Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] All right, let's open our bibles together to the book of first Corinthians, chapter one. First Corinthians, chapter one.
[00:00:28] This is our third week in the study. A church divided going through the book of first Corinthians. As you're turning to chapter one, we're going to be covering verses 18 through 31 tonight.
[00:00:42] So throughout history, human beings, and this is an understatement, but throughout history, human beings have been a poor judge of wisdom, and that has been displayed in many, many different areas of life. But ironically enough, I think one of the clearest places that we can see that humans are a poor judge of wisdom is in the scientific community.
[00:01:09] The human body is a miracle. It's a marvel. It absolutely blows my mind that anybody could believe that there's not a God, that the human body, if they studied it for any amount of time, at any level, could believe that this is just an accident.
[00:01:29] But they say that the human body has so many arteries and veins that if you stretch them out, it would amount to 60,000 miles, which is enough to wrap around the world two times.
[00:01:43] There are said to be, and you guys can correct. I got this off of scientific journals, by the way. So if any of this is wrong, we'll talk about that, but don't blame me for it. There are said to be 79 organs, 206 bones in the human body, and a brain that the scientific community will admit that they have very limited knowledge of what is going on in the human brain. It is so advanced, and if we step back a few centuries, it would make sense that the understanding that they had is so much less than what we have today. And ours is still far from being exhausted.
[00:02:28] A man named William Harvey was the first one to figure out how blood circulates through the human body. He published his findings in 1628. But the scientific world, much like many other discoveries that were earth shattering, rejected his discoveries. And they were so ingrained in their previous beliefs that dated back to the second century that a physician named Galen claimed that the liver produced blood for food and then it circulated to the heart and the lungs. That was the existing viewpoint of the day. We look back on that and we kind of laugh at that now. But the first man, William Harvey, who discovered how the blood circulated and the part that the heart played in this, announced his discovery. And according to a book that was written about his life, it affected his life in such a negative way that he became a recluse and. And he shut out the world entirely to escape the ridicule. And he was even quoted as saying, much better is it oftentimes to grow wise at home and in private than by publishing what you have amassed with infinite labor to stir up the tempest that may rob you of peace and quiet for the rest of your days.
[00:04:00] And he was not the only person to discover that earth shattering medical discovery could bring more negative effects into your life than positive effects. Do you recognize this name? And I'm hoping I say it correctly. Ignaz Semmelweis. Does anybody recognize that name? Well, we all need to be thankful for this man. He was looking for trying to find the reason that mortality rates in mothers just after childbirth were so high.
[00:04:35] And he began to study two maternity wards. One was staffed by female midwives and one was staffed by all male doctors.
[00:04:46] And he discovered that the mortality rate was five times higher at a male run clinic than the midwife run clinic. And we could all just deduce that women are smarter and better than mental, and we probably wouldn't be really wrong. We could have just stopped right there. But he did want to figure out the exact reason. So he developed multiple theories.
[00:05:11] He thought maybe birth position all the way to a priest ringing a bell in one of the locations was playing into this mortality rate.
[00:05:24] Eventually, he uncovered the true problem. He found that the male doctors who had been delivering babies were also conducting autopsies in the same building, many times, coming directly from working on a dead body to delivering a baby without washing their hands.
[00:05:45] And where science was at in that day, they didn't realize the importance of germs and how things spread. And the doctors did not react very well to his findings, because obviously, it implicated them and laid the blame at their feet. Even though no one in the scientific community understood this, no one took his discovery seriously at first, until years and years later. But he reports, they report about his life. That after years and years of anger and frustration, he wound up in an asylum. And he died from wounds that he got from being beaten after he discovered something that could save thousands of lives.
[00:06:33] So throughout history, mankind has brutally resisted ideas that could bring them life. This is true physically in the medical world, in the scientific world, but it's even more true about the spiritual realm. From the beginning of time, God had a plan.
