-Transcript-
00:26 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:30 Welcome to the cafe. My name is Pastor Clark Covington, pastor of Heartland Community Baptist Church here in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, with another episode of KJV Cafe. I’m so glad you’re here, here this week.
00:41 Most of this week, most of these episodes, this little block here is dealing with the foolishness of preaching.
00:48 And we’re on the second part, but don’t worry if you miss the first part, we’ll get, we’ll kind of cover most of it here. The foolishness of preaching.
00:57 Our salvation is more than just knowing how to be saved. Do you know that? That our salvation is more than knowing just how to be saved? And what I mean by that is to know how to be saved, right?
01:09 To understand that process is how you get saved. Now once you get saved, you have the Holy Spirit living within you, right? And just to back up for a minute, I guess I should say, how do you get saved?
01:21 Romans 3:23 says, all have sinned, fallen short of the glory of God.
01:28 First step is understanding that we’re sinners, that we have a need spiritually that we can’t meet on our own. Next, we have to look to who died for our sins, right?
01:38 And that would be Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen? And when Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross willingly, was buried three days, amen, and was risen from the grave the third day by God the Father.
01:50 We understand this gospel, which is clearly outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:1- 4. We see that we believe on Christ, our sins are forgiven because Him being perfect and sinless.
02:05 Remember, He was born of a virgin, He lived 33 and a half years, perfect, sinless, Christ never sinned, okay, never.
02:12 So Him never having sinned, He goes to the cross and God then gives Him the sin of all humanity, all mankind, past, present, and future. He has to drink that bitter cup of sin.
02:24 He drank the sin of Hitler. He drank the sin of every evil person, Saddam Hussein, on and on. He drank the sin of the rapist and of the molester.
02:36 He drank the sin of you. He drank the sin of me, of all of us. And if you want to get into the Bible and look at what sin is, look at the law.
02:42 I think the Old Testament law was over 600 different rules and regulations, and you look at the law, Paul writes, he didn’t know what sin was until lust and covening, you know, came about.
02:54 Lust through coveting, however you want to say it. Look, if you look at coveting, that’s like, you see something, you say, oh, I want that.
03:05 I’d be happier if I had that. That’s coveting. Look at idolatry.
03:06 You look at someone and say, ooh, they’re great, you know. We all have such a huge sin debt, right?
03:16 And so we look here in the scriptures, we see Romans 3:10, as it is written, there is none righteous, not one, amen.
03:22 Romans 6:23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
03:27 Romans 5:8, I love this verse, but God commendeth his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
03:38 And then Romans 10:9-10, that’s our founding verse there here at Heartland there, here at Heartland Community Baptist Church, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
03:49 For the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
03:53 Romans 10:13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That’s kind of an abbreviated Romans road for you there, but what we’re getting at here is the gospel is very simple, very straightforward.
04:03 We understand our sin debt, we understand our need for a Savior, and we simply trust Christ as our Savior.
04:10 And if you have been saved, you can be saved right now. You don’t need to be a part of a church. You don’t need to have money in the bank.
04:19 You don’t need a theological degree. You don’t need any of that, okay? You simply could just pray right now, dear Lord, I understand I need you. I’m a sinner and I need you.
04:27 Lord Jesus, please save me. Come into my heart. Save me, Lord Jesus, and I will live for you.
04:33 You will become my Lord. I am giving myself to you. I am trusting you as Savior.
04:40 You do that. You simply believe and you’re saved. The Bible says you’re justified by faith.
04:44 There’s nothing more that you need to do. So if you believe on Christ, you trust Christ, you’re saved. You may have learned that you need to do dot, dot, dot, dot to be saved.
04:51 No, our works don’t save us. You may be in a church where they are pounding you every single day, be here for this, be here for that, do this, do that, as if you could lose your salvation. No, once saved, always saved.
05:05 Christ doesn’t keep going back to the cross. He died one time for all mankind, for any that would come and believe. And the Bible says God desires all to come to repentance.
