SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are more um uh anxious than excited, thank you for for making the effort.
SPEAKER_00: I do hope that today is a is a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I was speaking to one of my neighbors just a few days ago, and he was like, Oh, you know, church must be coming back.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah, it's back this this Sunday, and he was remarking and saying, Oh, well, it'll probably take a while for for people to feel comfortable coming back and to want to be back.
SPEAKER_00: I say, Well, actually, no, both services were full by Tuesday, um, if not sooner.
SPEAKER_00: It's an odd thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He was perplexed, he found it hard to wrap his head around the fact that people would want to prioritize being back at church of all places.
SPEAKER_00: Seems an odd thing for 65 or so people to want to be keen to be back to.
SPEAKER_00: But I suppose that that shouldn't be surprising because the world thinks that we're weird.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have noticed that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe that's just me, but for different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: But the world thinks that followers of Jesus are odd.
SPEAKER_00: They struggle to wrap our heads around the things that we do, the things that we say, the things that we prioritize.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're here this morning and you think that the people who brought you are weird.
SPEAKER_00: There might be other reasons for that, which are which don't come from the book.
SPEAKER_00: I can't apologize for those, but I can help you understand the other stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are strange.
SPEAKER_00: We do perplexing and paradoxical things.
SPEAKER_00: We have joy in the midst of suffering.
SPEAKER_00: We fight to forgive people who have wronged us.
SPEAKER_00: We try not to return evil for evil.
SPEAKER_00: We follow Jesus even when that means a change in our lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: We look at ourselves first and think, what change do I need to make in myself?
SPEAKER_00: Rather than saying, well, the world just needs to accept me as I am, and everybody else needs to change.
SPEAKER_00: It's strange.
SPEAKER_00: Why would people want to do that?
SPEAKER_00: Why would we do that?
SPEAKER_00: And so Christianity is seen as foolishness to many people.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe people look at you, and you know that in your workplace or even in your family, people look at you and think that you're a little bit strange, foolish for the things that you believe, or maybe it is that they're just a little bit disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you had so much potential.
SPEAKER_00: You gave it up by following the resurrected homeless guy.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what they think.
SPEAKER_00: In this section of Paul's, this opening to chapter 11 really begins the final section.
SPEAKER_00: We're nearly there.
SPEAKER_00: I had hoped to do this entire letter with you in person.
SPEAKER_00: It was going to be the letter that we studied together to kind of heal, and now we're here at the end of it.
SPEAKER_00: This is the last section, and it's a tricky one, actually, because Paul changes his style of writing.
SPEAKER_00: Not, you know, it doesn't go into like calligraphy or something.
SPEAKER_00: That's not.
SPEAKER_00: It just the tone of the letter changes.
SPEAKER_00: Up until now, he's been clearly and succinctly and reasonably comparing his ministry with the other guys that had come in, defending his ministry, showing them Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But now the tone changes to one of irony.
SPEAKER_00: He actually begins writing sarcastically, believe it or not.
SPEAKER_00: And you kind of think, well, should Christians even be sarcastic?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, from time to time.
SPEAKER_00: He begins in verse one with this little phrase I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: That's him saying, I'm going to write ironically now.
SPEAKER_00: And it really comes through actually in the second half that Duncan will be helping us see next week.
SPEAKER_00: Do pray for him.
SPEAKER_00: He's got the harder task in terms of dividing out this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul's rationale is this.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians had been putting up with lots of foolish talk from these so-called super apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul essentially comes to them at the start of chapter 11 and says, if really it's foolishness that gets through your thick head, maybe you'd permit me a little bit of foolishness?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I could talk to you like a fool if that's what you listen to.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of tone that he's taking with them.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is tears in his eyes because he longs for them to come back to Christ, but his tongue here is firmly in his cheek.
SPEAKER_00: The point of this irony, of this sarcasm that he employs is that he wants to hold up mirror to the Corinthians to help kind of bring them to their senses and think, oh, I have been really foolish.
SPEAKER_00: But in order to do that, Paul acts and speaks like a complete idiot.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are going to see how we as Christians can be a complete idiot in the eyes of the world.
SPEAKER_00: This is the idiot's guide to being a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: There are four ways in which you can be an idiot from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, be a complete idiot in the eyes of the world by selflessly loving people, even when they reject you.
SPEAKER_00: Be a complete idiot by selflessly loving people, even when they reject you.
