-Transcript-
00:26 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:31 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. Hopefully you’re having a great day, a great week.
00:38 It’s a great day here at the cafe. Have some espresso here from Nicaragua. I don’t know.
00:45 I wouldn’t say the farm because I’ll butcher the name, but it’s good. It’s strong. It’s what I need this morning here as we get into God’s words.
00:56 Hopefully you got a coffee or a tea or something with you. Hey, if it’s decaf, that’s cool too. We like decaf around here as well.
01:04 Hopefully you’re doing well. You’re ready to dive into the Word. Amen.
01:09 Study up on God’s Word. That’s why we do this cafe theme. It’s just to kind of disarm ourselves a little bit.
01:15 So you know what? It’s nothing buttoned up. It’s nothing to feel intimidated by or to feel like you’re getting lost in something. Amen.
01:24 And guess what? You know, when we study God’s Word, we become more and more found. Amen. We become more and more just alive inside and have peace inside and have understanding in this world.
01:38 Amen. And today we’re talking about the understanding of the gospel, specifically the foolishness of preaching. You know, understanding our salvation is more than just knowing how to be saved.
01:52 You know, God wants us to know a few things that should confirm us in the faith, encourage us as well, and most importantly, teach us how to witness to this world.
02:03 So think of these themes here today, confirm, encourage, and teach. And we’re going to focus on this all week long, confirm, encourage, teach.
02:10 We’re in 1 Corinthians 1:18 is our text verse. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.
02:21 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.
02:28 Now, that verse probably is very familiar to you. Maybe if you’ve been in church for a season and it’s got this juxtaposition, this comparison. Amen.
02:51 It’s got something here where it says to one group, it’s foolishness, to this other group, it is the power of God to save, right?
02:59 The preaching of the cross, that is our gospel, which we most clearly see in 1 Corinthians15:1-4. But what we’re going to see here is that there’s more to this, um, verse than, than meets the eye. Then we just read it, uh, right at once.
03:20 And so the best way to get context for a verse is to read what’s around the verse. And then you can look at historically what was going on at the time. You can look at, you know, who is this addressed to and so forth.
03:33 So we’re going to go through 1 Corinthians:1. We’re going to read the whole thing. I think it’s 31 verses, so we can do this.
03:41 Amen. 1 Corinthians I, starting with verse one, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sothnes, our brother unto the church of God, which is at Cornuth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace be unto you and peace from God, our father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
04:13 I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God, which is given you by Jesus Christ. Then in everything you are enriched by him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come behind in no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
04:48 Now I beseech you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that you’d be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment for it has been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them, which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
05:07 Now, this, I say that every one of you sayeth, I am of Paul and I have Apollos and I have Cephas and I have Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name.
05:33 And I baptized also the household of Stephanus. Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
05:46 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?
06:00 Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made the foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God.
06:16 It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
06:35 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to not things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.
07:08 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
07:21 Wow. Okay. A lot to unpack here.
07:26 And in today’s episode, we’re just going to look at some of these themes in 1 Corinthians 1, that help us to frame up our text verse. Number one, this chapter is addressing the saved, the church.
07:37 As I’ve been taught, as I understand, as I see, as I study Paul’s writings.
07:43 He’s always addressing the believer for the most part. Yes, he’s writes about it burdens him. The Jews won’t believe in their, his people.
07:52 And yes, we get our gospel from Paul that we share to the unbeliever. But even then, like 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, he’s talking about how you believed unless you believed in vain. He’s always writing to the believer.
08:06 So this message here is primarily to the believer. Now, if you have not been saved, you can still get a lot out of this. I believe the Lord can use this to win you to him.
08:17 Amen. But this is truly for the believer. I think of Christian radio and I know they say many lost people listen to Christian radio and I believe that, but in my mind,
08:27 I’m just picturing somebody that’s like really loves the Lord so much that they’re going to the AM dial or going, you know, on the Christian podcast, searching up KJV Bible study.
08:37 I mean, typically that’s someone you love God. You probably are in some kind of ministry. So this one is right there, smack dab for you.
08:43 And it’s addressing, again, the church. And we see that throughout this year that Paul is addressing the church at Cornuth. And if you understand this church and you get a really a better picture almost in chapter two of first Corinthians, it’s a carnal church, a church that had a lot, a lot of bad issues.
09:06 And the church is really not living, not living as God would have them to live, not living as Paul had instructed them to live, not living out their faith. The legalist would say this church was lost, but Paul is saying, Hey, they’re not lost. You know, you’re of God.
09:26 So why don’t we start acting like you’re of Christ? I mean, how many times is Jesus Christ, the name Lord Jesus Christ mentioned in this chapter? I may need to count at some point because it’s over and over and over and over.
09:38 Right. And he’s calling himself one with them in the sense that they’re both part of the body of Christ.
09:45 And so he’s, he’s imploring them to kind of clean up their act. But God is faithful to deliver his own blameless in the end. We see that theme here.
09:58 You know, verse nine, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of the son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Uh, verse eight, excuse me. That’s the verse before who shall also confirm you unto the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
10:12 Now think about this. I told our congregation on Sunday morning that that verse, verse eight of first Corinthians one really warm my heart because lately I’ve been feeling, you know, and maybe, uh, you’ve been through this too, that, you know, you feel like you’re just letting the Lord down, so to speak, not doing all that you could. Amen.
10:34 And a verse like this tells me, Hey, this church in Corinth, they weren’t perfect. They were, they had a lot of big problems. And here it says in verse eight, who shall confirm you unto the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
10:47 It’s a reminder that we’re under grace and not the law. It’s a reminder that when Jesus Christ died for our sins and we simply believe on him, have faith that we’re justified by that faith, that when we go to see the Lord and the Bible talks about being absent from the bodies, be present with the Lord, amen.
11:04 Whether through the rapture, him returning and calling us home or whether through an mortal earthly death, whatever it may be, when we see God, we’re not going to be held accountable for our sin debt because we believed on Christ.
11:24 We trusted Christ as savior. And when we trusted Christ as savior, our sins are now forgiven. They’re under the blood.
11:28 Amen. And you, here I am, you know, Oh Lord, forgive me. I did something stupid 20 years ago, Lord.
11:33 I was so dumb. I was so bad, you know, okay. It’s been forgiven.
11:38 Well, how about yesterday? You know, I, you know, yesterday I was going to go do X, Y, Z for the ministry and I just plain didn’t, you know, I forgot or I just, whatever, right. You’re forgiven.
11:47 You see, being presented blameless is so beautiful and we really could, I mean, you could preach many messages on that study, study that all day long and it’ll fill your heart with joy.
11:57 Knowing that once you’re saved, you’re no longer under the law. Thank God. Paul is urging the church of Corinth to be of one accord to have no divisions.
12:09 In fact, when I was working on this message, I was, my initial thought was let’s do one on not having divisions. And then it turned into the foolishness of preaching because that’s kind of a bigger theme that I saw here.
12:20 But he says, look, I’ve heard, you know what? There’s divisions among you and he has a source.
12:26 Verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 1, for it has been declared unto me, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe. So the house of Chloe told them that there are contentions among you and specifically who to follow.
12:38 Do they follow Paul or Jesus or Apollos? Who are they following? And that’s why he starts getting into a record of who he’s baptized and who he hasn’t baptized.
12:47 And it was important for him to let them know that he wasn’t around, you know, telling people, hey, I am your savior and I’m baptizing you and I, you know, all of it is resting on me.
12:59 He’s pointing to Christ and that’s why he’s saying, you know, why are you guys having these divisions? We, the modern day example I’ve heard preached in the past of this scripture would be, don’t hold up one preacher to another and say, well, I go to this preacher’s church and I’m all about this preacher.
13:18 It’s about Christ and hopefully, Lord willing, the preacher is pointing to Christ, right? And I gave an example before of, uh, you know what, if the preacher’s name isn’t known, that may be a good thing.
13:29 You know, if the preacher is just simply a servant of the Lord and doesn’t need their name known and their name out there and their picture out there, et cetera, et cetera, you know, that’s biblical. Amen. Another theme here is the gospel is simple.
13:42 It is by Christ, right? It literally by Christ, the Bible says he created the world, he created everything in the world and it’s for him. And then he comes and dies on the cross, willingly, obediently, and is raised from the dead by God. The father is by Christ.
13:58 It is for Christ and it is in Christ. And this is foolishness to the unbeliever. We have to understand here all, most of this week, we’re going to be diving in and looking at why is it foolishness to the unbeliever?
14:08 And what does that mean for our evangelism? How can we make sure we’re properly witnessing to the lost if they’re looking at us as fools? So keep tuned in all this week, amen.
14:20 Look us up online. If you haven’t checked out the podcast, KJV Cafe, just search it up. Thank you so much for listening today.
14:25 Talk to you next time. Take care. God bless. And amen.