Radically Humble

and spiritually despite how strong we think we are we're never going to be stronger than our heavenly father and here Paul is like the greatest thing you have ever done the smartest you can ever be the strongest you can ever be it is nothing compared to God but hey we are glad that you are here if you don't know me my name is Andrew I'm the campus Pastor here in Surprise and if you have not got the chance to personally meet me I'll be at the connection center after just come by say hi and I'd love to put a face to the name but today we are diving into the book of Corinthians and last week we kicked off this new series called living in Corinth as we kind of talk and we study through this book and really this book is going to take us through 1 Corinthians through Easter that we're going to be doing this study and just filled with so much content in here but as we kind of dive in let me give you a little historical context and kind of why we chose this name and chose some of the imagery we've used with it is Corinth um in this this city 2,000 plus years ago the city of Corinth was like modernday Las Vegas and Corinth was it was about the glitz it was about the glamour it was about the money and it was about the sin there there was a famous temple in Corinth that the the Goddess that was kind of worshiped more than anyone else was the goddess of Aphrodite the Goddess of love and love making and it made for an interesting environment in Corinth and when we look at Corinth it actually there's a Roman and early on his name is Horus he actually said it is not every man that can afford to go to Corinth and when we hear Vegas you know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas even though that's not true right that gambling debt follows you back even worse okay little ears being attentive like those diseases follow you back too right all right just to the wise okay is like what happens there doesn't really stay it bleeds and destroys every other part of your life if you are not careful okay and here when they talk about Corinth it says not every man could afford to go to Corinth it wasn't just talking about economically even though it was full of the wealthy but it was also as talking about not everyone's Soul can afford to go to Corinth and you see as we study this series what we're going to see is how Corinth was just it was was a rough place to be able to share the gospel it was a rough place to have a church and just like in Vegas today that is tough but honestly it's not that much easier in Phoenix Arizona or Surprise Arizona that when we look around our culture it can be easy to get lost in the materialism get easy to Lost in the immorality can get easy to Lost in the stuff of our world rather than focusing on the greatness of our God and as we started this series we have this theme that we're just going to be continuing to dive into and when we introduce this last week is that for a fractured culture a culture like Corinth a culture like Vegas a culture like Surprise Arizona that it requires a focused and a faithful church and last week we kind of unpacked the first pillar through the first 17 verses of this is what does a faithful and focused Church look like and and as we study through Paul's words we got to kind of this first cultural pillar and we talked about this F's first cultural Church pillar that a focused and faithful Church of what do they produce is they produce spiritually hungry individuals and and the challenge in that and we kind of give you three next steps that are really easy is first Say Yes to Jesus May it's for the first time or for the thousandth time I think the The First Time to Say Yes to Jesus wasn't that hard but it's a lot harder to say yes to Jesus in the Thousand time and as he's chipping away parts of your life we talked about being an a graded church attender I am glad you are here and we talk about what would look like if you showed up to church at least 45 times this year that's 90% of the Sundays and some of you looking at me you're like I don't know if I'm in for that like you're I got the deer in the headlights we're like that doing the math in your head you're like I'm not sure about that and then we talked about getting into a community group and I'm excited is is we have we have groups here but we need more groups and that's why myself and and Pastor Josh we're starting new groups I'm actually going to host young adults and college students at my home okay and it's going to be like a form of birth control SL seeing what a family looks like as you get to see four kids eight and under all right super excited about it like you want to take a kid home just like try it out for a little bit and you can bring it back I don't know if they'll take me up on that but today today as we get into this we come to First Corinthians and we're still going to be in chapter 1 but Paul picks back up in verse 18 and what I love is he's going to further explore this idea of what a faithful and focused Church looks like but in the face of a fractured world that frankly thinks the church in God is mere foolishness pick this up in verse 18 this is what Paul writes he says for the word of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but is the power of God to us who are being saved for it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent where is the one who is wise where is the teacher of the law where is the debator of this age hasn't God made the world's wisdom foolish for since in God's wisdom the world did not know God through wisdom God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached as we go through this passage today Paul is going to use kind of this idea of foolishness and wisdom weave throughout in the first kind of part he introduces us to in the first kind of point we're going to see today is the foolish wisdom of the world you see a little background on Corinth we said it was like a a modern-day Vegas but Corinth was obsessed with two things