SPEAKER_00: Cast your eye down to verse one again.
SPEAKER_00: I wish that you would bear with me a little foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Even though the Corinthians, as we can tell throughout this letter, they'd cast Paul aside, even though they had cast him aside.
SPEAKER_00: His primary concern was to get them to come back to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: His concern wasn't so much that they were rejecting him, but they were rejecting the Jesus that he had brought them to, that he had betrothed them to.
SPEAKER_00: It should be the bride and groom.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I was like that.
SPEAKER_00: I never made it about me.
SPEAKER_00: I was the father of the bride.
SPEAKER_00: I introduced you to your bridegroom.
SPEAKER_00: I bore the cost in order that you might meet the beautiful Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The world will always encourage self-interest.
SPEAKER_00: The teachers who had come in after Paul, well, they were all about self-interest, building their own platform.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't friends of the bridegroom.
SPEAKER_00: They were other suitors.
SPEAKER_00: They were adulterers.
SPEAKER_00: They were after their own ministry influence, after their own ministry fame, and in their eyes, Paul was an idiot because he wasn't putting himself front and center.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul is willing to be seen as a fool in their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: If it means showing them more of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes loving someone means saying hard things to them.
SPEAKER_00: We've seen that in Paul's letter.
SPEAKER_00: He said things to them that's difficult to hear.
SPEAKER_00: He takes no pleasure in it.
SPEAKER_00: He does it because he loves them.
SPEAKER_00: We are all, of course, naturally drawn to those who would simply just say nice things to us all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be preferable if everybody around us just affirmed every decision that we ever made?
SPEAKER_00: Who just told us what we wanted to hear?
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, perhaps even frequently, this is not the way of love.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the people that we push away are precisely the people that we need to listen to because they love us.
SPEAKER_00: It is truly foolishness to reject the input of those who love you.
SPEAKER_00: Especially if they are telling you what you don't want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps that is precisely what you need to hear.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians had plugged their ears to Paul, but he's still constrained by what he describes as this divine jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a negative emotion, that's a positive one in this context.
SPEAKER_00: It's a positive one in what Paul means.
SPEAKER_00: What he means is, I want you to have more of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have more of Jesus, to grow more like him.
SPEAKER_00: I am jealous for that in you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to fully belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so he kept on pursuing them.
SPEAKER_00: Even when they were rejecting him, even said, Well, we don't want to hear you, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He kept on lovingly pursuing, persisting with them, enduring with them.
SPEAKER_00: So easy, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That when you are speaking to somebody that you love, words that is hard for them to hear, words that they don't want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: To kind of say, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Do what you want.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
SPEAKER_00: Have it your own way.
SPEAKER_00: Not so, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, No, don't turn from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about how much you love me.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I want more of Jesus for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to love him more, to follow him no matter the cost.
SPEAKER_00: Many would look at Paul and say, Don't be an idiot, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Stop wasting your time.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, No, I'm gonna pursue these people even though they're rejecting me with gentleness, with tears.
SPEAKER_00: I'm using this irony to try and apprehend them, to kind of snap them to their senses.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to harm them.
SPEAKER_00: And I am sure as a consequence that should they turn to Paul as they would to any of us, I would hope.
SPEAKER_00: There would be no sense of, well, I told you so.
SPEAKER_00: Be an idiot in the world's eyes by pursuing people even when they reject you with gentleness and love.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, be a complete idiot by holding on to the truth and refusing lies.
SPEAKER_00: Be a complete idiot by holding on to the truth and refusing lies.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with Paul's Jesus is that Paul's Jesus wasn't very impressive.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's Jesus was, he made people feel awkward.
SPEAKER_00: He died a shameful death.
SPEAKER_00: He said things that people didn't really like.
SPEAKER_00: He called people to turn from sin and to worship him alone.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't fit neatly into people's other worldviews.
SPEAKER_00: But the other guys, the super apostles that Paul talks about here, their Jesus was much more palatable.
SPEAKER_00: Their Jesus was much more attractive.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus was victorious.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus just wanted you to have a happy life.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus just wanted to help you feel better about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Why can't we just have that, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And not the Jesus that Paul was bringing.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to get confused about who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to, as Paul says in verse 4, to follow another Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who comes from a different or with a different spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for us to follow another Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: I think in the West, there are other Jesuses out there.