05:15 Yes, that criminal in prison that did that awful thing, God wants them to be saved. And that, you know, perfect person in the world’s eyes that is just so great, God desires them to be saved. And both of them have to come to the cross.
05:32 They always, preachers always say this is a good one. The ground is level at the cross.
05:39 The one that’s lifted up in society, the one that is cast down in society, both must come to the cross, must come to Jesus Christ to be saved.
05:45 And typically the one that’s cast down is much more willing because maybe they don’t have that pride in their way. Needless to say, this preaching of the cross, which I’ve just given you, amen.
05:56 And if you’ve been saved, reach out, let me know, I’ll be praying for you.
06:03 Oh, what a blessing if someone accepted Christ today. Oh, it would make the entire ministry. If one person ever accepts Christ through this ministry, it was worth every ounce of effort, every dime, everything.
06:12 But today we’re looking at the foolishness of preaching, that people in this world will find it foolish.
06:21 1 Corinthians 1:18, for the preaching of the cross is them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. God doesn’t call the most talented people to be his messengers and his witnesses.
06:36 And that might be one reason why the world finds it foolish. 1 Corinthians 1:26, just a few verses later, you see here, for you see you’re calling brethren, so Paul writing to the brethren, other believers, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.
06:53 Wise, mighty, noble, that’s who would be very believable, wouldn’t it? You know, y’all, I always see, you know, I’m a pretty simple person.
07:02 I think I’m a very simple person. You know, I try to serve the Lord and work this business I have to help provide for the family and the ministry. And then I’m just sitting there, you know, flip on the TV.
07:14 I like to watch sports a lot every now and again, you know, a news story here and there. And you’ll see someone, maybe it’s an athlete or maybe it’s a musician or a movie star. You say, man, God, look at the talent that person has.
07:26 Like, I can’t believe they’re not using it for you. You know, they have this incredible voice or this incredible presence or whatever, you know, and God is like, no, I’m going to take the feeble. I’m going to take the cast down and cast aside.
07:45 I’m going to use them. And man, I mean, I just, again, I won’t go too deep into it, but it’s not the wisdom of words. Amen.
07:55 When I grew up in my family and I believe in the old time way, I believe men are the preachers. Amen. Women could be the teachers and so forth.
08:06 And but men are the preachers. And I look at the men in my family and man, I mean, my grandpa, both grandpas just seem to be really smart and charismatic and wise and all this.
08:21 And I don’t know on the one of my mom’s side, but my dad’s side, he just was kind of a factory man.
08:27 My dad was a is a brilliant man. He went to school on a full scholarship, Indiana University, Columbia University. I think that’s Ivy League for his master’s degree.
08:37 Just as smart as a whip. And Lord didn’t choose to use him. My brother, straight A student, great, you know, all state athlete, all New England athlete in college, just super talented.
08:48 God didn’t use him. Here I am just kind of like a mess from the beginning. Problems left, right and center.
08:54 Health problems growing up, learning problems, growing up, behavior problems, growing up, got into all kinds of trouble, you know, and I go to the men’s mission.
09:03 Lord allowed me to go there and preach for a season. And I you know, and I tell them under my old pastor, that’s why it was for a season because we founded the new church and his new ministry.
09:14 But under my old pastor and I tell them, guys, I could be in your seats. And I think they would just say, yeah, right. But no, literally, I could you don’t know how close I was to being in your seats.
09:20 And God called me to pastor a church and God called me to the radio ministry and God called me to speak to you today. So I am a testimony that God does not use the wise, mighty or noble.
09:30 And again, I think a lot of people in church, they could read 1 Corinthians 1:26, those in the ministry and kind of chuckle like, you know, OK, God, well, you chose me and I guess I’m not wise, mighty or noble.
09:42 But then if we’re honest, we’re not, you know, God gets the glory more when he uses people with less to offer. God’s power is shown more strongly in those that are weak.
09:50 I don’t have time to go through the whole story, but the founder of Calvary Church, which is a Bible believing church.
09:59 And in fact, their whole church structure is based on Bible study. That’s that’s their that’s their sermon. It’s just Bible study.
10:08 Calvary, if you read about the founder of that church, he said and again, this denomination, I think it’s a denomination. Pretty much it’s spread across the country and some of them are pretty big.
10:17 And God seems to really have done done a work with that church.
10:19 The founder says, oh, God used me because anyone that knows me knows that I would never be able to do anything like this. So God would get the most glory. And that’s a very biblical statement.
10:27 Again, you can look it up on their website, but something to that extent. And that’s very much true. He’s admitting in his humility, but it’s not false humility, humility.
10:35 It’s true humility. Again, like mine, you know, I don’t you know, I if life’s lot played out as it should have, I belonged in the men’s mission or in the grave. And instead God said that one, I’ll take that one.
10:47 I’ll use that one. What a great God. What an awesome God to allow just a center, a worm like me, the privilege to preach his word and to work in the ministry.
10:56 I can’t, I’ll never be able to understand it. So God gets more glory when he uses people with less to offer. God’s power is shown more strongly in those that are weak and God’s gospel is simple, so he doesn’t want someone using wisdom of words.
11:15 Amen. He doesn’t want someone to add to it unnecessarily or complicated. Does that make sense? God is looking for people simply to expound on the scriptures and keep them as they are.
11:23 Amen. You know, when you’re called to preach your call to the ministry, you are simply preaching something that already exists. You don’t need to be creative.
11:30 You don’t need to end up with some new idea or some big revelation. In fact, that’s anti-biblical. The true Bible way, the true way that God himself would have it is for the preachers simply to preach his word.
11:45 It’s a simple gospel. I just described it in three or four minutes. I have kids, young kids that are six and one’s about to be seven.
11:54 They’re on the cusp of getting it. Amen. They can barely read.
11:58 They can, they can’t quite write and they pretty much understand the gospel. They had a Christian soccer league this fall and the coach said, Hey man, your kids really got this gospel down, you know, cause he was trying to witness to them and they were telling him, telling him things about the gospel. So a five, six year old can understand it.
12:14 Yet a triple PhD may never get it. That’s the gospel. God doesn’t want us to use wisdom of words.
12:20 Who was using wisdom of words in the Bible, the Pharisees and the scribes, right? And they were trying to add to the gospel. They were trying to make it burdensome.
12:29 And that’s why I believe it irked the Lord so much as you read through those uh, gospel accounts, uh, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
12:37 And you read about these disputes with the Pharisees and scribes. And they’re so heated. I believe one reason, if not the main reason is because the Lord himself was so grieved that they’re adding to the gospel, trying to use wisdom of words.
12:48 How about the gatekeepers in church today? People that are walking around puffed up in the ministry. That is not helpful. They’re acting like you have to go through them to access God’s gospel.
13:02 That is another problem. And that is, that is, that is, I believe, rampant in the church today. There’s arrogance and pride that’s crept into the church.
13:10 You know, what does it mean to be a servant of the Lord? It means to be a servant. When is the servant proud?
13:16 When is the servant puffed up? They’re not, they’re a servant. It’s God’s power.
13:32 It’s God’s gospel and it’s God’s program and it’s God’s soul winning. And we need to understand that, that when we are witnessing to a world that is looking at it as foolish, because again, we may appear to be unlikely people to preach his gospel. And then the gospel may appear to be even so simple.
13:43 It’s, it’s hard that they would believe that that is truly the way to salvation. Or it’s just hard to believe. Amen.
13:50 And it’s foolishness to them. And so what Paul is exhorting here in 1 Corinthians 1 is don’t make it more complicated. Don’t pervert it with wisdom of words.
14:00 Don’t take away the glory that God rightfully is owed by his gospel. By adding to it, by trying to be clever and all these things.
14:07 And as we understand this, it’ll make us better evangelists because we’ll have empathy for those that we’re witnessing to and humility in our hearts.
14:15 And God, I believe will honor that with more fruit for what we’re doing, more fruit for what we’re doing. Time’s up for today.
14:21 Tune in next time as we get deeper into 1 Corinthians 1.
14:25 I thank you so much for listening today. Take care, God bless and amen.