A Simple Church in a Complex World

Something old, something new, something borrowed and blue.

We have something new in the lights, and we brought out something old.

An old pulpit.

And uh Scott Hulst has been so kind and gracious to redo the top of this to give me more space to lay my stuff up here.

So glad to see each of you this morning.

We ask for your patience as we learn to uh how best to adjust the lighting for the various situations we have, and we have some new sound equipment too, and adjusting all of that.

So really appreciate your patience as we work through all of those little details.

I don't know about you, but I like to be able to see.

I can read my Bible up here now.

How great is that! Amen.

If you are visiting with us this morning, I want to welcome you to this gathering of sick and diseased, hurting, broken, and yet trusting and joyful people.

Nowhere else in the world will you experience what is found in Christ's church gathered together.

We're all normal people, right?

We're normal people walking the same paths of life as everyone else.

We walk the same paths as other people, but we seek to walk through the ups and downs of life with an inward joy because we are privileged to share in the sufferings of Christ.

That may sound odd.

Rejoicing in our trials, rejoicing in our sufferings doesn't seem normal.

In fact, in some ways, it may even sound a bit insane.

But it's in that small way that we have the privilege of imitating the Lord Jesus Christ, who the scriptures tell us, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame.

So we welcome you this morning as we make much of Jesus together.

Jesus is our life, and he is our message.

We want to be a place where not just the joys of life, but the struggles, the complexities, and the insanity of life can be laid at the foot of the cross as we take in the powerful, life-giving word of God.

So, as has been already said, this is a place to rest, a place to be rejuvenated, and even restored by the simple pattern of coming to worship and hearing our God speak to us as we worship together.

But that doesn't happen all at once.

Maybe I can illustrate.

When I first began working on a ranch in Montana, we used flood irrigation.

If you don't know what that is, you have a flood ditch or an irrigation ditch that's full of water.

You open up a valve or you dig open a cut in the irrigation ditch, and you just flood the land with water.

We would flood one field at a time in order to get water to all the hay fields.

Later we begin to transition to some sprinkler irrigation.

And if you water your own flowers or your own garden, you can use your own smaller version of a sprinkler that a farmer or rancher might use.

Or you can purchase those soaker hoses that will allow water to filter out of the hose in a way that soaks the ground slowly and deeply.

I've never been able to get those to work, right?

Those frustrating me greatly.

I've even seen do-it-yourselfers make a slow drip system out of PVC piping, sort of like an IV drip for your garden.

Generally speaking, our growth as Christians is like that slow drip version of irrigation.

We often want the flood irrigation for our souls.

We want to come on a Sunday morning and to get everything we need in one shot for the rest of the month, maybe.

And sometimes that's what God does, but more often it's the slow drip method.

Drip by drip, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, as we gather for worship.

Do you know why that slow drip is needed?

It's because we are too often distracted on a Sunday morning to be able to soak in all that's there.

There's any number of reasons that we can be distracted this morning.

Maybe we had an argument with a spouse or a roommate or a friend.

Maybe your children were fighting this morning.

Maybe you got that terrible phone call in the middle of the night.

Maybe you're studying for an upcoming exam.

Or there's that project due at work, or you're distracted by the report from the doctor.

Maybe we're distracted by how poorly we feel this morning.

Or maybe you're distracted by how you're going to be spending the afternoon and wondering how long it's going to be before that preacher stops talking.

Even though we are distracted by any number of things, it's important to be here this morning.

It's good for you to be here this morning.

And your faith and your walk with Christ will be enriched and will grow as a result.

Even if you feel as though all you're getting is a flood and everything is just washing over you this morning, that is not how Christ designed things.

Because we cannot be prepared for the complexities of life with flood irrigation.

Just one or two times together is not going to answer all that we need to know.

See, here's what happens.

As we attach ourselves to a local church and we begin to plug into it, and through the church to Christ, we slowly but surely get that slow drip of spiritual life.

And we grow.

And we fill up with Christ, and our roots go deep looking for nourishment.

And as that growth happens, we become empowered by his spirit to meet the world that stands against Christ.

So if you are visiting with us this morning or you are new to our fellowship, you need to know that we are not perfect.

We're still taking in that drip line.

We hurt, don't we?

We mourn.

We cry.

We laugh, we sing, we rejoice, and all along we listen to Jesus.

We listen to Jesus through his word that he has recorded for us, and along the way we become more and more like him.

In that way, we are a simple church.

Nothing complex.

But it is how God prepares us for a complex world.

And it all begins with a very simple message Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

That's what we've been learning in our walkthrough the beginning of 1 Corinthians.

That local assembly of Christians in the early days of the church made their gatherings, their worship gatherings complex.

