Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 17, 2016 | Route 66 - 1 Corinthians

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July 17, 2016 | Route 66 - 1 Corinthians · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of enthusiasm out there today.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was up in New York City with our students uh this last week.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was a real mission trip in that they went up to learn how to talk to people about Jesus.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We lived at Jews for Jesus headquarters for a week, got a little bit of training, went out on the streets.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been more proud of our student ministry staff or our students.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: 30 of us would get out on the sidewalk, we would pray, we would shake with utter terror, and then we'd go to a park or maybe on the sidewalk or went to an Orthodox Jewish part of New York called Williamsburg or something else, and we would approach people and say, Who do you think Jesus was?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or something like that.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine how scared the kids are to do that, and all of us, to be honest.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But uh it was so great to watch these kids grow and come back stimulated, excited, encouraged, and um one fellow trusted Christ named John to pray for him.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just it was an outstanding time.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have uh uh uh some sad news, and that is that uh one of our people, uh young man named Ben Weesey, I've known him since he was uh born, uh took his own life this weekend in a tragedy.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: He uh he's the same boy that we prayed about recently because he'd been diagnosed with cancer, he had some glands removed, and then they thought there might be some more cancer in his brain.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was living with daily pain, there were a lot of issues with it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh anyway, uh it we've we were comforting ourselves, and uh, Dave and Jan Weesey are comforting themselves with the last words of Romans chapter 8 that nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Neither death nor life, angels, demons, nothing.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: No arrangements made yet for the service.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to help with food, uh contact Dave Suzanne Osbourne with whom the Weese are in a small group.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we love Ben and we know that he is now at peace in heaven.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we pray for the Weesee family, and uh we thank you for the years that uh approximately 30 years that we did get with Ben, and we ask that you would comfort them and give them peace.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the assurance in your word that uh when we trust your son as our Savior, you uh hold us in your hand, and he puts his hand over the top of us, and we are eternally secure.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: For that assurance, we thank you.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh the book of 1 Corinthians is our next stop along uh Route 66.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: The book of 1 Corinthians, open your Bible to the book just past Romans.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That was our last stop.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was three weeks ago.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: We did a couple of God and country messages, Tim and I did, the last two weeks.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: This week we moved to a book which is very different from Romans.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Romans, you remember, was uh the king of theology.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just the most amazing book.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: It takes you through the Christian life.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, 1 Corinthians is different, but it does have some uh beloved verses, some famous verses, some beloved verses.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I want to show you just a couple of those.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I usually do this as we start these messages.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite verses in the New Testament, a verse that I've been using a lot more in the last few years, uh 1 Corinthians 2.9.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: No eye has seen.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start over.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a great verse?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's that famous verse, so comforting, so helpful, uh, in 1 Corinthians 10, 13 about temptation.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've put the, I've put a different translation up here to sort of uh, because a number of you have memorized the King James, this is the New Living Translation, and I think you'll uh it'll help you think about this verse in a new way if you'll say it with me.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The temptations in your life are no different than what others experience.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And God is faithful, he will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that beautiful?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's another uh famous verse in uh in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, say it with me, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 10, 31.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the most famous chapter uh perhaps in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but don't have love, I'm only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: That beautiful chapter ends with these words.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now, let's uh say this together, and now these three remain faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Corinth was uh perhaps the third uh largest city in the Roman Empire of that day.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It had sort of an Olympic Games, Isthmian Games, all this prosperity came through through Corinth.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's only an hour or so away by drive from Athens.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even today, well, two hours, I guess, the last time I I went, but it has beautiful ruins.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: That mountain's called Acro Corinth in Paul's day as a symbol of the sexual vice of the city.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: It had a huge temple to Venus on top and and uh either a thousand or three thousand, depending on the numbers you believe, uh sacred prostitutes who who took care of your sexual needs when you were up there.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's just uh just uh, as I put on your study sheet, in those days, Corinth was such a combination of San Francisco and LA and New York and Atlantic City that that that that that when people wanted to refer to someone who was sort of a sexual addict, they would just say he's a Corinthian.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's that that that's that's one of the reputations this town had.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the church was part of this town.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and Paul writes this book, very different, very different from Romans.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: He writes this book and basically says, hey, I'm not pointing fingers, but you have you have issues.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You have issues with authority, you have issues with sex, you have issues with money and suing other people, and you have issues inside your marriages and outside your marriages, and you have issues with worship.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're always fighting over worship.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes read that last half of chapter 11 about how the rich people were bringing their food to the Lord's table and you know, getting drunk, you know.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and crazy.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So so his my point is is, Paul says, is baby, it's time to grow up.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Quit acting like babies, it's time you grow up.