Worship Gathering

Read through chapter 1 and chapter 2. It has some interesting thoughts there, you know, some of the simple things in life or not. So easy, right for instance, the English language. Have you ever thought about that? The English language is very difficult. I didn't really, I didn't realize that until I realized how bad I was speaking in English. And then a hero then you start thinking about some of the rules and some of the things that are found in English and Laura told me that a bear bear can't bear berries that y'all know that a bear bear cannot bear berries. Now, y'all think about that for a little while. It all sounds the same, doesn't it? So when you get into and I remember as I was learning a different language, are they? They told me right off the bat with me and my broken English. They told me, they said you will never excel in your Saints, second language further than you have in your first. And I was like man, thank you for setting the bar so low for me. And then as I began to talk with other people about the language that, you know, a lot of them would ask me questions. Why, why do you guys do this in English? And I was screwing, I don't know. That's just what we do and it just makes sense to us. It's a simple things but it's very hard as I was thinking about that. There was some other things in life that a very simple but yet hard for instance. How about love? Love is very simple. That is very difficult with y'all, not agree with that. And when you, when you start thinking about it, the love gets very complicated, the more that you get into it, the more difficult it gets one in particular. How about forgiveness? It's easy to say it on the on the superficial level about forgiveness. But once you trying to implement some of those things he gets very difficult. And here is where Paul is, this is what he's going to talk about today and he's going to walk through, you know, the things of this world may seem foolish. When we talk about Christ, the things of Christ may seem foolish to the people of this world and the things of God are are so far behind the things of this Earth. So this is where Paul is going to begin to teach and I believe that we can learn these simple truths as well. We do not have to make it so complicated. We do not have to make everything that we do. So complicated. The only thing that we have to do is keep our eyes. And our ears and our hearts, in tune to Jesus Christ and what he has to teach us and that's all we have to do and that's what Paul's going to teach us today. So as we have our Bibles open this, pray that God will open our hearts so that we could hear from him today. Father, we come, and we are gathered in your mist. I Am Lord. What a wonderful reminder. Lord, as we were singing the way maker. Or do you put that song Upon A missionaries heart in Nigeria? It's easy for us to sing that here in our culture. Or we can go out and buy anything we want. We can have water if we turn on the tap. And we we have so many resources in so many things at times. It's just so easy to forget that you are the way maker. What that beautiful song was written from a lady who has not a lot. You are the way maker. And Lord, as we prayed for the Haitian missionaries, who were Who were or American missionaries that were taken captive in Haiti. Lord, I pray that there would be a Philippian moment. Allure where they are singing your Praises in the mist of their discomfort in their hurt. And Lord, the jailers, the captors will begin to hear the gospel. And it will radically begin to change them. Lord I pray here today in the Stillness of this hour. Where everything kind of quiet and stay down? And her mind wants to disconnect and our eyes get heavy and we want to drift off. Lord, I pray that you will keep us captivated by Your Word. And we will hang on every word every, everything that is found before we will intently. Look into your word to see the life-giving power. It has rust. Pray God that you would do the amazing. And you will speak to our hearts and you will transform us from the inside out. Lord, I ask this in the power, Jesus. Hey, man, join with me in 1st Corinthians. Chapter 1. We're going to begin with Verse 18. We're going to begin with Verse 18. Now, Paul, after doing this introduction there, the Church, of course, they only give you a little bit of context. The Church of Corinth was a very unique placed. It was one of the main hubs that had that fed a lot of your supply lines, you know, today in our day and age, that's what the headlines were about the supply lines or are being bottleneck right now. We can't get stuff. Well, Court was one of those places that everything went through Corinth. So when you have that kind of Port City right there in Corinth, all kinds of people from all over came to dwell in Corinth and it became a hot bed and became a place of multiple prostitution waves, the prostitution of gods that were being sacrificed to just a wild and Patras culture that was right there in Corinth. So Paul goes and he begins to preach the gospel and it begins to change the people. There. He moves on a little bit down the road and fat when Paul wrote the letter to Corinth, he was in Ephesus and he began to hear that. It wasn't too long. That all of a sudden, they began to fight. They began to have quarrels among them until Paul rights of first letter to them. And many scholars. And I'm one of those that agree that the first letter. We don't know what it says. We, we do not have any record that some people will try to take 1st Corinthians. They try to break it up in different parts and they try to find the first letter. I believe just thinking it. When Paul wrote that skeet scathing letter to the people, they burned it. I mean, what would you do? If somebody called you out and he was over in Ephesus? Who's this guy? We are we are Courant. Who is this? Jewish going to tell us how to live?

