I Corinthians 2:1-5

Today we're going to start in chapter 2 and I've labeled this Proclaiming Christ. But actually it's going to be kind of a shift. In chapter 1 we saw a good part of that, and I have a little section on that, about the foolishness of man, man's wisdom, man thinking that he can understand God and reach God by his own thinking and abilities. Man calls what God has proclaimed foolishness. Then God turns around and says, you know, in reality, you really are foolish ones. So we kind of learned that foolishness was kind of, toward the end of chapter one, was kind of a theme there. But we're going to kind of go into chapter two. We're going to see the true wisdom, which is from God.

Is the sound okay? Is it distorting maybe? Okay, good. So we're going to see the true wisdom which is from God and today we're going to cover the first five verses and then Randy's going to cover 6 through 13. And actually, when Randy and I were putting the class together, there's a section at the end of chapter 2 going into chapter 3 which I've always really loved. It kind of describes the three men of scripture. I kind of carved that out and I wanted to talk about that specifically. So that's kind of a neat area.

Because God talks about three kinds of men in scripture. I'm not going to tell you, I'll just let you think about that a little bit. Why don't you read it and see if you can identify those three kinds of men. And women. Mankind. Okay, so let's jump in here. This is the outline I used previously. This is from Macaulay. I'll just go through it real quickly here.

Basically, we start off with the beginning verses, which are prior to verse 10. But in here, this is when Paul starts out and says, basically, the Corinthian church had division among themselves. Macaulay kind of divided this into God's desire for unity in the body of Christ and basically there are five areas that he kind of identified starting in chapter 1 going through chapter 4 421 so the first one is unity is achieved by the person and work of Christ that's verses chapter 1 3 13 through 17 then unity is achieved by the nature of the gospel or basically the word of the cross which we saw and then last week Bob covered the the membership in the church, in the sense that there were not many mighty, there were not many wise, or not many noble, and so on. And then today we're going to start this section on wisdom, and it's going to last for three classes. I'm going to cover the first part, then Randy's going to cover a section, and we're going to end up in the third section of that.

And then lastly, this is down the road a bit, we'll get into the nature of Christian service, describes unity in the body of Christ. So, would somebody be willing to read these first five verses? You can read it from your Bible or on the overhead. And when I came to you, brethren... Go ahead. I saw you starting to talk. Go ahead, Tom. You're fine.

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in your weakness and in So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Okay, so I'm going to kind of break down this section. The first four verses basically can be thought of the nature of Paul's preaching. What characterizes Paul's preaching to the Corinthians? And we're going to kind of see, you know, I hadn't really actually picked up on this when I started reading a little bit more.

You know, if you look back at Acts, you'll see that prior to coming to Corinth, he was Paul was in Athens, and that's where he was on Mars Hill, and he gave that wonderful declaration about, you know, I've come and I see you have a statue of the unknown God.

And he says, well, I know the real God. He tells him this wonderful thing. But, you know, and at the end of that, they all said, well, Paul, you're, you know, you're crazy. You know, they didn't, you know, but it's interesting as when we get to Corinth, it's sort of like the Lord said, You know, I want you to stick, not that what he said in Athens was wrong, it was wonderful, but he says, let's focus on the person and the work of Christ. And that's what we're going to see. He was determined to preach nothing else but Christ and him crucified. So it's like When he got to Corinth, he said, you know, I could tell you wonderful things about the Lord.

I know wonderful things about the Savior, and about God, and about His nature, but I'm going to focus on what the most important thing is, and that's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So that's what's kind of neat. These five verses kind of show that kind of redirection of his ministry. So that's actually the nature.

The nature will be, I'm going to preach the person and the work of Christ, and then the purpose is that your faith will not rest on what men say. And that's good. You don't want your faith to rest on what I say. You want your faith to rest on what God says, and His power. We're just messengers. As we tell people about Christ, as we teach about Christ, we're the messenger. The power resides within God, not within us and the Holy Spirit. That's part of the message we'll see here.