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think, as I put on your uh sheet, maybe the theme verses of the book could be chapter 3, 1 through 3, when he says, and I, brothers, sisters, couldn't speak to you as to spiritual folks, but as to carnal or fleshly, as to babes in Christ.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I fed you with milk and not with solid food, because until now you're not able to receive it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And even now you're still not able.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're still carnal, because whereas there's envy and strife and divisions, aren't you carnal and behaving like mere basically non-Christians?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a reminder, folks, that in the Christian life, that our progress in the Christian life is a little like our progress in the natural life.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: In the natural life, you're born and you're a baby, and you need to grow up and so forth.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then you become a Christian.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You trust Christ as your savior.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hope if you haven't done that yet, welcome.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to have you here.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometime in your life you have to consider the claims of Christ, and you'll, when you see those clearly in the Word of God, I believe that you'll fling yourself upon him with a reckless abandon and you'll trust him as your savior.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, you have a new nature, you become a new person, and but you're a spiritual infant.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you there are things you don't know, they're there are things you need to learn.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so then you go through a process of spiritual growth until, Lord willing, you grow up into spiritual maturity.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that that for some people, uh that progress gets hampered or gets stopped, or they're really slow.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we read about this elsewhere.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that famous passage in Hebrews, where the writer of Hebrews, perhaps Paul, uh, says, You've been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're like babies who need milk and can't eat solid food.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: For someone who lives on milk, still an infant, doesn't know how to do what's right.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Solid foods for those who are mature.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So this book, 1 Corinthians, I think, is a challenge from Paul to you and me in sort of a mild rebuke saying, grow up.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's long since time for you to grow up.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think that the book sort of falls into three parts, you know, uh, all of which sort of, you know, end up at the same place that you need to grow up.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the first four chapters, I think, are really clear.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think what he says here is, yeah, you're smart.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: You've got some wisdom.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, you're a Christian.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: But you're so proud of your smarts that you argue all the time.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: The book starts that way.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, his very beginning of the letter, he says, Listen, I'm appealing to you.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Would you live in harmony with each other?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let there be no divisions in the church, for some members are telling me about your quarrels, dear brothers and sisters.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they were fighting over all kinds of things.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Churches do that once in a while, don't they?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have been ever been part of a church that's and you found yourself in the middle of a church fight or a church split?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Only four of you?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not believing that for a moment.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You've been at the middle of these things or middle of a small group science school class.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: We church people are really good at this.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and and so they were quarreling, because you know, when you're in a when you're in church, somehow you, after a while, you feel like you're righteous and you know what writes, what's right, and what's wrong about everything, you know.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whether or not you ought to pad the pews or ought to have individual seats, what worship ought to be like, whether you ought to use traditional or contemporary, whether you ought to use guitar in the old days, whether or not guitarists or writers should stay with you.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows what's right and what's wrong, right?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're so smart, because you're intelligent, because you have the mind of Christ.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so you end up arguing, and you have all, you know, you have all kinds of fights.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the joke about the, you know, the rural church, I think, was in the backwoods of Arkansas or something, where they ended up in the black one here, so they had the annual meeting, and a deacon gets up, he says, Wow, we got a little extra money.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think we ought to buy a chandelier.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, this is in the backwoods of Kentucky or something.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody knows what a chandelier is.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And some guy got up and back, he said, chandelier.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I got three reasons why we shouldn't buy a chandelier.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: One, number one, nobody can spell it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, nobody can play it.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, what the church really needs is more light.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is it's I I like that too.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was a there's another, thanks for the laughter, I'll tell you another one.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor's conference, you know, pastor's conference, you do this comparison game.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right, Tim?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You get there and everybody wants to know how large the church is.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one guy says, 500.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: 500 members.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, yeah, well, there's members and then there's active people.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: How many active people?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: The guy says, 500.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: They said, just a second, you have 500 members, 500 active.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he says 250 are active against me, and 250 are active for me.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: What's a little like Casey Stingle.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm on a roll here.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: When he was manager of the New York Yankees, he was asked, What's the, how come you're so successful?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's the key to good managing?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said, he said, the the the secret to good managing is keeping the the five uh players who absolutely hate you away from the four players who are undecided.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a little bit like church life at times, that that that there can be real conflicts, and the whole thing has to do, you know, with smarts.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my sister, um, some years ago, when I don't know if you know Abe Maynor, he's he's wasn't always the wonderful grown-up kid that he is today.