should already be in 1 Corinthians chapter one, if not turned back there. And I will be reading verses 26 through 31. The rest of the chapter that Walter did not read. And I'll read it both in the New King James and then in the amplified. So follow along. First Corinthians one verse one. Verse 26, where you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise, according to the flesh, not many. Mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised. God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. That no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. And then the amplified same passage, verse 26 of First Corinthians one. For can simply consider your own call, brethren, not many of you were considered to be wise, according to human estimates and standards, not many influential and powerful, not many of high and noble birth. No, for God selected, deliberately chose what in the world is foolish to put to to put the wise to shame and what the world calls weak. to put the strong to shame. And God also selected, deliberately chose, what in the world is low-born and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing, that He might depose and bring to nothing the things that are, so that no mortal man should have pretense for glorying and boast in the presence of God. But it is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom from God revealed to us the knowledge of the divine plan of salvation previously hidden, manifesting itself as our righteousness, thus making us upright and putting us in right standing with God and our consecration, making us pure and holy and our redemption, providing our ransom from eternal penalty for sin. So then, as it is written, let him who boasts and proudly rejoices and glories boast and proudly rejoice and glory in the Lord. What a blessing our annual conference was last Lord's Day and Saturday, the 20th and 21st, I thought it would be good then in light of that to put things in perspective. Because often during such meetings, we tend to focus on people and speakers and things that sometimes we get distracted over. So I thought I'd bring it all back and put the focus where it needs to be. Not that we don't honor God's servants. We do. We praise God for the gifts he's given to the church and the teachers and preachers and believers. He has given to his people for their edification and in the right perspective. All of these gifts are to read down to the glory and praise of God. But I think from time to time we need to push that big reset button and put all of our focus back on the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not. Preaching this message for any person or any incident or any situation. Just a general desire to put the spotlight back on the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in the context of our text. In verses 22 through 24. For the Jews request the sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block into the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. The Apostle Paul, rightly inspired by the spirit, brings the spotlight to the Lord Jesus Christ in the first epistle to the Corinthians in the very first chapter. Because what he is about to say to the Corinthians, not only in this first epistle, but also in the second letter to the Corinthians, is a lot of hard things to hear, even as Christians. And so he tells them that Christ is the object and focus of the church. He reminds them that the message of the cross in verse 18 is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. So rightly understood and apprehended, the message of Christ and his cross as applied to our lives will cause the power of God to be renewed in his people, which should Have us jettison the works of the flesh, renounce and repent of the works of the flesh and all egotism and selfishness and self-centeredness. The Corinthian believers were notorious, at least in the 21st century and 20th century. And I said I suggest in all of the commentaries or most that I have read for being very carnal, very self-centered, very fleshly. and self-focused and the Apostle Paul wants to put their attention on the Lord Jesus Christ in this epistle and he goes on in the rest of the letter to correct some of their misbehavior and their areas of the need of repentance. The Corinthian church was composed mainly of ordinary people who were saved out of a wicked terrible lifestyle of sin. Corinth had a reputation of being the most wicked city in all of Asia Minor. And the Apostle Paul himself trembled and hesitated to go to Corinth, at least in the flesh, until God reassured him. Fear not, Paul, for I have many people in this city. And Paul was strengthened by the word of the Lord to go there and to preach the gospel. It was a very intimidating city, indeed. But having gone to Corinth in obedience to God's command and God having blessed Paul's preaching and efforts to establish a church, the church had quickly devolved into certain sinful practices that Paul corrects. He rebuked the church. If you turn to First Corinthians chapter three verses one through three for their carnality. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal as to babes in Christ, I fed you with milk and not with solid food for until now you were not able to receive it. And even now you are still not able for you are still carnal for where there are envy, strife and divisions among you. Are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? He's not saying these people are not Christians. He says as Christians, they are behaving sinfully. carnally. This is not a text that espouses some kind of carnal Christian teaching which many base their preaching on to justify two classes of Christians. Those who follow Christ as their Savior and those and not their Lord and those who follow both the Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord. The Bible knows of no such teaching, but what Paul is doing in 3, 1 through 3 is correcting them for their sinful behavior in this particular case, which led to envy and strife and divisions among them. And later on in the epistle, he brings up other problems. The Corinthian church also struggled with a major problem that exists today as well in the church. We call it the celebrity pastor when you add the when you when you couple it with technology and add technology to the mix. It's very easy for an individual pastor to become like a Hollywood celebrity. And when that happens, very often the very nature and structure of the church changes so that the life and activities of the of the body center around him. And the church becomes in effect a house of cards ready to fall down once the man something happens to the pastor. So there's the elevation of of a personality to an unscriptural and carnal level. And Paul rebukes this in first Corinthians three verses four through eight for when one says I am a Paul and another I am of a policy. Are you not carnal? Who then is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believe, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then, neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. So there was that problem and then other problems such as the abuse of the Lord's Supper and that sinful behavior caused God himself to chastise many in the church. There were those who were sickly because they received punishment from God. Because they did not partake of the Lord's Supper in a proper way, they did not examine themselves properly and even some of them were killed as the highest form. of punishment for a Christian. But. The gospel of God's grace leaves no room for boasting and pride and glorying in men. God is not impressed. With anything about us in a natural sense in a human sense because the Bible says every good gift is from above it comes from the Lord. Therefore, if we can't take credit for any good thing, any skill, any talent, any knowledge, any experience that is rooted in legitimate skill and knowledge and a gift from God, then is there any place for boasting? There is not. God is not impressed with our looks or our social position, our skills, our achievements, our baptism in and of itself. Our religious experience in and of itself, our natural heritage, our financial status or anything related to that, because God himself has given us everything that is good. Now, there are some believers who do have a high moral standing in society, but not many of them. Most who were converted were ordinary people that came from humble places. The description Paul gave of the Corinthian converts was certainly not a flattering one. However, he says in chapter 6 verses 7 through 11. Now, therefore, it is already another failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat and you do these things to your brethren. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. So these were believed people who had become believers, but they were saved from the most wicked kinds of sins imaginable and they even continue to struggle with certain sins. In this particular case they were going to the court suing each other. They were defrauding one another and the Apostle Paul acknowledges their carnal behavior. They're still saved. They're washed in the blood of Christ but they're really struggling spiritually. With that background in the first place, then, when we talk about glorifying God, I want to mention the title of the message. Is Christ getting the glory in your church? Is Christ getting the glory in your church? Talking about our church, for sure, but also any church, because Christ must get the glory. And the Lord Jesus comes down to his church from time to time. If you read Revelation 2 and 3, by his presence, by his omniscience, and he examines us and he corrects us, and he is concerned that he receive all the glory in his church. And so when we look at verse 26, where we read, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, we see not many know it all's. so that Christ gets the glory. Not many know-it-alls does God save so that Christ gets the glory. When I talk about know-it-all, I'm talking about somebody who thinks that their knowledge will lead to their salvation. That their religious knowledge is meritorious, is acceptable in and of itself to God. And God reminds us in verse 26, that there are not many wise according to the flesh. There are many people who are very well educated. They have PhDs. They have even beyond that in their banks of knowledge. And they think because they are smart or because they have much knowledge of the things of the world or their particular discipline or subject that that warrants acceptance with God. And God says no. These believers were not wise according to the world's estimation of what is valuable concerning knowledge. They were not wise, mighty or noble. God called them not because of what they were or who they were, as it were, but in spite of what they were as sinners. God called them. And he saved them in spite of their sin. Now, the Corinthians had a tendency to be puffed up, to be proud because of their knowledge. In 1 Corinthians 4, 6, it says that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one another, of one against the other. In chapter four, the same chapter down in verses 18 and 19, now some are puffed up as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you shortly if the Lord wills, and I will know not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. In Chapter five versus one and two, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father's wife and you are puffed up and have not rather mourn. that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. So they had this general