[00:06:52] Salvation. This plan included his messiah, his deliverer, the rescuer, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, who would come to live a perfect, sinless life, showing compassion, healing the sick, raising the dead, fulfilling all of the law and the prophets, to die a sacrificial death for the sins of mankind, and to supernaturally rise from the dead in order to purchase salvation.
[00:07:20] And after his resurrection, Jesus sent his apostles to spread the good news throughout the world. We see that in the great commission. But do you think this good news was well received everywhere it went? It absolutely was not. It was true. It was good news. It was life changing.
[00:07:43] It was the hope that the world had been looking for and longing for. Yet it was met with fierce resistance, and it was fiercely rejected. Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, was mocked, imprisoned, beaten, stoned, left for dead, simply because he brought a good news and a gospel that went against everything that his generation believed and the one true God. And the good news from the one true God flew in the face of modern religion, of what was being taught in many different areas from many different false gods as the way of salvation. And I want to pick up reading in one corinthians, chapter one, verse 18. This is the apostle Paul writing about the Gospel to the church in Corinth.
[00:08:43] He says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved. It is the power of God.
[00:08:56] For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will thwarthenne. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
[00:09:26] For the Jews demand a sign, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
[00:09:50] For the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of goddess is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
[00:10:34] And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. This is the word of the Lord for his people. Tonight, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the truth of your word. We know that your word is truth. We believe that it is infallible. It cannot fail. Lord, we believe that it does not contain error. We believe that it is your very word and contains your truth. It is your truth. And God, we believe that it is attached to your character. So may we approach your word tonight with a serious mindset, a serious attitude, and may our heart be in tune with your truth, God, where we see areas in our life where we fall short, where our lives don't line up with your word. May we align our hearts and our minds with your truth, God, may we be people who live for your approval and who live for your glory, rather than the approval of mankind, which is so changing.
[00:11:52] And God, may we not cling to the truth of our day, but may we cling to the eternal truth of your word. It is our standard. It is our final authority in faith and practice. And we thank you for the solid rock that we stand on when we open this word. And we ask that the power of the Holy Spirit would fill this place and speak to our hearts tonight.
[00:12:14] Lord, we need you. We need to be changed. We need to be made into the image of Christ. And we ask that you would accomplish that work tonight in this service. And we ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:12:29] So as we look at these verses of scripture, it's a pretty long passage of scripture that I'm choosing to teach through tonight. But there's such a clear thought from the beginning of the end to the end of this that I did not really want to break it up. I actually considered going into verse five of chapter two, but I want to stop in verse 31. And as we look back over this, I want us to realize just how deep these words are.
[00:12:59] And the thing that just jumps out to me, something that might be surprising to you, given the theme and the title of this study of being a church divided and Paul's goal being the unity of the church, the first thing that I just really noticed that jumps off the pages and it agrees with the gospel writings is that the gospel divides.
[00:13:24] The gospel divides.
[00:13:27] Jesus said in Luke, chapter twelve, verse 51, do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. Now, I want to remind you that Jesus is the prince of peace. He came to bring peace to the lost.
[00:13:44] But for those who reject the gospel, there is division. And families have been divided because of the gospel. Nations have been divided because of the gospel. John Blanchard wrote that the cross of Christ will always be an offense to the natural man. And I believe that God's word backs that up. The gospel of Christ is an offense to the natural man.
[00:14:12] Our passage starts off tonight by saying the word of the cross, the logos of the Staros.
[00:14:21] And he claims that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing to the natural man, to those who are unregenerate, to those who are lost in their sins. The word of the cross is foolishness.
[00:14:37] And I believe this is a place where the King James translators didn't quite get this right.