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: When he was three years old, he he had some problems, I guess.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, his mother Ruth was was babysitting uh him and his older sister Kinna and she all babysat Alec Boyd as well from our church, another little three-year-old.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And all morning Abe and Alec were fighting.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Ruth lost it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, she said, just stop.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: She rebuked them, she told them to come to the table, she snapped the food down, and she said, Abe, you pray.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: She wrote down his prayer and immediately sent it to me.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: His prayer went like this: Dear Lord, thank you for Alec hit me.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for that's not very nice.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for I hit Alec, and that's not very nice, too.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for Alec and Kinna in Jesus' name, amen.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's really cute when you're three years old.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's point is that's fine for three years old, that's just not fine.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of divisions, this kind of rivalry is not fine.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: For you guys, you're a church, you should be growing up, you should be growing in Christ.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, he says, you know, yeah, you're smart, but you're not as smart as you think.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then he launches into something you won't find anywhere else as clear as here in the New Testament.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just beautiful.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, let me explain why I say you're not as smart as you think.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Consider your calling.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: There are not many wise according to the flesh that God chose.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Look around the church.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not very many phi beta kappas, not very many mighty, not very many noble.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, let me stop for just a second, though.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me uh there are some.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you finished uh uh summa cum lati?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody summa cum late here?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever that didn't work out very well.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe okay.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody finish in the top 50 percent?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So any uh anybody here won a beauty contest?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to admit it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody here sung before a thousand people?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ever?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, way to go.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it, Jessica.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone here um uh voted most likely to succeed out of your high school?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody been president of your class, high school or college?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to admit it.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I would say congratulations, except except I just say God can use you, but he's gonna have to work a little harder to do it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because you see, God's point is I've chosen mainly what's foolish in the world to shame the wise.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when you look around the auditorium, you know you don't see very many five beta kappas, you don't see very many, you don't see all the Hollywood starlets, you don't see, you know, the people who've who you know who finished first in the hundred-yard dash in the nation.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've chosen what's foolish in the world to shame the wise.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I chose what's weak in the world to shame the strong.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're smart.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're so proud of your smart, you argue all the time.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're not as smart as you think you are.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul says, you're a you're a bunch of babies.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to grow up.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Time to lower yourself.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Really, Paul?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, lower yourself?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he says, you know everything important in life the church, the gospel, the cross is down low.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: God puts the nuggets on the bottom shelf.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: The way up is down in the kingdom of God.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lower yourself like we did when we were with you.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, Paul?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: How did you lower yourself when you were with us?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, he says, I preach the cross, and the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: But those who are being saved, it's the power of God.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: You'd see that in New York City when we were witnessing the people.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: You'd you'd give people the old, old story, and you'd realize all of a sudden, yeah, the cross is a symbol of suffering and shame, like the song says, because people are uncomfortable with that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: They have man-made religions.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of Jesus here, and there's a little bit of reincarnation, Hinduism here, and maybe a little bit of Muhammad over here, and so forth, and they're really proud of it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was talking to one fellow a few days ago, really great guy.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had a great time with this African-American guy, and he seemed like he was right on and so forth, but then it just started getting weird.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, you know, as I was saying, but you know, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you should be saved.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, but he says the far more important thing is you got to believe in yourself.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I think William uh Antonin Scalia, the justice who recently died, said it well, when he said, God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools, and he's not been disappointed.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because the cross and the gospel are not way up there, you know, really admirable type thing.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: When George Bush said at that debate in George W.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: in 1999, they asked him who's your favorite philosopher, and he said Jesus, there was like this audible gasp.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Philosopher means lover of wisdom, and Paul would say, no one wiser than Jesus.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't say that, not in a world where you can open any philosophy book, and Buddha may be in there as a great philosopher, but Jesus is never in the philosophy books.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And even when you when you look at our movies, you know, the fact of the matter is when you contrast the truth with what Disney puts out, the real Pocahontas was the first Christian convert in Virginia.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: But do you think there's any way that the Disney movie Pocahontas is going to portray Pocahontas as a Christian?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, instead, she's a pagan priestess who gets advice from trees and weaves white magic.