pride and their pride was manifested in various ways. As we just read here, some said, well, Paul isn't going to come. He writes a big letter, you know, big talk in his letter, but he's never going to come and visit us and chastise us. And Paul threatens them. Yeah, I'm going to come and I'm going to come soon if God wills. And they also were proud in the sense that They tolerated this wicked sin of sexual immorality among some in the body of Christ. And instead of mourning and lamenting and weeping that the person who has done this might be taken away that this leaven that is leavening the whole lump. They were very proud about the situation. They were even even too proud to repent and to mourn over it. So pride then is a problem not only for unsaved people but for saved people as we see here in the in the church of Corinth. But you and I don't have a problem with this do we. Of course we do. We struggle with pride every day. I do. I have to beat it down. Down. Down. Get back. Get back. Pride. It's the sin that was identified in One of three high cherubs named Lucifer that caused his being outcast from heaven and the rebellious angels with him. Pride. It's a wicked, evil sin. But this pride also can include being proud of our knowledge of what we know, especially in some of our theological circles. where we prize learning and knowledge, which is a good thing. Absolutely. We need to study to show ourselves approved unto God. But knowledge and learning can take a bad detour. Knowledge puffeth up, the Bible says. There are those who can take pride in their knowledge. In 1 Corinthians 8, 1 and 2, it says, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. So if we're proud about the quantity of our knowledge, God reminds us, look, if you want to talk about quantity of knowledge compared to the little bit that we know and with the vast ocean of knowledge that is out there to be learned, including the knowledge of the Bible, We're just barely scratching the surface. If you want to measure your knowledge by the totality of knowledge exhaustively, then you really know nothing as you ought to know. And therefore, we have nothing to be proud of if we're going to measure ourselves by the quantity of our knowledge, but also the quality of our knowledge is important because knowledge is supposed to be kept in a proper place in a proper perspective. Knowledge is to be tempered and modified and regulated by love, by repentance. And when we use those devices, godly fruits, to keep knowledge in its proper perspective, then knowledge can be used rightly for the glory of God. We're not certainly to be ostentatious or showy about our knowledge in our conversations with false humility, trying to make an impression. In first Corinthians, chapter three, verses 18 through 23, first Corinthians 318, it says, let no one deceive himself of anyone among you seems to be wise in this age. Let him become a fool that he may become wise for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. Therefore, let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come. All are yours and you are Christ and Christ is God. God's God puts knowledge in his proper perspective here in this text. He's saying knowledge is like any other gift that God gives to the church. It's to be used for our edification, not to press our worldly resume of how many degrees we have from secular universities or how much experience and training and knowledge we have in our jobs or our experiences of the world. We're not to bring those kinds of credentials in the church and begin to compare ourselves with other people based on how much worldly of how big of a worldly resume we have in the church. We all stand on level ground, brethren. We don't measure ourselves by ourselves. We accept each other. As equals in the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore there's no place for pride in our knowledge or attainments of worldly things, however good they may be. Sometimes some of the brethren in their conversations with one another will have this subliminal thing working where their worldly attainments and stature and experiences and positions will cause them to segregate into cliques where they'll only have fellowship with those who are like them. The Bible says there to be a huge crossover activity going on where those who are educated are to be fellowshipping with the less educated. Those who are rich with the poor were to have that intermingling of fellowship and not have, whether in a subtle or a dominant way, any of our worldly knowledge or experience to regulate and to determine who we're going to have fellowship with. Right? Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. And that's a man wise in his own eyes who brings the baggage of the world's credentials and resume into the church to determine through that measure who we're going to have fellowship with. But when we look at the Apostle Paul, and we're not to have this know it all attitude. We're to give God all the glory. Where does our knowledge come from? It comes from God. Solomon was given wisdom, but he was also given knowledge. He had a knowledge of science and just about every discipline imaginable. The Queen of Sheba came from many, many hundreds of miles with a long retinue bearing gifts and laid those gifts at Solomon's feet and was was marveling at his knowledge. And she said the half of it had not been told to me concerning your knowledge. And God gives knowledge. God gives many good gifts. But we're not to glory in any of those things. We're to glory only in the Lord. Before his conversion, Paul took pride. Saul of Tarsus took pride in his knowledge, his resume, his credentials, his religious attainments. But he was very self-righteous and he had to give up his religion in order to obtain Christ. in order to get