Turn the second letter towards him and this is what we have. I know, that's kind of weird for us at 1st. Corinthians is actually the second letter, but here he's beginning to bring a men's fashions in the church, you know, how bad behavior and over. The next couple of weeks we're going to be looking through that, he had to deal with it. But here in this first issue, what Paul wants to lay down as the foundation is what is our focus on where you were getting this thing. We're getting all messed up in this idea, but we need to do so, we need to get her Focus back. One thing that I began to learn early on and missionary work. And as God has worked in the churches that I've been a part of and all of that is God, when we turn our Focus towards him all this other stuff. It goes away. Did, you know in the moments of the Revival? When moments like in the United States, when the Revival has come and people are getting saved and businesses are having to shut their doors cuz their employees are at the church is in it. And everybody is pouring their heart out to to Christ and given their life to Christ. Did you know that in those moments denominationalism doesn't matter.

They don't care about. Where are you Baptist? Are you Methodist, are you? They don't care about is the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. Being poured upon the ants and upon their family and experience being captivated by his grace. That's all I care about. And it isn't, it kind of funny that well we can cut we can separate ourselves so much and we can begin to make this so complicated that we'd lose the essence of what the message was. So here's where Paul was very beginning. He was like, listen Luis identify these things. I'm looking for, say Tini, said for the message of the Cross, is foolishness to those who are perishing being saved. It is the power of God for it is written. That would destroy the wisdom of the wise men. Bring to nothing the understanding of The Prudent. Where is the wise, where is described? The speaker of age? Has not gotten made foolish. The wisdom of this world for sensing wisdom of sports in the wisdom of God. The world through wisdom did not know God. It pleased God, through the foolishness of the message, preach to save those who believe. For the Jews, request a sign and the Greeks eat after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews. A stumbling block to the Greeks foolishness to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ. The power of God in the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than me. So let's try to dig down just a little bit. Let's try to seek the application. What you? And I can learn as we are looking at the scripture today. One thing that kind of jumped off the page for me is the power of the cross. The power of the Cross. When you. And I when we live our lives under the power of the cross, it begins to change us dramatically. Did you notice that Paul would talk about the wisdom of this world? Is the is seems foolish to God or is foolish to God. And in the things of God, seem foolish to this world. Are in one thing that we can all agree on it. I know that we in our age, we Adorn the cross. Don't we inside a part of our logo, has the cross in it. Many of us will wear the cross. Many of us will have crosses up in her home. But if we back up to a first-century contact, the cross was not something that you want to glorify inside. It was a mode of execution. It was where somebody was taken out and in the Roman time, especially in Jerusalem, what they would do is the road leading into the town, they would take the people and they would mail them to a tree. Nail them to a tree, they would have to tear their crossbar and they would mail them to that and then they would mail their ankles into the tree. And what they would do is Romans love to see torture and they loved the idea of the crucifixion. Would be a billboard with don't mess with Rome. What they wanted to do was keep you alive as long as they could and let you suffer. So that you will be that billboard or whoever would be that billboard to keep people from breaking the law. And so they would put you on the road. So as people were coming into town, they would see these people naked. They will strip them naked and nail them to the tree. Many times, vultures would be eating on them as they're hanging on the tree and above their head, would be the crime that they were convicted up. This is the message in which Paul was preaching to the Romans. My Savior was crucified. Now, can we try to Grapple with the little bit of what was going on for the Romans? They would say why? Romans are not conquered. Romans are not slaves. Romans are not subdued to anyone. We are roaming. And the Jews would look at it in such a way that they did not want the idea of the curse. See anyone who hangs up on a tree is cursed and they wanted the cursed to be placed upon Christ. They wanted any time somebody talked about Jesus to think about the time in, which he was hung up on a cross, hung up on a tree. He was Acres. So in this, The power of the Cross changes from death and the Roman mind to life. And in the Jewish mind, taking the curse and bringing healing. See, God took the things of this world. There was so horrid. So horrible to manifest his thought or his anger towards sin. In our day and age. What we typically do is we will romanticize, send will makes an entertaining, we'll make it less traumatic. We will kind of take the rough edges off CNN and we will promote send to a certain extent and that's the kind of Lifestyle we live, but we need to understand God's view of sent. God does not think sin is funny. He does not think seeing is permissible. He does not think it is something that everyone should do. In fact, he says the payment of sin is what So we took one of them in that day and age where everyone could understand. He took the most horrible image of what how a person could suffer and he put it Jesus upon this cross to. So that the whole world can see, this is what happens to those who sin. Now, we understand from scripture that Jesus Christ did not see it. But he willingly took our sin just like in that Old Testament picture, you know, in the Old Testament, you would take an innocent animal to the temple. You would put your hands upon you would lean upon the animal and you would pray and what would happen symbolically is the Innocents of the animals would move towards you and your guilt would move upon the animal then they are animals slaughtered while it was in your hand. The blood will be shed. You would take the blood to the altar, is the offering to God as an atonement a covering. So Jesus Christ took our place. So when we come to lean upon Christ and we began to say God I stand before you not on my own, but on this sacrifice and what the innocence of this sacrifice will be placed upon me and the guilt of what Placed upon this sacrificed them more. We know that this payment will be received. That is the power of the Cross beside. The Romans laughed about that. How could you possibly want to follow a crucified savior? How could you possibly want to do that? Even today in our day and age? So many people will try to remove the image of the Cross or the power of the Cross? Oh, try to remove it. And we'll try to entertainment with different ideas of philosophy. Trying to get people to move to a better idea of who we are as humans and how we can evolve to a better place. This is on going. I'm going process. It's not just in our secular world, but it's in every aspect, your every part where you and I will begin to touch, people will try to pull the power of the Cross away. Why? Because they think it is foolish. I think it's foolish. But God, chose to take this method and to change things. So that you and I could be embraced and we'll see a little bit more of why this took place. Join with me in and verse 26. For you. See you're calling brethren. That not many wise according to the Flash, not many mighty, not many noble are called. I just love this. Paul said, okay. Look, we're just simple Folk. If I, if you write it in a Southern context, ain't none of us sharp Bella's. This is what he saying. Ain't none of us, you know, one of them, smart people. He is just he's putting it out there. There is not one person here. That was really in a place of of everyone in this world in miring. Has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world, to put to shame the things with your body and the base things of the world and the things which are despised. God has chosen in the things which are not to bring to nothing. The things that are that no flash should glory in his presence. But of him, you are in Christ. Jesus who became for us, wisdom from God, and the righteousness and the sanctification, and the Redemption that is that, as it is written, he who glories let him glory in the Lord. Now, let's look at the what Paul's trying to teach us. He's trying to teach us about the glory of the Lord. And basically, if we just break it down, God's plan was this, he did not give us a way that we could boast about it.

