Power and Wisdom

First Corinthians, Chapter one. I would love your help welcoming

someone whom you already know. He is our elder chair

here at Crossway Bible Church. Pastor Treebsaster loves you. And

let me tell you this. You already know this. If

you know Trebes. Pastor Trebes is eager for the people

of God to be changed by the word of God

that goes for him and that goes for us. So

would you thank him with me for bringing God's word

this morning?

Thank you Josh Okay, good morning Crossway Church family. Y'all

should if you're not already there, turn to First Corinthians

if you missed that memo. And while you're turning there,

let's just talk real briefly about this letter. This is

a letter that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.

The church at Corinth turned out to be pretty jacked up.

After Paul spent some time a year and a half

ministering there, he goes off to plant more churches and

he gets worried about the kind of the various ways

in which the church is jacked up, one of which

is their disunity. They were not unified, and then that

played out in a lot of individual ways with a

lot of pretty wild sin. And so where we find

ourselves in this particular passage is Paul begins this argument

against their disunity. And I just want to be very

clear as I grab first Corinthians, it is not because

Crossway is having these same problems. As a matter of fact,

God has graciously blessed this church over the past decade

with tremendous and I would even say abnormal level of unity.

And so I thank God for the ways in which

He is using y'all to preserve that. And yet, like

it was raised in our exegetical lunch on Tuesdays, we

are each, as Christians leaky vessels, and so we need

to constantly be filled with the truth of the power

of God, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because otherwise

we're leaking out the sides and ultimately we will run empty.

And so God uses a passage like that, even in

a passage like this, even in a healthy context, to

put up a fence and to keep us from going

in these ways. Here's how I can make this applicable

to us today, and this is going to involve some

class participation here. So I'm going to ask each of

y'all to raise your hand if you have been personally offended,

hurt by and potentially drawn into conflict, albeit small or large,

with somebody else at some point in time that's in

this room right now. If that's you, raise your hand. Wow,

less people in this service than the first. But I

would say those that didn't raise their hand, they're either

being dishonest, which is bad in church, or they this

is their first time here, they know nobody in this auditorium,

they have no family here. Because the reality is when

we spend time around other sinners, we are going to

we're going to there is the real potential and the

temptation to be in conflict, not because we don't like

the person, not because we don't love the person, but

because we're sinners. And that's what sinners do, They conflict

with one another. And so though this passage isn't just

about conflict, this passage is a response from Paul to

the disunity of the church and saying, hey, first and foremost,

you church need to understand the most fundamental thing about

your faith, and that is Jesus Christ and him crucified.

And so Christ crucified is what we're going to talk

about It's Christ's humble sacrifice where we find true wisdom,

where we would find true power. And it's that sacrificial

act that personifies wisdom and power and every one of

us as Christians. And so if I were to say

this sermon in a sentence, it would be this, that

true power in wisdom is found in Christ Crucified by

faith to those who are called, not in worldly ways

and by worldly means. So let's read the passage starting

in verse eighteen, chapter one. 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?

Where is the debater of this age? Has not God

made foolish the wisdom of the world, For since in

the wisdom of God, the world did not know God

through wisdom, It please God 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 are called both Jews and Greeks. Christ

the power of God and the wisdom of God. For

the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the

weakness of God is stronger than men. So where do

we find wisdom and power? Where do we find it?

We see clearly in the first three or I'm sorry,

the first four verses in this passage, that we find

wisdom and power in Christ Crucified, that the word of

the Cross in verse eighteen is the power of God

to those who are being saved. In verse twenty one,

that is God's wisdom that's revealed in the gospel that

Paul preached, saving those who believe. This is the power.

This is the salvation of Jesus. Humanity's only hope for

finding true wisdom and true power is in Christ Crucified.

Yet we search the depths of the earth, we search

everywhere else to find it. But this is where it's found,

Christ Crucified. It's a first importance to you individually as

a follower of Jesus, and it was a first importance

to this jacked up church in Corinth that Paul was

trying to call back to faithfulness that was experiencing conflict

in disunity. The first four chapters of this letter are

about the divisions in the church, and Paul starts right

here in chapter one saying, point your eyes to Christ Crucified.

This is foundational. This is the most important thing. Everything

else will flow out of that Christ Crucified. You think

that we are much different than the Church and Corinth

in the ways that they valued and pursued wisdom and power.