Another comparison between chapter 1 and chapter 2 is what I mentioned. You can look at chapter 1 and that's man's wisdom. That's the part about foolishness. Man thinks he can get to God by that and God debunks that pretty good. In chapter 2, we're going to see the cross as God sees it. So, basically, a couple of verses, we've seen these verses before. In chapter 1, we saw verse 18, which talked about the word of the cross is foolishness, that's according to men.

And the world, through its wisdom, did not come to know God. So, man in his wisdom So it's interesting when you see people saying, well, I have my own way to God. I go out and I commune with nature and I have my own way to God. And not that nature can't be helpful. Nature and what we see in creation is, if you don't see a creator in that, you have your blinders on.

I mean, it's just the most incredible thing. Like there's this thing I saw on TV the other day, it's called The Amazing Squirrel. And they had hours and hours and hours of The Amazing Squirrel and what he can do. All of God's creatures are incredible. Squirrels are very smart. People have devised these little things to keep the squirrels away from their bird feeders. The squirrels defeat all that. They're smart. God's given them abilities. All of God's creation is wonderful. But the message that Paul wants to preach is about Jesus Christ. That's a cool thing. Man's wisdom can't get to God.

And then down here, basically, the Gentiles call Christ's crucified foolishness. Then as we get into chapter two, we see this kind of shift. He says, we do not speak wisdom. Wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age. And we're going to see as we go into that, that the wisdom was this hidden wisdom that people didn't understand about Christ would be crucified, and that was hidden to them in times past. Then it talks about basically in verse 10, Randy will be covering some of this. Basically, the things, you know, eye has not seen, ear has not heard.

And that's all speaking about God's wisdom. So this is just kind of a short little overview of where we're heading here in Chapter 2. So let's just kind of jump into the first verse here. And so Paul starts off, and when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech. So first of all, he's going to say, you know, it's not in the presenter.

There's a dear brother, Sam Dalton. I attended the church that he was at. He was an evangelist. He always said, I'm in presentation. My job is to present the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Holy Spirit's job to convince people and convict people. I'm in presentation. So what Paul is saying, I'm not going to come to you and try to convince you with my slick speech, my superiority of speech. That's not how I'm going to approach you. So this is what I can mention. This is going to talk about how, when he arrived in Corinth, things kind of changed.

I came not according to, that's kata in the Greek, according to superiority of speech. Superiority is this idea of superiority, preeminence. The King James translates it as excellencies. Actually, it only occurs a couple times in scripture. It's translated a different way. It's the idea of over, to have over, and it's translated authority in a verse in Timothy. But it doesn't really apply to what we're talking about here. But it's the same Greek word. So he didn't come with superiority of speech or preeminence. And the last part, he's going to talk about his message here.

So actually, Constable kind of says here, Paul offered the example of his preaching among the Corinthians. as a further illustration of what the wisdom of God can do in contrast to the words that human wisdom regards as wisdom can do. It's a little bit rough at the end there. In contrast to what the words that human wisdom regards. So the second part of this is the superiority of wisdom.

So you have two things, superiority of speech So, neither of those is the message that Paul wants to preach. Let's just go down here for a second and look at a couple of verses here. Let's go back to chapter 1 here, 1 Corinthians 1.17. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Right. So here it talks about, it uses the word cleverness. So that kind of is another parallel verse, if you will, to superiority of speech. So it wasn't in cleverness of superiority that Paul wanted to preach.

And then the second verse, could someone read 1 Corinthians 2.13? That's going to speak of this wisdom aspect. Let's read 1 Corinthians 2, 12 and 13. Someone has that.

Now we receive not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." So this is going to talk about things, and if you kind of trace things back up, that's the things back in verse 9 where it says, the things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and all this God has prepared for those who love him. the things which we speak about God, concerning God, and what He's done, are not in words taught by human wisdom. It's not man's wisdom that's going to convince people of who Jesus Christ is.

