Wisdom & Foolishness

Show Notes

1 Corinthians 1 (Listen)

Greeting

1:1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving

4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Divisions in the Church

10 I appeal to you, brothers,¹ by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Christ the Wisdom and Power of God

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

  “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach² to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,³ not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being⁴ might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him⁵ you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Footnotes

[1] 1:10 Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothers or to brothers and sisters; also verses 11, 26
[2] 1:21 Or the folly of preaching
[3] 1:26 Greek according to the flesh
[4] 1:29 Greek no flesh
[5] 1:30 Greek And from him

(ESV)

What is Sermons from Redeemer Community Church?

Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:00

If you would open your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 1. 1st Corinthians chapter 1. This morning, we begin a new study on Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church, but unlike the series we've done in the past when we've traditionally gone through a book verse by verse all the way through, we're gonna take large chunks at a time as we go through 1st Corinthians, mostly chapter by chapter and topic by topic. Of all the books in the New Testament, actually 1st Corinthians lends itself to this because Paul is actually addressing certain topics. Topics the Corinthian church has given him and this letter is his response to that, And so he's going to deal about topics like power or preaching or church discipline or sexuality or marriage and singleness, idolatry, the Lord's Supper, gifts of the Spirit, what membership looks like.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:56

All of these, he is gonna just take time to address those specific topics. And on a personal note, I would say that of all the books in the New Testament, there isn't one that has changed the way I view preaching or pastoral ministry more than this letter to the Corinthians. The first four chapters alone really, transformed my life in the way that I in particular view preaching. So I'm excited about to to go with this, go through I think it's gonna take maybe till August, maybe till September, us going through this great book. I wanna begin reading this morning at verse 17.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:41

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, unless the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly 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, and the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?

Jeffrey Heine: 02:15

Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God that through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. A stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who were called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:54

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. And pray with me. Father, we pray that as we hear and as I proclaim the word of the cross, that the power of God would be present, that you would change our lives.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:19

Lord, that you would bring new life into dead hearts. I pray that my words in this moment would fall the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Perhaps of all of the missionary journeys that Paul took, his journey to Corinth was the most American.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:48

It was also the most challenging for him. The 2 probably go together. It was probably the most challenging because it was the most like America. Corinth was a port city. It was located on this 4 mile wide isthmus that connected the mainland of Greece to the southern part of Greece.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:06

It got a lot of traffic going through it because people could either choose to sail 200 plus miles around Greece or they could just take that little journey straight through Corinth. So it was a strategic place. In 146 BC, Corinth rebelled against the Roman Empire, so Rome completely leveled Corinth, destroyed it. But it it was too strategic, too important of a location to just leave in ruins, so a 100 years later, Rome reestablished the city in 46 BC and it grew fast. By the time, about a 100 years later when when Paul goes to visit there, it's the 2nd largest city in the Roman Empire.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:52

It's larger and more influential than Athens. It's got over 500,000 people packed in such a small area. And because it was so new, it it wasn't like any other city in the Roman Empire. All the other cities had very rigid, fixed social classes. All those other cities had a very set way of doing things, but not Corinth.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:19

It was a pioneer place. It was frontier, and so people would flock all over from the empire to go there and to make a buck or to make a name for themselves, to rise up the social ladder. It was considered the land of opportunity at the time. So if you wanna make an American equivalent to what city, think New York City or perhaps New York City meets Las Vegas, and that's what you have in Corinth. And all of these people, because all these people are flocking in from all over the empire, flocking in here, what you get is this real melting pot, a melting pot for different religions, for different philosophies, for different values, different ways of viewing sexuality that would all come and play here.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:08

I mean, if you think about it, the people who were moving here were predominantly young, early twenties. They're leaving their families behind and the traditional values that they had and the safeguards that they had there, and they are flocking to Corinth where they are living with 100 of thousands of other people just like them in close proximity to one another, all full of life, all full of ambition, all full of adventure. You just gotta think, what could possibly go wrong in a city like that? Just about everything. Even though Paul spent a year and a half there, which was an extremely long time for Paul who was typically at a place for a few days or maybe for a few weeks, rarely this amount of time, a year and a half he spent there, still it was a challenge.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:06

Still things went horribly wrong. They had major problems. Sexual immorality was, of course, rampant. Teachers and the church were abusive. People were getting drunk at communion.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:22