they're obsessed with money and they were obsessed with knowledge or what they refer to as wisdom and the first thing is money money stimulated their economy and and actually the reason they were so wealthy is because they were a bridge point between two bodies of water so they had so much traffic coming through and and they had a strong source of income and as this traffic went through uh they had a big gambling economy they had a good prostitution economy that was huge for them they had alcohol and drugs of what was in that time and it created this busy and this bustling City but the other part of Corinth was that they were so wealthy they were so economically well off that they became obsessed with educating themselves and in that time you couldn't really get an education unless you had money but they were had so much money that they became obsessed with education but then they also became obsessed with being smarter than everyone else so what they happened is they were constantly looking for the philosophers The Debaters the scholars of the day as Paul kind of references here and they were looking for these smart people to spread how smart they were Corinth was like TED talks on the Las Vegas Strip all right just like put that image in your head for a second about a year and a half or two years ago I actually went to Vegas with my brother and he's a financial adviser he loves Jesus so he he just likes to gamble but he loves Jesus a lot okay um not going to get into a Theology of that we're just going to you know we're just going to keep going all right um but he's like hey will you go to Vegas with me I'm like why and he's like because everyone else said no and uh he's like I got tickets to see like Joe Rogan like a comedy show I'm like sure I'll go and like we'll try to go to the UFC fight didn't happen but we went and and he would go to gambling tournaments and I would walk around the Caesar's mall right and just get lost in that big Labyrinth but I remember one night we're out walking on the strip and it's like 10:00 at night um I facetimed my kids 3 hours before that to say good night and as I'm walking on the Strip I'm seeing like Minnie Mouse and Bluey that were ordered off of wish on the Strip right and taking pictures with like little kids like we got babies on the front row over here there are people with babies at 10:00 at night on the Las Vegas Strip and what was I doing judging them super hard all right and if you've been those parents I'll judge you too it's all right um but as I was seeing that and just seeing the absurdity and the crazy of it I try to wrap my mind here of it's like Corinth is very much like that it's bustling it's not sleeping it's bright it's crazy but it's also some dudes who think they're smarter giving little TED talks and showing how smart they are to the rest of the world around them s just wrap your head around that for a second is this is what Paul is writing to the church that is surrounded by all of this by a city and a culture that thinks the church itself is dumb that thinks the movement of Christianity is absurdity that thinks they're all following a fairy tale and in the next couple verses Paul gives us the reasons why they think this way keep reading in verse 22 he says for the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles I want to break out we're going to see kind of two sub points here when we talk about the foolish wisdom of the world I think Paul shows us this in two different ways in these two verses the first thing is he shows us is the world thinks the gospel is too simple here let's break this down for a second in in the front half of verse 22 he says this the Jews asked for signs you see the Jews who were part of the Corinthian Melting Pot they criticize Jesus they criticize the cross they criticize Christianity because they all thought it was just too simple Paul says they were looking for signs because they wanted a savior that fit the look of the second coming that is seen in the Old Testament rather than the first coming that they see in Isaiah is they wanted the warrior king of David and not the suffering servant that Isaiah talks about in the irony is they ignored all the other signs that Jesus actually gave them because it wasn't the sign they were looking for and it wasn't the sign they wanted and they thought the rabbi who taught love God and love others in order to conquer the world was too simple from the king who wanted to conquer Every Nation one one of the things over the past about nine years that I've been pastoring that one of my favorite things is just getting to meet with people and getting to love people getting to disciple people especially Young men who are kind of trying to learn their way in this crazy world and one of the things that I just love is sometimes when I when I start hearing about their lives and hearing about their love for Christ uh I get to sit as an outsider and then when they ask for my opinion I get to tell them the answers that are so simple but for so hard for them to see there there's one guy who we would meet every single week and and we were working through and he was stopping certain things cutting certain things of his life he's like but man I just really want to find a good Christian lady that can be my wife I'm like man I get that and I'm like so so what's your epitent right now he's like well I'm trying to find this nice good girl but all a sudden I'm just finding these ones who who don't want a serious relationship who aren't committed and we have a relationship we have little stance here and I regret it and I feel terrible and all of a sudden like I'm just left feeling empty I'm like okay well well well how do you think you're how do you meet these ladies I meet them online and I'm like walk me through online dating CU I met my wife at church I got lucky but 90% of people meet each other on online dating now so I'm like walk me through how this works he's like so I create my my profile and and and and