SPEAKER_00: I think in the church, there probably are other Jesus out there than the Jesus of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Sociologist called Christian Smith has done some work on this.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote a book in 2005, so it's quite old now, but it's still relevant, called soul searching.
SPEAKER_00: And he was the one who came up with the phrase that defines a lot of Western Christianity, and it's the phrase moralistic, therapeutic deism.
SPEAKER_00: You know, what?
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain that.
SPEAKER_00: Moralistic.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus is about you being good and nice.
SPEAKER_00: Just be good, just be nice to one another.
SPEAKER_00: Therapeutic.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus is about you feeling better about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is there to help you live your best life now.
SPEAKER_00: Deism.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't really care.
SPEAKER_00: He's not really involved in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He'll just step in if you've got a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of churches have bought into that view of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter what you do, as long as you're happy.
SPEAKER_00: Nice people go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds great, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: God wants you to be happy, feel good about yourself, and is there to make it happen.
SPEAKER_00: Like some sort of divine butler or vending machine.
SPEAKER_00: You put in your little prayer coin, give the side a whack, and it comes what you want from life.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be a good God to follow?
SPEAKER_00: Great, brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the God that Paul is bringing.
SPEAKER_00: It's a different Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It comes from a different spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What's missing from this presentation of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not so much that all of those things are outright falsehoods.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are.
SPEAKER_00: But it's that they're not the whole story.
SPEAKER_00: But those are the best lies, though, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: The best lies are the ones that are wrapped around just enough truth.
SPEAKER_00: Richard Nieber, who is a Christian theologian, sociologist, talked about it in these ways.
SPEAKER_00: He said that modern Western Christianity taught a God without wrath that brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the work of a Christ without a cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's a different Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's a Jesus who will never ask you to change, a Jesus who will never call you to turn from sin.
SPEAKER_00: And that is not the Jesus of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus who looked at the woman caught in adultery and said to the Pharisees, He who is without sin cast the first stone, is also the Jesus who turned to her and said, Go, sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus who came to the woman at the well and offered her the living water that would well up into a spring of eternal life is the same Jesus who puts his finger on just how thirsty she is for intimacy and life.
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus that the superapostles were presenting was a different one from the one that Paul had encountered on that Damascus road.
SPEAKER_00: And the Corinthians had been suckered in.
SPEAKER_00: That is why he references in verse 3 Eve in the garden, because who was Eve deceived by?
SPEAKER_00: The snake himself, the chaos bringer, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he returns back to this thought in verse 15, saying that Satan himself disguises as an angel of light.
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, these false teachers will come sounding plausible, looking, flashing, but bringing death.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: When you or someone or a pastor says, I believe in Jesus, listen to them.
SPEAKER_00: Who is the Jesus that they believe in?
SPEAKER_00: Is it the Jesus of the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: Full of compassion and grace and mercy and love as well as holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And a call to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Or are they bringing you simply the Jesus of good times?
SPEAKER_00: Who wants you to stop doing bad things?
SPEAKER_00: Don't stop bad things from happening to you, but expand your social circle and help you to feel better about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And why am I kind of bagging on that, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: It's not just because it's not the Jesus of the book, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's because that Jesus won't help you when the rubber hits the road.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus destroys you when you are in seasons of suffering and grief because he has nothing but sentimental nonsense to offer you.
SPEAKER_00: Or the manipulation of just have more faith and you'll be better, you'll feel better, or this situation will change.
SPEAKER_00: That, brothers and sisters, is demonic.
SPEAKER_00: I do.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to have joy, whatever waves of suffering are breaking over your back, and only the Jesus of the scriptures can give you that.
SPEAKER_00: The world will be fine with us loving the Jesus of good times.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not the Jesus of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And the world will think it foolishness to take up your cross and to follow him.
SPEAKER_00: It will look like foolishness in the world's eyes to hold on to Jesus no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: The world will always want you to tolerate lies and to tolerate and to parrot distortions of the truth.
SPEAKER_00: But here Paul calls them out for the demonic deception that they are.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians had been taken in for fools and they had begun to parrot the lies of the super apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And let's think about that more broadly.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there are the lies and distortions of the of the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Let's think about truth and lies more broadly, just for a moment, if you would indulge me.
SPEAKER_00: You will, as a follower of Jesus, be asked to participate and to parrot and to endorse lies that the world accepts.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they won't be overt-spoken lies, but you will be asked to tacitly endorse things that aren't true, things that aren't true about the nature of the world, things that aren't true about the nature of human beings, and you'll be asked to fall in line.