What I began to realize is that we have God's Word, but without the power of the Holy Spirit, it really would totally fall short. Just because we have these words from God, without the power of the Holy Spirit, and that's what it's going to say here shortly. It's going to say that Not that every word isn't wonderful, but it's more than that. If you take away anything from this lesson today, it's more than just the words on this page, even though the words are inspired by God.

It's more than that, because the Spirit of God is going to take the Word of God and make it real to us, and that's where the power comes. I knew it, but the aspect of the Holy Spirit and the power that's there, The power that rose Jesus Christ from the dead. The power that converts a man. A man that turns from darkness to light. easily, but I mean that's a Revolutionary change a person that count, you know is lost and now he's saved I mean, that's that's an incredible thing and that's just not by words the words couldn't do it It has to be the power of the Holy Spirit making the person realize what's going on and enlightening them so that they'll accept Christ So I mean the power of God and the power of the Holy Spirit are key in this this whole endeavor so the least translation hat has it I came not by message dominated by a Some of the words to me, transcendent, rhetorical display.

What does that word mean, Tom? Over the top. Okay, thank you. I knew I could count on Tom. Or by philosophical subtlety. It's not by the words, it's not by man's wisdom, it's not how clever we are. I can remember a time that Vani is coming a little bit later.

She hasn't been feeling well this week. She had a dear friend in Longmont who didn't know the Lord. So she was going to write her a letter and tell her about the Lord. So she wrote this letter and she rewrote it and she rewrote it and she rewrote it.

And after a while I said, you've got to stop. All the words you write, you can do it a hundred times, but it's not going to be those words. It's going to be the Holy Spirit making those real in their life. So at some point you've got to say, I've got to stop.

I take God's word and I explain it, but we need to allow and trust the Lord that he will take his word and make it real in the person's life. And that's what we depend upon to understand scripture. The Holy Spirit enlightening our minds and showing us who Christ is and what he's done. And then Macaulay, actually, I probably should put that at the last. Macaulay is to summarize this.

The first expression refers to the rhetorical skills. It has to do with his methods of preaching. The second refers to philosophical depth, pertains to the content of his preaching. So Paul doesn't want to depend on either one of these. He doesn't depend upon his skills as a speaker or his cleverness and wisdom.

And that's what makes me think, it seems like when he was in Athens, he was in there with the big guys, right? They took him to the Epicureans and all the guys who were really, you know, it's like going to Harvard. I'm going to go to Harvard, I'm going to debate these people, and I'm going to show them, you know.

And we think we can, you know, in some ways we think, well, I have God's word, I can do it. And that's actually right. But it's the spirit of God that's going to make it real. So when you realize that's the case, then you can relax a little bit. It's not going to be your cleverness.

And Paul realized that. So I'm going to say this about 10 times over, because that's kind of the main message here. You have something you wanted to share? Well, I think it's kind of interesting that Paul has said, just in the last section, that the people there in Corinth that were saved were not the noble ones. Exactly.

They're not the ones that are going to be arrogant and proud. When you mentioned the Athenians, he went in and he was like the Athenians to the Athenians to preach the gospel. Sadly, he was like the Corinthians. These people were simple people. He didn't have to wow them with words. But his focus is going to be, I'm determined to know nothing else but Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And that's a verse that we need to keep in our minds. We all want to share, we all have a burden for people we see. friends, loved ones, relatives. We all have a burden for those people. But sometimes I think we pile up too much on our shoulders and say, well, I didn't get a chance, or I missed my chance, I missed my opportunity. And I feel that way many times with different relatives.

And folks, the chance seems to come and go. The years go by, and you think nothing seems to change. But as faithful believers, we trust that God will take his word and make it real in their lives. So as we have opportunity, we do that. He doesn't want us to be burdened with the fact that we're going to have fancy speech and great wisdom. I messed up how I did that. In PowerPoint, you're supposed to be able to present one line after the other. Somehow, I got flipped around there.

