The scripture reading is 1 Corinthians chapter 3. If you'd like to follow along, it's not in your printout. So you have to be radical and use your Bible here. So 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And we're going to be looking primarily at the first part of, well, actually, It's hard to break up these first even three chapters of 1 Corinthians, but we're going to be looking primarily in chapter 2 in the message this morning. But I wanted you to have also the contents of chapter 3 in mind as we do that. So let's read this and follow along as I read. 1 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 1, but I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you're not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there's jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, And another, I follow Apollos. Are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believe as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one. And each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation. And someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he's wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God, for it's written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. So 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 the present or the future, all are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's. There is the word of God and we believe it and receive it as such. Well, as I said, we're going to look at 1 Corinthians, but in chapter 2. And as we do so, let's ask the Lord's blessing upon the ministry of his word. Father, we open up your book now. We look at this letter that your spirit inspired and directed the Apostle Paul to write. We confess that it is your word, that it is your truth. And we also confess that it is, that we require all the more the ministry and work of your spirit in us so that we might not just understand the facts, but understand the spirit of them and the real depth of these truths that you would have us know so that we can be less and less and less like the world and more like Christ. And so, Father, we pray that you would affect that work in us now by your word and we pray this all in Christ's name, amen. These first three chapters of 1 Corinthians are underrated. These verses, these chapters are vitally important and they're also They're also difficult to explain in a sermon, to put these things. These things concern the work of the Spirit of God. They are things that are not discerned by the natural man. And even as Christians, we struggle, and we need to struggle. to understand the truths that are here before us. And I think as we proceed through these chapters, you will begin to see more and more what I mean by this. We saw last time at the end of chapter one, verses 30 and 31, and because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. In a way, that's just a capsulized statement of the message of these first three chapters, and in a way, the entire letter, then, of 1 Corinthians. These chapters, as I say, are so important to us in many ways. As we just read in Chapter 3, just imagine building a house and you lay a foundation and you get it perfectly square and it's solid and it's sound and you use good concrete and so on and get the thing all finished and ready for the superstructure. But then you, and you, maybe you hire a contractor to come and build the house. But he uses, he uses for selfish reasons or maybe he's just not a very good contractor and very good builder, he uses inferior material. So inferior as a matter of fact, that the finished project is actually worthless and only good for the fire to be burned up. All that money, everything, all that effort, completely wasted. That very kind of thing is happening in the churches today. And it's widespread. It's not just a localized here and there error. we might compare this error to a deadly poison, because it threatens men's souls. This is eternally serious business that we deal with here in Christ's church. And so there's this poison, which Paul is going to talk about here in chapter 2, that threatens to destroy men's souls because it threatens the gospel itself, the very foundation of Christ's church. It deceives people. And deceived people think that they're on the narrow way and headed for life, but in fact, they're on Broadway traveling for destruction and hell. Well, what is this faulty foundation, at least the faulty superstructure, What is this poison? It's what Paul calls the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world. And it's hard to get hold of this because in our natural selves, the way we came into this world, and in regard to our own sinful flesh that we still battle with, This mentality that Paul calls the wisdom of the world, it's always there, wanting to rear up its ugly head. He mentions it in verse 21 of chapter one, for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. So what's this poison? What's this wisdom of the world? Well, in Corinth, Corinth was infected by it. It was the wisdom of the great thinkers. It was the wisdom of the philosophers. It was the idea that, well, a wise person who is expounding wisdom is somebody with great ability, great communication skills, a great orator. Someone whose message is intricate, that only a few can maybe fully understand. Somebody that's impressive in their personal appearance, and they've got a large following and a large income. You see, this is greatness in the world's eyes, worldly wisdom. is a wisdom, it's from the pit, it's a wisdom that sees greatness by these worldly measure of things. And it's in the church today, and it's very prevalent in local churches. Let's