Inland Empire: Riverside
Crossing Off Your Problems - Audio
[ Music ] >> Anyways, it's good to be together, everybody. I'm glad you're here, and it's been quite a time. As we've been looking at different sermons on the cross here, as we're heading towards Easter, and hopefully, you feel inspired. And I see we have Chris Moyen, the house today. So, I know that Moyen family's happy back from Omaha, and we're just grateful to have you back, man. Spring break, I'm assuming. All right, excellent, excellent. So, we're excited today. Today, I titled the sermon Crossing Off Your Problem. So, isn't that what -- wouldn't that be awesome? Whatever problems you had coming in, you can just take a big fat marker and just cross them out, and hopefully, that's what church is about for us, is having -- getting a perspective on our problems, and really seeing God, and we're going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 1 and a little bit of 2 today, and really, as Paul was writing to the Corinthian church, because they had five problems, right? We're going to talk about some of what those problems were, but he had heard from -- possibly, he heard from Chloe, Chloe's household. And I know I hear about problems from Chloe, too, sometimes. But he heard about the problems in the church, and so he wrote to them to address them and kind of get them squared away, and basically to confront their problems with the cross and the resurrection of Christ. And so, his theme is when you have the right perspective on the cross and the resurrection, and your problems get put in the right perspective, and as well as a theology of love, because we all know 1 Corinthians 13 was a big wedding verse and really inspiration on love, and so really the cross of Christ, the resurrection, and love is an answer to all of their problems. That's a great thing. We have access to the same solution to our problems, and I'm excited here. Corinth was an interesting city, very wealthy, diverse economy there. It was formed by freedmen, so basically all these slaves were freed, and they all moved to Corinth to start the city, and you had Jews, and you had people from all these different ethnicities that were there, and so they started out, everybody was the same in a way, and then they began to grow, and certain people started to make more money than others, and then those people became more important, and then you started to have problems because you all started out the same, and you kind of get that idea. The kid you went to high school with is now making five times more money than you, and you're like, "Oh, man, I remember when this job was like this," and not that we would ever struggle with any of those problems, but that was what was happening. They had a big temple to Aphrodite at the top of their big mountain there, the acro Corinth, they called it, and people were worshiping, their form of worshiping, their gods there would be with the temple priestess or prostitute, that that was kind of their worship, that if you were with the priestess, then you were closer to God, then I'm just not making up a good theory. I'm just saying that's what they were doing. The city was almost synonymous Corinth and sexual sin. It would be kind of like you would say sin city, right? That's what Corinth was, and so that's where he was there. Paul actually lived there for a year and a half, and many people think he wrote the book of Romans while he was there, had Priscilla and Aquila that came through, and Phoebe, one of the deacons came through there, lived real there. So it was an interesting place, and we're going to delve into it here today, but they had a lot of challenges, right, and so we're going to try to solve all those here. Let's see, before we get going too much here, I had to share a little bit last week. I talked about it. We went camping, some of us out in the desert there. This was my journey to the Salton Sea. I took one of the washes and just went all the way. As far as I could go, I was about 400 yards away, and I saw someone else that was stuck about 200 yards in front of me, so I decided to stop, but it was just a lot of fun. Probably one of the highlights of the weekend at the end, we have a service together that Darren usually leaves, and one of the kids who's grown up in the church, and he's like, "Man, I miss this. My friends don't do this." And he's like, "This is what church is supposed to be." And I just stopped. It kind of stopped me, and I was like, "Wow, that is right. It's just about us being loving each other, having a good time, being together, fellowshiping. That's why even in the fellowship break, you know, to see everybody just kind of having a good time and talking and everything. That's what church is supposed to be." So what a great time here. This was us. This is a smudge pot for anybody who cares. It's like this big metal thing that you burn diesel fuel in, and it just throws heat everywhere, and there we are kind of hanging out around it. Clean energy, yes. That was my gift for the weekend. The guy who had it, he wants to buy a new, better one, and so he gave me that one. So I'm excited. But I didn't bring it to the house, because I didn't know if Danielle would want that. And this is, this is Jayman. He went with us. He went for his first time. He had the best time. This guy was like a, he was like a ninja. He wanted to climb everything, and he was, I won't even say, but he was walking on these little things, and I'm just like, "I'm not going over there, but you have fun." But all very well supervised, though. Very well supervised. He hears him. He climbed down in this little ditch type of thing, and just having a good time. So that was fun, fun having in there. I figured I'd share that, because I know he would like that. Give him some airtime. Okay, so let's get back to, let's have a prayer, and we'll get back to quarantine. Father, we do thank you for this time. Thank you for these minutes that we get to share with one another, that we get to share with you, that we get to share with your words, and the words that were written to faithful people long ago. God, I pray that you can help our hearts today, help us to not just hear, but understand. I pray you get me out of the way that we can really see you. We love you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I'm going to start reading in verse 18 here, and then I'll come back and discuss. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate." Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him. God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, assembling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. I'm going to skip ahead to verse 30. It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God. That is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let the one who boast, boast in the Lord. And so it is with me brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with elegance, elegance, or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with the demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power. And so we started talking last week about the wisdom of the world versus the wisdom of God. And here he's pulling people towards the wisdom of God, pulling them away from the wisdom that they are used to and calling them back to this faith that they followed, this faith that they began with. And we're going to see that this church had a lot of things, a lot of problems back to those problems. In verse 18 here, he talks about the cross being foolishness to those who were perishing and for us who were being saved at the power of God. And he uses that term foolishness a few different times. And you just get that flavor that maybe some of their things that they were involved in were foolish too. He's saying, hey, we're saved by the power. We're being saved by the power of God, but some of the things that they were involved in were still those foolish things. They were still caught up, but he was calling them back and reminding them. And I went back and looked at Isaiah 29 on this passage here that he quotes about frustrating the intelligence of the wise and hits a really interesting passage. And God's basically saying that I'm talking, but you're not listening. I'm reaching out to you, but you're not hearing to Israel. Maybe that's what God was feeling about the church and Corinth. Maybe that's how he feels with us sometimes. Hey, I'm talking to you, but you're missing it. And he says that it's like when you read the scroll, it's like this, when you have the scroll, it's like a seal that you can't read it. Even though I'm telling you, I'm talking to you. It's like you can't see it. And then he also says it's like you're, I give it to you to read, but you don't know how to read. And so you don't understand it. And so you can picture Paul thinking about, man, I'm trying to get you. God's trying to get you. He's trying to get you to follow his wisdom. He's trying to call you back. And yet it's like it's not the words aren't even happening. You know, we talked about taking up our cross daily and following Christ in our lives and just taking that mantle of sacrifice and love versus this power and desire to dominate and command and and wars and all the things you can just look around and see this wisdom that God has that seems foolish to people. Right? I wonder if they felt alone as Christians, they're like, no one understands what we're trying to do. Like, why am I live? Why are you living this life? Why are you sacrificing? Why are you giving money? Why are you laying down your life for others? Ever feel that way? Like, no, no. Maybe that's how they felt like it's foolish. You know, we, as Darren was doing the lesson earlier on our trip, he was talking, it just made me think about life's journey that he's given us this access to forgiveness. You know, he's given us this access to being clean, this place to start over. Anytime we want, we can start over. Recently had a conversation with some of the guys at church and it started out like this. I was at work today and I really messed up and I cursed at my boss. This is that church. And so someone else is like, you know what? I really messed up today too. And everyone's trying to coach everyone else of like, hey, this is what you need to do. And here's a scripture for you. And here's the way back. And I'm glad you were honest about it. And now you can change. You know, Jason mentioned the spirit of repentance, the season of repentance. It begins when we get honest and get vulnerable. And as everyone was talking and it made me realize what we have, what this power of the cross is that we have access to forgiveness. That we struggle, that we're, but we know where to go. We know where the source is. And just thinking about the foolishness of the world, maybe it's that they don't have a place to go to be clean. A place to start over. A place to access power from God. You know, over time our lives take us different places. If I was going to ask you today what your problems are, I bet you got some. All right, I bet you're holding on to them. You came in with them. Hopefully you won't walk out with them as many, but you came in with them and and yet over time, or not over time, I mean day to day, we struggle. And we're fighting something or we're battling, we're praying, we're asking, we're waiting, we're struggling. We're like that brother at church. Hey, I messed up. Right? And yet over time, God takes us from nothing to something. I didn't even read that part, but he says, you know, you weren't, not many of you were impressive when you started this. And now look at you. Look what God's done. And today as I look around, I see man, not many of us, what were we before? And what has God done? And yet we struggle at any point, if