Basically, what he wants to do is proclaim to you the testimony of God, or announcing to you the testimony of God. Actually, some of your Bibles will have mystery and some texts have actually mystery in place of testimony. Do you guys remember, this is a little quiz, what does the word mystery mean? If someone asks you, and Cheryl can't answer, I think she knew anyway. A lot of guys probably know. But in scripture, do you remember? And Vern taught this quite a bit. What is the word mystery in scripture? If you had to, could you give a definition of mystery? Something previously hidden, but now revealed. Excellent, Tom. Excellent. That's exactly it. So I don't think a mystery is being mysterious. It's unrevealed truth. Right. And that's where Bernhardt is. And the Greek word is this word Mysterion.

So that's where we got his moose going across the screen here. We had we had weeks and weeks of this guy's door here. We're going to have all these mooses going across the screen. You know, you'll do that in multiple overheads. This moose going across the screen. Mysterion.

So anyway, so basically he's saying here, proclaiming the testimonies and actually, you know, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about which one is right testimony or mysteries. Either one talks about something of God and his character, so it could be unrevealed truth or whatever. So actually, there's a verse in Peter that says, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So that was Paul's desire. And I just kind of thought, you know, it's kind of neat to kind of go through sometimes and review. So we're to, as part of what Paul wanted to do, the person and the work of Christ. And part of that is God's aptitude.

He's holy. He's infinite. He's the spirit, he's love, he's immutable, he's self-existent, he's sovereign. That's a whole study unto itself, just the essence of God and his attributes. So here's the verse I've been alluding to quite a bit. So Paul says, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So here's his determination. So Wiest actually kind of renders it kind of, you know, Wiest tries to, the Wiest New Testament tries to take the original language and tries to add in additional words to bring out the meaning, the full meaning of the text. It takes a verb tense and other things and tries to pull that out. So Wiest kind of has, is very wordy, but hopefully it expands it to a better understanding.

For after weighing the issues, and that's the determination part, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and this very one as crucified." So determination is this idea to separate, hence to be of opinion, to approve. But in our case, it's the idea to determine, resolve, decree is kind of the focus here.

And then I kind of said, Actually, I've already talked to this point quite a bit. This appears to be a deliberate determination to focus on the cross and nothing else. And the why part, I've actually kind of already answered that to some degree. Go ahead, Tom. Because it is the power of God to salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Right. So, think about this. Do you want to rely on your abilities or God's abilities? And we want to rely on God's ability, not our ability. We want to get out of the way. and let God be God.

And the verses that I have, those verses in Acts and Corinthians, they actually talk about, they just are, they're basically this word determination. The one in Acts talks about deciding to do something. And then in Corinthians it talks about, in 2nd Corinthians it talks about I determined for my own sake to do this and that. So basically, Okay, so the determination basically to determine, to resolve, to decree. All right, so let's go on here. So here's the part, here's what Paul, so we're talking about, you know, oftentimes we'll talk about knowing the person and the work of Christ. And this is Tom. I'm thinking of that word determination.

I know this is kind of like a little specialized, but when you're looking, if I did as a learning to be a chemist, do that were very exacting, and it had to exclude all other things that would vary the results and get you messed up. So the title of most of these was the termination of barium, for example, finding out how much barium is in there. And then you had to do this by pretty much cookbook chemistry. But it was something where you threw away all other factors, evened everything out to where nothing interfered, and then did what was written.

And I think of that in terms of scripture, too. OK. All right. So this is Paul's resolve to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so we see two parts to that, right? We see the part he needs to know the person of Christ, right? He needs to know who Jesus Christ is. That's the first part of that. The second part is often talked about as his work, or what he accomplished. So we're to know the person and the work of Christ. And that, collectively, is the gospel. It has to be the person of Christ, and it has to be the fact that he's crucified.

So there's several verses that we've actually covered this in the weeks past. But we preach Christ crucified. It's interesting, whenever you mention that, and I mentioned it before about my sister, when I was trying to sign for the writing of the tombstone for my mother, she objected to Jesus Christ being on there. She's not a believer, so I can understand that, but that's the issue. Jesus Christ is the issue. So basically, foolishness of the Gentiles. And then another verse that's important is, but may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. So it's the cross of Jesus Christ.

