All right. This morning, Phil is coming to give us the word and I would like to have him come forward and that we might enjoy what he has to bring to us this day and learn from what God has to say through him. Phil, welcome. Scripture reading that I want to read. First is from Deuteronomy chapter seven. We read Deuteronomy seven verses one through eleven, if you have Bible welcome to read along. Sermon passage will be from first Corinthians. And I understand John has been preaching from first Corinthians. Listen now to God's word from Deuteronomy seven. Please stand for reading God's word. When the Lord, your God, brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves. And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show them no show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you and he would destroy you quickly. But thus you shall deal with them. You shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their asherim and burn their carved images with fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord has set his love on you and chose you for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you. and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. and repays to their face those who hate him by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today. Here is the reading of God's word. Well, as I mentioned, I'm going to preach from first Corinthians chapter one today, and I think I'm not mistaken that John may have even preached from this passage last week, but in God's providence, this is what we have before us, and I think that God's word is never made old, and there are so many things to bring out from it that I'm not even sure if there will be overlap. But we're looking at verses twenty six to thirty one of chapter one. First Corinthians chapter one. As we begin, I want to ask of you the question, who are you? Who are you as you see yourself? Consider that question as we begin. I remember a movie from the 80s, a movie called The Jerk. It was a comedy. It was about a bumbling fool. It's a slapstick type of a movie, very silly. It's a rags to riches story, rags to riches and then back to rags type of a story. But underlying the story, there was a theme. where you were meant to consider what true success really is. At one point in the story, the character receives a brand new copy of the phone book and he eagerly takes the phone book, he opens it up, he's searching diligently for his own name in there. And when he finds it, he goes and tells everyone, I'm somebody. Look, I'm somebody. He thought that he had arrived because society had acknowledged that he existed. Look, I'm somebody. He had this idea of what it would mean for him to have arrived to be somebody. And when that happened, he was ready to tell everybody, look, here it is. The time has come. I now am somebody. And the rest of the movie has a very similar theme. In fact, he gets rich in the story when he accidentally invents a little a handle to put on the center of your eyeglasses and everyone thinks this is the most wonderful thing that has happened and he is. He is praised because of his invention. He's on all the talk shows. They talk about what a spectacular man this is who has blessed us with this great invention and that people are just so excited to be able to take off and on their glasses. so well and he is reached the pinnacle. He really is now somebody everyone is praising him. But then it turns out in the movie all of a sudden that this invention maybe not is quite as not is not quite as beneficial as they thought because it causes people to become cross-eyed. And so the movie turns and and he now is the scorn of the earth. He is He is considered all the lawsuits come he has talked about on the news about how he has destroyed people's lives and through this. What he thinks about himself is destroyed. He is back in the gutter but he thinks now where I was somebody now I'm nobody. So what does it mean to be somebody. We all have to face this question where do we get our. understanding of ourselves and of our value and some people will do anything just about to be noticed because they are thinking that to be somebody I have to be approved of by others and they will commit even crimes to be on the news. Many criminals. That's why they committed their crime was so that they could be noticed. They think that being noticed will make them somebody or they will scratch and claw and do all kinds of compromising things to get to the top of the ladder in their profession whatever that calling is for some. This is the complete meaning of life. And for others, they also see things this way, but they realize that for themselves, they probably never will measure up. They probably never will reach the top of the ladder. They are never going to make it. They realize they are never going to amount to anything. Well, Paul here in our passage is introducing us to this same question he is asking the Corinthians to think about who they are. They have been taught to think in a certain way by the world that they live in. They have been taught to operate according to the way the world sees things. The way of the flesh really they have been taught to seek after a certain kind of self-identity like the rest of the world does everyone in some way or another is in our world, assessing things wrongly. And so Paul is calling them and he's calling to us to rightly think and to come up with the right way of pondering the value that we have in this world. So let's read our passage. It's first Corinthians chapter one. I'll begin at verse twenty six. This is God's word. Listen carefully to it. For consider your calling, brothers, Not many of you were wise, according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing. things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, who became to us righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. This is God's word. Let us pray. Our Father, we do pray that you would help us to orient ourselves rightly before you in the way that we look to you and the way that we see ourselves before you. Pray that your word would have its way in our hearts, that we would live according to it from this day. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Who are you? Who are you as you see yourself? As this passage opens up, you have your scriptures there. Keep it before you. Paul is introducing this question to them. And he's asking them to consider it, to ponder it, to think about it. Consider your calling, brothers. What is this calling that you have had this life that you have been given? Think about it. What is your lot as you see it in the world, the role that you play, Paul says, if you think according to the ways that the world is measuring things, most of you in the church were not even worth acknowledging. Perhaps the Corinthians had themselves bought into this way of thinking. In fact, that's what he's addressing. And this is how they saw things. Perhaps they had joined in that rat race and it was the meaning of their lives. They had been on that gerbil wheel, as many of us understand it, too. And they have been going round and round with their lives constantly being measured, trying to be acknowledged by their peers, trying to gain their approval, the nod of their superiors. Perhaps they had been fooled into thinking that they could actually measure on up and arrive there by the standards of that time of that time of the Roman Empire. You see, Paul is introducing to them the good news of Jesus Christ, and he is showing them that the gospel itself enters into and answers this type of question. It speaks to this issue. Jesus said that the truth will set you free, and indeed it will. And we know from the story of the scriptures that our first parents. The devil came to them and he covered over the truth, he hid the truth from them, he sold to them a lie, and that lie was about their worth. It was about their value. He told them that their value was something that they simply possessed apart from God. that they could have it apart from him, apart from their fellowship with him. And this lie that he sold them, it did not set them free. It imprisoned them in a closed circle. Of bondage, you see, Paul here is asking these people and us to consider things, to measure their lives along with him in a new way. where he can show them the truth so that he can show them their real value as God sees it so that he could drive home to us how to rightly assess things about ourselves. Consider your calling. Consider who you are. If you measure like the world measures, you are not measuring up. You will not. On the scale of worldly worth, most of them Most of us, in fact, had already been humbled. They knew. And that had prepared them, in a sense, to be ready to accept what he had, the good news of the gospel, because to accept the gospel of Jesus requires that we first be ready to hear it, that we'd be willing to humbly accept that we need what God has to offer if we think that we are we are fine already. We don't need what God has. To believe this good news of Jesus, that he is sufficient for our every need, that he is our life, that he is our hope, that he is our identity, requires that we not buy into and be consumed with an idolatrous understanding of who we are. If the world says that you are a value because you have power or because you have respect and you believe that, then you're in for a rude awakening one day sooner or later. But if you don't already have those things. Then you will be open to the message of God providing all that you do indeed need the message of the free gospel of God's love. And the same goes for people of noble birth the people that were sometimes people consider themselves to be above their neighbors simply because the family that they come from. I visited a church one time when we first moved to Longview. And they were very interested in my name and the wife and my wife's name, her maiden name and the family that she might have been connected to when she grew up in the area. They actually gave great value to this and attention to families that were of noble birth. They attach worth to that they attach worth to birth. So Paul is saying to the Corinthians, if worth comes from birth, then there's not going to be much worth around here. And look, according to most people's measure, not many of you were powerful, if worth comes from power, then you are a people lacking much value. But in fact, that is the very point. And the mysterious way that God has chosen, he's planned to work things. God has done it this way on purpose, he says, choosing these people, choosing us. So that he would receive the thanksgiving so that he would get the credit so that we would understand what is true of all peoples in all the earth. What we have and who we are is through his mercy. toward us and by his kindness and his benevolence alone, he is the source we will see. First Corinthians 130. He is our provision, he is our strength. Look at verse 27. That's the point. He says, but God. Whenever Paul says, but God, in just about all his writings, when Paul uses these words, but God, He is bringing into view what God now has done since Christ has come. The amazing difference that the coming of Christ has made. Consider yourselves, he says, now consider how in one sense, all things are made new by the coming of Christ. Nothing is the same since Jesus came. The world once saw things one way, they were striving after things. Even Israel, all through the Old Testament, is operating according to the wrong standards. And the world continues to do that and chase after these lies. But now that Christ has come, there is a new light that has dawned and it's dawned for us, God's people. And a completely new identity is available now that Christ has come, God has actually done what we could not do. He has achieved what we could have never measured up to what no one could reach. In fact, the greatest and wisest of all peoples could never have measured up on God's standards. But God has met the standard on our behalf, even as that standard is, in his eyes, perfect. He has met that for us. So in the world, when it comes to valuing people, the way of the world is to discount some. that should have had greater value than they have attributed to them and then to others. They will grade them on a curve using a false standard. The powerful of the world. Don't actually deserve to be called great just because they have power or responsibility. They often are even more sinful than the rest. Not everyone who is powerful is very nice. But actually. God now. Has taken the standard of the world. They're thinking that might makes right, and he has turned it right upside down. But God, Paul says, in contrast to this, consider yourselves and you're being the last people in the world that should have been blessed and then consider what God has done in Jesus Christ. The world measures wrong, but here, Paul says, is how God measures. Here is how God has determined to bring glory to himself. He chose the rejected, the downcast, those who were considered nothing according to the standards of this world and in their own eyes in order that his mercy might be magnified, that his glory might be showcased. God chose what is foolish in order to shame the wise. In order to demonstrate that, as verse 28 says, his ways are above our ways. It