you ask him, we're probably struggling with something. And yet over time, God lifts us up to this life that we never should have had, that we never could have had on our own. That's the power of God. Over the long run, God lifts us up. He takes care of us. He molds us. He blesses us. And we can see it if we get, if we can take a step back and look at from 30,000 feet, we can see, man, God has really taken me from here to here. I never would have done that on my own. You never would have done that on your own, many of you. But because of the cross, God's changed you. And we have this time to see it and to be grateful. And I think even as we're gone, it was kind of a time to reflect and just thinking about, man, I was now that my son counters out of the house. Many of you know him. And you know, it was kind of a sad thing. Being out there, my little buddy is not there. It was always like, we're going to go have fun, but it's even like extra fun with him there. And just thinking, you know, as Jamie was there, he's actually what reminded me that like he's a 13 year old kid and he's hanging out with all these grown men, right? Families and jobs and stress and everything and he's hanging out with us. And I was like, wow, I get to be like Darren yester for him. Darren was that for Connor. Many of you were that Chevy and Abe and others of you. And he, you know, that we get to raise our kids like that and that's the power of God. None of his friends get that. None of Connor's friends had that. People that he could look up to and talk to and that's the power of God that we have. And yet in the day to day, it can seem so challenging. Where's the wise person? Where's the teacher of the law, the philosopher of the age? They had all these different philosophies that the flesh is evil and the spirit is divine. And I told you about the prostitution and all that weird stuff. And chapter five deals with all five through seven is all these problems, sexual problems, prostitution, adultery, immorality, in the church, not out the church, in the church, right? He's helping him to talk about marriage and how this mutual relationship that this is what love looks like. That's not what love is. This is what love is. And he's calling them back to dying themselves and looking to Jesus for love and direction. And he's saying that our bodies matter. That our sexual integrity matters. That it's worth fighting for. That you can't just let yourself go that you got to fight these things that were against us. But the cross gives us strength to fight. It gives us endurance. It gives us hope. He talks about what everyone was looking for, wisdom, different things. Chapters eight through ten they struggled with this meat that was sacrificed to idols and whether they should eat it or not eat it. It was kind of a really weird setup in the city too where it'd be like that that door would be the temple where they were worshiping other gods and maybe the other door would be that's where they would be selling the meat and then maybe the Christians would be over here. So they were around all this. It wasn't like you had to go different stores all over town. I mean it was all just right there idol idolatry and the meat and of course some people feeling like hey God created meat so we can eat it. If we're grateful right that's right there to eat. Others I don't know I used to worship over there and now I'm going to buy the meat over here and then I'm going to go and think about what they were doing over there and just all these things and still others thinking that those gods are just pieces of the wood. Anyway they don't do anything. That's just a tree and yet they were guided by love even though they knew that was just a piece of wood. They wouldn't eat the meat if it was going to cause one of you to struggle and just that community that's guided by the cross is guided by love. You know this weekend there was a number of times and you know when you're with your friends and everybody feels comfortable you know everybody's saying all kinds of crazy stuff and our friends make fun of each other and you know it gets a little crazy at times and and I found myself in a few situations where I was like no I don't think I'm going to say that. I had it ready you know it's right there and I'm like no I don't think that's encouraging that's not the right I don't want to go too far with that and I'm not saying that to brag but it was kind of a new thing and I think I tell you I've been reading proverbs so that I wouldn't just say whatever if I'm comfortable I would use self-control and let love be the determining factor by what I say or don't say and so it was a reminder like oh wow okay I use I would probably say that but I'm going to hold back and that's what love does right it's not just whatever whatever I want to say I'm going to say no it's not whatever I want to say it's whatever God wants me to say it's whatever is going to build you up that's in there too right that's chapter 12 build up the body of Christ that we're all a part of it we're all important we're all valuable you know what a great example that we get to be because of the cross because it teaches us to say no to those kind of things this year what an example of love we get to be when everyone's fighting and throwing dirt on each other and yelling at each other and criticizing lying whatever they're doing we get to let love govern us and not just us in here but we get to let love govern us with our enemies aka people from the other party that's how it is these days not in here hopefully because we have the cross with us but we can see people not just who they are or who they associate with they miss seeing people and so they were causing each other to struggle by what they ate and they said oh who cares I don't care if you struggle that's your own problem sound familiar that's not the cross that's that's us that's