to heaven. His own testimony is seen in Philippians 3. Turn to Philippians 3. Philippians chapter 3, verse 3. For we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I also might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I'm more so circumcised. The eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews concerning the law, a Pharisee. There's his knowledge concerning zeal, persecuting the church concerning the righteousness, which is in the law, blameless, or at least he thought he was blameless. But what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. In order for Paul to be saved, God had to convict him, not only of his sin in general, but God had to show him that all of his religious and cultural attainments as a Jew, his training, his experience, his blue-blooded Jewish genealogy, God rejected it all. He had to renounce it all, give it all up, and stop standing on it and resting on it as the grounds which he hoped for his salvation and acceptance with God. And the same is true with us. God accepts none of our religion, whether we grew up in the church or in the Jewish religion like myself. I had six years of Hebrew school. I went through the bar mitzvah. According to the Orthodox Jews today, I am a blue blooded Jew. I was on a pathway of Studying to become a rabbi, I was scheduled to enroll in Yeshiva University in New York City, a Jewish seminary upon my the completion of my four years in the Marine Corps. I was working with the rabbi of the local synagogue, preparing me as a lay person for that end. And so I was on this pedestal in my own mind and estimation that because I was Jewish and I had all these attainments, And my grandmother loved me and my mother would brag about me over it. That boy, I was going to be high in heaven. But God had to have me come crashing down. He had to break the grip of my hands on religion. Religion is the worst thing sometimes people can have because it blinds them into thinking that they're going to go to heaven because they're a nice person, a good person. After all, they go to church. After all, they do all these good deeds. After all, they give money to the church. They were baptized. They were circumcised. They went through the bar mitzvah or whatever. And Paul understood that when sin was applied to his heart, when he compared his life to the Ten Commandments, he realized that he had broken them all. And he had used a new measure, a new standard. That Jesus taught you don't have to physically break the commandments to be guilty of them. All you have to do is think about them. All you have to do is commit murder in your heart, hate somebody, be angry with somebody or lust upon someone. in order to commit adultery and Paul realized that he had broken them all and we also have broken all the commandments in our thoughts and Romans seven says of Paul's testimony including his estimation of his religious credentials when the law was applied. He understood he was a sinner. He had broken all the commandments and I died. That is, he died to this artificial false grounds of his acceptance, thinking that while he's a murderer and an adulterer, a blasphemer and an idolater, that God would accept him because he has some church attendance or synagogue attendance. He's got a few years under Gamaliel in Jerusalem. God's measure is the law. And we have to keep the law perfectly. No one has, and that's why we need Christ. Christ kept the law perfectly. And when we put our trust in Him, His perfect record of obedience is transferred to my account. Otherwise, your account and my account, when it comes to breaking the law, daily cries out for justice and judgment. I need someone or something to erase and blot out the broken laws and commandments that are on my account as an unsaved person when I was an unsaved person. The only thing stopping God from pouring out judgment upon such a person is his mercy, his mercy. And I plead with you, if you're not saved here today to put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, because when God But when you become saved, when you put your faith in Christ for salvation, God takes of the perfect record of keeping his commandments and he applies it to your account. And he takes of the righteousness of Christ and he imputes it to you. He applies it to your account. We also read in verse 26 that not many mighty, not many noble are called. The general character and condition of those who become Christians have not been the wise and the rich and the learned people of this world, but humble people, people from humble origins, poor people, people who have a whole lot of experience with sin, whether that sin be self-righteousness or adultery. We need to include both of those, because some people who are moral people, they've never committed adultery. They've never done gross sins like that. But they seed in their hearts with self-righteousness and self-justification day in and day out, and they think that that sin is better than adultery or sin of God. Sin is sin in the eyes of God. So why do we have to talk so much about sin? Because it's a problem and our own consciences accuse us. You don't need to know about the Bible to know that you're a sinner and I'm a sinner. Our own conscience convicts us. Not many people of power influence who occupy important offices in the state are saved. An example of this is seen in Revelation 16, 15 and following, where it says, And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the land for the great day of his wrath has come. And who was able to stand on that last day when the Lord Jesus Christ comes for judgment? Will it not be the kings of the earth, the heads of state, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty people in the eyes of the world who will be fearful, who will tremble, who will seek a place of hiding