They made it complex by bringing in aspects of the world into their teaching, into their worship, and into their fellowship.

By adding in worldly complexity to the church, they generated division.

The opposite, really, of what God intended.

That's why the Apostle Paul sought to bring them back to the gospel again and again and again, or as he referred to it in the beginning of 1 Corinthians, to the word of the cross.

In that simple message, drip by drip, over and over and over again, we see God at work.

In our text for this morning, we see the Apostle Paul's example of keeping things simple.

So if you have your Bible with you, I'd encourage you to open it to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

I'd like to direct your attention to the first five verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 1.

1 Corinthians 2:1

Apostle Paul wrote, And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the power of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Amen.

Wow.

You speak, and there it is.

Thank you, guys.

Appreciate that.

As you can see with all of the eyes and the mys here in these first five verses, this is all about the Apostle Paul's ministry.

In the context of chapter 1, he is describing his service in Corinth as an example of what the church should be like.

And the way the apostle served himself was in contrast to the way the church was functioning.

They were a mess, they were dysfunctional.

And he's bringing them back again and again to the gospel and saying, here's what a local church should look like.

What we see here are two aspects of serving God in the local church.

And we can apply them both to our church as a whole, but also to each of our own individual lives as followers of Christ.

We will get that dripline this morning, even if we only get a little bit.

Now, in order to accomplish this, the Apostle Paul reminded the church of the time when he came to do the work of God in the city of Corinth.

He says, When I came to you, brothers, past tense, he's asking them to think back about three, four, five years before the time of writing.

And before arriving in Corinth, we need to remember that Paul had been beaten and thrown into prison in the city of Philippi.

Then he moved on.

After moving on from Philippi, he was chased out of two other communities, Thessalonica and Berea.

Following that, he was laughed at in the city of Athens because he held firmly to the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

And from there, he went to the morally corrupt city of Corinth, where he stayed for about a year and a half planting a church.

So you might say that his track record wasn't so great before coming to Corinth.

He didn't work too hard at being acceptable to the culture of the time, and precious few missions committees would have considered supporting him at that point in time.

But he also knew the depth of depravity in the city of Corinth when he began his ministry there.

Today we hear what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?

That could have been the moniker for Corinth.

In fact, in ancient times, it was known as a place that applauded moral excess.

There was a word coined for that.

To Corinthianize meant to indulge in and even to applaud an immoral lifestyle.

All based on this one city.

That was their reputation.

But it was also a place of culture.

A culture that valued wisdom and rhetoric and speaking.

You could go and hear a great speaker as readily as we might attend a sporting event today.

Clear and persuasive arguments and entertaining logic were applauded and cheered.

But the Apostle Paul entered that environment as a countercultural preacher.

He says, When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

There are two aspects to the Apostle Paul's countercultural ministry, and this is the first.

He wasn't there to gain a following for himself.

He didn't enter that pagan and immoral city in order to make disciples of Paul.

More specifically, he decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

There was an intentional choice to simplify his ministry so that all of his teaching, all of his preaching, all of his outreach could in some way be traced back to the message of the cross.

He did nothing that was not related to proclaiming that simple message.

So when other preachers, when other speakers, when other teachers were manipulating the emotions of the audience, Paul was directing praise to God.

When others were out to make friends and acquaintances, Paul was pointing to Jesus.

When others were gaining followers for themselves, Paul was intent on bringing disciples to Jesus.

Now we've already seen in chapter 1, beginning in verse 18 and following, that preaching Christ crucified means some will think it's foolish.

Others will stumble over it.

But it was and it is the message by which God declares his power.

Because God has not changed the means by which he saves, that same simple, clear message must be in the church today.

The church of God must proclaim a simple and clear message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Now that's not to say that every message, every teaching opportunity or every conversation even needs to be about the cross.

That's stretching the point too far.

It's that the truth of Jesus Christ and the truth of the cross is central, is foundational to our ministry.

When the rest of the world is focused on bringing attention to oneself, our duty is to consistently point to Jesus and the cross.

Or to illustrate it somewhat bluntly.

Instead of taking selfies to promote ourselves, we point to Jesus.

The Apostle Paul left an infant church after about 18 months in Corinth.

He left it with everything it needed to survive and even to thrive.

But instead they became a social club.

And so they needed the reminder that they were to be proclaiming a simple and clear message that pointed everyone to the cross of Jesus Christ.

We need the same, brothers and sisters.

Because we can focus on the wrong thing too.

We can begin focusing too much on entertainment, on comfort, or even programs and activities that cloud the message that we are to be proclaiming.

We need this reminder as a church, but we also need this reminder personally.

