The Village Church
Faith Resting in the Power of God - Audio
your Bibles open them to 1 Corinthians chapter 2 we're going to be looking at the first five verses also if you notice the nice piano it was donated to us by Mother Church south of a press so we thank God for that it's a great it's nice I like it thank God for Southwood but here's Lois word his people first Corinthians chapter 2 beginning in verse one and I when I came to you brothers did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom for I decided to know nothing among you itself Jesus Christ and him crucified and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling in my speech and my message was not impossible words of wisdom but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men in the power of God amen let us pray that our faith might rest in the power of God not in the power and wisdom of man that's my prayer for myself that's my prayer for all of us father there's become to the preaching of your word your spirit as I always pray what take these words of mine and apply it to the hearts of your people to the hearts of my heart because I'm just to una shepherd I'm not these shepherd this is not my church this is not my pulpit this is yours yours alone father for your glory and I pray that I would not try to get glory for myself bring attention to myself but I will give all the glory to my God to my Savior that in the delivery of this message in the content of this message you will be glorified that when we leave here we say Jesus is good not that Alex preach a great sermon but Jesus is good he is good in our life and Christ ain't my prayer amen last week last week I mentioned to you what the Lord revealed to me about not trusting him even though he has proven himself over and over and over and over again in my life that he's faithful and yet I still don't believe I mean I can tell you ways in which he has healed my family you know with me and why I keep the first move to the cater and and how she got really sick with pregnant with Madison and I didn't think we were gonna get out of that but we did faithful and how he has healed me personally of different things I've struggled with in the past and yet from struggle to struggle I don't trust him even in this church how what he has done in these last four years has been a seeding of monthly more than I could think or imagine and yet from day to day from Sunday to Sunday I don't believe him over and over again he's proven that he's faithful to me to us the Lord goes before us he goes to for his people he the verse says he carries us as a man carries his son I carry tracing like this sometimes around the house like this how a man carries his son so the Lord carries us and like the usual lights he is our fire by night he's our cloud by day he shows us which way we should go and just like the Israel likes we still don't believe we still don't believe why this spirit of unbelief it comes from our foolish pride really something that was said last week because our pride would not accept its place it refuses to surrender it's hard to surrender our pride because it wants to be on top it wants the attention it wants the glory you see we don't trust him I don't trust it most of the time because I think I know what's better for my life than he does I work in the school I got education I work hard shouldn't I know what's best for my life God look at my resume I can do this sometimes even a part from you we might not say that here on Sunday but how we live our life shows us who we're really trusting in who we really dependent upon the truth of the matter is that we want control we want credit we want to feel good about our achievements apart from him many believers including myself including you we live by the American motto if I just work hard enough I can have everything I want if I just work hard enough pulling enough hours get that right job go to that right school and all my dreams are gonna come true I just got work hard enough man and so we do we labor religiously we perform religiously think of your life think about your dreams and all the things that we do for Monday to Saturday who is it all about who is it really about is it about him or is it really about me it's about me I live in the house I live in because of Alex because I think I deserve it because I work hard I grew up in the projects I live the hard life so I deserve what I got that's how I think I deserve it I'm cheap with money not so I can give more to the kingdom because I'm afraid I'm gonna run out and I'm gonna have nothing to depend upon Alex again I'll also wait for Alex not for the glory of God not so I can have a healthier body for me I know some of that you know you could do things for yourself I'm talking about that side of it that it's arrogance pride for that you find glory and then that's your righteousness that's what I'm talking about about those things so you do the same we all do we all coming to this world thinking it's all about us if you got small kids you know it's true we come into this world thinking it's all about us and our achievements but the gospel the gospel sets us straight you know why because it takes us to that place that all of us are really working hard to get from and that is a place of neediness that's a place of weakness and that's a place of codependency the gospel takes us there but we don't want to be there we live in a world in a culture that does not value codependency it does not value weakness and it showed us in value neededness but the gospel takes us to those places in the words of a old hymn the gospel tells us this nothing in my hands I bring simply to the cross I think naked come to the for dress helpless come to the for grace follow our fly to the fountain wash me savior or I die that's the gospel all the days of our life that is the prayer of a humble lead servant that is what the gospel causes to that is what we also strive to be a humbly servant who boasts in one thing what's that one thing I know Jesus I know Jesus as it is written in his words is let the one who boasts boasting and a humbly servant knows that a humbly servant does not call attention to himself or herself and one example of this is seen right here in the letter first Corinthians particularly in these verses I just read in verses one through five a humbly servant does not call attention to