SPEAKER_00: And the temptation will be for you to think I should go along.
SPEAKER_00: With this, because if I don't, it will cost me.
SPEAKER_00: It will cost me this friendship, it will cost me this job, it will cost me this promotion or position, it will cost me this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: That will be the temptation.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing that you need to know.
SPEAKER_00: There is a cost either way.
SPEAKER_00: You go along with the lie.
SPEAKER_00: You might still maintain the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: You might still get the promotion.
SPEAKER_00: You might still have your standing with that person.
SPEAKER_00: But you will have corroded something internally.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way that Jesus says to his disciples, what good is it of a man to gain the whole world, but to forfeit his soul?
SPEAKER_00: There is a soul forfeiting.
SPEAKER_00: There is a hawkruxing that happens to your heart when you go along with lies.
SPEAKER_00: You see that in societies.
SPEAKER_00: Societies that power lies disintegrate.
SPEAKER_00: Societies that where people lie to one another persistently and consistently disintegrate.
SPEAKER_00: That is what happened to Soviet Russia.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of Alexander Zolzenitsyn's key diagnoses of why Soviet Russia collapsed, because people lied to one another.
SPEAKER_00: How is it that we are to be salt and light in the world?
SPEAKER_00: By not buying into the lights.
SPEAKER_00: It is not that we then patrol and parade around as holier than thou.
SPEAKER_00: It's that I am trying to keep society together by not buying into the lines.
SPEAKER_00: It is part of us doing good in the world by humbly, gently, lovingly persisting with the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Even when it's so clean, it's like it's not there.
SPEAKER_00: Even when the world will insist that you recite its creedal lies.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Be a fool.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Third, be a complete idiot by prioritizing substance over show.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse five.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, in every way we are we have made this plain to you in all things.
SPEAKER_00: We, as human beings, were so instinctively drawn to the show.
SPEAKER_00: So beguilable by the razzle-dazzle, distracted from real issues.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a magician using misdirection.
SPEAKER_00: We're always looking at the hand that's moving.
SPEAKER_00: We're not looking at what's going on behind the curtain or under the table.
SPEAKER_00: We get distracted by the show.
SPEAKER_00: And part of the issue, perhaps it's happening in our day that we are facing, is that morality is becoming a show.
SPEAKER_00: True virtue is becoming a show.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be moral, you don't have to be virtuous, you just have to look moral and sound virtuous by saying all of the right sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: People type their virtue on social media.
SPEAKER_00: It's the moral equivalent, or sorry, not the moral equivalent, the modern equivalent of the Pharisees who screw up their faces in public to show everybody else that they're fasting, show how holy they are.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees can kind of go, I'm so hungry.
SPEAKER_00: It's all just show.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus called them whitewashed tombs.
SPEAKER_00: They look white and clean on the outside, but inside they're full of death.
SPEAKER_00: So much of our world is whitewashed tombs.
SPEAKER_00: People looking and sounding virtuous.
SPEAKER_00: And then enough time passes, and you think, oh, right, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Chickens have come home to roost there.
SPEAKER_00: You find out what's really been going on behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not slinging mud at the world here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Christians in the church have been guilty just of that as well, right?
SPEAKER_00: We can be just as guilty.
SPEAKER_00: We can be just as guilty of the show.
SPEAKER_00: And this can be part of it.
SPEAKER_00: Of just putting out a good front.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know that there's darkness and death going on internally.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy in the church to be beguiled by the flashy speaker or the high production values.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just look around.
SPEAKER_00: But in it, there is a serious problem.
SPEAKER_00: There's no depth to it, there's no true holiness, no real integrity, no substance.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians looked at Paul and they saw a poor show.
SPEAKER_00: They looked at him and then they concluded that he was not a headline act.
SPEAKER_00: He was the act that you put up at 3 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: in the overflow tent when everybody else is stoned and drunk.
SPEAKER_00: But the difference between him and the superapostles was that while they were skillful in speech and mesmerize Christians with their musings, Paul had something better.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just have knowledge about God.
SPEAKER_00: He knew God.
SPEAKER_00: He had knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's a world of difference between knowing about and knowing God.
SPEAKER_00: You can know lots of stuff about God.
SPEAKER_00: You can explain to me what the hypostatic union is.
SPEAKER_00: I wish someone would.