Our Salvation is not something that you and I can really boast of our own abilities. It is nothing. And if it is, if your salvation, if you're, if you begin to talk to someone else and somewhere along the way, you're explaining them how you were made, right with God in everything has to do with. I, I did, I made, I'd completed. I I I if that is your gospel presentation, that isn't so removed from what the actual gospel presentation. I want to invite you to go back in in to examine how you begin to process your relationship with God and how it is made, right? Can you really stand here today and say that God really needed?

Can you really say that? Can anyone in this room? Can we honestly look at one another and say you know what? God needed me so much that he made a way for me and I accomplished what he is giving me. No, I think everyone in this room. If you have any kind of basic understanding what the gospel is, the Bible teaches us. There is no one righteous not even one. So no one in here. Has this righteousness about us. You might be wondering what? What is righteousness anyway, I learned the term because you'll remember, I told you, I was at the Hebrew really challenged me so much because it's visual pictures. The idea of righteousness is straight up and down. There's no lien to it. Right. So anytime now, we were over at Jeremy's house. We were hooking up a power changing out the power service and he's got a telephone pole that is not righteous. He's got a pole this carrying power to his shop that is delaying to it. And I took the kids and I began to tell him about righteousness. Then as we begin to think about everything, what the Bible is trying to teach us is everything this straight up and down. There is nothing in us. That is straight up and down, nothing in us. We are a bubble off when you come to Plum, we're off. We're leaning. We're not secure where we're going to fall. We're going to topple. We're going to come over one day. And this is a reality. If we you we begin to examine our life in light of who got his, we began to realize this. There's nothing right about us, but God took his only son Jesus Christ. The unique one. Jesus died upon the cross for you, and I, he is the righteousness. He is the one that you and I, we take a backseat of who we are. And we amplify who Jesus is. This? Is the plan. God desires for us. Because if not, what we would do is we'll make it all about programs. Won't we? That's what we do in church, isn't it? We have a good feeling that happens in the church. And the first thing we want to do is make it a program. We want to get this kind of idea out there and if people go to the program, they'll be identified with the program lesson. That is not what the church is about. The church is all about Jesus Christ, and it's about we, as people being pushed back out of the spotlight and Let Jesus be Amplified. That is the plan of God. God knows that there is nothing in us, that that is something to brag about, but everything that Jesus Christ, and who he is, is everything to be shouting about, right? In this sense. God is, his plan is to lift up the one who can be worshipped. So that you and I we point Our Lives to him. That is God's wisdom. He knows that if it's up to you and I we will fail. He has seen it over and over and over and I just want to ask just a simple rhetorical question here. How many promises have we made the God lord? If you would just get me out of this Lord, if you would just answer. This one thing. I will fill in the blank. How many promises have we broken to God?