there's three categories of what you're looking for you're looking for something not serious uh you're looking for a hookup or you're looking for a serious relationship I'm like okay that makes sense which boxes do you check he's like well all of them right I hate to tell you dude uncheck a couple of those boxes and see if you find that good Christian girl all right is not that complicated and sometimes our world looks at things and they look at Christianity and they're like man it's just too simple it's too basic and they looked at it from the first century like there's not enough there're like your whole premise is that God came down to earth he lived a perfect life he died on a cross and he saved you from that what's the catch in the first century is like there's no catch it's that simple and the Jews looked at that and it was stumbling BR they're like You Preach Christ crucified there has to to be more to the story and then Paul is like no no no that is the story and if you focus on that everything else is fleshed out from there you see the world thought the gospel was too simple but listen to this again in verse 22 and 23 it says but the Greeks seek wisdom and it is foolishness to the Gentiles the second point of why the foolish wisdom of the world is the world thinks the gospel is too weak like like I said in in these verses it says the Greek uh the Greeks here that he kind of references there is an obsession to be smarter and enlightened but where the cross was foolishness to the Greeks and the Gentiles is that the cross at this time was not like the cross of our time now you didn't wear a cross around your necklace it was not a symbol of Hope and said the cross was the ultimate form of disrespect to die on a cross was not a good thing it was a horrific experience but it was also a disgraceful experience Roman citizens were actually forbidden to be crucified cuz it disgrace them too much instead crucifixion was only for the poor the illiterate and the societally weak people actually a way to see this is one of the very earliest depictions artistic depictions of Jesus in ancient CI in ancient uh kind of Roman culture was graffiti Roman graffiti mocking jesus' death and it's actually called the alexam Manos graffiti and we have it uh right here over here next to me and this is uh I think I could make this right so it makes me feel better about art that's Pres erve throughout time right is this was sketched on a Roman wall and it actually says alexam menos who was a Christian worships his God and it has Jesus on a cross with a horse head and Alexus with his arms raged in worship and they use this to mock him they said look at this guy he is so pathetic and he is so weak cuz he worships a God who died on a cross it was absurdity to the Romans it was foolishness to the Greeks uh philosopher second century Roman philosopher celus called Christianity the religion of the stupid the dishonorable the foolish the slaves women and children he's talking about us guys and as the world looks at it they looked at Christianity they're like it's too simple it's too weak it's a joke and doesn't our world judge us the same in some ways for worshiping God as Jesus Christ they think it's a god of fairy tales they think it's a God that goes against science even when it doesn't the world looks at our God and and thinks that it is foolish that it is dumb that it is just something we throw to the side that we have progressed past but Paul continues to dive in and he gives the counter to this going to verse 24 and as he kind of examines the foolish wisdom of the world he gets to verse 24 and he continues on this theme of foolishness and wisdom and he says this in verse 24 he says yet to those who are called but Jews and Greek Christ is the power of God in the wisdom of God because God's foolishness I love this it's weird and we're going to break this down a second that he's even calling that God even has foolishness right like doesn't think that makes sense he says God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is strong stronger than human strength here's a second kind of major point we see as we dive between these things is we saw the foolish wisdom of the world but here we see the foolish wisdom of God Paul now shifts his play on words with this wisdom and foolish kind of idea and not only does he say the world sees the cross the cross and the gospel as foolishness but now he claims that God somehow has a form of foolishness and weakness in his life now think about that for a second it's cuz we believe that God is the perfect creator of the entire universe we believe God has no flaw we believe God is eternal that God is perfect in any way so how can God have foolishness in weakness these are words that we usually would not associate with God these are words of deficiency of meaning lesser than that something is broken it's incomplete it's not perfect well first I think we need to understand these words in kind of the Greek original language is they don't maybe carry the same stigma that we have in English you see the way this would be used was less of Paul attacking the attributes of God but more as talking about the Absurd and the unimpressive parts of God's traits if there even is a thing but this is kind of the argumentation he's using and you see Paul is using this as an illustration that even the most absurd being foolish or the unimpressive being weak as aspects of God are still greater than any human so you're looking at me like it doesn't make any sense but let's break this down a little bit here's the kind of the first subo in this is the first thing we see is that the Simplicity of the Gospel is greater than complexity of human wisdom at the beginning of verse 25 he says because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom you see the Jews the the Greeks the scholars they They al they wanted something more complex than Jesus and they wanted something more complex than there's this guy who is God but he's also