The Church and Corinth was known as this kind of

cultural hub and mecca of new ideas, and it was

where those that had oratory skill, that wanted to communicate

these ideas would go to be valued and looked up to.

And it was one of the first cultures actually in

which that wisdom was power, not just the strength of

one's fist. And so they idolized this in this culture,

wisdom and power that was shown by human like following

followers of these orators. And we think, well, how is

that us? And I would say, in some ways, yeah,

very much. So. We have human institutions, we have human

individuals that we are prone to follow and to give

our hearts to, and to give our time to whether

it be a political party here in America, or an

orator like somebody that runs a podcast. I know, you know,

many folks would listen to and give themselves to four

hours in a day listening to a Joe Rogan podcast

and listening to him pontificate with somebody else, some expert

in some field. And yeah, to be sure, it's very interesting.

But are we giving our hearts to that kind of

following before Christ crucified? Not just following who draws the

biggest crowds, who has the most interesting conversations, who has

the most podcast subscriptions, whether they're Christian or otherwise. It's

that's not true power. That is not true wisdom. True

power and true wisdom is found in the humiliating, the despicable,

bloody death of Jesus Christ on the cross. God's ways

are personified in Christ's humility and degradation. That this justice

and mercy and glory that are revealed on the cross,

it is for those who are being saved to believe

in this ethos and to walk in His ways, to

walk in this way of life. So Paul is starting

here with this gospel message to this people that quite

frankly he's astounded by their conflict and their qurals, since

he says, like, y'all have been saved, y'all have been

transformed by the power of the Gospel. Like if you

read the you know, the latter parts of the first

Letter to the Corinthians, you're like, these people are unbelievers,

Like there's no way a true regenerate Christian could act

in these ways. Well, Paul says something different. In verse two.

He says that y'all are people that are 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 lords and ours. And then in

verse five he says that in every way you were

enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even

as the testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. In

so far as Paul could tell, they had been confirmed

by Christ the manner of their lives. And yet they're

fighting amongst each other, and they're pursuing these worldly things.

They had found true wisdom and power, and they had

given their lives to Jesus, and yet they were functionally

rejecting that wisdom. They were functionally rejecting that power by

the manner of their lives. And as Josh likes to

remind us, when we get to a passage that has

an Old Testament reference, that its right to double click

on that to be able to understand the author's meeting

in the New Testament, it's helpful to go back to

the context of that passage in the Old Testament. And

so here in verse nineteen, this is a quote from

Isaiah twenty nine. And I'm not going to ask you

to flip there, but if you were to turn to

Isaiah twenty nine, where this quote of I will destroy

the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning,

I will thwart the context of this passage is that Israel,

that God's people were living hypocritical lives. They were desiring

and elevating the rules of God, the things about God

at the expense of worshiping God himself, and that was

resulting in some pretty busted up things. If our hearts

are not set on worshiping the Lord just the things

about him, we're gonna get it wrong. We're gonna miss

it that they were living out hypocritical lives. And in

the same way here in Corinth. As they've deviated from

what was of first importance, which is Christ crucified, their

lives went sideways. They started acting out in pretty egregious ways,

like sinful broken ways. They were broken in relationships, and

they were getting into different camps competing with one another.

Sin corrupts. And when our hearts aren't set on worshiping

Christ the point of our faith, then we are corrupted.

And so are we not tempted to do the same

things even here like okay, yes we have a very

unified body, but how about the ways we might be

tempted to being at crossway? Like we're bibly people were

we value what God's word has to say, and so

because of that we might spend more time than others

do and looking into and discussing theology and doctrine. And

I'm saying it kind of like I'm making fun of it,

but the reality is it's wonderful. That's great, we should

do that. But if we get so far bent on

well you reformed, you are, minion, I'm a Calvinist. I'm

a five point Calvinist. I'm a four point Calvinist. Then

have we run the risk of missing the Christ that

these doctrines and these theologies are supposed to describe and

tell us about, and so we can't be that way.

Some of us might say, well, I'm a Tim Keller guy,

or I'm a John MacArthur guy, or I'm a John

Piper guy, or I'm you know, this pastor here, and

well that guy's woke and this guy's and it's like,

all of a sudden, we find ourselves, you know, camping

up even in like Christian circles based on who we follow,

or even worse, if we're here in this church and

we start camping up by well, I'm a you know,

I'm a pastor Josh guy, or or I'm a pastor,

I'm a pastor Nate guy. Or I'm a pastor Richard guy.

