenge from several years prior.  He said that though he had resented my confrontation, he was compelled to admit that I was right.  Credentials – the school where a person is educated, the type of degree received, the people known – all are of greater importance to the churches than is character or calling.

If that charge holds true for the pulpit, should you be surprised that it would hold true for the pew as well?  We want the right kind of people to occupy our pews.  Too often we fall under the condemnation which James levelled against the saints of his day.  My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favouritism.  Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.  If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts [James 2:1-4]?

It would be well enough were I to inveigh against churches which generally view themselves as being socially elite within our nation … and perhaps they do deserve to be exposed for their hypocrisy.  However, there is hypocrisy enough within evangelicalism.  We are a people who lay claim to openness to accepting all as equal before God.  We must ensure that we actually rejoice in His work which places the least among us instead of insisting that we must attract the right kind of people. 

Perhaps you think the comparison unfair, but if the Church of God in Corinth required the apostolic challenge to review what they were, then we will no doubt benefit from remembering our roots.  Though positive, the sentiment expressed in Isaiah 51:1,2 is valid and valuable.

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness

and who seek the LORD:

Look to the rock from which you were cut

and to the quarry from which you were hewn;

look to Abraham, your father,

and to Sarah, who gave you birth.

When I called him he was but one,

and I blessed him and made him many.

In this instance God through His prophet was calling Israel to remember His power to transform one man into a nation.  The people of that day needed to see in a fresh way what God could do instead of focusing on what they considered themselves to be.  In a similar way we need to dare believe that God can work with such raw material as our broken lives can provide.  We need dare believe that God can work with all our brokenness to make something to the praise of His glory.  God does not need our help to make that which is glorious!  We need to look to Him and His might instead of thinking that we will need to attract a better class of parishioner to build the church in Jasper.

One of the dark passages of the Word of God is that in which God through His prophet, Ezekiel, confronts Jerusalem.  Such a confrontation may well be necessary for the churches of this day.  Listen to this passage, asking whether we require such a confrontation in this day.  I ask you to consider the passage, not because we are idolaters, but in light of the need to remember our roots.  I ask you to see again how God confronts His people with their utter worthlessness until He transforms them.  I ask you to witness how God works to change His people into something of value.  We need to remember.

Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices and say, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.  On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths.  No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you.  Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

“Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!”  I made you grow like a plant of the field.  You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels.  Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.

“Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness.  I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

“I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you.  I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you.  I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments.  I adorned you with jewellery: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head.  So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth.  Your food was fine flour, honey and olive oil.  You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen.  And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendour I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.

“But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute.  You lavished your favours on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his.  You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution.  Such things should not happen, nor should they ever occur.  You also took the fine jewellery I gave you, the jewellery made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them.  And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them.  Also the food I provided for you—the fine flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them.  That is what happened, declares the Sovereign LORD.

“And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols.  Was your prostitution not enough?  You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols.  In all your detestable practices and your prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, kicking about in your blood” [Ezekiel 16:2-22].

Few of us can claim that we were great in the eyes of this world, much less that God found us attractive.  Among us there is not a single individual of noble birth.  None of us dare claim that we are great leaders.  Few of us can claim that the world consults us to discover what should be done … not even in our particular fields of daily endeavour!  That is what we were!

The Reason Christ Redeemed Us — But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.  Are you sufficiently humbled?  Have the props been kicked out from under our pride?  Have these words yet removed boasting from us?  Assuredly, we must confess that what we were is not pretty.  Certainly, we are humbled by the knowledge that we offered absolutely nothing of value to God.  Yet the question remains, why has God redeemed us?

If I were designing a religion, I suppose I would wish the rich of this world to favour it.  I would seek the notable of society to commend that faith.  I would endeavour to attract the powerful, the movers and shakers of society.  That is how I would think.  Consequently, that is likely the way in which you also would design a religion for the Twenty-first Century.  From the perspective of human thought it makes little sense to deliberately design a faith which is based upon the weak of society, based upon labourers and relatively uneducated individuals, based upon those individuals whom this world considers to be foolish, unimportant or despised.