see if we can define it a little bit more precisely. The wisdom of the world is the mindset of the world. It's the way in which the world outside of Christ thinks. The wisdom of the world values wealth and power and intellect and popularity and winners. Everybody loves a winner, right? And so to seek those kind of things, that's the wisdom of the world. That's the why. If you're going to be wise, well, of course you're going to do these kind of things. This is what you're going to go after. The wisdom of the world in other words, is a wisdom, a mindset that is antithetical to the wisdom of God. So much so that the worldling, the unregenerate man, regards God's wisdom as foolishness. That's in kind of capitalized form the message of these first few chapters. of Corinthians, and in a way, of the entire letter, of the whole thing. So, consider, Rome is worldly wisdom. Have you ever wondered why Roman Catholicism is so popular? Now, it still gets a lot of bad press and so forth, but in the end, its people still stick with it, right? No matter what kind of scandals and junk comes along, I'm still a Roman Catholic. I'm sticking with it. Why is it so popular? It is because the Roman Catholic Church is the creation of man. And as the creation of man, its theology is that of worldly wisdom. The Roman Catholic Church is the church of the world. It's the creation of the world. Do this, and you can make yourself right with God. And people look at that, and they evaluate it according to worldly wisdom. And they say, well, just look at it. Just look at the Roman Catholic Church. Look at it. It's got wealth. It has the pope. Look at all of the cardinals in procession. It's got its priesthood. It has its cathedrals. And it has its antiquity. Rome's always pointed that. Look how long we've been around. You Protestants just came on the scene, and so forth. So everyone who's still dead in their sins and outside of Christ embraces the wisdom of the world, because that's their program. That's their software. That's the software of man, unregenerate man in his sin. Even a religious zealot, like some monk or nun or somebody in the Roman Catholic Church, somebody that takes off and goes off to India to spend their lives ministering to the poor and so on, even they, as a product of Rome, embrace the wisdom of the world. Because they maintain, look at me, look at my works, The world looked at Mother Teresa, for example, as this fine saint, a model of Christianity. She was anything but. She is a product of Rome. And Rome, did you look at her? She's earning her way. Surely God's gonna look at what Mother Teresa did and count her righteous because of the works of her of her hands, you see. So this sinner, according to the world, must make himself acceptable to God or deny his sin then altogether. It's the wisdom of the world. This is how your unsaved neighbor or relative or coworker thinks. This is how they operate. Their thinking is the wisdom of the world. It's found in the world. It's the wisdom of the world. It's found in every culture, every nation, every era of human history. Paul also called it earthly wisdom, in contrast to God's wisdom, which is heavenly, you see, or spiritual. 2 Corinthians 1, for our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God and supremely so toward you." What's he saying there? He said, when we came and ministered to you in Christ's name and preached the gospel to you, we operated according to God's wisdom, not according to earthly wisdom. Now that means then that this earthly wisdom is primarily religious. This is something else that you can know about your unsaved pagan neighbor. He's religious. Every human being is religious. They're idolaters. They set up their own gods, but they've got their own system of theology, but it's all it's all in perfect accord and agreement with what Paul says is worldly wisdom. Well, this worldly wisdom, this poison of it, had infected the church at Corinth. That this was so is evident. Paul told them, he said, you guys are acting like mere men. You know, you're acting like You never heard of Christ. You're acting like people who don't know Christ. Here you are. Just like the world, you think that you need to vie and compete for importance. You've got this party spirit happening in your church, and I am of Paul, I am of Cephas, and so forth, one against the other, and greatness is to be a winner, and your group is going to win. And so Paul rebukes them. And he corrects them. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. And also then, in verse 26, this is back in chapter one, 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. If the Lord were going to, well, let's back up, because he's not going to build a church by worldly wisdom. Let's say somebody, like Rome in this case, or pick any other religion, is going to establish and create a religion, say. A person is going to create a religion. It is a given that they are going to create that religion in accordance with worldly wisdom, because that's what they are, and that's what they think. And so Paul is dealing here in these first three chapters particularly with this business of worldly wisdom and how the gospel, the word of the cross, is absolutely antithetical to it. This wisdom of the world is not to characterize the Christian. It is not to be, it's not where we get our marching orders in the church. Now, as I've no doubt told you probably lots of times before, but when I was in seminary, This portion of scripture, and for simplicity, I'll just say the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians. This portion of scripture, which obviously, it'll become more obvious as we're about to read the