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you won't find the world admitting that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Reminder one of my favorite lines from the Princess Pride, forgive me for this.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is for the kids here.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: For the kids.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant guy and a bad guy and so forth, and he's about to, you know, go one-on-one with the uh, you know, the man in black or whatever, and he's trying to prove he's really smart, and he says, You know Socrates?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know Plato?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know Aristotle?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Morons, all of them.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't know if he got that from this passage, if they got that from this passage, where basically God says, the wisdom of the earth is foolishness.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: The word in Greek is moron.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul says, listen, the way up is down in the Christian life.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I came to you, I didn't come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we told the kids this last week, ages 14 through 18.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't know everything.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't have answers.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to hear stuff, you have no idea what to say, but you don't need excellence of speech or wisdom.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: All you know, need to know is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Card uh sings uh that great song some years ago with one of my favorite lines about this.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's based on 1 Corinthians, and he says, When we in our foolishness thought we were wise, he played the fool.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did, and he opened our eyes.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: When we in our weakness believed we were strong, he became helpless to show we were wrong.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so we follow God's own fool, for only the foolish can tell.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Believe the unbelievable and come be a fool as well.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, if you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you're following God's fool.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's no reason for you after you become a Christian to suddenly think that you're so smart.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know better than everyone else.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, Imitate me.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was with you, and feet weakness and fear and trembling, and my speech and preaching weren't with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith shouldn't be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're fools.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: We've been fools, he says, for Christ's sake.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you, oh, you are so wise in Christ.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are weak.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: But oh, you're strong.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are honorable, but we're despised.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, he says, you need to lower yourself if you want to boast.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Boast only about the Lord.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because with God, the way up is down.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Get it straight.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you, it's about Christ and about the gospel.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the first charge in this book is that the way to grow up is to quit acting so smart and to realize that God's way is the way that's low.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters 5 through 11, he moves on to admit, yeah, you're free.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: These people are saying, I'm so free.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm free to do, I have freedom in Christ.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can do anything I want to.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so free.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God I'm I've been set free.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, yeah, you are free.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've been set free.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're so proud of your freedom that you're playing out of bounds.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing things you shouldn't do.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're not as free as you think you are.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, aren't you a slave of Christ still, a servant of each other?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And your freedom is making you play out of bounds so that, wow, you've got issues.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, big issues.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've got big immorality issues.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: You got a guy living with his father, with his stepmother.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: You got people suing each other because they can't resolve things in court.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: You got married couples who are denying each other, saying, you know, my body's my own.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: You got people who are engaging in their Christian freedom in front of weaker brethren, weaker kids who are going to pick up habits and so forth.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he deals with each of these playing out of bounds issues, like immorality directly.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Chapters five and six.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Flee from that, from sexual immorality.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're not your own.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're bought with a price.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Glorify God in your body.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he looks over and he sees, you know, Christians suing each other in court.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Listen, isn't there a wise person among you?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be judging angels one day.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can't judge these things quietly in the church.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to display them in the world.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then he looks over at marriages.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: He got couples that act as though they're still single, and so they say, Well, I can do whatever I want in marriage.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can, you know, deny my wife, deny my husband, I can live the way I.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Hold it, hold it.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: You need to limit your, you need to realize you're not as free as you think you are.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, the wife to her husband.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wife's body doesn't belong to her alone, but to her husband, in the same way his body doesn't belong to him alone, but also to his wife.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then he moves on to the kind of excessive use of freedom that he the issues totally changed.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Back then it was meat sacrifice to idols.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: The only place where I know that that would apply today was I watched over in India, a goat being slaughtered at a Hindu temple.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, wow, you know, what if Christian came along and bought that meat and said, Oh, I'm going to eat that?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I, you know, and so that was the issue.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: You had the church divided, some saying, Wait, we're free in Christ.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that meat was sacrificed to idols, that food, we can eat it.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And others are saying, no, you can't.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And but this is a doorway into one of the biggest issues that we find in the Christian church, right?