Because our own activities, our own hobbies, our own desires, our own habits, our own actions can cloud the message of Christ that we're seeking to display.

Praise God, I didn't do this this morning, but if I yell at someone in anger who cuts me off on the way to church, I've made myself and my sin the center of attention, haven't I?

Instead of Christ in the cross.

We do that sort of thing all the time, don't we?

In various ways.

We need this reminder.

But let's not neglect the last part of verse 2.

And Him crucified.

And Him crucified.

That's the scandalous and foolish part of the message, isn't it?

We've already read in chapter 1, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

It would be so much easier and more comfortable if all we had to do is talk about Jesus as a loving, kind, and generous man who helps people.

Come to Jesus and you'll get help.

You'll find everything you need for your life here.

But it's the truth of Jesus Christ crucified that makes the message of Jesus powerful.

As we saw in the first part of chapter 1, the church in Corinth was like the world.

They wanted their teachers and their worship services to be entertaining, to be such that people would want to join the church because the preacher was eloquent and interesting.

The Apostle Paul corrected that stance by reminding the church of what is most important Jesus Christ and him crucified.

It's a simple and yet clear message.

And not only was his message simple and clear, but, and this is the second point here we need to notice, his style was simple and clear.

He said, And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom.

Wow, that's a guy I want to go here.

But in demonstration of the spirit and of power.

Have you ever felt inadequate for a task?

Have you ever felt nervous or anxious about something you were required to do?

Or have you been have you been sick and just physically drained and yet felt like you needed to push through something at work because you just had to be there?

Even though you feel terrible, you have to push on through it.

In any of those situations, we feel as though the task is greater than us.

That we're not up to doing whatever needs to be done.

If you felt like that, and I would venture to say that most human beings have been in that place a time or two.

If you haven't, you just aren't old enough yet.

Here's some encouragement.

The Apostle Paul had those kinds of feelings.

We don't know the specifics of what he's referring to here, but we do know that he suffered from physical issues at times.

I mean, how could he not when he was beaten?

He was often sick.

Maybe he even had trouble with his eyesight.

Maybe even he was nervous about the reception he might receive in Corinth after being arrested, beaten, and driven out of previous cities.

Whatever the case was for him, he did not serve Christ in Corinth as someone whose Life was perfect and in order.

He did not feel as though he was up to the task set before him.

He was there in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

He did not live his best life now.

And even though he was educated and could carry on a debate with the most learned and intelligent philosophers of his day, he didn't.

Even though he could elevate his style to be persuasive and intriguing, he didn't.

The wise speakers of that day were known for being able to speak eloquently, persuasively, and entertainingly just about any subject that was laid before them.

And with his education and intellect, Paul probably could have at least held his own.

Instead, he says, I'm content in my weakness.

And in that weakness, he simplified his speaking in contrast to the pattern of the culture.

Now that doesn't make eloquent speaking wrong or sinful.

It doesn't mean that we should never employ that kind of language.

I mean, Paul did, after all, argue with the philosophers in Athens.

He could use logic and rhetoric with the best of them.

But in Corinth, he determined to be simple and clear in his style of speaking.

He would simply put the truth out there as clearly and as simply as he could.

Now some might say, what a waste.

What a lost opportunity.

He had the opportunity to challenge the wisdom of the day.

He could have stood up and debated the most learned and wise and acknowledged people of his time.

He could have challenged the popular speakers of the day to a public forum of debate.

He could have shown them how the ways of the world are worthless and empty.

But in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

Here's the problem we face.

And it's the same problem the Corinthians had, just with different clothes on.

When we begin to mirror our culture such that the message of Christ and Him crucified is minimized or is relegated to a small, let's just get it in there sort of way, or even if it's pushed out entirely, then we have made our ministry about us rather than about Jesus.

What might that look like?

Well, here are some possibilities.

That can happen when entertainment is the regular highlight of our gatherings.

When our music is so astounding and compelling and culturally hip that people come just for the music.

When our focus is on our programs or activities simply to get people in the building.

When we avoid speaking about Jesus with a neighbor because it makes us uncomfortable.

When we won't read our Bible in public because of what someone might say, or when we won't pray in public because of what people might think.

Those are all possibilities, ways and situations in which the good news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified can be clouded, can even be hidden and pushed out of sight by our own desires.

Because we're making the ministry about something other than the simple, clear truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Beloved, God has not called us to demonstrate our wisdom.

He's not called us to demonstrate our status.

He's not called us to demonstrate our might or our relational skills.

He's called us to show his power through the work of the Holy Spirit.