from the wrath of God? So. These are the people often who persecute believers, but. We. We who are saved must come to a place in our lives where we must be humbled and broken, we must realize that is not our knowledge. There's not being a know it all that saves us in respect to each of these classes of people. The apostle doesn't say that there were no men of wealth and power and birth. But that the mass or the large larger group of Christians was not composed of mighty famous rich people. There are some of them that do get saved and history recounts some prominent rich and famous people who happen to be Christians but not many of them get saved. Salvation and the ranks of the believers were made up of those who are who are humble in life. God's purpose here in verse 26 and in this text is to show that the gospel for its success doesn't depend on human wisdom. His argument is that those who have become saved haven't come from the elevated ranks of life, mainly. But that God chose his power by choosing those who were ignorant and wicked and abandoned, and by saving them by his mighty power through the atoning work of Christ and resurrection power of Christ, he is glorified. James 2 5 says, Listen, my beloved brethren, has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and the heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? Secondly, Secondly, God chose the week so that Christ gets the glory versus 27 through 29. Here, Paul is reminding the Corinthians of why he called them verse 27. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put the shame, the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put the shame, the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised. God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence. God chose the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised to show the proud world their need of God's grace to stop trusting in themselves and to look to Jesus Christ for grace, because it is only grace which saved us. For by grace you were saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. The lost world admires birth and social status, financial success and power and recognition, and everywhere you look, In the media and the printed page and billboards, they're advertising their wares, seeking to train you for a price to become wealthy and successful according to their own standard of what is what is successful. But none of these things can guarantee eternal life. As a matter of fact, they cause us to stumble. They sidetrack us away from the only one who can save us, which is Jesus Christ. Galatians 6, 3 and 4 says, if anyone thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. For what does it profit a man if we gain the whole world and lose ourselves or are cast away? James 1, 9 through 11, let the brother, the lowly brother, let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field, he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with the burning heat than it withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. And so why does God reveal the foolishness and the weakness of this present world system, even with its philosophies and its world religions, so that no flesh should glory in his presence? On Judgment Day, On the great day of the marriage supper of the Lamb, as well as now, or at least it should be now, we should all be glorying in Jesus Christ. Revelation 4 and 5 says the saints will be fixated on Christ on the throne. They will be taken up with His glory. They will be casting crowns. They will be giving every blessing, as it were, back to Christ. To recognize him alone as the only one that should receive all the glory, praise and honor, because he's the one who has done anything good in and through us. He's the giver of every good gift. And without him, we can do nothing. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. The world looks at the church, the world looks at Christ on a cross and sees weakness and pain and it wants nothing of it. But God tells us in verses 27 through 29 that God has designed and chosen weakness in our natural, physical, fleshly state while we are in this state He has chosen to use our physical, fleshly weakness to keep us in a place of dependence upon God alone so that we will not glory in ourselves, but in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. Isaiah 29, 14 says, therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people. a marvelous work in a wonder for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden every once in a while God in the affairs of the world in the affairs of politics even in the affairs of your own job the corporation or company work for God likes to come in And he likes to confound the wisdom of the president, the vice president, the management, the executive staff, or the governmental rulers with all of their cleverness and all of their earthly wisdom, which very often does work. Worldly people are not as stupid as you and I would think they are. But that kind of intelligence and satanic wisdom may help them climb the corporate ladder with all of its deceitfulness and all of its covetousness. But God will come down every once in a while and confound them so that they're making one bad decision after another. And the earthly wisdom they use to cause the company to grow to a multi-billion dollar corporation using the same standard as before, every decision they make from a certain point is the wrong decision. And their stock slides in the stock market. And the shareholders question their leadership abilities. God likes to shake things up every once in a while. He did that several years ago when the housing market crashed. Several times over the last seven or eight years, our economy in America has come very close to crashing and causing another depression. God, every