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: This issue of gray areas.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do about areas that the Bible hasn't clearly spoken about?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: When I grew up, I grew up in a home where TV was wrong.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: We never had a television in our home and we never went to movies.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, no dancing, no drinking, none of that stuff.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we've moved, you know, uh, and to a day where Christians in America feel much more free, especially young ones, to do all sorts of things.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that includes things that that, you know, would have horrified our grandparents, you know, smoking cigars or drinking or going to movies or whatever.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So chapters 8 through 12, uh, 8 through 11 are 1 Corinthians, one of the two places in the Bible where this topic is wonderfully and thoroughly addressed.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's right, what's wrong, what are gray areas.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the real issue in this book is Paul says, yeah, you're free to do things, but you're so proud of your freedom that you're playing out of bounds.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's time that you limit yourself.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's time that you put fences around yourself and say, you know, there's some things I'm just not free to do, immorality for sure, or suing other people in court or getting divorced or whatever, but I mean, uh then there, then there are things that maybe you have Christian freedom on that you need to limit yourself because there are young people around who are watching you, who can't do those things without guilt.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to be careful that your freedom doesn't cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, look at the way we lived when we were with you.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: We we had all kinds of freedoms and rights, but we didn't make use of them, that we endured anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 9.12.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I know you can't see the verse on the screen.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, listen, I, though I'm free with respect to all, 1 Corinthians 9.19, I've made myself a slave to all so that I might win more of them.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And why don't you live that way?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you limit your freedoms?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because instead of thinking of yourself and how you can indulge yourself, why don't you start thinking of each other?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you start, you know, he says, to the weak, I became weak in order to gain the weak.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I've become all things to all people, so that by all means I might save some.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 9, 22.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: None of you should seek your own good, but you should be seeking the good of others.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way I lived when I was with you, he says in 1 Corinthians 10, 33.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't seek my own benefit.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I seek the benefit of many so that they can be saved.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what he's saying, I think, in chapters 5 through 11 applies to all of us.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, you're free, but don't be so proud of your freedom you play out of bounds.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's time that you grew up, time to limit yourself.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Get it straight.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you, it's about God, and it's about getting people saved.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, in the third section of the book, 12 through 16, he says, you're gifted.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the main places in the Bible where you read about spiritual gifts.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem with spiritual gifts is that people had started thinking that gifts were all about me, that it was all about limelight, that, hey, I have a teaching gift, I'm on stage, I have a singing gift, I'm on stage, I have a healing gift, therefore I'm on stage, I have a tongues gift, therefore everybody can hear me.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so they started comparing gifts, and my gifts are better than yours and so forth.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul goes, Are you kidding me?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're not as gifted as you think you are, at least not in the way you are.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: You don't understand.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Gifts are not about you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Gifts are about other people.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the greater gifts are not the gifts that are showy, certainly not the tongue's gift, because it doesn't help as many people as, say, the preaching gift or the prophecy gift or the other gifts.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah, I want you to want the greater gifts, but but the greater gifts are not the ones with a limelight on them.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: The greater gifts are the gifts that help other people.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when he says it at the end of chapter 12.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says, earnestly desire, chapter 12, verse 31, earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I show you, let me show you a more excellent way.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when he just surprises everybody by saying, you know what?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: The more excellent way is the way of love.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when he drops on us the love chapter.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's time you grew up, and it's time you started loving a brother or a sister.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know this chapter, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You love this chapter, you've heard this chapter.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to say with me these four verses, 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, verses I know you believe, but verses that it'll take us a lifetime to live out.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Say them with me.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Love is love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: It always trusts, hopes, perseveres, love never fails.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the new way of life.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing he's saying is that maturity in the Christian life is shown not by how gifted you are, not by whether you can preach a great message, teach a great Sunday school class, heal, speak in tongues, any of this showy stuff.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is shown by whether or not you are truly acting in love to other people.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is like upside down.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, isn't it?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he says the way to grow up is to lower yourself.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: The way to grow up is to limit yourself.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: The way to grow up is to love other people.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says that the inn brothers stop thinking like children.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking, be adults.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Unlimiting you, let me tell you a couple stories and then I'll close.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: In regard to limiting yourself, uh, I ran across a story recently, uh actually comes from the biography of Harry Truman by his daughter and his daughter Margaret, who wrote a biography of him, and she described the night before he decided to go national.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to announce to become a senator that he wanted to become a senator.