himself Paul says in verse one here and when I came to you brothers and sisters I did not come to you proclaiming the testimony of God with lofty words and speech for I decided to know nothing among you itself Jesus Christ that him crucified and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trim. You see Paul went to Corinth in his second missionary journey and he lived therefore a year and a half and his purpose was to preach the word of God to proclaim the gospel and chop the one in this book he says Christ sent me to you to preach the gospel that's my purpose and he did that during the week during the work week he worked as a tent maker that's what he did for a year and a half in Corinth and on the Sabbath he'd reason with the Jews and the Greeks preaching the gospel telling them the mysteries and the testimonies of our God and he was not there to use ministry as a stepping stone to promote his own name calling attention to himself he says I came to you brothers and sisters not proclaiming to you the testimonies of God with lofty speech and wisdom I did not do that then I come to you to make my name great I did not come to you to to build my reputation as an apostle to preach and boast about Paul I came to proclaim the testimonies of God for your benefit that was the gospel the testimony of God is is God's tested only about Jesus the cross the resurrection his life and he did this without using lofty words or wisdom now does this mean Paul never used any type of speech or any type of knowledge no it doesn't mean that but what it does mean is that when he delivered the gospel message he did it in such a way that it did not cause the focus on him because you can share the gospel make it all about you I can preach in such a way that make it and I can make it all about Alex but he said I did it in such a way that God even received the glory in the way I preached in the way I delivered or in the way I shared my faith who gets the glory when you shut a gospel with someone is it you or is all about what Jesus did in you in spite of you it's all about what Jesus does in spite of us that's our testimony you see Corinth part during this time in in the biblical times Corinth was part of a cultural culture where where people had a prideful worship of philosophy and speaking public speaking you know anything about the Greeks and the Romans they love philosophy man they thought they were smarter than everybody and if you had great public speaking skills you can advance in society you can advance in politics you can do great things but that's because you could speak good and for a year and a half Paul lived in this culture lived among people who worshipped their own abilities to think their own smartness and that wasn't just in the culture it was in the church as well it ain't just in the world it was in the same believer that Paul is preaching to deal with the same struggles and so you can see why he he told them I didn't come to you preaching with lofty words and wisdom because he wanted to take the focus off of him because the dangers is sometimes you can preach in such a way that it's all about you and so the message gets downplayed and so folks are in love with your Aurora and how you present the gospel and your charisma so they don't really listen to your words it's all about the presentation and Paul says not with the gospel it's about Jesus not me he wanted them to know that it was not his giftedness or lack of giftedness that determined the powerfulness of the gospel it was not about his abilities that determine how powerful the gospel is if that if you believe that the gospel loses its power if you think it all depends upon you I preached my first sermon when I was interning in South Carolina and it took me two weeks to write that sermon because I was so nervous because I got every word heavy perfect every transition had to be perfect every story had to be perfect and so leading up to that Sunday man I was sweating bullets sweating bullets nervous thought I was gonna fail miserably then a good friend of mine said Alex this is what helped me he said Alex even if the word stutters out of your mouth it steals God's word even if it stutters out of your mouth even if it falls out of your mouth it is still the word of God and when I thought about that I realized that day preaching preaching was not about me it was not about Alex and so I've learned over the years to embrace the nervousness I feel every Sunday that same nervous as I had when I preached my first sermon it's still there and I don't hate it anymore I see it as a good thing looks like no I'm depending upon the spirit when I embrace it I'm not relying on my gifts alone so Paul preached the gospel not with elephant verse he's to cross the empty of its power he was not there to put on a preaching show he was not there to put on a preaching show some some guys like to put on a show a preaching show about them brain them glory Paul was not trying to be the man the content of the gospel was not about him the delivery of that content was not about him he told them I decided to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ in him crucified the testimony is not about Paul and it's not about us it's always and only about Jesus who has become wisdom from God righteousness from God redemption from God sanctification from God for our benefit that's it during my long tenure as a Chick-fil-A employee one of my co-workers told me one day about a bad experience that her church had with a possible pastoral candidate she told me that the the search committee had invited this pastor down to Greenville South Carolina to meet the congregation now this was a small church kind of like ours and she told me they they offered this guy a pretty good salary she said we offer this guy you know $70,000 plus benefits and so and he said it wasn't enough he told them and he said it in a way that he wasn't humble about it either he said I came all the way down here preached this powerful sermon for y'all and it's all you gonna offer me this is all you gonna offer me did not put on a good show for you and all you gonna offer me $70,000 plus benefits so was this guy humble these servant no she told me that she knew the trouble in trouble because he drove up in this fancy car had these nice rings on she said she knew they were in trouble then when she saw that you see