Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: Welcome to Somebody Loves You Radio. The Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California.

We are in the middle of a study focusing on walking in godly wisdom. Today, Raul will urge you not to let personal weaknesses or insecurities stop you from the kingdom building work God calls you to.

You'll find that when you set aside self-serving goals to carry out the Lord's plans, he'll guide you with his spirit and fill you with his power.

In the book of First Corinthians, here's Raul Ries.

Raul Ries: The preaching of the Cross, chapter 2:1-5. And I, Paul, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellent of speech or the wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.

Notice, Paul immediately here in his opening words, as he uses the word I. It can be translated accordingly. It is based here on Corinthians speaking of the glory of God.

The glory of God. When Paul starts in chapter 2:1, he says, when I came to you guys, I did not come like those philosophers.

And those psychologists, coming with all these big words and definitions and meanings that you did not understand. When I came to you, you heard me speak, you could understand, even a little child could understand it.

And never been to seminary. Why? Because it was all about the cross of Jesus Christ.

And you see, Paul had not come to the Corinthians to glorify himself. Or to start a new religion or a fan club. He wasn't into that. He was not into popularity. He could care less about that.

And at the same time, these philosophers in the city of Corinth, these were the teachers that were depending on their own wisdom and the eloquence of their speech.

So the people say, wow, man, what a great orator like Plato and like Socrates. You see? And Paul wasn't even into all that. Paul said, you know what, you guys, I have a lot of weaknesses in my life, and I'm coming to you in the power and the demonstration, not of Paul the apostle. The demonstration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love that.

The city of Corinth was filled with such spellbinders, compromisers that wanted fame and power, but they did not receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And Paul at the same time never ever depended on the eloquence of speech or clever arguments. But he simply declared God's word in power by the Holy Spirit of God. I love that.

You know what Paul was? He was an ambassador. He's the one that goes from country to country representing his nation.

Paul the apostle was an ambassador, not a Christian salesman. He was not trying to sell something. He wanted people to be convicted by the Holy Spirit. He wanted people to repent by the Holy Spirit. He wanted people to come to Christ by the Holy Spirit, and he wanted them to be Christians by the Holy Spirit, not by Paul's words. But the Holy Spirit.

That's what I desire in my life. I don't really care what people think about me.

I want to make sure that when I stand before God, I didn't please men, but I please God. Seriously, and you should think the same thing. It's not who you are, it's who he is, who we represent.

And then it's amazing because as we see that here, look at verse two now. Paul now says, but I determined not to know anything among you, but what? Yet, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Wow. Underline that. That's the only thing that I need to know.

Except Jesus Christ and him crucified. You see, God had sent him to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, unless the cross of Jesus Christ be made of no effect.

The real church are people like you and like me. That have come to the end of our lives, I repented of my sins, and by faith, I've asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart.

And then the cross of Jesus Christ depicts to me the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to me it tells me that I have to die to myself in order to come and follow Jesus Christ. Then I go to the book of Matthew.

Chapter 16, verse 24. He says, if any man wants to come after me, let him or her deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me.

First, if any man. Nobody is forced. Anybody that wants to come. If any man wants to come after me, the invitation.

Number one, let him or her deny. The word deny means to forget about yourself. It's not about you. It's not about me. Deny yourself.

Secondly, take up your cross. The cross is something that everybody likes to wear. Upside down or regularly. Or with Jesus hanging on it.

But you wear the cross of Jesus Christ, before you wear a cross, you better think about it. The cross of Jesus Christ, it speaks of myself dying to myself fully, completely. Dying to myself. Without excuses, without murmuring and complaining about your Christian life.

And this is kind of what the thing that Paul is doing here, as he's determining the power of the cross. Too many preachers today are preaching the cross of Jesus Christ in a way that is really not depicting the true cross of Jesus Christ, but cheapening the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Cheapening it. Because the cross of Jesus Christ is not for everyone, it's individually picked up. If anyone desires to follow me, let him or her deny himself, take up his cross, and then what? Follow me.

Look at verse three. He says, I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in such trembling. Notice Paul's condition. I did not come in pride. When I came to you guys, I was weak.

In weakness. And notice in fear secondly and what else? In trembling, much trembling. This is the different Paul from the road of Damascus now 10 years later when he's been in the presence of the Lord, man, how God has broken him and humiliated him. All his sufferings that he went through, man, it's incredible. Beatings, stonings, all kinds of stuff that he went through, shipwrecks.

This guy, man, went through the mill. And the Lord told him when he got saved, Paul, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to choose you, and I'm going to elect you, and I'm going to use you, but I want you to know one thing, you are going to suffer tremendously.

You're going to be tortured, you're going to go through everything. You think that if God told you that, you still follow him? Paul did. So did Peter, so did James, so did John.

All these guys died horrible deaths, except for John the beloved, he died of natural causes on the island of Patmos after he wrote the book of Revelation, he died at the age of 90 years old.

He's the only one. The others all were tortured and killed because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So here we are now, his disciples.