man that he died he rose again and we are saved because of his resurrection they're like that's a nice story but we need something bigger than that we need a king to come down to conquer the other nations we need this bigger sign something more complex something more great they they wanted something more complex than confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is God and all of a sudden you're saved they wanted something more complex than love your God and love one another yet that basic simple gospel is still greater than the most complex human wisdom you see we even see this today in our world is there's always some new breakthrough in science and and this is what I love is is I I'm fascinated by like history by science and you read things it's like this new breakthrough debunks everything we learned about science for the last 100 years you're like well just wait 200 years and then they're like this breakthrough debunks everything we've understood for the last 200 years right and even in the most complex science classes they usually go to one or two areas is you start with either you believe in an intelligent design that's some sort of superior being what we would say God created everything or you believe it was an accident and more something like the big bang something boomed and all of a sudden life and creation happened you see either one of those things are a miracle that we cannot understand and as complex as things get you still have to believe in some sort of miracle that blows your mind that is outside your understanding standing and blows up your conception of reality and you see in this time they they looked at the gospel and they said it it's simple but the Simplicity of the Gospel was still more complex was still greater than anything we can wrap our minds around but we also see the second part of this is the weakness of the Gospel is greater than the power of human strength and verse 25 again on on kind of the second half of this he says and God's weakness is stronger than human strength you see stronger than a conquering King who people were looking for is a movement that goes beyond one's Earthly life think about how Jesus he died he rose again he preached for 40 days to his Believers and then he left Earth for good until his second coming but in that little kind of segment of his life that lasted about 33 years he had a greater impact on History than any other person who has ever lived you look at some of the great Kings of history that that Jesus had a greater impact than King Nebuchadnezzar than Alexander the Great then Caesar then Napoleon then King Henry VII then George Washington then Hitler and even then Stalin more modern day he has a greater impact than Obama or Donald Trump or any leader that will come in leaders Kings rulers people who make great impacts but despite their greatest strength and power they are still no match for the smallest and most unimpressive aspects of the God we serve who humbled himself to become a lowly servant but then died on a cross and changed the world forever and you see our God is strong and even the weakest parts of our God is still so much stronger than anything we can put our head around what one of the things I love to do with my boys right now is we like to wrestle in rough house and they're three and six years old all right so guess who's winning every time yeah I destroy those boys someone said the three-year-old I know it I heard it over there all right we'll get there when they're 10 and seven I might be in trouble all right um but we can we can have fun and like I can be half asleep on the couch and I can grab them with one hand and throw them and then I can like take both of them at the same time and like you know punch them a little bit and like put them in choke colds until they cry and then my wife's like you make them cry every time I'm like they got to learn right um but what's so fun is despite how strong they think they are right now and they actually think strength is in their rib cage I don't know why they take off their shirt look how strong I am those are I was like those are bones dude um we'll work on Anatomy later all right uh but despite how strong they think they are right now they're not going to be stronger than Dad and spiritually despite how strong we think we are we're never going to be stronger than our heavenly father and here Paul is like the greatest thing you have ever done the smartest you can ever be the strongest you can ever be it is nothing compared to God that the simplest thing he's ever done the the perceived weakest thing from a worldly perspective he has ever done is still more complex is still stronger than Mankind's greatest accomplishments and you see our God is so much wiser he is so much stronger he is so much greater than anything we can imagine and Paul continues this in verse 26 he says brothers and sisters he says consider your calling not many were Wise from a human perspective thanks Paul not many were powerful okay not many of noble birth this is a really encouraging section right instead God has chosen what is foolish in the world he's talking to the church he's saying you to shame the wise and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world what is viewed as nothing to bring nothing to nothing what is viewed as something here here's the last little foolish wise play we see in this passage is the foolish response of the church you see like I said before as Paul kind of really knows how to build them up he he he's like pretty much saying in these veres he like hey guys I know you're not very smart um I know you're not very strong I know you're not very influential I know you're not from a respected family I know you're pretty insignificant and everything single way but hey that's why God is using you and when Corinth reads this they're like wait did Paul just call us all dumb and say that's why God chose to use us because we weren't smart enough to be passed by but it's it's super