SPEAKER_00: You can help me understand the doctrine of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: You can know your Bible back to front and still not know God.
SPEAKER_00: Read Jim Packer's book, Knowing God, in order to think more deeply about that.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to know a lot about God and still be starving for the affection of him.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul says when he says in verse 6 that he knows God, that he is not inferior in knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: What he is referring to there is a deep, relational, and intimate knowledge of the God who apprehended him on that Damascus road, who changed his life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he knew.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he had experienced.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what he shared plainly and openly.
SPEAKER_00: Do not substitute knowledge about God for true knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: As you think about, and as I'm sure you do, in your musing moments, thinking about what spiritual gift you would like, or what spiritual gift you pray for.
SPEAKER_00: I suspect that the gift of discernment is on down the list.
SPEAKER_00: The gift of discernment is a massively underrated gift.
SPEAKER_00: It is something that we should ask God for.
SPEAKER_00: That we can discern what is show and what is substance.
SPEAKER_00: Because every few years or so a Christian comes along, or a professing Christian comes along, a new speaker or a new author, and he draws a following, or she draws a following after them.
SPEAKER_00: Because what they're saying, oh, they're so authentic, so vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: One of the problems that we have, I think, in the church these days is that we substitute authenticity for holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's really open about his sin.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I want like I want to be really open about my sin.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a wicked, wretched sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you I could fill an hour or more, just telling you about this last week.
SPEAKER_00: But is there holiness?
SPEAKER_00: Is there pursuing Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Or a Christian thinker comes along with lots of mysterious aspects of the Christian faith and asking lots of questions and oh, have you thought about this?
SPEAKER_00: Makes lots of short little snippet videos with lots of questions.
SPEAKER_00: You think, oh, I haven't thought about that before.
SPEAKER_00: And look, you know me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not against questions.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I like questions, I'm all about the questions, right?
SPEAKER_00: Probably too much for some of you.
SPEAKER_00: But you listen to these guys, and after a while, you kind of think that these questions are shading into the did God really say sort of question?
SPEAKER_00: And you begin to discern the forked tongue.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think about the messages that you let past your defenses?
SPEAKER_00: Are you scrolling through the Christian memes on social media?
SPEAKER_00: You think, oh, that sounds nice, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Share.
SPEAKER_00: You give it a moment's thought.
SPEAKER_00: Are the messages, are the voices that you listen to, people of real substance?
SPEAKER_00: Or are they those who are beguiling you?
SPEAKER_00: Are they people who want deep transformation?
SPEAKER_00: And how do you know, right?
SPEAKER_00: Let's just think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, oh I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's think about what Paul's already done.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is like a spotlight, right?
SPEAKER_00: You think of think of the statue of Christo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro, right?
SPEAKER_00: Christ the Redeemer standing there over Rio.
SPEAKER_00: And what is below Christ the Redeemer?
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole load of spotlights.
SPEAKER_00: And what do the spotlights do?
SPEAKER_00: They illuminate Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You don't go and look into the spotlight.
SPEAKER_00: Very bad idea.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that, right?
SPEAKER_00: You look at what the spotlight is illuminating.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you're listening to someone, when you're in time thinking about, you know, you move away from Dublin or you need to go to another church, or you pick up a book and you think, you know, is this author worth reading?
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Am I seeing more of Jesus in what they're saying?
SPEAKER_00: Are they like spotlights who are pointing me to Jesus, or are they point, are they really making it all about themselves?
SPEAKER_00: Are they the hero of their illustrations?
SPEAKER_00: Or is Jesus the hero?
SPEAKER_00: That's just one thing you might think about.
SPEAKER_00: The world will think you foolish for looking for people of real substance and for seeking to be a person of real substance.
SPEAKER_00: So be an idiot, reject the show, and go for quiet integrity.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly and finally, be a complete idiot by valuing self-sacrifice and the humility.
SPEAKER_00: And that's really verses 7 to 15.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to read them all now, but this is where the irony really begins to bite in Paul's writing.
SPEAKER_00: Because in summary, what he's saying to the Corinthian Christians is, look, guys, I'm really sorry that I didn't exploit you like the other guys.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry that I didn't take all your money the way they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: You see, you get the irony?
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the issues that the Corinthians had was that Paul didn't take their money.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds strange to our ears.
SPEAKER_00: Like some old Irish auntie or like Mrs.