first few verses of chapter two, but this portion of scripture, which very obviously capsulizes and presents to us God's philosophy, you might say, of Christian ministry, of what a pastor is supposed to do, of what a church is supposed to be doing, what are the guiding principles of of Christ's church supposed to be? What is a philosophy of serving Christ that is biblical, that matches what the Lord Jesus has commanded us to? I say that when I was in seminary, these chapters were never emphasized. I did have one course on 1 Corinthians, but the course was, you see, here's this curse. We see it in pulpits. We see it in seminaries. Here's the curse. All right, you guys, we've got God's word here. We've got the Bible. Now, if we're going to minister to people, we have to make it relevant. Really, that's the thinking. And so somehow you've got to encapsulate what Scripture is saying, but you've got to do it and you've got to explain it in contemporary terms and in a way that people will see, oh, I see that. So that's relevant. That old book is relevant for me. Look, relevancy doesn't need to be proven. Fundamentally, the Bible is about this. You are a sinner. You're guilty before God. You're under his condemnation, under his wrath. You're headed for hell. You need a savior. And if you don't find that savior, if he doesn't find you, if you're not born again, you're going to spend eternity in hell. But here's a savior. Here's good news that we can spend eternity in heaven. It's a given that that's relevant. Anybody that doesn't think that that's relevant, you can try to make it relevant all you want. You're not going to break through that. But these things weren't... If I had to point to a central place in scripture where God's philosophy, God's way of doing things in the church, the goal of the church, the goal of every Christian, and certainly the goal of a pastor or elders and church leaders is set forth. It's these chapters. But these things were not emphasized. The course that I took in 1 Corinthians, it was a required course, so you take it, but they had to make it relevant. And so the title of the course wasn't just Paul's first epistle to the church at Corinth. It was 1 Corinthians. problem solving in the church. You know, you're going to be a pastor, you're going to have problems in your church. So we're going to look at 1 Corinthians and see how you can solve those problems. But the chief problem wasn't ever identified and emphasized. Paul is saying the chief problem, what was the Corinthians' problem? What was their problem? It was that they were arrogant, they were prideful, and they were chasing after, they were doing things according to worldly wisdom. That was their trouble. That trouble needed to be pointed out to them, and then it needed to be contrasted with the wisdom of God, which is the word of the cross, Jesus Christ and him crucified. There it is. You get those things right in a church, and the other problems just kind of melt away then, you see. But here is this, it was never emphasized, you see, and as a result, as a result, what's gonna be happening in the churches? Worldly wisdom. That's what's going to be embraced. When I went to seminary, it was in that era of the church growth craze, which we're still suffering from today, But church growth. That's what it's all about. We're going to take a class in church growth. And what they mean by that primarily is numerical growth. That's what they're talking about. How do you fill the pews and so on. And so one of the courses is on vision casting. Vision casting. So here's, see, wasn't one of Bunyan's characters Mr. Worldly Wise Man? Yeah, okay. Well, Mr. Worldly Wiseman and his kind are in the seminary. We're gonna think up a pertinent course. You know, we've gotta get more students in here. We have to be seen as a happening seminary, a school where people can go and learn to have relevance in their ministry. So here we're gonna have a course, and what's the course gonna be called? It's gonna be called Vision Casting. You know, casting a vision before your people so that everybody can get behind that vision and go for it and your church will grow and you'll be a big success. That stuff is straight out of the pit. It's Mr. Worldly Wise Man in action. Well, here's Mr. Apostle Paul in action. And here's his philosophy of ministry. His philosophy of ministry, God's philosophy of ministry, what we are supposed to be doing as a church, what ministers or pastors are supposed to be doing in the pulpit is stated right here in these five verses. It's all here. Here we go. And I, Paul says, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. Point number one, that's what you don't do. You don't preach the gospel or share the gospel with your neighbor. You don't preach the gospel to your church congregation with lofty speech and or a lofty wisdom. And he means here worldly wisdom. For I decided, this is what you are to do, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom." And what he means by that is, I didn't come preaching to you with a tweaked gospel so that everybody out there listening would say, oh, well, that makes sense. That's plausible. And he said, I didn't do that. Jesus Christ and him crucified is not plausible to the sinner, as we'll see more of in a few moments here. They were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now, that's Paul's philosophy of ministry. It's God's philosophy of ministry. Think about it. It's the same philosophy of ministry. It's the same way of doing God's work, being his servant, preaching his gospel, as who else did? Jesus. You think this through. Did Jesus come with lofty speech and wisdom? Did he