How many countless? I can honestly, tell you that there are times where I go. Go. No, no. No. No God. I really, really, really, really mean it this time. As I was told this the for real for real God, this is it. I'm serious this time and then only to fail again. How many times have we done that God knows, is he knows who we are, so he gave us his son, Jesus Christ. He gave us his son, you know, you think about this and God's plan. God created us through Jesus. He knew that when he put Adam and Eve in the garden, can you that we're going to fail? And he had a plan from the creation, the world, the Bible teaches us. That Jesus was crucified at the foundation of the earth. That means before everything happened. There was a plan God knew that we would not be able to sustain the righteousness that we needed him in every aspect. So the plan was from the very beginning. I'm going to give them Jesus. Even in the Old Testament, every time they would lead up to the sacrifices.

I'm going to step off on a little soapbox here and just doing a little bit of studying this week and some of the differences of the festivals and all of the different things. And I want a It's kind of in a fog right now in my mind cuz it's so deep and I've got just that simple mind. I just got the you know, I'm not that deep does. My deep end of the pool is more like a wading pool. Right? But as I was studying the festival's and you begin to look at the time calendars and how it was before Christ, and all of those things when you began to look and you begin to look at what God wrote in the scriptures and how he announced to the nation's, this is what I'm going to do and he use signs in the heavens. Did you know that astrology if you take that concerned? I'm telling you this drink. If you take this kind of stuff and you begin to mix it together and use the calendars of old. Do you know that Jesus was born on the day of the Festival of trumpets?

Everything that it happened, the signs, the stars in the heavens, which were for the Gentiles, the people outside the law. I was beginning to announce that the king will be born on the day, the trumpet place.

September 11th.

You ever wonder why? That day?

He lives in infamy and United States of America. If you pull it back most Scholars, they'll pull it down to the day. They can take you within a window of the heavens were announcing the birth of the king. Why do you think the wise man came so far? They knew you the moment. It happened. And it went to see the king.

The nation's outside understood. What was second place? I'm telling you, how I was reading that this week. I was like, studying your word for sermon is Lord. I have nothing compared to what you can do. I can do nothing compared to you move the stars, align it all up, just announces the birth of your son to let the nation's know. The king is here. And that amazing. Oh man. I know where we're going to stop at all together. Man, I miss see. I'm just thinking about it. More is making my mind turn to mush. Write chapter 2 verse 1 Mystic just a little bit deeper. And I brother, when I came to you, did not come with Excellency of speech or wisdom declaring to you, the testimony of God. Project. Herman not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. How is with you and weakness and fear and in much, trembling and my speech, and my preaching were not persuasive, words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and Power. That's your face, should not be in the wisdom of men. But in the power of God, let's look at this. It's all about the message and not The Messengers. It's all about the mess. This what God wants to senators and his the gospel presentation that we have in our life is not about us. It's about him. This is what it's all about. It's not about us. It's about him. Jesus should be our Focus. And if what we're doing around others and sharing cheese, if if our Focus becomes too much about what we do and let's be honest if our Focus becomes on so much of what Redemption Baptist does. Cuz honestly, I think the number one gospel presentation that we do as Christians is will you come to church with me? That's our number one method of evangelism. Now, let me back up and say this, I don't think there's anything wrong with people who come to a church where the gospel is being preached. So, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with him, finding people to church, we should do that. But we also should be telling people just going to church is not going to get it. Right? What we do at church as we reflect on what God has done in us. Our focus should be pointing everyone to Jesus Christ. That's what we need to be about. That's what we kissed needs to be. It's all about Jesus. It's all about Jesus said, Hey, listen guys, I know y'all don't understand this but in time, you'll understand because I'm writing letters left and right. In fact, I believe that these letters will be put together and we will put together a new testament and I'm rotting two-thirds of it. That all of this experience. In all this wisdom. I have 2995 plus tax.

You know, that's what we do nowadays. That's exactly what we do, isn't it?