ministry some people can make ministry all about them all about their glory all about their reputation that you can do that you can be out serving the law in this community instead make it all about you I could do the same thing and that's a trap a death trap man and one of the things we have to realize it's hard living the life being a reflection of someone else's glory and not your own because we want glory it's hard living your life just to be a reflection of someone else's glory like I said earlier most about unbelief comes from our pride because we want the attention we don't want to just be a reflection we want something to brain something to offer some type of credit because we have worked hard man and so we really want to be all about us whether you're in Christian ministry whether it's your parenting or whatever area life it is you want some credit because of the work you put in you want to take it to Jesus look what I've done Jesus look but you have to learn all of us don't care what your achievements or how much educational lack of education you have you have to learn to deflate attention away from you take it off of you and learn how to give it to Jesus giving him the glory for everything you've done because the reality is if he didn't bless it you won't be doing it even the atheist who doesn't know Jesus benefits from Jesus because he's God and if he removes his hand over that person that person seizes everybody is under his power everybody all of us are even those who hate him Paul told the Corinthians I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling these terms here weakness fear and trembling they show a person who's truly humble humble not someone who is inferior but one thing you know about fall Paul if you know if you read his letters he was not it was not inferior the world considers such a personal theory though the world doesn't value weakness doesn't value those type of things but God does because when he sees those things in us he sees someone that's dependent upon him that's what he sees one Christian said to know and to proclaim Christ crucified is to show the power of the cross by one's own weakness fear and trembling see a humble servant which we all subscribe to be wants to be real of self-righteousness and self-reliance and wants to learn to embrace dependency what does it look like Paul says in Philippians 3 4 and 6 in that in that chapter he named off several reasons why he above all people could have put confidence in the flesh he says with himself I was circumcised on the eighth day other people of Israel the travel Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews asked to the law of Pharisee as to zeal a persecution of the church as to righteousness under the law blameless I'm also you're familiar with that chapter he says look at all these things I've done all the reasons I have to put confidence in the flesh but he goes on to say I consider all those things rubbish why that I may know that's what he says for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus I consider all things to be rubbish he knew that living a Christian life or even been a Christian ministry for fame or early recognition what's rubbish and sinful and not consistent with the gospel message do you consider such things in your life rubbish or do you still see them as gold being stripped of your self-reliance and learning to embrace dependency means you consider those things rubbish because what they do have a tendency to feed your obese pride and we all have one we try to hide it that's called false humility but we all got it and it needs to lose some weight and 2nd Corinthians 2 2nd Corinthians 12 9 and 10 the Lord told Paul I can't even read it in 2nd Corinthians 12 9 and 10 the Lord says to Paul my grace is sufficient for you my power is made perfect in weakness therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ and I am a content with weakness insults and hardships and persecution the commandmentes but when I'm weak then I'm strong a humble servants weakness is his or her strength do we realize that but like the Corinthians and like the believers in this church we have been poisoned by our pride poisoned by worldliness all of us here have been raised in a culture that does not value neediness does not value weakness and does not value co-dependency think about your life did your parents raise you to be weak needy co-dependent think about it you went to college so you want to be needy so you want to be weak you work a job so you don't have to be co-dependent think about your life everything we've done has been opposite of those things and when you become a Christian you live your life that way too I don't want to be needy God I don't want to be co-dependent God I don't want to be co-dependent with Jesus because when you come in relationship with Jesus it means those things it means neediness it means weakness it means co-dependency or you depend upon him but we in our and we struggle and I walk with Christ in our faith because we fight that we fight it we don't want to embrace it we don't come in Jesus with the hands we come to him look what I've done now bless me you owe me now bless me that's how we come we don't come in brokenness but the gospel says we should it does when I was a kid me and some of my childhood friends we used to see no relatives and friends sitting around and they will always have this little brown paper bag rode down like this they always have a little drink on the inside of it and you know we saw them taking turns with a little brown paper bag you know drunk doing it like that they are trying to be all secretive about it you know with my friends we were young bucks but we weren't dumb we knew it wasn't cool aid in that bag it was a little something something that burns going down a little bit now all of us here have our brown paper bag with a little drink on the inside and I know it's not the gospel in that bag that you sipping on every day when you get up in the morning you sip on it when you go to bed at night you sip on it when you're lunch break you sip on it you know what's in your bag it's the world your pride you're that's your poison you know we drink on it every day and we try to hide it from which other try to hide it from Jesus and in your bag your drink that you're drinking on it tells you life is all about you so you drink it's