once in a while, breaks through. He's here all the time. Don't get me wrong. The eyes of the Lord in every place beholding the good and the evil. But he likes to break through in real time where we live. And he comes alongside of me and my company. He shakes things up so that we don't trust ourselves. We don't get too proud. Even unsaved people are greatly humbled in their positions, both political and corporate. And you and I have seen this. That's why I told someone the other day, someone asked me a question about, you know, at work you're having all kinds of problems and peer pressure. And the bosses are mocking them. And so if I said, look, if a supervisor or manager is doing something wrong, the best thing you can do is to not respond. I mean, there's a place to give an answer. There's a place to defend yourself. Yes, of course. But most of the time, don't defend yourself, because if someone's doing something wrong, God is their God, too. He's a God of justice. And sooner or later, they will self-destruct. It's happened to me so many times, so there came a point in my life where I stopped defending myself when it wasn't necessary. When I wasn't asked by a definite superior to give a an answer for something I didn't define, I just brought it to the Lord and it worked out every single time God took care of it. That no flesh or glory in his presence. The message of God's grace in Jesus Christ utterly confounds the high and mighty people of this world. They look at Christianity and they think it's not useful in this dog eat dog world of he who gets the most toys before they die wins philosophy. They can't understand how God changes sinners into saints, and the mighty of this world are helpless to duplicate this miracle. They try morality. They try religiosity. They try to become more holy and acceptable to God without giving up their self-righteousness, without repenting of their pride, without condemning themselves and all of their Religious works and it never works. They can't understand that God's foolishness confounds the wise. What God calls his foolishness is really his truth, his wisdom, and God's wisdom will always confound the wise of this world. God's weakness confounds the mighty. Church history is full of accounts of great sinners whose lives were transformed by the power of the gospel salvation must be holy of grace. Otherwise, it doesn't give God the glory. Because no flesh will glory in his presence, and that's why weakness is our best weapon. Paul found out the secret to powerful, Holy Spirit driven and anointed ministry in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, verse 7, when he said, unless I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. Before this, the great apostle did not fully understand, fully understand the place of weakness in an effective ministry. And so he's pleading with the Lord three times. Take this physical ailment, this physical sickness, whatever it may be. Some theologians suggest that he was losing his eyesight. Eventually he did. We don't know, but he pleaded with the Lord to remove that thorn in the flesh, that physical illness. And then in verse nine, God said to him, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. God tells him, no, I use weakness. My strength is made perfect in weakness, Paul. And suddenly Paul changes his entire philosophy of ministry on a dime. Before this, he's pleading with God, take it away, take the pain away. Now, all of a sudden, what does he say in verse nine? Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and distressions for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. One minute he's complaining, take this thorn of the flesh away from me. The next minute he's taking pleasure in it. He's boasting in his pain. Because he knows behind that, after the pain causes him to be broken and humbled at the feet of Christ, confessing that he has no strength in himself, confessing weakness, confessing insufficiency, confessing inability, confessing nothingness before Christ, and fixing our faith on Jesus alone to come and restore us, empower us, fill us with his strength, his power. Paul knew that behind that was the power of God that would flood in and lift him up and equip him to do the powerful spiritual work of the Lord. But he must first come to a place of weakness or total dependence, total dependence on God alone. He changed his methodology in ministry. So, number three, Christ is our salvation so that he gets the glory. Verses 30 and 31. But of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. That as it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the Lord. The Corinthians were full of pride. And unless we watch it, Daily, by keeping short accounts with God, by daily repenting of our own pride. And from the heart, from the root of our inner man, we repent of our pride. We're going to get puffed up ourselves. There may be some people listening to this message right now who have not repented of the root of their pride. Their Relationship with the Lord might be a superficial one. They may have confessed superficially, but unless we pull out the root of pride through sincere repentance. We will have a hair trigger. We'll have a shallow, very shallow level of patience, it'll last for a little bit. But we won't have any depth of forbearance and patience. And the grace of God, we must repent thoroughly of pride. We must be like the meek, humble lamb of God. Our minds must be transformed. And conformed to the mind of Christ, we must be renewed in the spirit of our minds so that true repentance penetrates the entire spiritual man. And we are renewed in the spirit of our mind. Every since every believer is in Christ, we have all we need. Why compete with each other? where you compare yourselves with each other. It's the Lord who has done it all. It's the Lord who has purchased salvation completely. So why are we competing with each other? Why are we comparing ourselves to one another? We know that He alone died on the cross to save us, and therefore He alone gets the glory. There's no glory left to compete for. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. This is a quote from Jeremiah 9.24. and quoted again in 2 Corinthians 10, 17. He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. The Israelites were proud, and Jeremiah prophesied to them, He who glories, glory in the Lord. And we as saints sometimes get proud. Proud as husbands, proud as wives, proud as workers. We can't humble ourselves to anybody who has a lesser resume than me, less knowledge, less experience, less age. We have to humble ourselves all the time. God keeps us in a place of humility and dependence for our own sake, for our own good and for his glory. But our spiritual blessings that we need. They're not abstractions that elude our grasp. All of them are in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are to daily receive our portion of them in him. The text says that Of him are you in Christ Jesus? The father is the one who brought us and made saved us and made us to be in Christ. The father sent the son to die for us so that when we put our trust in him for salvation to save us from hell and from sin. We, by God's grace, are. Brought to him, we become in him. He covers us. Protects us from the wrath of God and provides righteousness that we require to be accepted by God. But of him are you in Christ Jesus. Who became for us wisdom. This is saying that Christ is our wisdom. Do you have wisdom in yourself? Do I know? But Christ is my wisdom. We read in Colossians 2, 2 and 3 to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ in whom. of Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The Holy Spirit likes to give us the wisdom of Christ. When you study the life of Christ in the Gospels, when you study His teachings, His words, His discourses, His doctrines, the wisdom that proceeds from Jesus. Wow! Even at 12 years old, The doctors in the temple, the doctors of theology were amazed at the wisdom that came forth from adolescent Jesus. He is God incarnate, God in the flesh. He has ascended and is glorified, but He is our wisdom. And he gives us the wisdom that we have, and he continues to provide wisdom for us. So therefore, go to him if you need wisdom. The Bible says if anyone lacks wisdom, James 1, 3 through 5, let him ask of God who gives all liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given to him. But let him ask in faith. Jesus Christ is our wisdom. God made him our prophet. He preaches to us. He teaches us. He provides the knowledge and the wisdom that we need. to survive in this wicked world, but also in the positive sense to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of God. He is our wisdom. When you study the word of God and meditate on it, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, when you hide the word in your heart, when you dwell richly upon it, the Holy Spirit brings deeper level, brings you to deeper levels and gives you greater amounts of the wisdom of Jesus Christ. And when the Holy Spirit freshly fills you up with God's wisdom, you find yourself thinking more like Him and talking more like Him because He is transplanting the mind and wisdom of Christ into you. Christ is the wisdom of God. Many of us hunger and thirst for knowledge, all that we might hunger and thirst for the wisdom that is to be found in Jesus Christ. Do you hunger and thirst for this wisdom? God says in Proverbs chapter two, turn there quickly to Proverbs chapter two. And verse one. My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives what wisdom. And from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk up rightly. He guards the path of justice and preserves the way of the saints. If you hunger and thirst for this knowledge, this wisdom that is personified in Christ, And that Christ himself gives you, he will give it to you. The wisdom of the world is shaky. It has a terrible track record. Sometimes they're right. But most of the time, especially when it comes to spiritual and moral issues, they're wrong. Look at the whole the whole moral values of the world, the Judeo-Christian ethic that we have long Subscribe to it is turned upside down. They're calling up down to calling down up left, right? They're calling men, women, women, men. The time honored values of Western civilization are gone and everyone is doing right that which is right in their own eyes. If you want wisdom and if you want to give this wisdom to others, it's to be found in Jesus Christ. The reason why we make mistakes is because of our darkened minds that are unenlightened with the wisdom of Christ. But he's willing to give it to you over and over and over again. There is in Jesus Christ an inexhaustible, unfathomable amount of wisdom so that in these shaky times, as we try to navigate the waters in which we live, he will guide you through with his wisdom and he will bless you. He will bless you with his presence to boot. But Christ is our righteousness. We we read Christ our righteousness. If you seek to be accepted by God. In any other way, except through Jesus Christ and by Jesus Christ, by trusting in him to save you. Based on his sacrificial substitutionary death on the cross, it's not going to happen. All other religion, all other religious activities, experiences, efforts apart from the imputed righteousness of Christ as the only grounds of our acceptance with God is rejected. The Bible says all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That's a strong. That's a statement. If I ever heard one about the goodness of man, including his religious experience apart from