That's the camp I would be in. He's not a pastor,

but he is a on staff here. I'd be in

Richard's camp. But anyway, if if but you understand, you understand,

and we laugh about it here, and that's only because

God has preserved and protected this body. Because that is

going on places across the globe and even places in

this city where we were. The church starts camping up

or camping around following certain individuals and not following Christ

as their first king, Paul says in verses twelve through thirteen.

Here he says that he's like, some of y'all say

that I follow Paul, and some say I follow Apoulus,

and then some would say, well, I follow Cephis, and

Paul's like, is Christ divided? Why are you following these

different people? Why are you not following King Jesus? He

is not divided. And so the call to us church

is that we must reject this temptation to group in

these earthly ways. We must stay unified under one body

and under one leader, which is Christ crucified. Wisdom is

not found, though we're going to be tempted to want

to see it. Well, wisdom's in this person, and wisdom's

in that person, and wisdom's in this group. Wisdom is

not found in these things of the world. But lasting

wisdom and lasting power is found in Christ himself. And

so it is clear where wisdom and power is found.

Per this text, It's found in Jesus Christ. And so

why then do we reject it? Because we see here

plainly that it is rejected. Why do we reject it?

Paul gives these two main groups, the Jews that he

would have been ministering to, and then you know the Gentiles,

the unbelievers. Why in this context they would reject it

that the Jews view Christ as a stumbling block and

in the Gentiles view the Gospel view Jesus as as

folly or foolishness. We're going to talk about that, but

let's first look at the Jews. Why did the Jews

reject Jesus. Paul says in verses twenty three to twenty

four that the Jews that they demand signs, and therefore

Jesus would have been a stumbling block to them. Well,

what does this demand signs mean? That the explanation to

that is that the Jews were accustomed to viewing works

from from their people, from from prophets, or that those

that would claim to be prophets of God, that they

would come to pronounce God what God says, and that

they would say that they would believe them, They would

they would give them authority if those works were if

that was, if their authority was revealed in works, that

they would do wondrous works. That's how Jewish people gave

authority to these prophets. And so when Christ. When Jesus comes,

and Jesus claims to be the Messiah, he claims to

be God himself, and then he says, I'm coming to

save God's people. And then he ends up hanging on

a tree. He ends up suffering ultimate humiliation. The Jews

are looking at and saying, this guy is no prophet.

This guy is certainly not the Messiah. As a matter

of fact, my Messiah is coming to save me from

the tyranny of Rome. My Messiah is coming to establish

this reign that we have lost on this earth. I'm

not interested in a messiah that dies on a cross,

while all the time missing that Jesus Christ did not

come to free them from the tyranny of Rome. Rather,

he came to free them from the tyranny of their sin.

He wasn't coming to establish this earthly kingdom that would

overthrow and allow them to rule as they so does.

But he was coming to establish a heavenly kingdom that

they were going to be ushered into for all eternity,

if they were to, if only they would look to

him in faith, if only they would give themselves by

faith to this Messiah. But we know that they missed it.

That was offensive. I'm not gonna cursed as the man

that hangs on a tree. I'm not following this messiah.

He's not my messiah. So I was talking about this

message yesterday with my family. We're talking about how foolish

I mean, Jesus did such amazing works. I mean, he

was right in front of them, and yet they chose

not to believe because it wasn't who they wanted him

to be. In in a lighthearted way, we were laughing

about how this connected to my five years year old daughter,

who is a bit of a contrarian. She must get

it from her mother. Not really, not really, and we

were just laughing that, like she can say the most

ridiculous stuff and just be like one hundred percent confident,

like nope, you're wrong. Like you know that screen's read like, uh, nope,

it isn't Lydia, but nope, it's it's red. Just the

other day, the kids were playing in the backyard. They

were playing. Lydia wanted to play basketball and she had

a volleyball in her hand. She's like, hey, come play

with this basketball with me, and we're like, nope, that's

a volleyball. She's like, no, it's not. It's a basketball. Okay.

She wanted it to be a basketball, and so it

became one to her, and she is five years old.