And here's Paul now, he says, I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. So, though he was an apostle, Paul came to them as what? Mark this down as a humble servant.

Humble servant, doulos. Paul says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. You see, servant, doulos. He was the under-rower.

In the Old Testament, when you read the book of Exodus, you find out in that culture, when you went to the slave market and you bought a servant, you brought him home. Okay, he would be with you, and you were to keep him for six years, and on the sixth year, you would have to let him say, okay, now you've been with me for six years, and the servant would have to say, I've been with you for six years, but I love you and I want to stay with you and I don't want to leave, but I want to continue to serve you.

Then it was by what? By becoming a doulos by choice, I'm making my decision to stay with my master, not because I have to or he's going to pay for me.

So you know what he would do, the master? He would take his servant to the doorpost. He would take his right ear, put it onto the doorpost, and he would take a little thing and he would make a hole in it. And then drill through it, and then he would put an earring on his ear.

And anybody that would wear an earring on his right ear would be the symbol of a servant. Today, that's not the meaning.

To have an earring on your right ear would be that I am a servant to my master by choice, not because I have to be. That's who we are, you guys.

We are servants of Jesus Christ. I want to be a servant of Jesus Christ, not because I have to, I want to. I made that choice. Nobody forced me to make that choice.

And that's what makes the difference between a true Christian and those that are not true Christians. Those that are really sold out to Jesus Christ, fully committed and submission to the will of God. That's what Paul the apostle did. He did not depend on himself.

He did not depend on himself. He became nothing that Christ might be everything in his life. I love that. That Christ would become everything in his own life.

And then years later, Paul brought this up again in the book of Corinthians, Second Corinthians chapter 10:1. Listen what he says. Now, I Paul myself, I am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Jesus Christ.

Who is presence, I am lowly among you, but being absent, I'm bold toward you, but I beg you that when I am present, I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intended to be bold against some. So think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

Now check this out. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God by the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down arguments, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Paul is talking about his mind, I don't want my mind wander all over the place. I bring all my thoughts into subjection and captivity and obedience of Jesus Christ so that my mind doesn't get messed by Satan. See, Paul knows what he's talking about.

Raul Ries: This is Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Our goal here is to help you live a God-glorifying life in obedience to God's word. Visit somebodylovesyou.com for our full range of resources. And if you have Bible questions for all, he's happy to respond. You can email him at pastorall@somebodylovesyou.com. Now, back to our study, God's Wisdom in Christ.

Raul Ries: And then he says, and be ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Do you like a things according to the outward appearance? If anyone is convinced in himself that he is Christ, let him again consider this in himself, that just as he is Christ, even so Christ, we are Christ. For even if I should boast somewhat more about authority, which the Lord gave to us by edification and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed, lest I seem to terrify you by letters, for his letters, they say, are weighty, powerful, but his bodily presence is weak. Paul would write these powerful letters, and when they see Paul, they go, that's him? You got to be kidding me.

And nobody was impressed with his physical appearance, but men, when he wrote the letters, all you have to do is read them, what does he do? He pierces your heart.

Paul, the apostle, one that I'm waiting to see when I get to heaven. I want to meet him. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Paul to be on this earth and always always continually being persecuted and hated by people?

And yet he was never never afraid of that. He was willing to die for whatever God wanted him to do in his life. I think that today we need more Pauls and more Peters and more James. Like never before.

To stand for righteousness, to stand for the honor of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that God can work in my life and work through my life, fully, powerfully, in every way that he can. Paul had learned that when he was weak, then he became strong in Jesus Christ.

Strong in Jesus Christ. What do you mean weak? When he emptied of himself, of himself, then the Lord could fill him with the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's what we need today. We need the empowering of the Holy Spirit within our lives. And why do we need it? Check this out, verse four.

In my speech, in my preaching, were not with persuasive words of human wisdom. Notice. I was not a salesman. He says, when I came and I preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, he says, it was a demonstration of the spirit and the power of God. Wow. Isn't that cool?

And all the glory and all the honor went to who? To God himself. Paul depended on the power of the Holy Spirit. Who do you depend on? Study God's word, and when you get up to speak, trust in the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to speak, so that people don't taste you, but they taste Jesus Christ, and the glory goes to him and not to you.

That's the bottom line. That's the way to do it. So Paul knew what he was about because he depended fully on the Holy Spirit. It was not his experience or ability.

It was the work of the Holy Spirit working in him and through his life. His preaching was a demonstration, not a performance like you see on television.

People were weeping, people were repenting. People were not clapping. If you see that word that is used for demonstration, it means legal proof presented in a court. That's what the word comes from.

The Holy Spirit used Paul the apostle for preaching not only to change lives, but also to prove that Paul the apostle was the messenger delivering the message of God. I like that. Delivering the message of God to who? To the people of God.

That's what it's all about. You see, wicked sinners were transformed, how? By the power of God, not by Paul, not by me, not by you.

And then what happens is the power of God is demonstrated. It's cool because the power of God is demonstrated by what? By the transformation of people's lives, what we used to be and what we are today. But many times we confuse people.