The covering and righteousness that Jesus Christ provides for us. All our all of our good deeds are like a filthy rag. The Bible says he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God and him. You remember Paul's testimony. He says, but what things were gained to me, to him as a person, to his own ego, his experience, his pharisaical experience? He says, these I have counted lost for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. If you want to be a Christian, then you're going to have to one by one cast away everything that you've been clinging to in the hopes that you would be saved. By your good deeds, you got to give them all up, confess to the Lord Jesus Christ that your good deeds are unworthy, they're unacceptable before you are converted, before you are saved, before you are born again by the Spirit of God. Your own righteousness is nothing. It's the Bible calls it self-righteousness, because somehow, some way, to some measure or another, self is woven into it. Why do we need Jesus Christ to save us if we're self-righteousness, if we're self-righteous, if our righteousness is accepted by God? Yet I indeed count all things for loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. that I may gain Christ. Not only do you have to see your good deeds and self-righteousness and all your past religious experiences as unacceptable, but you need to see it as rubbish, as garbage, as something that hurt you and hindered you. God is not going to dishonor his son. God is not going to show contempt to the to the unspeakably glorious saving atoning death of his son on the cross by allowing a sinner to enter heaven some other way than through faith in his son and in his son alone. That is the only way all honor will be given in all glory to the son. Christ is our sanctification. and our redemption. So the emphasis here in this text is that God shows his wisdom by means of the righteousness, sanctification and redemption that we have in Christ. Each of these theological words carries a special meaning for Christians. They are important words and they represent critical doctrines of the Christian faith. Righteousness has to do with our standing before God. We are justified. God declares us righteous in Jesus Christ, but we are also sanctified, that is, we're set apart to belong to God and to serve him and to be holy. Redemption emphasizes the fact that we are set free. We're redeemed. We're bought back. We're released from a place of captivity called sin. Because Jesus Christ paid the price for us on the cross to release us from spiritual captivity. From the chains of sin, this leads to complete redemption. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes right now, we we are sealed with the Holy Spirit and the first fruits and the down payment has been given to us. It is just as sure as if Jesus already had come for us. Our salvation is. But we will get the complete redemption when he returns. So in one sense, we have the three tenses of salvation given here. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. That's righteousness. We are being saved from the power of sin. That's sanctification. And we shall be saved from the presence of sin. That's redemption. And every believer has all of these blessings in Jesus Christ. What a great source of rejoicing. Not based on how we feel, but based on the fact that we are already seated with Christ in heavenly places and these benefits of sanctification, redemption and imputed righteousness have irrevocably been applied to our account. It cannot be rescinded, cannot be taken away. Praise God. Therefore, why glory in men? What does Paul have to do have have that rather what does Paul have that you don't have? Does Peter have more of Jesus Christ than you do? We should glory in the Lord, not in ourselves or in our spiritual leaders, although they help us and we thank God for them. But we glory only in the Lord Jesus Christ. As we read first Corinthians, we can see the mistakes and the sins that the Corinthians were making mistakes that helped to create problems in the church. They were not living up to their holy calling, but were instead following the standards of the world. They brought the world into the church and this caused divisions and all kinds of sins. They ignored the fact that they were called into a wonderful spiritual union and fellowship with the Lord Himself and with each other. Instead, they were identifying with human leaders and creating divisions in the body. Instead of glorifying God and His grace, they were pleasing themselves and boasting about men. They were a defiled church, a divided church, a disgraced church. But. Before we pass judgment on them. We should examine our own churches and our own lives. We have been called to be holy. Called into the fellowship of his son and called to glorify God, not man. Let us reassess our situation and shift all glory honor and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Him and Him alone to renew the grace we need every day to live holy lives. Let's pray. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for calling us into the fellowship of Your Son, making us Your people, forgiving our sins only by Your sovereign grace. Thank You that You alone saved us with no help, no cooperation, No participation by man. You and you alone plucked us as a brand from the burning. Salvation is of the Lord and we give you all the glory and we thank you. Indeed, for earthly teachers and preachers, we praise you for them and how you've used them in our lives, but help us to maintain a proper perspective on on anything earthly or temporal, however godly it may be. in comparison with you. Oh, we praise you and we thank you for every good gift for it has come from you and you alone. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.