But this is the same way, albeit with much deadlier

consequences that the Jews or that we might miss Jesus

as our Messiah because he isn't the one we wanted.

We're not going to call him what he is. And

so to church, to you guys who y'all would say,

but no, I do believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

I do trust in him. I think that we can,

in the same ridiculous ways, reject his authority and his

claim by the ways that we live out our lives.

We reject his ways and his authority as Messiah because

it rubs up against our sensibilities that we would reject

the personal holiness that he would call us to because

of how we might be perceived in the workplace, or

in our neighborhoods, or in our social circles. Don't we

do the same when we care more about ourselves in

our own personal enjoyment than we do about the spiritual

needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Don't let

a life of sacrifice become a stumbling block to you

and your faith in Christ. As he calls you to him,

he calls you into relationship with Him by faith, very simple,

and we're going to talk about that. But then he's

he's gonna commit the rest of your life into becoming

more and more like Christ, which is to become more

and more less about yourself and more and more about

Him and his ways and his people. So don't let

his ways become a stumbling block and stunt your growth

in Him. So now let's turn and look at the

Greeks or the Gentiles you synonymously here, how they view

the Cross of Christ to be folly. He is a

joke to them. In these same verses in twenty three

and twenty four, Paul says that the Greeks, and their

pursuit of wisdom and their own ways, view the Cross

as folly. See the Greeks, they prided themselves, like I

already mentioned, on this pursuit of wisdom. They prided themselves

on this culture that pursued, you know, greater enlightenment and

understanding of these new ideas and new thoughts. And they

gave credence to and they validated those ideas as you know,

people that would propagate them would gather these followings and

that's how that's what they valued. And none of these

ideas were simple. They would have all been complex. There

was you know, over twenty different prevailing religions of this day.

There was many places of worship where people would gather,

and they would come from all over to speak about

these ideas. And so when they hear from this Paul

who limps into the city saying this Christian thing, Believe

in Christ crucified, trust your life with him. It's that simple.

It's Christ crucified. Put your faith in him. They say,

are you kidding me? What a lame religion, what a

lame belief system? That's that simple that even a child

could understand that, Like, no, this is folly, this is ridiculous.

Much less the guy that you're telling me to put

my faith in is the guy that died on a cross,

the most offensive way to be killed, to be murdered

by the state. But I would argue in what I

think Paul is arguing here is that it is that simple.

Taking that step of faith in Jesus Christ is as

simple as looking to the cross. I love the story

and some of y'all might know it of the famous

preacher Charles Spurgeon, who was ministered in the eighteen hundreds,

and he tells the story about how he was saved.

This was one of the most prolific preachers of all time,

one of the greatest evangelists like in all of Christendom.

And he tells the story of how he came to

saving faith in Jesus. It was a morning in a

Sunday morning in eighteen fifty and he was walking to

church and there was a big blizzard that blew in

and it was so bad that on his way to

church he couldn't make it. And so he's like, I

need to duck in somewhere for shelter. And he sees

this Methodist church on the side of the road and

he ducks into that church. Never had been there to

my knowledge, And that same storm that made him duck

into that church held up the vocational pastor that did

the weekly preaching at that church. And so he's in

this church the Sunday morning. The church is without their pastor,

and so they look around and they say, Okay, I

guess you know this lay elder, whoever he was, why

don't you come up and share a word with the congregation,

and these are my words, not Spurgeons, but like Spurgeon

describes him as this like lame lay meaning non vocational preacher,

you know, somebody like you're listening to right now. And

this guy stood up and he talks about how brutal

the message actually was. He says that he literally gets

up and from Isaiah, he opens his Bible to Isaiah

forty five, verse twenty two and essentially read this on loop,

which is look unto me and be saved. Look unto

me and be saved. Look unto me and be saved.

And Spurgeon said that in that very moment of listening

to this guy essentially read this passage on loop. Spurgeon

says that, and this is a quote he saw at

once the way of salvation, and that the cloud was gone,

the darkness had rolled away, and at that moment I

saw the sun. He simply looked to Christ and he

believed it was that simple for him, and it's that

simple for us. And it's that simplicity that the Greeks,

and I would say, most like modern onlookers of Christianity

would say that is foolish and folly. You waste your

time with that. But Christians, Christians, those that have put

their faith in that simplicity already, we have to reject

this notion or this heart temptation to make our faith

more complex than that. That it's more than just I

look to Christ as my sacrifice. I look at Christ

in worship. I look to Christ as my lord. We

think that we need to, well, if I act a

certain way, and if I do a certain if I

do my quiet time, and if I you know this

and that and that, and now I've messed up, and

so now I you know, Now it's all on my shoulders.