come with a message that people are going, oh, that makes sense. Absolutely. That's plausible. Did he come in strength and power and present himself as some conqueror? No. Jesus came in weakness and fear and much trembling. The world's take on all of this, on Paul's method and Jesus' too, it comes from 2 Corinthians. You see Paul quotes some of the critics that are infecting the church there at Corinth. For they say his, that is Paul's, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak. His speech is of no account. We're not impressed with his oratory. And again, in 2 Corinthians 11, even if I am unskilled in speaking, Paul could probably have outdone them all in oratory if he wanted to, but he didn't come that way. Even if I'm unskilled in speaking, as they're saying, I'm not so in knowledge. Indeed, in every way, we've made this plain to you in all things. Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted? because I preach God's gospel to you free of charge." See, anything that's free must be worthless. That's how these people were thinking. Well, you know, the most famous philosophers, they make a lot of money. People give them a lot of money. And here comes Paul along, and he's not taking anything. He's preaching and doing it free of charge. He must not be worth anything at all. That was their their thinking. So Paul's message and his method and his person were foolishness to the worldling and they still are today. Now, every one of us has a decision to make here. I can either be a fool in the eyes of the world or I can be a fool when it comes to the wisdom of God. I can be a fool in God's eyes or I can be a fool in the world's eyes. It's gonna be one or the other. As we read there in chapter three, verse 18, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he's wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise, you see. Similar to what Jesus said. If you're going to follow me, you've got to become like a child, like one of these little children here, you see. So we need to be – if we're truly following Christ and we're rejecting worldly wisdom, we are embracing the wisdom of God, then, we must expect the same treatment at the hands of the world that Paul met with. We're going to be regarded as fools. Now just think about that for a minute and be honest with yourself. Are you really satisfied, shall we say? I don't know if that's the right word or not. Are you really ready to be regarded by the world as a fool? Or do you want to be popular with the world, well thought of? Oh, there's that guy. Boy, yeah, you bet. Boy, that guy's got it together. You just ask him or something. Or, it's like, or, well, yeah, there's that guy. That guy's one of those fools, one of those born-again zealot type people, you know, all that stupid stuff. If we are not regarded as fools by the world, and yet we claim to be Christians, our claim is a counterfeit one. Because you can't follow Christ and not be regarded by the world as he was regarded. If we're going to follow Christ, we are going to be regarded as fools. And if we're not, All that means, and yet we claim to be Christians, all that means is, is that I've got one foot firmly planted on both sides of the line. I got one foot on Broadway, I got one foot on the narrow way. It's one or the other. You're not gonna follow Christ and be popular with your community. It's not gonna happen. If you're popular with your community, if the world thinks that you're just the greatest guy, We've known people like that here in this community. People that are, oh, they're so notable in their church and so on, but at the same time, the community will just exalt them as the greatest person, here's this wonderful guy, we're gonna honor him, and so on. If you're popular with the world, you're not popular with God. It's one or the other, you see. Think about, for example, back in the 1700s, George Whitefield. How was George Whitefield regarded? He'd done very well at Oxford. He was ordained as a priest in the Church of England, he and his friends John and Charles Wesley. But when he was born again, when he came to know Christ truly and he began to preach, How did his own church, the Church of England, regard him? They despised him. They called him a fool. They wouldn't even let him preach in their church buildings. So what did he do? Well, he went out into the fields, and he began to preach. And they mocked him all the time, because he was, this isn't done. You don't go preach God's word out in a field. That's desecration. If the gospel is going to be preached, if God's word is going to be preached, you've got to do it in a pulpit, in a building. And the people, then they can just come here. Well, the people weren't coming because the clergy really didn't care about them at all. He begins to preach. And he begins to preach a message that they hadn't heard. This was news to them. It was the gospel. They'd probably all been baptized when they were born into the Church of England, but they'd never heard the gospel. And so initially, he's up in this poverty-stricken coal mining area. And you remember all these crowds were coming. People started flocking. And he would be preaching the gospel to them. And the word of the cross and Witnesses said that pretty soon, because people had all these blackened faces because they were working in the coal mines all the time, the coal dust, that you can see the effect on it because all of a sudden there'd be these white streaks streaking down their cheeks as they're hearing about Christ then for the first time. What's happening? God is blessing the ministry of the Word of the Cross, being preached in sincerity and in humility. And his power was accompanying this. And the people then were being saved. All the while, the eminent ones in the Church of England and so forth were mocking Whitefield because of all this born-again nonsense. What is this stuff, you see? Well, that was Whitefield's experience. And Paul is telling us that If we begin to use and rely upon methods or a message that makes sense, that is plausible to the sinner, to the natural man, it's acceptable to the thinking of the world, God's spirit is going to withdraw from us and there will be no power of God for salvation. Look at Romans 1. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the what? Power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Paul told the Thessalonians, he said, I know that you didn't just hear my gospel in vain. I know that it was accompanied by power, by God's power, because you repented and you received the gospel. But if you mess with it because you want to make the message plausible and relevant to the world, and you wrap it up all in worldly wisdom, either in the message itself, the content, or in the manner in which you deliver it, the power is gone. God will not bless them. And so Paul tells him, he says, if I had come to you in the way that the world thinks that I should come to you, in greatness and in power and so forth, and I would come to you as this great orator that you're just so impressed with my vocabulary and so forth, he said, none of you would have been saved. Because why? Your faith would have rested on me, on a man, and not upon Christ, you see. This means you can even be sharing or preaching the gospel accurately. But if you do it in a fleshly manner, in a manner that the world accepts. See, this thing is so subtle, it's kind of hard to describe. You're preaching the gospel, but you're doing it in a way that the people, the sinners, the world is going to say, they're going to walk away and they're not going to be saying, Christ is a great savior and I'm a great sinner. They're not going to do that. What they're going to be saying is, Paul is an impressive preacher. Boy, I'm just going to keep coming here because he is such an impressive preacher, you see. So why do people go to church on Sunday morning? Why do they tune in to a well-known celebrity type preacher on television? Well, largely because what's happening is they're impressed with the man. They're impressed with the preacher. How come? because either he's tweaked the content of the gospel, and you just have to tweak it a little bit so that it makes it reasonable to the natural man, or because basically he is a performer then, you see, and they'll end up rejecting Christ instead. What does this all tell us? It tells us this, that in this day and age, as it has been down through church history, many local churches are not founded upon Jesus Christ and him crucified, they're founded upon the wisdom of the world. Or, now get this, and we'll see this more in chapter 3, a church can be founded upon Christ. Paul said he laid that foundation, which was Jesus Christ. No other foundation can be laid, if there's going to be, for Christ's church, than Jesus Christ. But then he said, but you better take care how you're building upon it. Now this tells us that a church could be founded upon Christ, but subsequently built up with just wood, hay, and stone. that's gonna go up in smoke when Christ comes again to evaluate it, then you see. What does this mean? I have no doubt at all that this is exactly applicable to so much of what we see in the church in the world. I have no doubt that on that day when Christ comes, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say most, I think that most of the megachurch's accomplishments are going up in smoke. I think that these big temples that we see, and these huge buildings and properties that we see in churches, and every one of them saying, we're doing the Lord's work, we're doing the Lord's work. I think it's all wood, hay, and stubble. And why do I say that? Because it's built, maybe initially somebody laid the foundation of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, but then somebody else came along and decided by using worldly wisdom, now they won't say that, right? But that's what's going on. By using the methods that are deemed to be wisdom by the world, we can build something really big and impressive. And so they do it. They do it. We have a right to be very suspicious when we see crowds and crowds of people claiming to be Christians and being part of these great big edifices. You won't find that model anywhere in the scripture. Notice that there's two ways that the gospel can be perverted into the wisdom of the world. First of all, it can be perverted in the person of the one preaching, embracing, as Paul said, superiority of speech, emphasizing the person of the preacher. And an individual Christian, you can fall into that trap if you're trying to present Christ to your neighbor. Well, now he's going to think I'm pretty, how can I go about this and cinch the deal and this kind of a thing. But it's so common with pastors to emphasize, focus upon the person of the preacher. I'll give you some examples. In just about, I think, every pastor's conference I've ever attended, And I don't attend them anymore, for the most part, they're just a waste of time, waste of time and money. But I don't think I've ever been to one where the featured speaker is somebody you never heard of before. Or if they're, or they would be somebody who is, this was really common with the first home missions organization Verla and I were with in every summer. You know, we'd come over to Cannon Beach for the annual conference and so on. And they'd always