humanity chapters uh talks about boasting in the Lord and he says he came without eloquence or human wisdom I mean it's hard for me to imagine that Paul didn't have eloquence right you read some of his writings you're like man this guy was this guy was sharp he was good he had it all flowing but he wasn't focused on that he was focused on Christ and probably the most I don't know if it was most alarming but their gatherings were another source of problems their church meetings their assemblies they were getting together and they were talking over one another when Chloe got married I realized that our family does that I don't know if your family does that it's like one person's talking another person gets an idea and they just like talk over them and make the other person stop and then the next person does it and and we're just like oh that's how we I didn't even notice we did it and then Brandon comes in he's like man your family's rude I was like oh I never thought about it that's just how we are right if you're not if you feel it strong enough that means you can get your idea out there and probably not a good thing so they lost they were chaotic it was chaos interrupting each other and you know I mentioned the the body metaphor of all the different parts and in Corinth they had these hot springs kind of like us they had hot springs and people would go there to be healed and when their body part was healed they would leave like a little clay memory remembrance or something like if you healed your hand you they would make a little hand out of clay and leave it around these hot springs and so that might have been where Paul got that inspiration you see all these little body parts around he's like hey that's like the church we're all different parts of the body that have been healed I don't know that was just me reading into it but I'm like yeah he they had olympics there they had these body parts there he was relating to them and just thinking about building up the church and I talked about that last week a little bit instead of thinking about what we don't have to realize what we do have instead of thinking about what our church doesn't have or what we used to have or what we want to have to focus on what we do have and to make a difference with that and to give and to be faithful and I love my one sister her favorite one of her favorite saying is you know what if everyone is in the church was like me how would it be that's a good question right if if you show up if you're a giver if you're just sitting in the back in the corner and don't talk or you know like just that pan this taking ownership of our church and this is the time when I believe God wants us to take ownership of our church of your church this is my church no it's your church too it's everybody it's all of ours but to step up that's kind of what Paul was saying that hey it's time to be that be that body that I died for be that body that Jesus put together because he raised you up because he was raised up now let's let's live that let's be that for each other and let's be governed by love in that and I I'm excited to see people this even this year I feel like people have really stepped up to serve to give to help one another to just the spirit seems different and I want to encourage you for that because I think it's because a lot of you have said hey this is our church we are we are going to be devoted to God and to one another we are going to read our Bibles we are going to show up when when for those opportunity we don't want to miss those opportunities and get back to some of the things that we have that have made that difference like I was talking about before from where we started to where we are it's because of God working through all of you through all of you let's be the body that Jesus called us to be amen and as we take communion there Paul said that he was resolved to and I love even his vulnerability saying hey I was I came in weakness I came in in fear I came in trembling and they were criticizing Paul and some people were saying who is Paul why is he so great and he's like hey I'm just the I'm just the brother who was trying to bring you the words of God I'm trying to bring you this message of the Spirit's power in the cross that the resurrection is what we get to look forward to it's Jesus victory over death his victory over evil it's all those promises that we can trust all those problems that we can overcome with the power of God we have hope we have hope and I pray that today even as we take communion that you remember what Paul closes out the book in chapter 15 talking about the resurrection that we're gonna we're gonna live again we're gonna get new bodies that this resurrection is part of us it's not just the power he says that he resolved to know nothing except Jesus and him crucified but that wasn't the full story it was him crucified and him resurrected and that's what we have in Christ and that's what we get to recognize as we take communion with one another today so let's pray Father we thank you that you we can bring all of our problems to you we're thankful that you gave us Jesus that you gave us the cross to show us what true power is what true love is what true humility and sacrifice are God I pray that we won't depend on ourselves that will listen to your words that we'll hear and understand this wisdom that comes from you that's informed by your word and leads us God I pray even now that you guide our thoughts help us as we try to navigate this life help us to be grateful help us to see your power at work around us and even in us and show that love and gratitude towards you God thank you for Jesus his life and his death and his resurrection I pray that can really be the center of who we are as people as of who we are as your people, and we love you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Inland Empire Church of Christ