And so we functionally act like the Gentiles would, the

Greeks would of this day and say, well, that's way

too simple. It's got to be more complex. We've got

to do so much more. We've got to learn so

much more. We got to understand so much more, which

separates us from worshiping our king, the one that died

the death that we deserve, that shed his blood for us,

and we miss him, we look away from him because

we're trying to make it more complex. Then he calls

us to and to be sure, like, should we study scripture? Yes,

should we give ourselves to commit ourselves to holiness and

repentance and all this, Yes, absolutely, But none of those

things merit God's love for us. And so if we

start allowing those things to creep in, they're ultimately gonna

separate us from His love, and our lives are gonna

twist off sideways, just like they did here in the

church in Corinth. So the Jews, they wanted to be

convinced by their mis Siah, of their Messiah, by these

like earthly signs. They didn't want to receive him by faith.

The gentiles of the Greeks wanted to be convinced by

logic and reasoning. They didn't want to receive him by faith.

And so if you're here this morning, in a size

of a crowd this big, I'd imagine there are some

here that haven't yet received the simplicity of the gospel,

the good news that Jesus Christ came to save you

as a sinner. I believe there's some here that haven't

made that step yet. I'd like to ask you what

what sign are you looking for? What what do you

want to prove the veracity of this claim? What wisdom

and power are you looking past, to not see looking

past and not seeing to find something else that you

have in mind. I shared in the first service that

I was having a conversation with one of my good friends,

a childhood friend that had noticed like I was, you know,

when I started doing the Jesus thing and when I

got saved and my life started changing, and I probably

wasn't as as much of a jerk as I was before.

And he's like, man, things seem to be different. Things

seemed to be different, and he was going through a

hard time, he was struggling, and he came over and

we got around the fire in the backyard, and he

wanted to ask me, like, what's different. But what he

did was he started by saying, like, I want to

know what's different about your life now, But I just

want to start by saying, I don't want to hear

anything about Jesus. It's comical because that's all I had

to point to. But it's sad because that's not what

he was looking for. And I think that's an illustration

of so many and was certainly me before I came

to Saving Faith, that I was looking for something that

pleased me. I was looking for something that was going

to be comfortable for me. That was going to help

me out. And so far as I could see it,

and the God of the Bible, that Jesus of the

Bible wasn't or his ways of living wasn't what I

was looking for, and so I looked past it. But

here's the thing, and this is specifically to the unbeliever

here today, and we look at verse twenty four. Paul

says that those who are called are the ones that

see Christ in his way, power and in his wisdom.

And so I believe that if you're here this morning,

and that's you, that God is calling you to open

your eyes, to remove the scales from your eyes, so

that you can see Christ in all of his glory,

as the one who has come to save the suffering

servant on your behalf, to save you. Just like Spurgeon

sat in there and heard, look look to the Lord.

Look to the Lord. Look to the Lord. And in

that moment God dropped the scales from his eyes and said,

King Jesus, this is who your heart should worship. And

so I encourage you to be open to that and

to respond to that in faith, to believe that you

are called, and to turn your eyes to him. Okay,

So like the Jews, we can reject Christ because he's

offensive to our understandings, or we can reject him like

the Gentiles because you know what, that just all seems

so silly. But for all of us, one day Christ's

full wisdom and full power will be unveiled for all

to see. And this takes us to our third point,

when when we know it, when will know that power

and wisdom is found in Christ. Let's read this final

verse twenty five here, for the foolishness of God is

wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger

than men. Foolishness of God. That's not to say that

God is foolish as a matter of fact. What he

is saying the point that he's making is that what

you perceive to be foolish about God is what is

actually his wisdom. What you perceive to be weak about

God is actually his strength, his power, his glory. It's

like humility and gentleness in the face of offense or persecution.

We think that's weakness, and Scripture is clear, and Christ

is clear in the way of his life that that

that is not weakness, that that is actually strength in

God's kingdom. That's strength in God's kingdom. And that's strength.