all depends on him and not upon us. In order to show that the most sinful of the sinful and the most rebellious of the rebellious, if they repent and turn to God, they can be saved too. There's no one who is too far off. Those who are nothing are far off, who are extremely rebellious, are his target as well. This has to be understood, it has always been the same. It is the point of the failures of the Old Testament story leading up to Christ. They too were to see it. God was teaching them this. He was showing them, like we read in Deuteronomy 7, you Israel, or you God's people, You weren't more righteous than everybody else. You weren't more righteous than the Gentile nations. You were, in fact, more rebellious. See also this whole Old Testament story. They were being taught a lesson. You weren't more numerous than the others. You were the smallest. No, it is not because of you that you are saved. It is nothing in you, but it is because God loves you that he chose you. He set his love upon you. And he cares deeply for you and you ought to know this and you ought to love him back for all his greatness and for all that he has done. See, it is not your achievements that got you in, but it is his love and neither is it ever going to be your intrinsic abilities. Anything that you had of yourself apart from him is never going to be what people think of you that will get you through this world. or prepare you for the judgment day. But this same God, it is him. It's him who loves you. It is about him, the one who has loved you and given his son for you, who will be with you, who directs your eyes back to him to know that it is God who justifies it is salvation is of the Lord. It is our God who is the one that matters here. This is where Paul is taking them to direct their eyes back to him, and it's where we need to have our thinking go as well. And when we do. When he's at the center of things, then he gets the glory. But he gets more glory if you know and consider that you were unworthy, that you were undeserving, if you do not trust your strength and your power and your status and your wealth and so that instead of boasting in yourself, that we have any of these things that God has given them to us anyway, as Paul elsewhere says, we can boast even of the of how weak we were. We can boast of our weakness and of our lack even to show God's greatness of our unworthiness, because the more we uncover our weakness and admit it. The more we acknowledge our sin. That required God's mercy. The more God's mercy becomes bigger in our eyes, the more his kindness is something that we treasure, the more we grasp that he must really love us to treat us this way. You see, it shames the wise of the world who are boasting the powerful, those of noble birth that are trusting in those things, because if they are trusting those things. In reality, they do not even possess any true riches. As they are trusting them, they don't really have the meaning of life, even as they think that they do. But even as they are boasting in their heart of hearts, they're still on that gerbil wheel chasing after either more or trying to arrive at satisfaction. They don't have peace. They may be respected, they may think highly of themselves. But they have not arrived and they are still scratching and clawing They are not at rest, and we need to remember this, that we have to offer the world peace and rest. Many of you have been on the performance ladder trying to please your parents, maybe. Or seeking the approval of others as your self-worth, maybe you thought that if you achieve a certain level or status in your job or had a certain amount of respect or attention from others, then it all gets better. Sometimes people, they live and strive as if it's the meaning of life to get a certain SAT score. And then all their life they talk about what an SAT score or IQ score they had. They boast about it. Or perhaps they want to be recognized by the world for something that they've done. There are lots of forms and shapes that this can take. I remember a friend in high school one time, we were inside a store. And he told them, you can't treat me that way. I drive a Porsche 928. It's silly, but you see, we all somehow think in these ways, we find ways to think that way. And at one time I did too. I was on the treadmill thinking, oh, if I can only get to here, then I will be happy. I will be worth something. See, the reality is. That sometimes the best thing that can happen to someone is that they react, they they realize the futility of this type of thinking. For some, for some, this happens when they reach their goals. They arrive at the top of the world and they look around and it doesn't satisfy them. All the hopes that they have placed in it vanish. And they don't know what to do. It's then that they're ready for the good news of Jesus. But for others, it might be when their lives crash and burn and everything comes unraveled in their lives, then they become bankrupt or maybe some sin is discovered and everyone's respect disappears for them. We see it's often at that point that in the world's eyes, they have no worth. And in their very own eyes, they are grappling and they think, I have no value left. See, but it's at that point that the good news of the love of Christ will have traction, that it will connect with people. The good news tells us not to look to the world to give you worth, that there is no achievement of worth that's necessary. That you have worth simply because God made you, because he sent his son to die for those just like you. How much value does God put on human beings? How much value does he put on the most rebellious and sinful people, the lowly human beings of this world, even you? How much does he treasure them and care for them? Well, you can measure that. You can measure your value as a believer in Jesus by how much God was willing to pay in order to redeem you. The son that he loved, the son that he treasures, that never sinned. He was willing to give him up. And his son was willing to come to rescue you. The world will give nothing for you. It would chew you up and spit you out. Why would you chase after? The world. When there is one more valuable than all the things that he himself made. And he would give himself for you. What if you gained that whole world? It wouldn't satisfy. But God has provided for you satisfaction, he has provided meaning, he has provided rest for your souls and an understanding of your value by the price that God himself attached to you as a believer. It's worth pondering. It's worth thinking about and reflecting on. Because it takes us to the punch line of this passage. It takes us there with the right