SPEAKER_00: Doyle from Father Ted going, go on, take it, take it, take it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Corinthians were like.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, take the money.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says no.
SPEAKER_00: But he responds in this ironic way, saying, I'm terribly sorry I didn't exploit you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll make a point of doing it.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in the ancient world, paying these traveling philosophers was the dumb thing.
SPEAKER_00: If you were an itinerant philosopher, it was seen as demeaning for you to then go and get a job and work with your hands.
SPEAKER_00: And so people would come and they would pay your way, they'd become your patrons, your backers.
SPEAKER_00: But that also had strings, didn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You can maybe work out what those were.
SPEAKER_00: You imagine if you're a speaker and somebody is really, they're paying your rent.
SPEAKER_00: They're enabling your lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: And they come to you and they say, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'd really like you just to include this in uh in your in next week's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'd really like you to stop talking so much about sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's getting a bit awkward.
SPEAKER_00: You might kind of stand up a little while, and they say, Do you know I how's the how's the the new house?
SPEAKER_00: You you enjoying it?
SPEAKER_00: It's nice, it'd be shame if somebody took it away.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be a real shame if you couldn't pay your rent anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what I was saying about not talking so much about this issue or that issue?
SPEAKER_00: There's a massive temptation there, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00: Or the other string, the other consequence, is you take their money and they don't like you anymore, they fall out of favor with you.
SPEAKER_00: They can go around and say to everybody else, oh well, you know, Paul, he was just in it for the money.
SPEAKER_00: He was just in it for the money.
SPEAKER_00: Mark's just in it for the money.
SPEAKER_00: I just assure you that that is not true.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was having none of it.
SPEAKER_00: He refused.
SPEAKER_00: He took support from other churches.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I run into, oh, I robbed other guys so that I could be with you free of charge.
SPEAKER_00: And look down with me in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12 he says this, and what I do, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the super apostles were saying.
SPEAKER_00: They're saying, we're just like Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We're the same Jesus as Paul, we're just better speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying, they are not the same as me.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons why you know that we're not the same is because they're taking your money, they're putting their hand in your pocket, and I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: They don't love you the way I do.
SPEAKER_00: They want this.
SPEAKER_00: And the Corinthian Christians were suckered in by it.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthian Christians looked at Paul's humility and they despised it.
SPEAKER_00: They looked at Paul's humility and working with his hands, and they thought that he was shaming them.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, our money's not good enough for you, Paul, hey.
SPEAKER_00: So instead, they willingly gave money to these hucksters who messed with their heads.
SPEAKER_00: Like those vulnerable, those vulnerable old ladies watching the God channel, typing in their their donation.
SPEAKER_00: Giving money to these charlatans who think that they're cared for.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: Lest we look at the Corinthians and sit in judgment over them and think, well, they're such idiots.
SPEAKER_00: We would never be like that, hey?
SPEAKER_00: How many times do we get suckered in?
SPEAKER_00: Might not be with Christian preachers.
SPEAKER_00: How many times have you watched people, friends, or even yourself be suckered into a relationship with somebody who's clearly no good for you or for your friend?
SPEAKER_00: And you can see it, and everybody else can see it.
SPEAKER_00: You know that they don't really love them, that they're using them.
SPEAKER_00: When there's someone else, much more gentle, much more kind, much more loving, we are easily suckered in.
SPEAKER_00: What we need to prioritize, what we need to embody, is self-sacrifice, humility.
SPEAKER_00: The world will always look at your humility and despise it.
SPEAKER_00: They will look at your humility and see it as weakness, as a lack of backbone, but it's not.
SPEAKER_00: It takes great strength.
SPEAKER_00: It takes great strength to embrace the foolishness of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It takes great strength to embrace the folly of self-denial and the folly of humility and to make that our boast.
SPEAKER_00: That is the crescendo of this whole section.
SPEAKER_00: When we get to the end of chapter 12, Paul does boast, but what does he boast in?
SPEAKER_00: He boasts in his weakness.
SPEAKER_00: I'll boast in my weakness because in my weakness the strength of Christ is made perfect.
SPEAKER_00: You want me to boast?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm going to boast in.
SPEAKER_00: The world can't wrap their head around it.
SPEAKER_00: The superapostles thought nothing of exploiting the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: It was even socially acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: It was the done thing.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's so beguiling about it.
SPEAKER_00: There are things in our world that are socially acceptable, but they're not loving, and they're exploitative.