The poor were being neglected. The rich and the privileged were getting special honors. Christians were taking one another to court. There was a lot of divisions within the church. To me, I actually find a lot of comfort in this because we typically romanticize that early church.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:42

We always think, oh, that early church, they had everything together. No, they don't. They were just as flawed as the church in the 21st century. And the comfort I find in this is we're still here. The church is still here.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:57

The church is still thriving. And no amount of sin, no abusive teacher, no matter what happens, no amount of persecution can ever squash the church. God says the gates of Haiti, Hades will not stand up against us. And so the church continues to thrive despite all of its flaws, we are still here and growing 2000 years later. So Paul, as he begins this letter, he's gotta decide what is he going to address first.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:28

Of all the problems out there, what is he gonna address? He's gonna attack the drunkenness, the the sexual immorality? How about them jockeying up for a for a higher social status and power? He decides not to go any of those routes. Instead, he goes after the heart, the main issue, which is their understanding of the gospel and in particular, their understanding of the cross.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:53

What is happening in the early church is they are forgetting about this. They're abandoning it. You see, when Paul left Corinth, a small group of people that began getting larger and larger, started to get embarrassed about that message that Paul brought. It was just you know, it was it was time maybe to to move past those things, and they began to look at Paul and they thought, you know, the message that you preach, it's a little outdated. Such notions about sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:22

I mean, come on, outdated. And this whole idea about Jesus becoming convicted as a criminal and dying, it's it's it's best if we kinda don't make that the emphasis of this religion if we wanna be respectable in this society. And so they began to downplay this. And so essentially, what they wanted was was a form of Christianity that would evolve from the cross, to move it into the rear view mirror. They wanted to do away with what they would call childish things and instead embrace the wisdom of the world, and so they're thinking, Paul, it's time for us to grow up.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:04

So in other words, the early church was struggling with the exact same temptations that the 21st century church is tempted with. And that's if we don't try and become relevant, if we don't try to give in and embrace some things of the world, then then we're gonna be mocked or even worse, we will become irrelevant and disappear. And so the church feels the pressure to change, to change to whatever culture says it should be, to try to come up with a message that's a little more palatable than sin and the cross. And so this is where Paul decides to start. He's gonna get to all those other issues, but all of them really stem out from a misunderstanding of the cross.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:55

Now don't get me wrong, Paul understands why people reject the gospel. He understands it. He goes on to talk about it as being folly. The word of the cross is folly to people. It sounds ridiculous and he says there's no way around that.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:11

To believe that the almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, sent his Son who was born and lived a life largely unnoticed by people, was convicted as a common criminal, died on a cross, somehow rose from the dead later, he says, I understand that message sounds absurd. It absolutely sounds foolish. I know that dead people don't rise, But he said it happened. And the thing is that, we like to paint the the people who lived 2000 years ago under this broad brush, and we say, well, they were just kind of a primitive people. They would believe anything.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:51

Of course, they probably believe hundreds of people rose from the dead. I mean, they believe whatever. We're more advanced than that, but that is not the case at all. The people in the 1st century had just as many objections to the gospel as we have. A matter of fact, I wanna see in the coming weeks, they had more objections to the gospel than we have.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:10

They knew dead people don't rise back to life. They knew that. But in addition to that, they also had theological objections to Jesus being the son of God and rising from the dead. They had more cultural objections than we even have today than Jesus dying on a cross and rising from the grave. And Paul said that doesn't matter.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:35

The fact is it happened, it happened and we're not ashamed of it. And he's not gonna give in to some lie and He's not gonna give people a placebo when what they need is the real medicine of the gospel because the gospel is the power of God to salvation. So he he refuses to try to spin Christianity the way that is so often spun today when you pick up some some contemporary magazine or or you hear some person on TV preaching, and they they often spin it to where, you know, what Christianity really is if you boil it now, it's just about love. It's just that we love one another. Christianity is really about just turning over a new leaf, becoming a better person, it's about doing good works.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:24

Paul says that's a lie, that's not at all what Christianity is. Christianity is the son of man coming and dying on a cross. And if we remove that from Christianity, we remove its power, then we become irrelevant. And just look at the churches who have become irrelevant and what they have believed over the last few decades. They have largely thrown out that message.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:50