What he accomplished. And it's interesting that he says he wants to know this. Paul's saying, It's interesting. You would think that, well, he already knows that. But he kind of realizes that he's like us. He's learning, too. It's hard to imagine Paul learning, but he was learning. And I take that from just right, I determined to know nothing else among you except Jesus Christ. He wanted to know Jesus Christ more and understand him more.

So now these verses talk about some of the things that you would say that were detrimental or were Maybe issues in doing that. He says, I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. Weakness is the idea of weakness or sickness. And let's look at. So one of the questions that comes up here is about this weakness. Let's see if we can figure that out. So could someone read. Let's read 2 Corinthians 12, 7-10.

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, concerning that I implored the Lord three times that it might lead me. And he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and difficulties, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So Paul is well acquainted with his weaknesses.

So one of the questions is, he says, I was with you in weakness, and it seems like So that verse he kind of talks about the fact that he realized that this thorn in the flesh was from God and that that was going to be something that was going to be hindering him. But he accepted that from the Lord, right? Because at the end he says, well, if that's the case, then I most gladly, therefore, I'd rather boast about my weakness. It's interesting, he takes that trial of that weakness and he says, Well, if that's a weakness I'm going to have, I could get down or depressed or concerned about that.

But no, I'm going to accept that weakness in the Lord and I'm going to thank the Lord for it. And he realized that that got himself out of the way and allowed God to be at the forefront. that we all would have that view. Many times, I think, and I'm in the same boat, I look at a hindrance in my Christian life as being, well, now I can't do this. And I pray fervent for the Lord to take that away.

Well, Paul didn't do that. He said, OK, if that's what the rules of engagement, that's a popular term now, if that's what it's about, I'm going to accept that. As difficult as that may be, I'm going to accept that. When I am weak, then I am strong. He realized that that's what was God's plan and he accepted that. He didn't fight it. It's funny because he took it a step further by listening to the Lord instead of saying, if at first I don't succeed, try, try again. Well that was the third try and it didn't work and God was telling him something.

There's a whole lesson just in these several verses here, but Paul realized he had weakness. Apparently it was a physical weakness. Let's read this other verse here. Can someone read Galatians 4, 13-14? This kind of points to the fact that it was a physical weakness.

But you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time. And that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition, you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus himself. Right. So he says, it was because of bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time.

And so on. So he says, I was with you in weakness. So the weakness seems to focus on his bodily issue. And he accepted that as from the Lord and he didn't fight that. And then Macaulay basically says, when Paul describes himself as being among them in weakness, he uses a word that is used to describe his own physical ailments, and that's back in the one we just read.

So then the other two are this fear and trembling. And it seems like fear and trembling kind of go together. There's various verses you'll see in scripture that use the word fear and trembling. So one of the things is, was Paul a, you know, And we really can't tell that necessarily. We have to kind of infer some of these things. It doesn't seem like Paul was fearful. Look how many times he's in prison. Look how many times he's beaten. He wasn't fearful of the authorities, so to speak. It's not like he was in fear and trembling because he had the message from God.

That seems like that's more the case. And Macaulay kind of speaks that a little bit. He says, when Paul speaks of his fear and trembling, he's not referring to shame over the message that he preached or anxiety over his personal safety, but rather to the grave responsibility that is his preaching and preaching the gospel. So he was concerned that his message would be the message that God would have him preach. So now he's going to elaborate more on his preaching method. He says, my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power.

So here's where we kind of switch. Right here, with that but, and that's one of those strong contrast words, he's going to switch and say, And he kind of repeats himself again here, that his message is not going to be wisdom or his preaching method, but it's going to be a demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power. So that's why I was trying to, as I talked earlier about this, if you take away something from this message today is that God's power through the Holy Spirit It's what makes the difference about taking this word and making this word alive and powerful and active and sharp and intuitive.