attitude. Our eyes first are focused on our former life, our position apart from Christ, the way we were thinking. We are to consider that. And we are to cut off all pursuing of that misguided way of thinking, we are to stop boasting in that. Because we found something better than that, not only have we found the meaning of life, the meaning of meaning. The meaning of our true value. And self-image and worth as we comprehend the love of God and Christ. Let the humble here and be glad, but Paul wants us to grasp and to ponder. That every benefit, every gift we have, everything that we possess, Every blessing that has come to us, every facet of our salvation, all these things that we can define and have and hold in the marriage relationship that we have with Christ, all these things that we have, all we have now, all that we are now, all that we receive now from him is of him. It's from his hand as a free gift and it's and it's held in him. God magnifies his glory. by giving unexpected gifts to the lowly, adopting us as his children, dusting us off and welcoming us who didn't deserve it. As Psalm 34 puts it, my soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. This is what Paul is reminding the Israelites of. He's reminding the Corinthians of. It's what we were seeing there in Deuteronomy 7. that are boasting in ourselves. It's empty. That are chasing after the worth of this world apart from Christ should stop. That we should turn and see his value and begin to boast rightly about how great he is, about what he has done for us, how we now have found rest from the pursuit of value because we are valued We are loved by him and in him and through his people who have found the same thing. The love of God is manifested one to another. We are all rich and wealthy in Christ. Verse 30 says it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus Christ, Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. We are rich to have received the pearl of great price, Jesus himself. And all the things that we have before him. Those are the things that matter, the things that he has given to us. Look at what we have in this last verse. In verse 30. We have status. We have a standing. We have the verdict about our lives that is given to us. We have righteousness in God's sight. He declares us to be right with him. We call that justification. We have the legal verdict already pronounced upon us for the day of judgment, and that's from him. He gave it to us. Next, we have sanctification. We have a transformed life that is through him, not through our striving. But as we have Christ, him who freely gave himself up for us, who is alive and with us, who is working in our hearts, what is pleasing in his sight to convict us. To give us a love of the right things. Him who freely gave himself for us, the greatest treasure. He gave himself up for us. He paid the price for us. He is now still the price for us. As the hymn says, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. And so it is all of him and from him and through him and in him. Everything we have. All our value and worth in the eyes of the one who truly matters. He values us all the way. As much as himself and his own life. And he is the one who declares what is true and right that should be believed and trusted in. See, it is not what the world thinks. It's not even what you think about yourself. It is not in your performance. But what matters is that we have Christ. We have God himself is for us. Who can be against us? To have Jesus is to have life. And as Psalm 103 in the early verses says, He redeems our life from the pit. He snatches us up and he gives us worth and meaning and his approval and his commitment to us. He gives that to us. He enters into the relationship that will, he says, I will never leave you or forsake you. The bond that we have is secure. The rest that we have is real. He gives us every good gift from above. What do you have that you did not receive the scriptures say he has paid in full. That's the last word that's used here. He is our redemption. He has paid for us to redeem us. And so now in verse 31 of this passage, we do get to boast. We now get to boast. Instead of striving and chasing after the things of the world as we turn to Christ and see his value, we get to boast. But it's not just in ourselves. We live now completely by thankfulness, knowing that we already possess all things and we boast about him. We boast in him who loved us and even provided his own life for us, who is with us. Verse 31 says so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. We are his witnesses. We go and tell of all that he has done for us. If you, as a believer, have been seeking to find your name in the phone book, or searching in the eyes of the world for meaning from them. If you have been performing for the approval of parents or bosses as being the rest for your souls. If you've been chasing after the way that the world values things. Then Jesus says, come to me. And I will give you rest for your souls. That's good news. You need not strive for what he will give. We shouldn't strive as believers for what we already possess. We need to shift gears into the mode of thanksgiving and peace and rest. of running the race in light of our worth that he pronounces upon us and not seeking to find it anywhere but in him. And let the one who boasts. The scriptures say most of this that he knows me, God says, and so let us all boast in the love of Christ. Who, while we were on the treadmill chasing after meaning, worshiping the things of this world, he died that we might not only know the meaning of life, But that we might have life from his hand as those knowing that we are undeserving as a shock to the world. To draw us to himself, draw near to him today, it is safe. To rest in the fact that no one can snatch you out of his hand, no one can separate you from his love. That is good news. And it's the good news of the Bible. Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank you that you have not left us without a clear, resounding message of your love that God so loved the world that those who are far off have a place with you. If they will turn and come to you. We pray, Father, for our own hearts that we would trust in these things, that they are true, that we would not be misdirected away to think that we will find satisfaction anywhere else. Help us, Father. To put to cast our cares upon you, knowing that you care for us more than we care for ourselves. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Turn now to hymn number 264 and sing together as we stand. It's not marked in the bulletin, but we'll stand to sing 264. Jesus, keep me near the cross.