Paul won't have it. He says, I understand that Jews want signs, Greeks, they they demand wisdom, but we are gonna preach Christ crucified, and Christ crucified is an oxymoron. Those two terms right by each other seem to be opposed. You have Christ, which means messiah, king. It means the victorious one.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:10

It means the powerful one. It means the deliverer. Then you have crucified, which means defeated, utterly embarrassed and humiliated. I mean, is there any more vulnerable position than to be stripped of all your clothing and then be spread out and nailed and then be elevated for everybody to see you? It's the most humiliating thing that could happen.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:40

It means utter and total defeat. And then Paul puts these two things together, says we preach Christ crucified. We preach the glorious one humiliated, the victorious one defeated, the giver of life losing his life. And he realizes it's absurd, but then he reminds all of them, he says, but don't forget, for every one of you, it was the power of God and it's what changed you. Without the cross, you remain in your sins.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:12

Without the cross, you are not saved. Without the cross, there is no way for you to know God. There is no Christianity apart from the cross. A number of years ago, and when I mean a number, I mean a number of years ago, Over 20 years ago when I was a senior at the University of Georgia, I was involved in a ministry called The Wesley Foundation. It was their Methodist ministry.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:41

The Methodist church at this time was largely, a large portion of that church was rapidly moving away from the gospel, actually, abandoning some of the core tenants of its faith. Certainly not all Methodist churches have done that, but you have started to see this movement growing there. And around that time, there was a conference for all the Methodist student centers in the southeast. So we had those from from Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina. They all gathered together for this one conference.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:12

There was over a 1000 students there and I remember sitting there as a senior and hearing what this minister was saying, and I use the word minister very loosely here. It was a lady. She was the chaplain at Candler, which was the seminary for the Methodist church at the time, and she began to spout out such nonsense. So she began to distance, of course, Christianity from the cross and from Jesus. She rarely, I'm not sure if she actually even ever mentioned Jesus during her sermon, but what she did talk about was how Christianity really, when you did boil it down to it, it's just a it's just a religion of love.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:52

It's just a religion of doing good works. And can't we all decide to just become better people? And how Christianity is not different than any of the other faiths around the world. All the faiths point to the same God. All the faiths worship the same God.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:07

She went on to say, like, we're praying with, when we pray to God and everybody else prays to God, we're all praying to the same person. Even the trees pray to God. Even the monkeys pray to God. We're we're all 1. And and as she is praying this, I'm thinking, what in the world is she talking about?

Jeffrey Heine: 17:21

And I'm seeing people nod. They're nodding in agreement to this, and I'm thinking, if there were many ways to God, why did Jesus die? I mean, why in the world would he come and die that excruciating death when there were already all these really good options to get to know God? It made no sense. And I was sitting next to, my good friend, Andy Byers, and, as she's saying all this, I was like, man, I gotta say something.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:53

He goes, yeah, you do. You do. He goes, we'll go up to her right after this, and, we're gonna talk to her. I was like, no. I gotta say something, and I stood up.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:03

And it was one of those out of body experiences. Lauren was there. You can ask her about this, but I just started walking down the aisle and she's trying to ignore that somebody's walking down the aisle, and she's continuing to preach. And so I go ahead and I walk up on stage and I stand right next to her. And so she she finally has to address me, and she's like, oh, can I help you?

Jeffrey Heine: 18:27

Is there something you'd like to say? I said, yeah. And she gave me a mic, which is like mistake number 1. That's like, any of you come up here, you are never getting a mic. Alright?

Jeffrey Heine: 18:40

But but but she gave she gave me the mic and it was at that moment as I would held the mic and I was looking out at everybody, I realized I had not thought of one thing to say. And so I'm looking out, and and this is the only thing I could think of at the moment. I, I said, hey, everything this woman has told you is a lie. Everything she's told you is a lie. It's like everything we have, everything we have comes through Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:11

And I remember at that moment, the Lord, he opened up scripture to me, a scripture that I hadn't really memorized well, but he put it there, Colossians 2 chapter verse 8, and he says see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy or empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. After that verse, verse 8, all of the other verses, they talk about what we have in Christ. We have salvation in Christ. We have faithfulness in Christ. We have freedom in Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:46