That's what makes the difference. Okay, so it says, My message, Logos, and we've seen it earlier. That's a message. My preaching, a proclamation by a herald, the substance of what is preached, as distinct from the act of preaching. And I think what's saying here is this is just not, once again, it's not flamboyant style or whatever. It's a message. It's a content of the message.

And he uses the idea that we're not persuasive words, enticing, winning. you know, being very clever in the way you, you know, it's interesting how we see, you know, what we're... coming up to the presidential election here, and if you watch any of the debates, ad nauseum, it just goes on and on and on.

In some ways, I watch most of the Republican candidates, and sometimes I really like some of the things they say. Sometimes I'm encouraged that some of them seem to be believers. Hey, that seems wonderful. But at some point, they all seem to be They wax over this or that and they all have clever arguments or words or whatever.

I often think it's their ability to have clever sayings and clever soundbites and clever this and clever that. It's kind of a sad state of affairs when that's how we decide upon our president. Which one has the cleverest speech? It seems kind of hollow, certainly in light of what Paul is saying here. He didn't want to do that in talking about the Lord.

All right. But in demonstration of the spirit and of power. So this is a but in a strong contrast. Demonstration is to point out, showing, or demonstrating by argument of the spirit and of power. And there are three verses here I'd like to cover. I think these three verses are really pretty important. So let's look at all three. So could someone read?

1 Thessalonians 1.5 For our gospel do not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction, just as you know what kind of man we prove to be among you for your sake. He's talking about the gospel here. For our gospel do not come to you. Here's what he's been talking about. I've been trying to say some of these things. It's funny.

After you read these verses for a while, pretty soon, The Lord puts them in your heart and in your mind, and you can say, this is just what I'm talking about, it's not words only. It's not words only, but also in the power and in the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction. That's what's going to make the difference. That's what's going to make the difference. Okay, so that's the first aspect.

The second aspect is in the Acts passage, Acts 10, 38. Do you know of Jesus of Nazareth? how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit, with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. So I like that, you know, he was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. So those kind of, you'll see those together, the Holy Spirit and with power, and that's how God is accomplishing things in men and women's lives. That's how it's making a difference.

And then the third one is, we'll get to it shortly, 1 Corinthians 4.20.

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. So words are tremendously important. But without the Holy Spirit and power, they could not accomplish what God wants. This is a very helpful message I found, because you tend to think, all I've got to do is write a scripture verse down and I'll hand it to you and somehow it'll just do it. Those words will do it. Well, no. No. The Holy Spirit is involved in that. And I shouldn't say that you shouldn't do that, but I'm saying what makes it wonderful is the Holy Spirit and His power can make that real in a person's life.

OK, so now the last verse here. So one of the things when you look at the text, and this is a new American standard, sometimes you'll see that or so that. And you ought to, I know, when you see a that or so that, many times it will tell you the purpose of what's gone before. So if you read that, so that, or with a purpose that, So this is going to tell you the purpose of the preceding verses.

So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. So our faith is to rest not necessarily on the word of God, but on the power of God. So here's the power of God again. Really interesting. He's going to take his word and our faith is going to rest on the power of God through his word. That's a better way to say it. should not rest.

So actually, Wiest has it in human philosophy, but in God's power. So the contrast is between the wisdom of men and the power of God. The emphasis, therefore, is not on what they know, but rather how firm and well-grounded their faith is. Only that which is divinely done is permanent. All right. So questions or thoughts?

When Paul used the phrase, Accept Jesus Christ and Crucify, Jesus was his name and Christ was his title. So when he used the phrase Christ, he was referring to the Messiah, only one. Only one Messiah. So was that something that was well understood, that this is the Messiah?

Well, I think they understood the claim. I'm not sure they believed the claim. I'm not sure they did. They didn't believe he was the Messiah, I don't think, right? I mean, the people that believed in him at that time, in biblical times, they believed he was the Messiah.