Consider those whom Jesus first called to the Faith.  They were fishermen, a rebel, a tax collector – none were influential or powerful within society.  Perhaps John was as close to rubbing shoulders with the influential of society as any of the Apostles, and he seems to have had scant influence by virtue of his youth.  Just so, it is apparent that the majority of those attracted to the Faith of the Risen Christ following His ascension into the Glory represented the powerless of society.  An undue percentage of the earliest saints appear to have been slaves without a life of their own.

Very early in church history a change was made in the composition of the membership of the churches.  The church became influential and the elite of society clamoured to be counted as church members.  From earliest days that trend toward social respectability has continued.  Perhaps within western culture a transition point has been reached, however, and the makeup of the church is again beginning to reflect the biblical assessment.  Within contemporary Canada, the powerful of society may use the church, but they have little to do with her.  Increasingly, the evangelists among us find a more ready reception among the powerless of society, among the weak and the foolish.

Why should it please God to choose deliberately those elements from within human society which are considered to be foolish, thought weak, seen as lowly and as despised?  Why should that be?  According to the revelation of God, He chose such despised elements to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.

I grew to manhood in an impoverished home.  My father, a relatively uneducated man, was a blacksmith.  Injured during the Second World War, he was severely crippled which insured that his hard labour was made harder still because of the crippling wounds he suffered.  My father never understood the laws of thermodynamics, never grasped the finer points of Hegelian philosophy, never grappled with Marxian doctrines.  He could not discuss intelligently the differences between supralapsarian and superlapsarian views of Soteriology.  He knew he was saved by the grace of God, however, and that placed a song in his heart which could not be extinguished by all the pressures of this fallen world.

In the southern United States one would frequently hear an old saying which says: I would rather learn my ABCs in Heaven than spout Hebrew and Greek in Hell.  When I see an uneducated man praising God powerfully for the salvation he has received, I know that it is not because he has thought through all the issues, nor because he is thoroughly verse in the latest scientific thought, that he has received Christ as Lord.  That lowly saint, saved by the grace of God, glorifies God because for him, salvation is all of grace.  God is glorified.  It is not because of that one’s great intellect, not because of his great wealth, not because of his great power that he is saved.  It is all of grace and he is compelled to so state.  I know that it is because of God’s grace that such a one is saved.

I am compelled by facts to point out that I have a son in prison.  Within the walls of the prisons of this nation, I have observed more real faith than is commonly seen in what is referred to as free society.  Yes, there are some bad actors incarcerated within those cells of stone and steel; but there are others who have discovered their weakness and are thus cast on the grace of God.  They worship Christ at considerable expense.  They are ridiculed by prison staff for their faith, challenged by other inmates, and their motives are cynically questioned whenever the issue is brought up in society.  Were I alone in making this observation, you would have every reason to challenge me.  No less a person than Chuck Colson and the staff of Prison Fellowship International make similar observations.  God is at work among the outcasts jailed in the prisons of this world.

In my earliest ministries, I laboured within a Texas prison farm.  Recidivism became negligible among those men coming to faith in the Son of God.  The incident of recidivism was dramatically reduced from over seventy percent to almost imperceptible levels in those who not only came to faith but who were accepted within the Body of Christ.  God was glorified and Christ was honoured by revealing His power to transform.

What is the impact of transformed lives among such pariahs of society?  God is glorified.  Christ is honoured.  No one would say that it is because such individuals are powerful or wealthy or influential that they are redeemed.  Some may imagine convicts such as these are attempting to use the system to gain an advantage.  That is no doubt true of some.  I imagine that the percentage of those seeking to use religion as a tool to gain their own ends is no greater than the percentage of presidents and prime ministers and other assorted politicians who endeavour to use the Faith to advance their own agendas.

I make this singular observation.  Of those who are great in the eyes of this world at the time they come to faith in the Risen Son of God, few have ever advanced the Faith.  It is the Spurgeons called in their youth and out of obscurity, the Wesleys called in humility at their own lack of ability, the Luthers who are humble monks, who write ecclesiastical history.  It is you who in your weakness seek to glorify Christ through humble submission to Him that transform towns and villages, states and provinces, countries and nations.

The Change Christ Made in Us — It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  We who are called by the Name of the Son of God can never satisfy the demands of this dying world.  Those associated with this perishing world will never consider us sufficiently educated, never see us as sufficiently powerful, never think us sufficiently influential.  They can only measure others by a measure of their own making and not one of God’s design.  Yet, in Christ we are wise with a wisdom which has become our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption.