And that is the way of Christ. That's the way

of the Cross. And so as we consider praying for

those who persecute you, strength being attacked and turning the

other cheek. Strength sharing the Gospel, and boldness yet being

misunderstood and even laughed at by friends and family. Strength

using unimpressive preachers, preaching Christ crucified. Wisdom, being peaceable, open

to reason, and full of mercy, impartial and sincere. That's

straight from the Book of James. That is wisdom. Not

being a part of the popular crowd because you follow Jesus.

That is wisdom. And that is strength, sacrificing your life

for the sake of others. Wisdom and strength. And as

I wrote these out, these are everything that I'm wrestling

with in my life as I prepare this sermon. So today,

in terms of God revealing his true wisdom and power,

I would argue that in his kindness he does that,

he actually gives us glimpses to show us that his

wisdom is truly wise and that his power is truly powerful.

I mean, just look how he looking back in scripture,

how he uses somebody like Moses, who lacked the oratory skills,

would have been laughed at in Corinth. And yet he

uses him to lead a nation. How he used David,

this young shepherd boy, not this mighty warrior that was

out on the battlefield. But how he went and plucked

out David to go slay the giant and lead his nation.

How he after Christ's death and resurrection, how he used

this handful of unimpressive men that were not of noteworthy

status or power, And how he used these men to

go plant and spread churches all across the globe. How

he used that poor preacher in that eighteen fifty snowstorm

in England to save the greatest preach, one of the

greatest preachers the church has ever known. This is how

God works, and he gives us glimpses of that reality.

So see that. Look, don't be like my friend that said, Hey,

I want to know what's going on with you, but

I don't want to hear about Jesus. Be able to

look Jesus square in the eye when he gives you

these glimpses of his strength and his wisdom. But I

would say this, and this should serve as an encouragement

but this should also serve as a warning that one

day he's going to make plane. He's going to remove

the veil from all of these little glimpses that we have.

He's going to remove the veil and make clear that

it is his wisdom and that it is his power

that we should have been pursuing this whole time, That

it is his wisdom and how he has saved his people,

and it is his power that's on displayed when the

Lamb returns as a roaring lion to reveal his glory

to all, there will be no question of what is

true wisdom and what is true power. Isaiah one, I'm sorry.

First Corinthians, chapter one, verse nineteen. Here in our passage

the quote from Isaiah. He says that I will destroy

the wisdom of the wise. What you think is wise,

that's headed for destruction. And later in chapter two, verse six,

he says that the wise, in the rulers, or those

that are powerful in this world, they are doomed to

pass away. My kingdom will remain. And even back in

that Isaiah twenty nine chapter he says, I'm gonna do

wonderful things for my people, but the wise, the whyse

of this world. They're gonna perish, they're dying. There will

be this day of final judgment when the Lamb returns

in all of his glory as a roaring lion, and

you need to be on this side of belief at

that point, because when he returns, it will be too late.

That day when every need would bow and every tongue

will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Christ's power and

Christ's wisdom will be plain to all. So Church, we're

not a church that's divided in the same way that

Corinth was, but we still must strive to keep Christ

crucified at the center of our heart's focus, that we

would keep His wisdom in his ways at the center

of our lives, so that we would preserve our souls

in Christ, but so also that we would preserve the

unity and the testimony of Christ's bride. I'd like to

invite the band to come forward, and while they're doing that,

we're gonna have the opportunity to respect right now in

a song, as we always do. And as they're getting ready,

I just want to prepare y'all's hearts for this because

I want to encourage everyone to respond to this message

that is the song actually ties very closely with in

genuine worship and encouragement. So when we walk out of

these doors, we're going to live our lives in a

different way in light of this truth. So I'm just

gonna read this. One of the verses is going to say,

we're all going to have the opportunity to sing it

that no pen or quill, no scribe, and perfect skill

with flawless words could capture all you are talking about God,

no lofty thought, no scholar of this world could grasp

an inch of such infinity. Though we can't comprehend this mystery,

just a glimpse of this revealed for us compels us

to see in worship and to praise his name. And

then later on the song, he says like we look

forward to this, that when you return, we'll hear the

trumpet sound and you'll lead us home, riding on the clouds,

where we will stand and sing forevermore the honor and

the praise. The glory is the Lord's. When all wisdom,

all true wisdom, all lasting wisdom, all power will be

clear to all