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's well before he became president of the United States, and he couldn't sleep.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Harry Truman, a good Missouri boy, laid awake at night and then he got up and he wrote something down.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote these words.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote, I have come to the place where all men strive to be at my age, the age of 50.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: In reading the lives of great men, he wrote, I found that the very first victory they all won was over themselves.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Over themselves.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were free, but they limited themselves.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Self-discipline with all of them came first.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm a candidate for the United States Senate, and if Almighty God decides that I go there, I'm gonna pray, as King Solomon did, for wisdom to do the job.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're free.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: But limit yourself.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And as far as being gifted, it is a problem, isn't it?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you're as talented and good-looking as you are to realize, you know, that God gave you that for other people, not for yourself, Coach Rich Rick Petino is describing how hard it is to coach nowadays.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Today you tell a player to go in the game, and he says, No, if the ball's not gonna go to me, I'm not going in.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Another player says, I don't want to dress that way.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And another says, I'm not getting enough minutes.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Gifted people, talented people like you, you know, have a tendency to say, well, it must be about me because I'm so gifted and I'm so talented.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is then that seeps into the church.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, one you know, one way it seeps into the church is people maybe they they feel like their gift is that they have been around for a long time.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wichita Eagle Beacon ran an article, an actual article about a widow and and other people, a first Presbyterian down in Wichita, who'd been at the church for over 50 years.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And she had a pew that she liked.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so she would come early and sit in the pew.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: But if someone had gotten there before her and sat in her pew, she would just stand there in the aisle, staring down at them until they finally moved.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: They started quizzing other pastors in which time they found that in some churches that there were, there was this kind of ownership.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, this wasn't as bad as there's an article, by the way, in another in another uh international uh uh journal about the Church of Eternal Sorrows.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's Roman Catholic Church down in San Antonio, where they actually filed an injunction against one of their longtime members because she was so upset at the songs they were singing and wanting to sing the songs that they had sung 50 years before, that she would sing those songs very loudly while they were singing the other songs.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Church was not very large, and so they filed an injunction to get her to stop.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I I could tell stories all day, but you're you're you're familiar with this kind of stuff.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of fighting in church, this kind of thinking, you know, I'm special, I have special gifts, been here longer than anyone else, I know more than other people, I have this freedom, I can do whatever I want.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's whole point in this book is you need to look at yourself differently, you need to see yourself differently in a way that somehow allows you to get lower, to limit yourself and to love other people.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: How do you see yourself?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: I like the story of the little boy who walked into uh into an animal store and went over and was looking at the puppies, came out and he and he said to the manager, I found one that I like.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: How much is it?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he told the price it was more than the bought a lot more than the boy had.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the boy said, Well, I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna make some money, and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna get the puppy I like.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the manager said, You better hurry because uh those puppies are going fast.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it did take the boy, you know, a month.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he worked hard mowing lawns, he did this, he did that, he finally accumulated the dollars, he came back in and he dumped it on the counter.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I've come back for for the puppy.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Andrew said, Well, there are a couple of them left.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Go get one.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so he went back and he got one.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was carrying it up and he put it on the counter and it was limp.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: It had a limp, it had a leg that was sticking up, it didn't work.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the manager says, You don't you don't want that one.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: That one can't run.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: That one will never be able to fetch.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that you I think you want the other dog.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: This one, this one's crippled.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: The boy said, No, I I I knew that this this puppy would be here when I came back.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is the one I want.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as he turned to walk out the door with his puppy, the manager understood why, because out from underneath his jeans was the brace for his leg.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: He himself was crippled.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: You see, he loved that puppy because he identified with that puppy.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: He understood that he wasn't himself super gifted or super smart or super talented or whatever else, that he himself was crippled.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when you see yourself as God sees you, that you're not really that smart after all, you're not really that free, you're not really that gifted, then all of a sudden, all of a sudden you're wide open, you have the freedom to lower yourself and limit yourself and love others the way God wants you to, right?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh Paul is asking you and me gently, a gentle rebuke, but he's asking us a question this morning: when will you grow up?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Will this be the year that you decide to get older and deeper in the Christian faith?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to open your word and realize that it touches us right where we are.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for those who are hurting.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: There have been a few deaths this week in our congregation and of some of our beloved family and our loved ones, and I pray for those families who are involved.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you for the opportunity for growth that came this week in New York City.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: For 30 of us young people who went up there.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for our church that we would this year continue to grow and become more mature in our love for each other.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.