We have forgiveness in Christ. Our debts are canceled in Christ. Everything is attached to Christ. Without Jesus, we don't have any of those things. And so I remember just saying, it looks like every single one of these things comes to us through Jesus and through his work on the cross.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:05

I I wish you could say after that, I said, no. Every head down and every eye closed, you know, and I let a, you know, massive revival or something like that. But the reality was was as I was up there, people thought madness, foolishness. What in the world is this guy talking about? But not all, not all.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:30

The lord used that to call some. For some, that was the power of God springing up to salvation. Yes, it sounds like madness, yes it's a stumbling block, but for others you know what it is? It's the power of God. There's no Christianity apart from Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:48

No Christ apart from the crucified Christ. Look what Paul says in verse 18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who were perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. You know what what I went through at that conference is no different than how Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians. Well, we have time. Let's just read through.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:15

I wanna read through the first nine verses, all right, See if you notice something. Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, our brother, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, call to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our lord Jesus Christ, both their lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. That in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and in knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:12

He will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Do you kinda get his point? He's gonna be the center of his topic throughout this entire letter. Jesus Christ.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:31

And at the very start, he kinda gives an inventory of everything he's about to address throughout this letter, but he says it's all meaningless unless you see this intimately attached to Jesus Christ our Lord. We don't have any salvation. We don't have any freedom. We don't have any deliverance from sin. We don't have any peace with God, any reconciliation.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:50

We don't have any gifts from the spirit. We don't have a resurrection. We have none of those things apart from Jesus Christ our lord. He makes it front and center. This is Christianity.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:00

This is the power of God. This is the life we have. Matter of fact, if you go through 1 Corinthians, every time the power of God is mentioned, it's always in the context of a crucified Jesus. It's always talking about the cross. You wanna understand the power of God at work?

Jeffrey Heine: 23:18

You better not kinda push aside the work of Jesus on the cross. Now there's a number of ways that we can show how the power of God is at work through the cross, and we actually heard a number of those ways through the testimonies, about how on the cross Jesus canceled out our debt. On the cross, we have that substitutionary atonement. On the cross, He makes a spectacle, and He defeats our enemies. There's a lot of things that actually happen on the cross, but this morning, I want us to just look at at 1, and that's how the cross one of the ways how the cross changes our hearts, which is what Paul is after here.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:00

Not just moral change, but heart change. Paul is about to take on serious sins in this letter, But he realizes that if people start trying to change their lives without understanding the cross, then although there might be a level of moral conformity, their hearts will never be changed. So that's what he's after, not behavior modification, but heart change. So this is how it works, and we've looked at this a couple of times over the years. But the gospel, particularly a theology of the cross, when it goes forward, it destroys fear and pride.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:42

It defeat it defeats and destroys fear and pride in us. Fear and pride are often used as ways of producing grief or guilt in people that are gonna lead them to modify their behavior, but it's not gonna change their hearts. For instance, imagine if you have a child who refuses to eat her vegetables. No matter what you do, she's not gonna eat her vegetables. No matter how you prepare them, no matter what you put in front of her, like, she's not gonna eat them.

Jeffrey Heine: 25:15

So what do you do? Well, you you lean on your friend's fear and pride, so you try fear. Alright. You don't wanna eat your vegetables? You don't eat them now?

Jeffrey Heine: 25:24

Guess what you're having tomorrow? Guess what you're having the next day? All I'm gonna serve you is this unless you eat this. And if you think broccoli is bad now, wait till 3 or 4 days. And so you instill fear or, hey, you don't eat your vegetables?

Jeffrey Heine: 25:40

You're getting a spanking. Hey, you don't eat your vegetables? No dessert. Fear. Perhaps if you wanna, you know, change tactics, you can appeal to your child's pride, and so because most of the books now are like, well, you can't instill fear and you can't spank, so they kinda, you know, that's out now.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:03

The kids are onto it. Plus, if that's all you do is just fear, which there are times as parents when you'd instill fear, but if that's all you do, your child's gonna live a joyless and bitter life. This will be a very long one because they're gonna eat their vegetables, but it is it's gonna be joyless and bitter if that's all you do. So often, we move to pride and we might say things like, Okay, you don't wanna eat those. That's fine.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:28

You know that girl, Sally, isn't she beautiful? She's so beautiful. You know she eats her vegetables and, she gets this healthy glow in her skin and she just she's radiant. Now right, granted, this argument only works if your kid's like 3 or 4. Alright?