[00:14:45] I believe they translate it very weakly as the preaching of the cross. The ESV, as I read tonight, translates this, the word of the cross. Paul is not describing the act of preaching, but the content of the preaching. The word of the cross, the gospel. He's always. He's talking about the content of the preaching here, and that is always the most important part about preaching. It's not how I do it. If I thought the power of the gospel was in how I stood up here and delivered the gospel, I would be a nervous wreck. Because if everything is dependent upon me, I'm a mess. I can mess this up. I say things backwards sometimes that if I meant it, it would be heresy. Have you ever done that before? I've said things totally backwards now. I didn't mean it. I just got my words backed up. And I'm thankful that there's grace for that. And I'm thankful that you guys are spiritually mature enough to know that I just mixed it up, or you'd be kicking me out of the church, or at least you should be if you thought that I meant it.
[00:15:55] But the content of the preaching the gospel is always the most important thing. Not men with a polished dialogue, but men who are sticking to sound doctrine. The word of the cross is the preaching of the crucified savior as the sacrifice for sin. That is the good news. That is the gospel. And the gospel divides believers from unbelievers.
[00:16:23] Now, I want us to look back, if you'll look back in your bibles or on the screen, I want you to notice, if we go back to verse 18, how he talks about those who are perishing, those who are lost, unsaved. He says it is folly to those who are perishing. It is utter foolishness. It's moronic, is really what the greek word means.
[00:16:51] It makes no sense to those who are without Christ. In verse 19, he says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? He says in verse 22, Jews demand a sign. Greeks seek wisdom.
[00:17:20] And he says that the preaching of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews, and folly or foolishness to the Gentiles. Verse 26, he says, not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. So God's not impressed with those things. God's wisdom is higher than man's wisdom.
[00:17:47] So as we think about the fact that the gospel divides believers from unbelievers, unbelievers have given themselves over to a worldly wisdom, or, as he says in the text, a worldly strength, a wisdom that is not wisdom at all and a strength that is very weak.
[00:18:08] It is man's wisdom and man's strength.
[00:18:13] William Macdonald said, it will help us to understand the section that follows if we remember that Corinthians, the Corinthians, being Greeks, were great lovers of humanity. Wisdom.
[00:18:26] They regarded their philosophers as national heroes.
[00:18:32] Their culture made celebrities out of philosophers. If someone was good with rhetoric, if someone made a new discovery or a new philosophical discovery, something that was a novelty in the day, they would be lifted up as the celebrity and the superstars. Everybody wanted their autograph. They wanted to go sit and hear them speak. They would draw the crowds.
[00:18:55] And this had crept into the church in Corinth, because our culture always has a way of seeping into the church, because we are people. We live in a country, we live in a culture, and it's hard to not allow that to affect us. There are things in this culture that seem and feel and sound so right, but it doesn't line up with scripture.
[00:19:23] So he's writing to a church and to people who were saved out of a life that glamorized and exalted and almost worshipped philosophy, human wisdom. And he's telling them that it's worthless.
[00:19:43] And what happened once it got to the church is people in the church began to try to adapt the gospel to the culture, to make it more palatable, to make it more acceptable. They tried to line the gospel up with man's wisdom, with man's philosophy. And Paul is reminding them, man's philosophy is foolishness to God. Man's philosophy is empty. God's truth doesn't need to be lined up with culture. Culture needs to align itself with God's truth. Culture needs to be saved. And there are many christians, even today, that will compromise on issues and subjects that the Bible points out as truth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
[00:20:32] That's just true. Yet there are pastors, some who can bring.
[00:20:37] Write incredible books, bring incredible sermons, but they want to somehow merge evolutionary theory with creation in an attempt to blend the gospel with the culture in order to make it more acceptable to people. Now, I don't believe we need to make the gospel more offensive than it already is.
[00:21:02] Some people want to do that. Some people want to argue about every little detail. There is room in Christianity for differences in agreement. Genesis one one. Is there a gap between verses one and verses two? We don't know. It doesn't tell us. We can have strong viewpoints on that, but the Bible doesn't tell us all there is to know, but it clearly tells us. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He spoke things into existence. He formed the animals, he formed mankind. And we don't need to try to capitulate on things like that just to make culture happy or to try bring. To bring people into the christian family in a less offensive way.