have a featured speaker. And they would always introduce them as such and such a pastor. He's pastor of a large church in a large city. All these pastors that were there, ourselves included, were in these little tiny communities and small churches. What are they thinking? Well, what are they communicating? Well, this is the wisdom of the world. Look at you guys. You want to be successes in your ministry? Well, look at this guy. He's the pastor of a large church, you see. And so I'd always go away from those conferences discouraged. But at any rate, that's worldly wisdom. And it's being pushed then in the church. Here's another example from one of those conferences. Worldly wisdom in this way exalting the person of the preacher, which Paul says, I'm not going to do it. I didn't do that. I didn't come to you in superiority of speech. I didn't do that. If I had done that, God's power would not have accompanied the gospel, all right? So you can just, in other words, you can neutralize the gospel by emphasizing the person of the preacher. So here's this other example. We go to one of these conferences, and naturally, they had a speaker there who was a pastor of a large church in San Diego or somewhere. Anyway, he's there and he's all dynamic and everything and he tells us, he's going to tell us how to be successful in your church and how to get people to come to church and how to reach souls for Christ and so on. It's all touted as to the glory of God, but really it's to the glory of man. So he's focusing on himself and he said, when I went to my first church, I bought a house and I took out a mortgage through a local bank. And I decided, how am I going to impact this community? They've got to get to know me and they've got to get to know my church and so on. I know what I will do. Every month when I go make my payment on my mortgage, I'm going to do it in person. And I'm going to walk into the local bank there. And when I walk through the door, I'm going to pretend. Now, you can't make this stuff up, because it's so stupid. But he says, I'm going to pretend to sound my trumpet. When I say, look at me, and I'm going to say, payment number one. And every month, I'm going to do that. with value to that guy and his church, then you need to have your head examined. Because if you worked at the bank, after a while, you're just like, just shut up. But this is the method, see. What's the focus there? It's on the man. If I can be somebody that everybody, that the sinner thinks I'm so dynamic, then I can win them to Christ. Holy Spirit is gone, guaranteed. There's no power in that kind of a message. And that guy actually had built a very large church, but it's all wood, hay, and stubble. That's Paul's message here, you see. Another speaker's pointed to a pastor within his denomination and If you guys want to know how to do worship, I hate that term, but if you guys want to know how to do worship, go visit his church. They do worship right, you see. That's that garbage that characterizes so many of these denominations and these churches. It's the wisdom of the world. It's regarded as greatness, you see, wealth and power. Is it weakness and fear and much trembling? Hardly, hardly. It's the boastfulness then of men, entirely contrary. Now, the other way that you can pervert the gospel is to pervert the words of the gospel. You can exalt the man or you can say, well, all right, what was that example we had on Easter? Easter's coming up here, we want people to come to church. We don't want these people, these sinners, the natural people in our community, we don't want them to feel like outsiders. We won't use the word resurrection. We won't talk about the blood of Christ. That is toying with the gospel and turning it into no gospel then. at all. We saw last time, it is by his doing that we are in Christ Jesus. His doing, 100%. But along comes some preacher or somebody and they decide that, well, you know, this business of total depravity, being dead in sin, not being able to do anything toward our salvation, that's just going to be a tough pill for people to swallow. So we're going to make it a little easier for them to swallow, and we're going to word things so that they see that they make some, might be small, but that they make some contribution themselves, you see. Well, there again, that is the world's wisdom. Isn't it true? The world's wisdom is either I'm just fine with God or I am able to do something to make myself right with God. That's the world's wisdom, you see, and it infects the church. Paul was with the Corinthians in weakness and fear and much trembling and not in persuasive words of worldly wisdom. In fact, he came and preached to them in Corinth. And to those who were being saved, we're told, they realized that his message was the power of God, even though his personal appearance wasn't impressive. By the way, Jesus' personal appearance wasn't impressive. You can read in Isaiah 53. So just garbage can all of these pictures of Jesus that you see around, you know, just be done with that nonsense. But even though, so here's this short Jew, and he comes and preaches to these, they're in Corinth, to these Gentiles. And he's not really that impressive in his appearance or in his oratory. But what are the people going to think? What are they going to think? Well, Paul, you better make yourself more impressive somehow. Maybe you better have your diplomas and PhDs up here to show them or something because, man, they are not going to listen. No, they're not going to listen unless. unless the power of God is unleashed upon them and they are saved. By his doing, we are in Christ Jesus. The fact that you regard the gospel as