They had a different view of Messiah. They thought Messiah was going to come in and make life good. Rome was going to be pushed out and he would ascend to his throne. They saw Messiah in a much different way. They didn't see a suffering Messiah. They didn't read the rest of the story. The word Christ though, what did that mean? It did mean however you wanted to view it, but there was one Messiah that suffering, But they didn't seem to understand the suffering Messiah, right? They saw the Messiah as being one who would free them, would reign, would rule and reign. And he is going to do that. They didn't read the full... Remember when Christ went and he stopped, he only read half the passage? I can't remember the passage exactly. But they didn't see the full aspect of what Messiah would do. He will rule and reign, but he also is to die and to suffer. So Jesus Christ, that's his full title.

This idea of demonstrating the power, would that be the power in our own lives to be separated from sin? I know in Romans they talked about that. There's power in his word, right? Because he says in Hebrews, right? For the word of God is active and alive and powerful and sharper than a two edged sword. Let me quote here and actually read it. But so I think that I was I had the same kind of thought about that.

Where do we see? Where do we see God's power in Scripture? Can we trace that through and find out? Because this is talking about that our faith is to be based upon the power of God, right? So the question is, where do I see that power? And I think we see the power in His Word. It's able to penetrate through our very being. We see it in the fact that he raised Jesus Christ from the dead. We see it in a lot of the miracles. We see God's power. We see it in the power to change a person from a lost person to a saved person. There's power in that.

That would be a neat study to go through and look at Where do we see God's power demonstrated? And actually, the power to live a life that's separate from sin, right? To have the ability to live a life that pleases God, that's His power being lived through us, right? Is that kind of what you're thinking there? I mean, to demonstrate and see something is nice, rather than just all theory.

Right, right. And he tells us all these things. He says, walk in the spirit. He tells us, abide in me, trust in me, rest in me. All these things he tells us to do. Well, we can have self-determination to do that, but that falls short most of the time. Not all the time. It's only as we, by faith, trust him, and then his life is lived through us. And you could argue his power is lived through us, right?

Because that's the Holy Spirit living through us and living a life that that is Christ's life. So that's an amazing ability that no human could do. No human could live a life that would please God. It has to be God living the life. He's living his life through us.

I think it's important to kind of take a look at power as a word similar to where it actually, if you look at the biblical narrative starting in Genesis, it gets its source and therefore its definition in God. Because prior to man, God showed his power. His power was that he could speak, not entirely, but partly, he would speak things into existence and say, alright, it's good. And that was part of God's power to define what was good and define what was created on that day. And so when we look at power, it's very easy for us to treat it like a neutral entity. But in a biblical context, that power has a source and definition inside of God. use power in a manipulative or earthly sense, versus a biblical being sourced in God to speak prior to anything existing.

There's no material, there's no atom, there's no universe, and God speaks existence. Well, it kind of goes along those lines. Maybe without the power of the Holy Spirit, Man doesn't see God in what God's created. We're blind. So the power would be to be illuminated to see that this just isn't a bunch of atoms. This is a creation that has a creator. And other than that, we don't have the power to see it.

Well, that's why I think that we often think about conversion or salvation. I found, until I was thinking about these verses, I didn't realize the power of God involved in that so much. I mean, I've heard it, I knew it, but I have a new appreciation now after going through these five verses for God's power. And it's in the sense, like I think Randy said, it's not, and we think of power as like a power station. Well, it's not quite that aspect.

It's God working in human beings for His glory. The Holy Spirit is going to illumine that person's mind. They're going to be able to understand, to accept what Scripture says, believe in Him. Without God working in a person's life, none would come to salvation. That's what Scripture says. They're unable to understand it without the illumination of the Holy Spirit. That's a powerful thing in a person's life. I think the whole process of the maturing believer is a demonstration of God's power.

I agree with you. Think about salvation. We have the salvation of the three aspects, right? Salvation from the presence of sin. There's power in sin, right? The power in sin is that a man is enslaved to that, right? And God has acted to break that bond of the power of the sin nature. His power has broken that bond to allow us to walk by faith. And there is power as we live the Christian life. It goes to the very last dying breath. I think it's Chet. His minister has to listen to one of his tapes. That there is no such thing as a mature believer. There is a maturing believer. But you are maturing all the way up to your very last breath.