Jeffrey Heine: 26:45

But they're thinking, I'm prettier than Sally. I'll show my parents who's prettier, and they start eating their vegetables. Why? You've appealed to pride. You've appealed to pride.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:59

Now I've got a child, 2 of my children are in a Christian school system, and one of mine is in a secular school system, and it's a really, really good school. And one of the things that the school teaches is ethics or morality, but it's been fascinating to see how it plays out in a secular school. And so the the the school's gonna teach their students things like honesty and how it's wrong to lie and and all of those things, you know, there's there's good morals, and say, we we have an honor code and it's really big at the school, so it's wrong to lie, but what happens if you were to raise your hand and you were to ask why? Why is it wrong to lie? I mean, the teachers obviously can't say, because God said it was wrong.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:48

You can't. It's a secular school. You can't say, because the Bible tells us so. You can't do that, So they're ill equipped to even give you an answer for why you can't lie. A matter of fact, they can't tell you why some desires you have that you really want to do, they say, uh-uh, you can't do that.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:07

Other desires you have that you want to do, they try to fan it into flame. Who decides what desires you're to put down and what desires you're to fan into flame? Where does that come from? They can't say God, they can't say for the Bible. Who comes up with this?

Jeffrey Heine: 28:23

So it's hard for them to answer any question of why, so instead, what they do is they concentrate on the motivating factors. It's, well, it's just wrong, and this is how we get you to obey this, and what they do is they appeal to fear and to pride as motivating factors. So they use fear. Why is it wrong to lie? Well, it's wrong because if you get caught, if you get caught cheating or lying, it's gonna be an automatic f on your test.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:51

You'll probably be suspended from school for a week, and so it keeps these kids in line, that fear of punishment, and hear me, you never outgrow that. These kids are gonna grow up and they're gonna become adults, and the reason they are not gonna lie in the future is because they have a fear of getting caught, a fear that if they cheat or they get caught in a lie, that their business is gonna go under. And so it it keeps them in line. They might even fear going to jail. And it doesn't matter if you're religious.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:22

You can still have fear as a motivating factor. You could just fear, well, God will punish me. God will punish me if I get out of line or if I tell a lie. So fear keeps him on the straight and narrow. You can use pride as a motivating factor.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:40

You can always appeal to pride by just saying, you know what, you guys are so good. You are better than all the other students out there who lie. Our school holds itself to a higher standard than these other places, and you appeal to that pride, and of course, we don't outgrow that. Later in life, these kids are gonna grow up and they're gonna become adults, and they are going to tell the truth because they think that's what honorable people do and they are so much better than all those other people who don't, and it appeals to their pride. But here's the problem.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:19

Fear and pride, they keep you on the straight and narrow. Sure enough, they they keep you moral, but have they dealt with the sin of the heart? Have they actually dealt with the fundamental thing that's wrong with your heart, that radical self centeredness that is still there. No. That self centeredness is still untouched.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:36

And all you've done is you've restrained the heart, but you haven't changed the heart. If anything, fear and pride appeal for you to be even more self centered. Why should you not lie? Because, oh gosh, if you if you tell the truth here, people are gonna think more about you. They're gonna think you're a better person.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:53

It appeals to that self centeredness. If you do lie, you're gonna lose your job, you're gonna get a bad grade, so you don't do it. All the while, all that is is pouring gasoline on the self centeredness of your heart. But outwardly, you look wonderful. Let's look at another sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:13

Let's look at adultery. How do fear and pride work to keep you from committing adultery? Well, fear, you're thinking, well gosh, I'm gonna ruin my marriage. My wife will literally kill me. She'll kill me, and I don't want that to happen, and I'll become a pariah in society if people find out I had an affair, so so I'm gonna stay faithful to my wife.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:38

And so fear keeps you on the straight and narrow there. Or you can have pride. Well, I'm not like those other husbands. I have enough strength to keep my vows, and you feel morally superior. And so fear and pride are used to keep you from having an affair, But once again, your heart's not changed.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:01

It's just restrained, but it's not changed. It's just as self centered as before, and the problem comes with this, what if those same motivations of fear and pride no longer keep you moral, but lead you in the other direction? For instance this, remember how fear kept you from lying because you thought, if I get caught, I'll lose my job. What if it's this? If I don't lie on my resume, I won't get a job?