Jesus was an enigma to the powerful when He walked this earth.  Perhaps you will recall his brief prayer spontaneously voiced after He had pronounced judgement on Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.  I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.  Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure [Matthew 11:25,26].  The wise and the learned were blind, but God delighted to reveal His will to those who were before the critical eyes of this world as little children, just as the Lord stated in the following verse.  All things have been committed to me by my Father.  No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him [Matthew 11:27].  Of course, this statement served as the foundation for the gracious invitation which follows.  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light [Matthew 11:28-30].

Christ has revealed to us His righteousness – that is His justification.  He has revealed to us His holiness – that is His sanctification.  And He has revealed to us His redemption – which is His glorification.  For a very brief moment, consider what we possess in Christ our Lord.  Our wisdom is from Him, and that is for us justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Man thinks in terms of doing something pleasing to God in order to merit God’s acceptance.  God accepts only faith in His Son so that no one may boast before Him.  God will credit righteousness for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the death.  Christ was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification [Romans 4:24,25].  Though the thought flies in the face of conventional wisdom, in this God is glorified instead of man.  It is God’s grace, not man’s ability which is seen.

Sanctification, the holiness of God, results from His presence and not from our innate self-worth.  Have you never read the assessment of the Apostle concerning this precious commodity of the Spirit?  From the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.  He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ [2 Thessalonians 2:13,14].  God chose us to be saved, and that by the sanctifying work of the Spirit.  We are saved for a purpose.  Certainly we are saved to the praise of His glory [cf. Ephesians 1:11-14] … and He shall be glorified in us when we are revealed in His image.  Then we shall be revealed complete in Him and the excellence of His work shall be fully revealed in us.

In us God has demonstrated His wisdom in our redemption which is to His glory.  That is the thrust of Paul’s words in Romans 8:23-25.  Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  We are sealed with that same Spirit for the day of redemption [Ephesians 4:30].

Let speak practically for a moment longer.  Christ is our righteousness.  You have no righteousness of your own to present before God.  When we are presented before Him in eternity, it will be His grace which has redeemed us.  It will be His blood which has purchased us.  It will be His mercy which has given us life through the atonement which He provided.  Christ is our holiness.  Even should we live a godly life here (as we ought), it will be His power which has enabled us to do so.  Certainly, in eternity our purification and eventual sanctification will be because of His love and because of His grace and by the sacrifice of His own body for us.  We will have nothing of which to boast in glory.  Christ is our redemption.  Our hope is Christ.  Our life is Christ.  Our future is Christ.  All is of Christ and all is by His grace.

That is a glorious scene which is painted by John in the Apocalypse.  I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the centre of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.  He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.  He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.  And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb.  Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.  And they sang a new song:

“You are worthy to take the scroll

and to open its seals,

because you were slain,

and with your blood you purchased men for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,

and they will reign on the earth.”

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.  They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: 

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,

to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength

and honour and glory and praise!”

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: 

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb

be praise and honour and glory and power,

for ever and ever!”

[Revelation 5:6-13]

In Heaven, the church sings praise to Christ alone as worthy to redeem.  All creation ascribes praise to Him.  If I should contribute to my salvation, if I should contribute to my sanctification, if I should contribute to my glorification, I have every right to sing in glory: I also am worthy to take the scroll!  All praise to the Lamb and to me, for I have assisted Him in achieving my salvation.  All glory to Christ and to me, for I have held on to the end.  Of course, it will not be that way, for my redemption and my purification and my transformation is all of grace.

It is so humbling to be dependent upon God.  There is no room for drawing attention to ourselves or our accomplishments.  Only the Lord is honoured and glorified.

This is what the LORD says:

“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom

or the strong man boast of his strength

or the rich man boast of his riches,

but let him who boasts boast about this:

that he understands and knows me,

that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,

justice and righteousness on earth,

for in these I delight,”

 declares the LORD.

[Jeremiah 9:23,24]

My great fear for the churches on the cusp of the 21st Century is that instead of resting in Christ, the faith of our fellow Christians rest on men’s wisdom.  We must again hear Paul’s words which follow our text.  When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power [1 Corinthians 2:1-5].  We may be many, but we are not much.  The church of this day needs to again learn that all we possess is by His grace.  Amen.