Isn't that just what Paul said? That I may know Jesus Christ and Him crucified? It's like if he said that I already know Him and now I'm going to tell you about Him. He didn't say that. He wants to know Him. And I'm thinking, Paul wants to know Jesus Christ? Man, he was with him for three years. Couldn't you know him long enough then? No, it wasn't enough time. I don't know. That might be a little bit hard. But anyway, it's impressive that he says, I want to know him. I want to know Jesus Christ and him crucified. And that's us. We're in the same position. We're coming to know him.

Well, this is where the power of the Holy Spirit really It took a penny cost to drive home to the apostles even though they had been exposed for three years straight that they were not the church yet. But when the Holy Spirit came and the church started and the Holy Spirit gave them the complete understanding they needed to preach the gospel and understand it as totally as their rate of maturing was, even though they were apostles, I mean this might have been the biggest quantum leap in maturity That's good. That's good. OK. Well, that's great.

Randy, you mentioned earlier when we were looking at Paul coming in weakness in Acts 18, when he comes to Corinth, he's actually the text there implies that he was kind of timid and not sure. And it wasn't until. in 18.9 it says, and the Lord said to Paul in the night vision, do not be afraid any longer with no one speaking and do not be silent. Here Paul shows up and the Corinthians, he's been humble with them. He says, listen, I was scared this week. I was afraid.

And you knew that about me and the Lord had to snap me, so to speak, and discipline me and get me to speak up. Well, I recommend if you have some chance this week, read Acts 17 and 18 because that is That's when Paul leaves Athens and arrives in Corinth. And actually, that's the whole backdrop of what we're studying here. And I think that kind of shows you that he, why would all of a sudden he determine, he was apparently that his interaction there in Athens, he argued eloquently and he presented God eloquently.

He explained how I know the unknown God. I can tell you about the unknown God, but that didn't, There are some that believe, toward the end, there are a few that believe. Three or four. But if you've been arguing with hundreds of people for days and days and days, and three or four of you think, you feel like you're a failure. Lord, I don't only think wonderful things, I told your word who you are, and three or four people, you know.

So it seems like he had to be encouraged again in Acts 18 there. And then his determination here to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. It really helps sometimes to see the background. The passage in Acts helps. In what book was the Athens experience recorded? That's Acts 17.

The Sermon on Mars Hill, which is a beautiful sermon. Paul gets up to speak at Mars Hill and he says, It reminds me of a politician. Boy, you guys got all these great statues around here. Boy, they're really great. I even found one that says, unknown God. Well, I'm going to tell you about the real God. It's a wonderful speech and it's wonderful words. It was appropriate for the time, but I think that the Lord kind of showed him, well, that's wonderful. You told them about the only true God.

There's a message that they need desperately. They need Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's what they need. And that's for us too. I find sometimes in talking to people that they don't want to talk about the real issue. They want to divert it so you get off on something else. Politics or parenting or something else. And it's hard to turn this back around to the issue.

And that's what it seems like the Lord was saying. Stick to the issue. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And that's for us too. We need to stick to the message. Stick to the message of who Christ is and what he's done, and our life in him and his life in us. Stick to the main message. Not that there aren't other wonderful messages for us.

And Paul's going to expand a lot in Corinthians. He's going to tell them, I have some things to tell you about you guys who are doing awful, terrible things. hold back on the things later on we're going to see. He's not going to tell them about their life, which was terrible, was awful. And even unbelievers are doing better than you guys are doing, which is pretty sad.

All right, well, let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for this day, Lord. We thank you for your word, Father. Thank you for the simple truth of the cross, Lord. And we pray that you would help us to stay focused on the main message, Lord. And we thank you that your spirit, the power of your spirit, can illumine our minds to show us the truths of Scripture, Father. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen.