Peter Roselle: Rely on God’s Spirit to Demonstrate God’s Power (1 Corinthians 2:5)

00:04 - And you could tell that his spirit has been disturbed because he’s really, he’s tuned into the Lord, but he comes into this really secular culture of Athens.

00:14 - And again, if you study it out, some people think when he was at the Areopagus, he was actually on trial.

00:19 - He wasn’t just there to try to talk about the philosophy.

00:23 - They were concerned that he was practicing sedition.

00:26 - He was going to try to overthrow the government which is a common theme throughout the new Testament for Paul and Jesus, that was the charge against him. Right? So to think that we shouldn’t be involved politics, I don’t know how we got there.

00:37 - But we’re supposed to be impacting the culture. Right? So Paul just, I believe on the fly, right? The Holy Spirit’s working in him, he comes upon them and he asked to try to convince them that he’s got really good news and he did convince them eventually.

00:51 - But here, this is when I was, when I arrived in your city I was fascinated with all the shrines that I came across.

00:57 - And I found one inscribed to the “god nobody knows”.

01:02 - That’s called getting a soft ball. Right? Like when you’re playing volleyball and they just put it up there for you and you just jump up and it’s like, man.

01:12 - If that’s at the perfect setup, I’m going to introduce you to the God that you said you don’t know.

01:18 - So they’re like, oh good okay, That’s a good idea, because that doesn’t even make sense to say.

01:23 - What they’re telling you, if they have that shrine is that we know there’s another one out there that we don’t know, and we want to know who He is.

01:30 - So man Paul, is the right person. Isn’t he? At the right time.

01:34 - I’m here to introduce you to this God. So you can worship intelligently.

01:38 - He made the entire human race so that we could seek after him.

01:42 - And then this is just grips me this verse and not just grope around in the dark, but actually find him.

01:48 - Right. And that is such a picture of the world.

01:51 - And I remember early in my, when I got saved.

01:54 - The Lord brought me back to all the different stages of my life.

01:58 - Could I? I was 25 when I got saved.

02:00 - So I had lived through junior high school, college.

02:03 - Just not a godly lifestyle. And it was just like, the people that I ended up getting attracted to were hurting people.

02:12 - Several of the girls that I was with had alcoholic parents.

02:16 - Right? Like and I’m not trying to get cast shame on anybody.

02:19 - But just saying that just puts such a destructive crack in the foundation of their life.

02:25 - That we were just like that person that said, well I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than the frontal lobotomy.

02:30 - Like really? There’s no better plan than that.

02:33 - Well, of course there is but nobody told me.

02:35 - I hadn’t been witnessed to. I didn’t know any Christians.

02:39 - And you might hear Danny Silk testimony someday in some of the classes that we run.

02:42 - He said, I went to Bethel church, my whole life.

02:45 - I never met one married couple that was married more than 15 years.

02:49 - And I was now in this church where these people that were mentoring me were all 25, 30, 40 years.

02:53 - I didn’t think anybody lasted that long. See, because he had to get a new understanding that there’s a higher way to be a human being.

03:00 - I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

03:05 - Wow, no, you’re believing a lie. All right.

03:09 - So in every way, this is Paul. Again, talking to these secular people in the 1 Corinthian:1, he’s like you don’t really have to go back to your old ways anymore.

03:19 - In every way you were enriched in Christ in Him.

03:22 - In all speech, in all knowledge, you’re not lacking in any gifts as you wait for the revealing of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end.

03:31 - And you could say, this is our prayer. Every morning when we wake up.

03:33 - As Lord, I want you to reveal yourself to me today.

03:37 - I want you to show me how I should act in every situation in every transaction I’m in, You and I are enriched in Him and in all speech in all knowledge.

03:47 - It’s good to remind yourself. And then he says in 1 Corinthian 2, my brothers and sisters, I didn’t pose as an expert with all the answers.

03:57 - I didn’t pretend to explain the mystery of God with eloquent speech and human wisdom.

04:02 - I claimed to know nothing with certainty other than the reality that Jesus is the anointed one the liberating King, who was crucified on our behalf.

04:13 - That’s the cross, the sermon I preach. We’re not delivered with the kind of persuasive elegance that some have come to expect, but they were effective because I relied on God’s spirit to demonstrate God’s power.

04:25 - That’s a good prayer for us today. Right? Look at somebody and say, God’s spirit in you will demonstrate God’s power through you.

04:38 - Yeah. Amen. What a great thing next week, come back and give testimony next Sunday, about what God did through you this week.

04:46 - It’s this amazing privilege that we have and he’s not bragging because we know in other parts of the new Testament they criticize his public speaking ability.

04:55 - They didn’t think much of his presentation and said, I was a persuasive elegant language that some have come to expect.

05:02 - But they were effective because it was a demonstration of God’s power.

05:07 - That’s what changes people’s lives. If this were not so, your faith will be based on human wisdom and not the power of God.

05:15 - That’s another part of the genius of Jesus.

05:17 - He can reach the highest Einstein PhD or the person in the gutter.

05:22 - Who’s just completely broken. His reality is true to both of those and everything in between.

05:29 - And that takes a genius to do that. All right.

05:32 - So I’m just kind of winding down at the end here, cause it’s, again this is the message.

05:39 - And I’m not a Greek scholar, but I know that some of the new Testament is written in more strict language than the eloquent language.

05:46 - The book of Hebrews, for example was written in a high, like more, by somebody would have had a high educational background and then there’s other times it’s not.

05:54 - And I liked the message because when you’re out the world they don’t want a big, long explanation.

05:59 - You’re talking to somebody about God, you just got to get to the point and they don’t need a lot of flowery language.

06:06 - So he said, isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses that He chooses nobodies to expose the hollow pretension of the “somebodies” but it’s in quotes, right? Because nobody is a nobody.

06:28 - Thank you. I was waiting. I didn’t think it was that complicated, but you got it.

06:31 - Good job. Everybody’s a somebody to God.

06:36 - But you know, living in this part of the world, you know.

06:38 - There’s a lot of people that are somebody. Meaning famous make a lot of money and live in a big house.

06:45 - So, okay. My job happens to be helping those people invest their money, right? So I get it, and good for them because when they become Christians they use the money to advance the kingdom.

06:55 - Hallelujah, right? There are some, he said not many was but there are some that are and praise God, they’re coming in the kingdom too.

07:03 - So we can look at our own lives and remain humbled and say, God.

07:07 - It’s just amazing that you took somebody out of a rock and roll band.

07:11 - Who is only goal was sin, you know every night and that you would put them in a church.

07:18 - And you know that he would have people come into the church and he’s helping them grow in their Christian walk.

07:24 - Wow. Like that’s a miracle that that would happen.

07:28 - But he does. He chooses the people that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses.

07:33 - He chooses the nobodies to expose the hollow pretensions of the somebody you could say, that’s mother Teresa too.

07:41 - She won the Nobel prize. Eighth grade education, 4”11.

07:46 - Not going to be on the cover of a fashion magazine.

07:50 - God used her mightily. Amazing. And then he says that makes it quite clear that none of you can get away with blowing your own horn before God.

08:03 - Everything that we have, the right thinking, the right living, a clean slate, and a fresh start comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.

08:13 - All right, come on. Let’s stand. Thank you, Lord.

08:17 - Everything I have that’s worth having is from you. .