Jeffrey Heine: 32:32

I've gotta lie. How am I gonna stand out? So fear led you at one point to not lie, now fear leads you to lie. Fear doesn't care whether you're moral or not. What about pride?

Jeffrey Heine: 32:47

You know, you could think now if, you know, we're pride, I'm not like these other people. I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna lie, but now it could be, you know what? If I just kinda lie a little bit and take credit for this work I didn't do, maybe add my name to that group of people who did such a great job, the boss is gonna think really highly of me, and pride leads you to do that. It's a temptation I feel a lot.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:10

I'll finish preaching a sermon. Afterwards, people, they'll come up and talk, and and, half the time, it's nice. But sometimes they'll go, you know, gosh, God really worked in a sermon. When you said this, and they'll quote me, the problem is I didn't say it, all right. That happens in preaching all the time.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:31

You guys hear what you wanna hear. A lot of times, it's something bad and sometimes it's something really good, but when somebody comes up and they say this really awesome quote that I just never said, but that's what they heard, I'm like, that's right. Why don't you Facebook that? Why don't you tweet that out? Put my name on that.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:48

That's right I said that. You wanna take credit for it. It's pride. Pride can keep me from lying and pride can lead me into it, but what changes the heart? That's that's what I need.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:05

The reason that people who go to church have been raised Christian, raised in a church their whole life, and yet they do something horribly wrong later, Maybe they embezzle funds. Maybe they have an affair. They do something wrong, and they can't believe it. How did this happen? I wasn't I wasn't raised like this.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:28

I wasn't raised this way. I I was raised a good moral person, and that's wrong. You were raised that way. You were always raised to feed the self centeredness of your heart, And sometimes it manifested itself to be a good moral person, and other times it manifested itself to do this. But your heart was never changed.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:50

What can be done about the heart? It's the gospel, The cross. The cross destroys fear and pride. The cross destroys all fear in us because we no longer have any fear of judgment. We no longer have any fear of punishment because Christ was punished for us.

Jeffrey Heine: 35:17

We no longer have any fear of being rejected because Jesus was rejected for us. We no longer have to fear not being loved because God sent his only son, for God so loved us that he sent his only begotten son for us to die on the cross. It says the more and more we look at the cross the more and more fear begins to melt away. We have nothing to fear as we look at what Jesus endured for us on the cross. The cross also destroys pride.

Jeffrey Heine: 35:51

How can a Christian have any pride at all when he look at the cross? How can you at all think that you're a pretty good person? You know, I'm a pretty good moral person. I mean, yeah, I've done a few little minor things here and there, some of those few smaller sins, but overall, I'm a really good person. Tell that to Christ as he is hanging on the cross, suffering the punishment meant for you.

Jeffrey Heine: 36:14

You know, it really wasn't a big deal. It really wasn't that wrong. It was horrific. Every little sin has been horrific. And when we look at the cross, we are reminded of the wretch we are.

Jeffrey Heine: 36:30

So it destroys our pride. We're so much worse than we ever thought possible. So when we look at the cross, fear is destroyed, pride is destroyed, and you know what's replaced with? Love. It's replaced with love.

Jeffrey Heine: 36:47

As you begin to understand what Jesus endured for you on the cross, your heart begins to be transformed by what he did. And you begin to obey him out of a heart of love, not out of guilt, not out of fear, not out of pride, the cross changes us. Does it sound ridiculous to those who are perishing? Yes. Is it a stumbling block to some?

Jeffrey Heine: 37:10

Yes. Is it madness to some? Yes. It's crazy talk, but to us, it was the power of God. God used that to transform our lives, and Paul is saying, don't you ever forget it.

Jeffrey Heine: 37:27

Don't you ever forget it. This is the power of God for our salvation. Pray with me. Father, I pray that we would never abandon the cross. We would never fall into the temptation, the lie to try and become relevant.

Jeffrey Heine: 37:54

Lord, you have saved us through this scandalous message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, And I pray that your church or people will boldly go and proclaim that to the world, for it is the power of God unto salvation. We love you Jesus, and we pray this in your name. Amen.