SPEAKER_00: What social conventions do we accept in our society that are at their bottom exploitative or theft, but we accept them because they're just what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Porn is like that.
SPEAKER_00: Porn is exploitation.
SPEAKER_00: And we thank God that many people in our world are beginning to kind of get wise to that.
SPEAKER_00: And you see credit card companies defunding, you know, subscriptions to porn sites and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Porn is exploitation.
SPEAKER_00: It's largely seen as, well, who are we harming?
SPEAKER_00: You have no idea who you're harming.
SPEAKER_00: Stealing time for an employer might be another one.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody does it, it's socially acceptable, but it's theft.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lack of integrity.
SPEAKER_00: To stand up for those things that will cast you as a fool in the eyes of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Be a fool.
SPEAKER_00: Be a complete idiot for the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: None of these things come naturally to us.
SPEAKER_00: We all need God's help in it.
SPEAKER_00: We all need his grace and forgiveness for the ways in which we have just gone along with the patterns and ways that this world has said is good and true, rather than listening to the Christ of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: We need God's help to form, to be formed in his likeness.
SPEAKER_00: We need God's help to embrace the foolishness of God so that the wisdom of God might be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: We need his help to embrace apparent weakness so that the strength of Christ might be put on display.
SPEAKER_00: How are we to be helped to grow in this?
SPEAKER_00: There are a number of ways.
SPEAKER_00: There are a number of ways in which the Christian is helped to grow in his or her embracing of foolishness, in his or her living into weakness.
SPEAKER_00: That's just another way of being a disciple of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What are the ways in which we grow into that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we grow into it and are nourished by the word.
SPEAKER_00: We are nourished.
SPEAKER_00: By the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: My prayer this afternoon is that by the Holy Spirit you have been nourished as the scriptures have been opened to you.
SPEAKER_00: We nourish and are and grow in our response to God in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is how we conform our will and desires to His.
SPEAKER_00: We are nourished and grow when we gather together.
SPEAKER_00: Why have I been beating the drum these last months about the necessity of being back together in person?
SPEAKER_00: It's not because I want to be the center of attention, though you know I like the sound of my own voice.
SPEAKER_00: It's not primarily about that.
SPEAKER_00: It's because I know that one of the ways that we grow as Christians is that we grow together.
SPEAKER_00: It is good for us to be together after all this time.
SPEAKER_00: It is what we call a means of grace.
SPEAKER_00: It is how grace permeates your life for the rest of this week.
SPEAKER_00: The other way that we grow together, we will remember now.
SPEAKER_00: The other way that we grow together and are nourished by Christ is at the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_00: This is no mere memorial meal.
SPEAKER_00: It is not simply a remembrance, though it is that.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Huh.
SPEAKER_00: There's an old, old document called the Heidelberg Catechism.
SPEAKER_00: I commend it to you for your reading, especially your bedtime reading, it will help you sleep.
SPEAKER_00: The Heidelberg Catechism is a series of questions and answers, and it comes to a section on the Lord's Supper, and there are questions and answers about it.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the questions around the Lord's Supper is how do I know that the Lord's Supper nourishes my body and soul?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer that the Heidelberg Catechism gives is that so surely as you drink wine and taste bread, so surely does Christ nourish your body and soul.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is that when you in a few moments place bread on your tongue and the taste buds are activated so they're like, oh, I taste bread.
SPEAKER_00: And you bring wine or juice, according to your conscience of preference, to your nose, and you smell wine or juice, and you think, I'm about to drink wine.
SPEAKER_00: That is how confident that you can be that Christ is nourishing you in this meal.
SPEAKER_00: That is why I have desired and longed for the day that we might break bread together.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I am some priest offering a sacrifice of the Mass, but because I know that one of the ways that Christians are strengthened to follow him is when we gather around the table of the king together.
SPEAKER_00: That is what we are going to do.
SPEAKER_00: Let us be fools and eat the body broken and the blood poured out in remembrance of him.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Please listen to the words.
SPEAKER_00: We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.
SPEAKER_00: Because your nature is always to have mercy.
SPEAKER_00: We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under your table, but you are the same Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat this bread and to drink this cup.
SPEAKER_00: And in doing so, remember the broken body and shed blood of our Lord Jesus, that our sinful bodies might be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood.
SPEAKER_00: Grant that we may evermore live in him, and he in us.