Watch what Paul says in First Corinthians 6:9. Listen what he says. Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God. And check this out, and such were some of you. But.

Notice, you're not supposed to be anymore, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by the spirit of our God. We used to be like that, but no longer.

Paul says in Second Corinthians 5:17, therefore, if any man or woman is in Christ Jesus, all things are passed away, behold all things have become brand new. Brand new.

Now, the reason we confuse people is because maybe you're not maturing, instead of moving forward, you're going backwards. When you come out of the world, they know you're a partier or a drug addict or an alcoholic, whatever it is. Or always cussing.

And all of a sudden you come and say, you know what, something happened to me. I gave my life to Jesus Christ and I became a Christian. So what happens immediately? They start checking you out.

And if you don't develop spiritually and grow spiritually, then you're going to fail and you're going to be like the sea, there's four types of hearers. The ones that come and sit, they hear, but they have no faith, boom, they're gone.

The second group comes, they sit, they hear, and something in the message moves them emotionally, and they come forward and they accept Christ, and they go to the back, get a Bible, but in a few weeks, they're no longer there. They're gone. It was an emotional feeling.

The third group, they come, they listen, but because they're so involved in the world, the power of the world is greater than the power of God, and they have nothing to show.

But the fourth group are those that come, they listen, they get convicted, they get up and make a decision, they pray their prayer, they go back and get a Bible, and they go home and read their Bibles, they come back to church, they get plugged into the new believers, they're in every Bible study, and then what happens? They begin to grow and to develop, and eventually, they become part of the body of Christ.

That's the true Christian. That's the body of Jesus Christ.

So Paul is proclaiming, we used to be like that, but I'm no longer what I used to be. If I would be what I used to be, my friends would not be here today.

They came to Christ like them and all these other guys because my life was transformed. And I never preached to them. They saw it in my life as I began to grow and develop, mature in the Lord, they started asking questions, I started taking them to Calvary Chapel, they started getting saved.

That's just the way it works. It's not by our preaching, it's by our living that people will come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

And that's why Paul makes a big think about it here. Because however here, we must know that Paul the apostle is telling ministers that deliberately to preach, to preach the gospel, not poorly, but to do it right and never avoiding also the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are given to us. Why? Because we don't trust in ourselves, we trust in the Holy Spirit to speak in me and through my life.

So that I can come to that place in my life. And guess what happens, then there will be people like Spurgeon, people like Moody, George Whitfield, like Dr. Ironside, I mean, Barnes and all these people that I read for so many years, and Billy Graham, and others that have made themselves like Alan Redpath, Dr. Van Cleve, Dr. Duffield, all these teachers that taught me the word of God, and by example, they taught me what a real Christian was.

And for you young guys that are here and young ladies, in the days that we're living in, we need real models in Christianity today to really see the power of God unto salvation.

That God is still working in the lives of people. And the reason these people became so great is because they trusted in the Holy Spirit of God to work in their hearts and in their hearers, and notice and then to be able to transform themselves into what God wanted, so that the gospel of Jesus Christ could be given to them, so they can turn and can come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior fully and completely. That's what the gospel message is about.

Paul also says in Second Corinthians 3:5, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency, check this out. Is from God.

From God, not from my education, not from anything else, it's from God. He's the one that takes up the one, puts him down and lifts up the other. Promotion doesn't come from the north or the east or the south, it comes from the Lord, he takes the one and raises up the other. He does whatever he wants to do in our lives, that's why he's God.

And then look at finally here, Paul reminds them of his aim, verse five. That your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but what? In the power of God. I love that.

You see, he wanted them to trust in God and not in human wisdom. He presents the plan of salvation, not as a philosophical way of doing it, but then he also tells the Corinthians that they need to put their faith in Jesus Christ in order to be saved.

In order for God to work in their hearts and their lives, because if they don't really have this faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, then how are they ever going to be saved? Like Paul said, in Romans chapter 1:16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it is the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written. The just shall live by faith.

The just shall live by faith. Haggai and Galatians, where the scripture is found. The just shall live by faith. We depend on Jesus Christ. We don't depend on ourselves.

And as we put our full dependency on Jesus Christ, then God fully will begin to work in me and to work through my life to bring glory and honor to his name.

Raul Ries: The Apostle Paul's life serves as an inspiring example of what it looks like to walk in the Holy Spirit's power, accomplishing great things for God's kingdom, regardless of personal weakness.

You're listening to Somebody Loves You Radio with Raul Ries. Today's message is available in its unedited form for a donation of $5 or more. If you'd like to get a copy, just call us at 800-634-9165 and mention today's title, God's Wisdom in Christ.

As you think about how the Lord might want to use you, we'd like to offer you Raul's four-part wisdom series. It's available on either CD or flash drive. Each lesson further illuminates how you can look to the Lord for perspective, direction, and confidence as you follow his perfect will for your life. Visit somebodylovesyou.com or call 800-634-9165 to order Raul's four-lesson wisdom series.

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Raul Ries: This program is sponsored by Somebody Loves You Radio in Diamond Bar, California.