[00:21:46] There are things that we can discuss, and I think there are things that the Bible just clearly says are settled, and we need to know the difference. There's a difference in man's wisdom and God's wisdom.
[00:22:00] And their day wasn't very different from our day, if we get right down to it. He says that the Jews demand a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom. John MacArthur said, the two groups Paul mentions here are representative of all unbelieving mankind, whether, like the typical Jew, they demand proof by a supernatural sign. God, if you're there, just show me. If you believe in God church. Okay, Christians, you believe in God. Show me goddess, and I'll believe.
[00:22:31] Many people take that approach. They demand proof by a supernatural sign, or like the typical Greek, they want proof by natural wisdom or philosophy. He goes on to say, unbelievers will find an excuse for rejecting the gospel, but the Bible says in Romans one that all Mendez are without excuse. We know in our heart that there is a God and that we are accountable to him.
[00:23:04] JC Ryle wrote, as long as the world stands, the cross will seem foolishness to the natural man. But take away the cross of Christ from the Bible, and it is a dark book I was studying this week, and that just struck me. Take away the cross of Christ from the Bible. It's a dark book. There's not good news. There's not hope.
[00:23:31] It's the cross of Jesus Christ, the offensive cross of Jesus Christ that Cicero wrote about and said that it is so offensive it should never be talked about.
[00:23:46] And I think he got just a little bit of how offensive the gospel is.
[00:23:55] I think it's important to understand that in this passage, Paul quotes four Old Testament verses in three of his New Testament verses. So verses 1920 and 31 contain four Old Testament quotes. Paul is rooting his doctrine in scripture, in the word of God, in the character of God.
[00:24:22] And if you summarize those four quotations, I didn't want to take the time to read all of them tonight because they're quoted in our passage. I've already read it.
[00:24:32] But if you want to summarize them, it basically says, this world will pass away, but God's word never does.
[00:24:38] There are two options for life, man's wisdom or God's wisdom.
[00:24:44] Those are your options. You believe what thus saith the Lord, or you believe what this culture teaches, and this culture will change and this culture will adapt. But God's word never changes.
[00:25:00] So the gospel divides unbelievers from believers. What do these verses have to say about believers? It says that they believe God's wisdom, and they believe in the strength of God. Let's look back at our passage.
[00:25:18] He says in verse 18, to us who are being saved, it the word of the cross, the gospel, to us who are being saved, the gospel is the power of God.
[00:25:30] How do you know that Christ is in your heart? Well, the gospel is wisdom to you. It has been exalted. It has been illuminated. You know that it bears witness with the truth. It is God's truth.
[00:25:46] Verse 21 says, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
[00:26:02] Verse 23, he clearly says, we preach Christ crucified.
[00:26:08] He says, that is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. Verse 24 he says, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Let me ask you something. Is there any foolishness in God?
[00:26:32] No, that's not what Paul's saying. Paul's saying, when you contrast what this world calls wisdom and what God calls wisdom, what they call foolishness, and what God calls foolishness. If you take the things that this world calls foolish, it is wiser than the wisest thing man has ever thought or said.
[00:26:52] There is no foolishness in God. All of God's wisdom is wise. All of God's strength is strong. But Paul is making a comparison here, and he's saying, in comparison to what this world calls wise, the most simple, the most base, the most common truths of God are wiser than the wisdom of man.
[00:27:16] And he says, compared to God's and most simple truths, or what this world calls foolishness, the wisest things that man has is utter foolishness. It's just folly. It's empty. It's worthless.
[00:27:32] It's not true.
[00:27:37] So as we look at these verses, we see that the gospel divides. It divides and unbelievers from believers.
[00:27:48] And ultimately, as believers, we believe that Jesus is the wisdom of God. Paul wrote those words. Jesus himself is the incarnation of God's wisdom. You want to know what wisdom is? Look at Jesus.
[00:28:05] He is the way, the truth and the life. So the gospel divides. Number two, the gospel unites. The gospel divides unbelievers from believers, but the gospel unites believers together. And Paul writes to those who are in Christ, and he makes a clear case that we are in a group that is set apart.