And the way he often does that is through weak, frail, trembling vessels who declare a clear and simple message in clear and simple ways.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, after having stated again the simple, clear message, the apostle Paul wrote words that you might be familiar with.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

He says, But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

Why does he use the example of jars of clay?

Have you ever tipped over a vase?

And it cracks or it breaks.

And that's a treasure.

Our frailty, our weakness, our trembling is a treasure because it minimizes who we are and it displays the power of God to a watching world.

There's nothing wrong, and I need to clarify this, there is nothing wrong with excellence in music.

There's nothing wrong with solid programs or even having an enjoyable time together.

God calls us to do all things well for his glory.

But those things must not obscure the simple and clear message of the gospel.

Instead, God says, give me your weakness.

Give me your trembling.

Give me your frailty.

Charles Spurgeon once said, God doesn't need your strength.

He has plenty of that for himself.

He's omnipotent.

No, God asks for your weakness because he has none of that himself.

Do you realize what that means?

It means that God can use me.

It means that God can use you.

He can use every single one of us.

Some of us do not feel capable of serving in the Lord's work because we don't know enough Bible.

I've heard that excuse.

God says, Do you know Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

Then God can use you.

Some of us don't feel capable of serving in certain areas because we aren't creative enough or not outgoing enough or we don't have enough theological knowledge.

Well, do you know Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

Have you walked with Jesus?

Have you listened to Him speak through His Word?

Then He can use you.

Some of us don't feel capable of serving because we are physically weak or sick or elderly.

You need to know, brothers and sisters, that God delights in using the weak and the sick and the elderly.

Paul was often weak and sick.

Timothy had stomach issues.

Epaphroditus was so sick he almost died.

And don't give age to me as an excuse because Moses was 80 when he was called into ministry.

Most of us don't feel comfortable sharing the gospel.

We aren't great speakers.

We don't know what to say.

Situations make us feel uncomfortable.

Beloved, do you know Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

Then you can share the simple and clear message that Paul proclaimed in Corinth that is the means of God's power.

Never underestimate the power of God in weak vessels.

Now, on the one hand, that takes away our excuses, doesn't it?

We have no reason whatsoever for God to not use us in his work.

The only thing that gets in our way is our pride and selfishness.

At the same time, do you see how encouraging that is?

Here's your drip line for today.

When we make the main thing the main thing, that is, when the simple message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is kept at the center of all we do and all we are, and that message is simple and clear and consistent.

Nothing more is required.

So each one of us can be a vessel used for his glory in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

How encouraging is that.

So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

There is conviction there if we're willing to be sensitive to it, and encouragement too.

How often do we turn away the opportunities to speak of Christ because we don't know what to say?

Maybe we say no to serving as a Sunday school teacher or serving in I say no to visiting or to caring for people, or we say no to some other means of ministry because we we feel we don't have the knowledge or the wisdom to do so.

If we go down that road, it's possible that we are resting in our own wisdom and in our own power when we do that.

We could even go a step further and to say it's possible that we are even stealing God's glory by refusing to allow him to work his power through our weakness.

But what encouragement is here for us?

When our faith is not found in the cheap tricks of culture or in the persuasiveness of human wisdom, but in Christ alone, we can rest securely because it is the power of God that saves us and keeps us.

It is the power of God that fulfills his purpose.

We simply become conduits.

Our faith finds a resting place when the cross is precious to us.

Our faith begins to rest securely, and it cannot be moved when Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God to us and through us.

When our message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified, all we need to focus on is the clarity and the simplicity of our message.

And then we rest in the power of God to do his work through his spirit by his word.

What does that look like?

When my faith is in this little device, I can trust that when I click a button, it moves.

And so I can, if I'm at home in my living room, I can sit back in my easy chair and just trust in this, right?

When our faith is in the simple message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we trust in a simple message and we rest in Him as His power does all its work.

Isn't that encouraging?

That's exciting.

To see what God can do through weak, frail, broken, sick, diseased, tired, stressed vessels is exciting.

All we need to do is rest in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Let's pray together.

Our Lord Jesus, there's so much to be distracted by in our world.

So much to be distracted by in our own lives.

Life is hard sometimes.

And if we're honest, there are times when we don't even feel like being Christians.

We don't feel like being joyful.

We don't feel like resting in you.

Oh, for the time when you rescue us from this sin-cursed world.

That day when we see your face and all things are worth it.

Father, give us a sense of that even now.

Fill us with your spirit so that we can know Jesus Christ and Him crucified and know the power of his resurrection.

Give us clarity about the gospel and make us a people who know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Because we want to see your power through the Holy Spirit on display.

May we see that.

Lord, please work powerfully through these weak and frail vessels to the praise of your glorious grace.

Amen.