really your money so you drink spending how you want to you drink you drink and you drink and all of us are drunk on ourselves then we drunk on the world but it's time for the gospel to detox all of us it's time for the gospel to detox your life you got to admit that you're drunk on the world you're drunk on yourself and say God bring it on detox my soul because I'm poisoning myself and just admit it don't pretend it that you got it all together don't pretend it go ahead and pull it out of the bag already know what's in the bag everyone knows what's in the bag God does not want our pride he does not want our self-reliance he wants our weakness he wants our dependency he wants our humility he wants us to be humbly servants who knows where they strength come from a humbly servant who who grows in being content with just being a reflection or you can we content with that we're just been a reflection of Jesus I mean if we're not eating it's a spirit helped me to get to that place because I struggle with that I want to be more than a reflection and so I have to fight it and pray that God give me strength to embrace more of that putting all the attention on him boasting only in him Jeremiah 9 23 and 24 says the the says the Lord let not the wise man boast in his wisdom let not the mighty man boast in his might let not the rich man boast in his riches but let him who boasts boast in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love justice righteousness and earth for in these things I'd like the clairs to Lord where you say where else I don't struggle in those things well okay let him who boasts in his parenting ability don't boast in that let him who boasts because he got a lot of money don't boast in that let him who boasts because he's a good spouse don't boast in that let him who boasts that he thinks is a good preacher not to boast in that it had to be these things whatever it is that you focus in on it gives you glory Jesus says don't boast in that you boast in one thing that you know and understand me me him alone is our boast second curricans 514 says for the love of Christ compels us it's his love for us it compels us because we have concluded this that the one had the one who had died died for all therefore all have died he died for all that those who might live may no longer live for themselves see that he died that those who might live may no longer live for themselves but for him for whom sake that for whom their sake died and was raised up a humbly servant strives to live for Jesus not for him or herself who do we live for who do I live for that's the question we don't live the call attention to ourselves but to Jesus like John the Baptist the forerunner of the Messiah he came to pay the way for Christ I mean you know that and in John chapter 1 verse 23 no a cry came to him and he tell the Lord's cry that he was the voice crying out in the wilderness to make straight the path of the Lord but he also told him I'm not the Christ I'm not the Christ that's what he told him what else did he say he must increase I must decrease who's decreasing the increase in your life as you grow as your advance as you achieve things who's increasing and who's decreasing Jesus must be increasing and you your pride your glory of self-righteousness must be decreasing in every area in everything and in every way one time when I was a kid me my mom was at the grocery store and once she had the parrot food stamps and I remember seeing one of my friends there and she saw it and I knew I was going to be in for when I got back to school because I was embarrassed that my mom had to pack my groceries in food stamps and so when I got back to school that day that next day everyone came to me so and so said y'all on food stamps y'all on welfare and so they just back and forth picking at me and it was awful I was ashamed and it hurt and so in the back of my mind I was like one of these days one of these days I'm gonna get out of that and no one's ever gonna make fun of me again and I tell you that story because the gospel has more in common with welfare than anything else you know why because we get stuff we don't deserve we don't have to work for it we don't work for grace it's a handout it's what it is and we don't like that every day you get your food stamps from Jesus it's called grace every day you get it and if you don't have that you ain't getting in the garden we are a welfare state in terms of God's kingdom and you better set that learn to embrace that cause that's the only way you're getting in that's the only way what we talk what we pick at other people about we benefit if it wasn't for that welfare it wasn't for those foods now none of us are getting in the heaven none of us not even me not even me and we don't like that that's the side of grace we don't like we got to learn to like that yeah I'm on welfare and I praise Jesus for it that's what we need to be able to say because you ain't ever gonna get off but it doesn't keep you where you are that's the thing it brings you it gives you healing it restores you it brings you to a place of healing that's the difference it doesn't keep us where we are it keeps us depending upon him but it strengthens us and encourages us and we grow in our faith and we trust in more we depend more I need more food stamps Jesus come on give me more grace I know some of you don't part on like that illustration but that's what it is it is what it is if you don't like it that means you want to be self-sufficient that's what it means if you don't like the illustration it means you want to be your own God you want to pave your own way man God's kingdom you don't wear a phagus except it and you ain't ever getting off that's the reality so we embrace it he increase we decrease let us pray Father God I thank you for the gospel that and for grace I thank you for Jesus I thank you Father that there is forgiveness with him and you know we all all days of our life we're gonna struggle with sin we're gonna struggle with being self-reliant but Lord helpful to see what we are in this struggle and allow us to repent of that sin and learn to embrace weakness and embrace dependency and embrace you more father in every area of our life not just in some areas but every area we need Jesus not just some of him not bits and pieces of him we need all of him all of him father and Christ in my prayer amen