[00:28:33] We are part of a family that goes beyond any sort of human group of people or any sort of unity that this world knows anything about. As a part of the family of God, we are united in a way that there's nothing to compare it to. Look at verse 18 with me.
[00:28:59] He says, to who?
[00:29:01] To us who are being saved. It is the power of God. It's this group. To us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
[00:29:15] Verse 21, he says, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those.
[00:29:21] I'm glad I'm a part of us. I'm glad I'm a part of those who believe in God, those who have been united in the gospel. He says in verse 27, to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Think about the greatest cultural, the greatest ethnic, racial division throughout all the history of mankind. What is it?
[00:29:53] The Jew and the Gentile.
[00:29:56] There has never existed a greater dividend than Jew and Gentile. Yet the gospel bridged that divide. Paul is speaking and writing to people who are jewish and people who are Gentiles, who were a part of the church in Corinth. And he said, you are one. You're united in Christ. You're a part of the family of God. The gospel bridged this divide and Paul is writing to the church in order to heal the division.
[00:30:33] They're acting like the culture around them, fighting about who their favorite pastor is, fighting about the way they do things, fighting about traditions. He says none of that matters. All that matters is the gospel. You're a part of God's family. You are one. You are to be united. Paul's goal and God's goal is unity.
[00:30:54] All who are in Christ have more in common than we have at odds.
[00:31:00] Those of us who are in Christ have more in common than we have at odds. We could talk about differences. I've said this before. There are things that can divide us, things that we feel strongly about, but none of that. Nothing is as important as what unites us as the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are called to show grace to one another. I may not understand certain things about you. You certainly, if you know me long enough, don't understand certain things about me and my family. We're different. We do things differently. We don't make sense to one another.
[00:31:40] But we're united in the gospel. We have more in common than we have at odds.
[00:31:46] So the gospel divides the believer from unbeliever, saved from lost, reconciled to God from separated from God. The gospel divides. It makes it clear.
[00:31:59] But the gospel then unites us. Those who believe, all who believe shall never perish but have everlasting life.
[00:32:09] Those of us who have believed the gospel, we are united, and we are called to move forward in unity, setting aside our differences and focusing on the thing that unites us. But number three, the gospel not only divides and then unites us, the gospel reflects the gospel, reflects it reflects glory to God alone. I want you to notice, as we look back through these verses, how does Paul describe the gospel salvation? How does Paul talk about the gospel? This is an incredible study. If you want to go through the book of acts and see how the early church preached, they say there's between 13 and 19 sermons preserved in the book of acts, partial or entire sermons, and we get to see what the early church was teaching and preaching. It's powerful because the gospel never changes. The faith was once for all delivered to the saints.
[00:33:09] And the New Testament scriptures that were written after that point agree completely with what was preached in the book of acts. It's absolutely amazing.
[00:33:19] It's a miracle by God. But as we look at that, as we look at the rest of the New Testament, to see how the Bible, how the Holy Spirit chose to talk about the gospel and salvation, we see it in this passage. Clearly, verse 18 talks about the power of goddess.
[00:33:36] It's not the power of man that saves. It's not the power of man that is the good news. It is the power of God. Verse 20 says God made foolish the wisdom of the world. It's given the glory to God. Verse 21 talks about the wisdom of God, goes on to say, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. So it pleased God to save those who believe. Who's doing the saving? God saves. Jesus saves. All we can do is call out for salvation. All we can do is believe the gospel. We're saved by grace through faith plus nothing and minus nothing, he says in verse 25, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Again, it's focused on God. Verse 27 but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Verse 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. Verse 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. What does he leave out? Nothing.
[00:35:13] Jesus became wisdom, righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. So that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.
[00:35:25] He's quoting Jeremiah 923 and 24. I want to read that for you. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his strength. 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, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord, wisdom is focusing on God as the author and the finisher of our salvation.
[00:36:10] The gospel is blatantly, unapologetically God centered and Christ centered. Nothing man centered can ever be good news.
[00:36:27] Nothing man centered can ever be called the gospel or the good news. Yet there are many churches nowadays that are preaching a man centered quote unquote gospel, and it's no good news at all.
[00:36:45] We aren't the good news. We are the problem. God is the solution. We're the sinners. He is the savior.
[00:36:54] I started this sermon talking about some discoveries that brought a lot of conflict in the scientific community. Even though these discoveries were true, people rejected them and resisted them. And I believe that it is irrefutable that the greatest scientific discovery of all time, that brought the greatest amount of conflict into our world is called the Copernican Revolution.
[00:37:26] And this happened in the 16th century.
[00:37:30] Up to that time, astronomers and scientists thought the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun revolved around the earth. And this makes perfect sense, right? Because if.
[00:37:46] If we're just observing from our perspective, the sun rises in the east and travels across the sky and sets in the west faithfully each 24 hours day. And it seems like the sun is revolving around the earth.
[00:38:04] If the earth were standing still and not rotating, logic would dictate that the sun must be revolving around the earth. And that's what people believed, and they fought for that, and they would kill people for that truth.
[00:38:21] But Copernicus proposed that the sun's rising and setting was not because it revolved around the earth every 24 hours. Instead, the sun was the center of a planetary system of which the earth was only a part, a small part, and that the earth was rotating on its axis every 24 hours while also revolving around the sun, completing one revolution every year. And what he proposed was met with much, much resistance, because it meant, philosophically, an entire shift, a focus from man being the center of the universe to being a very small part of the universe. What he proposed was eventually proven, and nothing short of a scientific revolution that changed human understanding forever took place at that time.
[00:39:27] Well, there's a spiritual application. Every single one of us was born thinking the universe revolves around me.
[00:39:36] It's a universal human problem.
[00:39:40] Yet when we hear and believe the gospel, we experience a copernican revolution.
[00:39:47] We go from thinking that the world revolves around us to a perspective that says that Christ, the Son of God, is the center of our universe, and he is the center of our life. Our thinking, our relationships, our issues are like planets that revolve around Jesus, that revolve around his truth, like planets revolve around the sun. And when he is at the core of everything in my life, my life begins to make sense.
[00:40:22] And it doesn't matter if the entire scientific world or the majority of the world's educated people believe something that disagrees with scripture. God's word is true, and eventually it's proven to be true.
[00:40:42] And as we look through history, it's easy to see that played out over and over and over again. The scientific community will minimize that. But God's word is proven true over and over and over again.
[00:40:57] And when we have the copernican revolution in our lives, our questions become, what is God's purpose for my life? What is God doing in this situation that I don't understand? What is he trying to accomplish in me? What is he trying to accomplish through me? How can I participate with him in accomplishing his purposes?
[00:41:20] The gospel unites us because when you see God's wisdom, when your eyes are open to the wisdom of God and you see the lies and culture, you see the lies that fight against God, you realize that it is glorious. And he gets all the glory, all the honor, all the credit, because he's the one that accomplished it for us. I'm going to ask the band to come forward.
[00:41:52] They're going to close us in a song, and we're going to worship together.
[00:41:57] But the gospel is good news about God that tells us that he came to this earth to rescue us, to save us, to redeem us from our sin, from our self, from the lies. He opens our eyes, he removes the blinders.
[00:42:20] He opens our mind. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the gospel, the truth is illuminated and by faith, by grace, through faith and what he did for us, he begins to change our lives.
[00:42:38] There is a revolution, a total upheaval of the political system in our hearts.
[00:42:46] And as we begin to worship him, we begin to become like the one that we're worshiping. We're made into the image of Christ.
[00:42:57] Let's all stand together. Father, I thank you for your word.
[00:43:01] Holy Spirit, please illuminate these truths to our heart. Father, I pray that you would allow us to live out these truths in our lives in a way that will draw others to you. Lord, may you truly be the center of our universe. We ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen.