the wisdom of God, if you regard the righteousness of God in Christ as good, as wisdom, if you regard the fact that you are holy before God in Christ as wisdom. If you regard the fact that a redemption price in blood had to be paid for your salvation, if you regard those things as wisdom, be humble. It isn't because one day you decided Oh, I see. I see. The only reason there was a day when maybe you said, I see, is because Christ unleashed his power in you, and you were born again. So now listen. As a church, this should be very encouraging to all of us. To the extent that we're boastful and proud, well, we need to be humbled there. This needs to hit us hard. And we need to be humbled. However, just look around. And Paul told the Corinthians to look around. You don't see very many noble and wise and this kind of a thing. What do you see when you look around here? You don't see many people. In case you haven't realized that, we're a pretty small church. It's a pretty small group. And on the surface of things, not then too impressive. According to the world's wisdom, which infects the churches today, we as a church are a miserable failure. Earlier this morning, I went upstairs to look for any messages on the phone in the office, and you walk in, nope, it's not blinking again. Failure, nobody's calling here, right? There weren't even any advertisements on there this morning. So we don't even get those. But anyway, I was walking upstairs, and I looked out across the pews. And of course, they're all empty because we're meeting down here. But they're pretty empty in the first place anyway. But I was looking at the pews, and I was thinking, you know what? If one of these typical worldly wise type Christians were to come along and see that whole sanctuary empty, They would think, they might even say it, you're a miserable failure. You know what? There used to be a lot of people up there. Now there aren't. You're a miserable failure. If you will really get a hold of what Paul is saying here, what God is saying to us in these first three chapters, you won't be discouraged. You'll be encouraged. And you'll realize that, well, Think of it this way. Somebody comes along. They look at the empty pews. They look at our small numbers and so forth. And we're small, by the way, even to those of you that are listening online. But it's encouraging that we do have at least twice as many people as we physically see here. But nevertheless, we're small. So you just imagine somebody comes along. They come in and look around, and they're going to judge, or they're going to evaluate. And they're going to come up maybe after the service. You know, you've got to get something going here. You've got to get more people. You've got to do something. You've got to start a youth ministry. You have to have classes for all ages of children. You have to advertise more. Your building, the seating, the lighting, the whole mood needs to be designed to make people comfortable and put them into a receptive, emotional mood. I reject all of that and it's because God's word rejects all of that. When George Whitefield was preaching in the fields, what did he have? Did he have church building? Did he have chairs? Did he have a roof over the people's heads. I imagine sometimes it was raining. Did he have programs for all ages? Did he have a massive sound system? They didn't even have those then. Did he have a massive sound system? Light show? What did he have? What did George Whitefield have? He had an open field, the people came, he preached the word the cross, he preached Jesus Christ and him crucified, he preached a foolish message in the eyes of the world, and the power of God was unleashed and people came to Christ. We don't need anything except what we need to do is be humble, and present the gospel to people in absolute truthfulness. What did Jesus have when he preached the Sermon on the Mount? Would you say the Sermon on the Mount was a pretty good sermon? Would you say that the preacher was a pretty good preacher, right? But what did he have? Open field. That's all he had. He went up on this rise and he began to preach. And by the way, in his case, There wasn't really some massive revival. A lot of people hated him and just hit the road. Where did Peter preach on the day of Pentecost? And did they have all these trappings that, well, we just need to do this. Only one thing is needful, Christ crucified and the power of the wisdom then of God. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 3, Gordon Fee makes this great application. Listen to what he said. It's one of the most significant passages in the New Testament that warn and encourage those responsible for building the Church of Christ. In the final analysis, of course, this includes all believers, but it has particular relevance, following so closely as it does verses 5 to 9 to those with teaching and leadership responsibilities in the church. Paul's point is unquestionably warning. It is unfortunately possible for people to attempt to build the church out of every imaginable human system predicated on merely worldly wisdom, be it philosophy, pop psychology, managerial techniques, relational good feelings, or what have you. But in the final judgment, all such building and perhaps countless other forms where systems have become more important than the gospel is shown for what it is, something merely human with no character of Christ or his gospel in it. That is a warning that needs to be desperately heeded by the church of day. And I don't think that it's being listened to. Listen carefully, then, as I read the institute. And I just want to read it and have you let those sink in. And we're going to plan to come back to this and spend quite a bit more time in future weeks. Because as I said, this is so vital for us to get hold of. Yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it's not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this. If they had, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it's written, what no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit." Now, if you were going to underline something, that would be something to underline. Things of God in Christ have to be revealed to us through his spirit. For the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. And I boldfaced verse 14 on purpose. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They are folly to him. He's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Let me just close with a few comments here on verse 14. The natural person, who's that? That's the unsaved person. That's you, the moment that you were born into this world. in your human nature, in your fallen, sinful human nature outside of Christ. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They're folly to him. He's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. Now, just kind of tick these points off with your fingers as we go through. What is Paul saying is true of the sinner, the unsaved person, the natural person, all right? What's true? He doesn't accept the things of the Spirit of God. He doesn't say he has difficulty. It says he does not accept them. Why? Two, they are folly to him. The Word of God and the Gospel, it's all folly. It's foolishness to him. Three, he's not able to understand them. He has no ability to understand them. And four, because they're spiritually discerned. And he doesn't have, then, the spirit. That's man in his sin. That's the description of man that we read in the opening scripture of Ephesians chapter 2. So Paul says, look it. You want to know your audience if you're preaching the gospel to the natural man, to the sinner? Here's what's true about your audience. They will not, natural men and women will not accept the things of the spirit, such as the word of the cross. Why? They can't. Why can't they? Why do they regard, well, they regard the gospel as foolishness. They have no ability to understand. The sinner is dead to God. He's deaf to God. He's blind to God. Those are absolute truths. You can't hear or see. If you're preaching the gospel to a crowd of natural men and women, people dead in their sins, you're preaching to a cemetery. They're dead. You may as well go out to a literal cemetery and preach the gospel. They can't hear, they can't see, they can't understand, they're dead. All right. Now, if that's true, and it certainly is if we believe the word of God, then why is it, why is it that churches today and individual Christians are acting like they can raise the dead? Because they are. They're acting, what are they doing? They're coming into the pulpit, or maybe this is how they act toward their neighbor or whatever, with superiority of speech. If I can just impress these dead people enough, they will rise from the grave. Now, that's just one of the gimmicks. But go to church web pages, conferences and concerts and methods that are going on, which tell us that pastors and church leaders, they think that they can make it happen, that they can give sight to a blind man, ears to a deaf man. They think that, you know what? We can make these people more receptive to the gospel if we adjust the lighting. Now that sounds stupid back then. If we can just create an atmosphere through singing choruses that repeat ad nauseum on and on and work it out. If we can just set this right atmosphere, you see, then suddenly these dead people will have, you know, at least maybe they'll be able to tweak a little finger or something here, you know, show some sign of life so that then they can have an ability to understand the word of the cross and believe it, right? That's what's happened. That's what's going on. If you're a Christian, it's because and entirely due to the power of God working through the gospel to raise you from the dead. On the day when Christ comes, we are going to see huge amounts of faulty building structures built on the foundation that is just going to go up in smoke because it didn't It was not created by God. It was created by man. These are the lessons that are here in these first three chapters of Corinthians, and it is vital that we get hold of them. If you're a Christian, and you're in a little church like this one, right, then you can be encouraged by these things. I've been here as your pastor for 30 years, and I can tell you Now, there's been times of discouragement, all right, when the enemy attacks and so on. I'm not discouraged. There's no reason to be. Knowing what I know now, if I saw a big group of people and, boy, we're going to have to build on and we've got several hundred people and whatever, well, I should start being discouraged that something is wrong, something is haywire here, unless it's been obviously produced then, you see, by the Lord. But let's not be discouraged. Jesus told the church at Smyrna, right? You say that you are weak and in poverty and so forth, but you're rich. You're rich. And it's because of Christ. Father, thank you for these lessons. We pray that you would, by your Spirit, cause them to sink deeply within us and that We would always be encouraged because our eyes are upon you. We know that you said you're going to build your church, the gates of hell won't prevail against it, and that your church is a remnant. And we should never be discouraged when we see only a remnant. We thank you for all of these truths in Christ's name. Amen.