Conference. Come to the see this speaker Hill, change your life. No, he won't. No, we won't. It's the focus is not on Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one that I know, I can turn everything else upside down. He's the only one that can take those hostages right now in Haiti. And he's the only one that can give them the piece in the middle of the storm. So they can sing praises to the one who died for. Damn. That could reach those. Those gang members with the gospel. How do I know that? Because there's evidence of that? Throughout history, you begin to see the power of the Gospel. I remember one time. I was exposed to the Moravian you ever heard of the moravian's, in fact that we were in Staten Island doing the gospel distribution. I'm go ahead and confess my sins before you. We were doing a gospel presentation, handing out the Jesus film. And I was driving the van around and I had Benjamin with me. Y'all know Benjamin he loves. He's a man of many words and And I told Benjamin, I said, look, man, you jump across the street, you go knock on those doors and I'll knock on these doors and we'll knock this out. And and I'm telling you there was a door here. Okay, and there was a door here and it was like that for a block. I mean, it was like people, but you can run down there, knock on all the doors and then hand them all out and you'll be done. I mean, we were knocking it out. But here's the problem. I was driving the van. Should have jumped out of the van. I realized, I got to go to the bathroom, right? I guess the bladder dropped or something happened when I got out of the driver seat. So, here I am knocking on doors. I'm not doing this and there is nowhere, cuz y'all hear me. There's nothing behind the houses cuz it's just door to door to door and I'm about in tears. And finally, I see I see Benjamin on the other side. He's just walking. I have time to convince him. It's time to go. So I jumped in the van.

I had to go. In fact, it was so bad that I slammed the car. I just do it in park and Dwayne was with me. And and and I said, I got to go and I just took off running. Mad, cuz I could not. I couldn't wait another minute. Now, all of this. This happened in a Moravian missionary Village. That's what made me think of it. What is the Moravian Church? Years and years ago, people became so compelled to get the gospel to the outermost parts of the world. They realize in the Caribbean Nation, the Caribbean area. The slave owners did not want their slaves to hear about Jesus. So, they would not allow missionaries to come. It was absolutely, you could not enter the island. So missionaries Moravian missionaries, and they sold themselves into slavery. And they took the money that they got for their life and they bought their ticket to the Highlands. Their loved ones are on the on the pier and they're reaping has the ship begins to pull off and head towards the Caribbean. And they scream May the lamb who was slain. Be worthy to receive our sacrifices. That is a life that you and I should be living a life where you. And I, I everything we do should be pointing people to Jesus. Jesus is our focus in. The good news is our strength. Hit is our 42. How do we face the difficult situations in our life? Because we know this is not over there. No matter what this world may throw at us, our father, Our Savior, our Holy Spirit, who abide with us, has the final say in it all. Hi Paul comes back. And he says later on, you know, it's a world and may take my life. It's not going to take my soul. It's not going to take me away because to be absent from this old body is to be present with the Lord in that amazing picture. You and I, there is nothing to fear. So I would encourage you in this. Please hear me in this. Let's get our focus on Jesus. I know the world is going to say, well, that's just silly superstition. I don't want to hear ghost stories. How about Jesus? Tell him the story of Jesus. It is foolishness to the world and the world's going to say it's foolish, trust me. They're going to tell you you crazy for believing in something like that. However, there is power in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it will enter in to the hardest. How do I know that? Because it entered into mine and it began to change me and it began to break me, and it began to mold me until. Finally, I lifted my eyes and I am done. You can have it all. I cannot fix this with what I've done. God, you are in control you or all God. I will do whatever you want me to do. I will go wherever you want me to go. I will say whatever you want me to say because it is the power. That sustains me. Is our strength and Jesus is our Focus. We walk out of here with that confidence. The world may laugh at the gospel, but there's power behind it. And it has the power to change. How to change?

And I want to encourage us all. This is what it's all about. This is it. And that's what Paul wanted. The Corinthians to understand in the midst of all the bickering and arguing and posturing of who's right and who's wrong. He said, listen. Jesus is our number one. I pray, that's what we do. Jesus is our number one and we go and we tell. Amen. Father, you are so good to us, Lord. And we come to you. Then. We ask you that no matter where we are Lord and you know, there are so many people here. They're going through so many different things over there. Is no way that I can mentally understand everything that is taking place in everything. That is transpiring in people's lives and be able to give them away in a hole. There's no way. Lord that I can do all of that, but God, we know That you have already started that conversation with them. And Lord, you're leading them. The faith in Jesus Christ, calling them to, to lean on you more and more and more.

And to take your yoke upon them and Lord that you will lead them to. Your presence. And Lord, I pray that in this time of invitation, Lord. They not and it did it. The focus is not on what we're doing, but it's on what you were doing. And Lord of that our eyes.