encouraging in that aspect but here's why it's so important and he starts this in verse 26 and I love this is he says brothers and sisters consider your calling you see the response of the church is recognizing that God has called us to be a part of his kingdom not because of how amazing we are but honestly because of how unimpressive we are which makes us even more impressive John Mark comr talks a little bit about this in his book practic practicing the way that when he called his disciples he called his disciples when they had passed the age of discipleship in a Jewish culture meaning in Jewish culture if you are going to be a rabbi and you were going to be part of the um going to be part of the scribes of that day and be like part of these kind of upper echelon and trained in this you had to start from a young age and if you weren't smart enough to be kind of pulled into that and to be a Pharisee or to be in a scene or to be a sadducee and you weren't smart enough and have the potential then you would go and do a normal job so you would start to be a fisherman you would start to be a tax collector you would start to get into that role and your kind of Jewish Journey had passed You by of seeking the wisdom of God and now you just need to be a good Jew in your role but God calling them and saying I'm going to be your Rabbi that you were going to follow me they were past the age that they normally would be in that it was like a second chance and the the things the world had looked over the things that religion had looked over that Jesus used these men to turn the world upside down that context even illuminates acts 4:13 I love it it says when they observe the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men they're like these aren't the smart guys that graduated at the top of their class this wasn't the religious Elite but when they recognized that these were just like regular dudes it says they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus you see Jesus used fishermen he used Tax Collectors he used political zealots he used a thief in other professions that were so unimpressive that they they even get mentioned in scripture but he used those guys to turn all of history upside down and here's what you need to hear this morning is you might think in some aspect of your life spiritually that you are not impressive you might hear this and be like man I'm an AG fat guy or I'm an engineer I'm a Salesman I'm a consultant I'm a medical professional whatever F in the blank of your role is I am not called to shame the wise in our world with the word of God maybe you're thinking like I'm not called to preach the gospel I'm not to Proclaim I'm not called to Proclaim about God I'm not called to make Jesus known but the fact that you don't see yourself as Worthy is exactly the Reason God has called you and chosen you to use you to spread his kingdom you see and it's honestly not that you aren't impressive but it's that you are humble enough to recognize that you are not as impressive in God's eyes as our world thinks we are and so often and we build ourselves up to think we've accomplished more than we are and then you read God's word and you look at the face of God and what he has done in your life and you realize I didn't accomplish any of this but it is God's grace that has allowed me to experience this and Paul shows this attitude as he wraps up this chapter in verse 29 and he says this the reason he has chosen these insignificant men these these insignificant women these people in their world who were overlooked he did this in verse 21 or verse 29 so that no one may boast in his presence it is from him being God that you are in Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us for our righteousness for our sanctification and redemption in order that as it is written let the one who boasts boast in the Lord you see church we have no reason to boast in our own power the only Power we can boast in is the power of Jesus Christ and and this leads us to the doorstep of the second Church culture principle that we see fleshed out of what happens when we are focused in faithful church is we create spiritually hungry people but not only that we see this next kind of principle come to form is we became a focused in a faithful Church it produces radically humble contrib ERS look at at verse 30 and 31 again and I just want to read these for you again it says it is from him not us it is from him that you are in Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us who became our righteousness our sanctification and our redemption in order that that is written let the one who boasts not boast in themselves but boast in the Lord let's answer ask a question of this right now is is where are you in this equation when Paul writes these two verses where are we and where are our good works where is our righteousness where is our sanctification where is our Redemption you see none of it is from us none of it is from our work it's not from our intelligence it's not from our signs our strength our power none of it is from a personal place that we can boast about rather it is from him and here's how he keeps going he's saying him being Jesus Christ who is he Jesus is the god man Jesus Jesus is the disgraced Rabbi that was hanging on a cross that was foolishness to the Romans he is the Son of God who defeated that disgrace by raising from the dead he is the one who how Paul says became wisdom for us church he is the source not us he is of our righteousness our sanctification our Redemption and I love this it is in him who we boast not in [Music] ourselves you see when we come to this passage it is just a theological Master Class of breaking down every pride in our life breaking down every pride in our culture it's not seeing that we have no purpose in our life that we are just lowly that we're insignificant but that when we are filled with Jesus Christ our purpose our significant turns into something we can hardly even imagine [Music]