Crazy City, Crazy Love - Be Foolish

Good morning.

This is a nice day.

It's beautiful outside, and uh I think this is the closest to unplugged we ever uh we ever get, but uh but I like it.

And um honestly I'm beat.

I've had a long week, and I know some of you feel the same way.

And uh so just to get together and be with each other, and I don't know, it just felt restful to me, you know, and and to to be with each other and and with God and his presence and his spirit to um to fill us up.

You know, we're not God's plan was never for us to get together on Sunday morning and beat each other up.

It was to get together so uh he can fill us up, and then we'll have some love and and um energy and strength to to share that with other people during the week.

And then we come back the next week and and start all over again.

So it's great to be with with uh with you this morning.

Father, thanks for being such a great God.

Thank you for your creation, this beautiful weekend that we we get to enjoy, uh, these beautiful people that we get to enjoy and and and all be together.

We just praise you for that.

Thank you for adopting us as your very own children.

Holy Spirit, thank you for being our teacher and our counselor.

And uh we just ask that that you teach each of us today, that each one of us knows that we left with something that came uh from you specifically for us.

And Jesus, we just praise you for saving us, for being our friend, for showing us what God's really like.

And we just trust you and thank you.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

We've been reading a letter that uh Paul wrote to the people that were following Jesus in the in the city of Corinth in Greece.

It's about 45 miles from Athens, and we've talked about Corinth.

It was a very unique city, it's a little bit like Atlanta, in that it had been destroyed in war and then rebuilt, and it was it was new and thriving and and um and prosperous.

It was one of the most important cities in the world at that time.

They had a deep-seated uh culture of Greek mythology.

Uh the famous temple of Aphrodites is there, the uh famous temple to Apollo is there, and to Poseidon.

And they also had a huge appreciation for knowledge and wisdom and debate, and some of the most famous people, the real celebrities of that day were thinkers and teachers and and debaters.

And we've talked about context.

That's one of the things we're gonna see in this letter, how important it is to understand the context about the specific things that Paul is writing about, and then sometimes the specific thing may apply, other times we need to take one step back and realize it's a principle that we can apply to our specific situation.

But the people in Corinth and the city of Corinth is only one half of the context.

The other half of the context is Paul.

It's his experience and his life that will also shape his letter.

When the Holy Spirit inspired people to write the Bible, he didn't zap them into a trance and dictate to them like you know, handwriting on the wall.

He spoke through them, the same way he speaks to us.

He spoke through them, through their personalities and their experiences.

It's why the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are so different and yet so similar.

Four different people witnessing the same events, but they all wrote inspired, but from their perspectives.

Paul has a perspective when he writes to the people in Corinth.

When he looks at the values in Corinth, knowledge and intellect and social standing, he gets it.

In fact, Paul knows that he could have fit in very, very well in the city.

Paul was raised from a famous, uh raised in a famous uh university town.

It was Tarsus, which was was uh in Turkey.

Paul was a Roman citizen.

That was kind of a big deal.

Rome ruled the world, and it wasn't like America.

If you're born in America, you're you're an American citizen.

Um citizenship in Rome was reserved for the elite.

And one of the things the Romans uh decided to do is that when they would conquer a country, which they did a lot, that they would give Roman citizenship to some of the elite people in that country they've conquered.

That way it would just kind of squash rebellion.

If they're in on the on it, they're less likely to lead a revolt.

And so perhaps that's what happened with uh um with Paul.

Um maybe that's how his uh his parents received Roman citizenship.

We don't know exactly, but we know that uh we know that Paul was a Roman citizen.

His dad was a Pharisee, and Paul became a Pharisee.

That meant that they not only believed the Old Testament law, but they fervently held on to their thinking and their traditions and their rules of what people should do.

Paul was kind of a golden boy.

You know, he was on the fast track.

His parents sent him to Jerusalem to be taught by the most famous Hebrew scholar of that day, a man named Gamelia.

And he personally taught Paul and he excelled there.

And at a very young age for that culture, he became a leader.

And so, in other words, 15 years before Paul wrote this letter, he could have been a rock star in Corinth.

He had it all: status, knowledge, wisdom, leadership.

The only things he didn't have were things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

He didn't have any of those until he met Jesus.

And you've probably heard how that happened.

How Paul was heading to Damascus, he was leading a group that was going to arrest a bunch of Christians and take them back, and Jesus supernaturally spoke with him.

And that encounter with Jesus changed his life forever.

You know, and it didn't happen overnight.

You know, the Paul, there was 14 years between that event on the road to Damascus and when Paul started teaching and leading and planting years.

Fourteen years for the Holy Spirit to help change and process and renew Paul.

And so that is the context of Paul, the other half of the context.

He gets the wisdom and knowledge stuff.

He was all about it.

He also experienced the power of Jesus and nothing else compared.

So here in Corinth, it's a collision of cultures.

You know, the Greeks, if they envisioned a Messiah, it would be an elite philosopher, somebody even wiser than Plato.

You know, he would have a higher knowledge, a way of thinking that would lead to peace and to order in the world.

The Jewish people, on the other hand, envisioned a strong military leader.

That's what they wanted, someone who would come in and lead them and they would defeat Rome and it would lift Israel back to strength and prominence.

And here comes Jesus.

He's not what either of them had in mind.

He's not what the Greeks had in mind.

He spends most of his time with the lowly and the uneducated.

Rather than showing off his knowledge, he actually simplifies things.

You know, he talks in parables and tells stories.

He's not what the Jewish people had in mind.

Not only does he not care to overthrow the Roman government, he is actually crucified by the Roman government on a hill outside of Jerusalem.

The whole thing's kind of nutty.

It seems stupid to the Greeks, and it's downright offensive to the Jewish people.

And some of the rising leaders in this new church in Corinth were adding some of their ideas, some of their rules, some of their trition uh traditions, just to improve the whole thing a little bit.

And that's what Paul wants to talk to them about.

And so in 1 Corinthians 1 18, Paul says, the message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction.

But we who are being saved notice the very power of God.

As the scriptures say, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.

This quote is from Isaiah 29.

It's kind of a famous quote with the Jewish people.

It's one line after a famous quote that Jesus said.

Remember when Jesus talking to the Pharisees, he said, Your worship is a farce because you teach man-made rules as if they were commandments of God?

Okay, the very he was quoted in Isaiah 29.

And the very next line in Isaiah says, I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.

And so it all goes together people's ideas, people's rules, people's traditions, people's wisdom.

So Paul goes on, where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world's brilliant debaters?

God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.

Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.

It is foolish to the Jews who ask for science from heaven, and it's foolish to the Greeks who seek human wisdom.

So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended, and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense.

But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

We're not lending God a hand when we add our ideas and our traditions and our wisdom to Jesus.

The people in Corinth weren't helping God out when they added their thinking and their wisdom and their rules and their traditions to Jesus.

Because Jesus is not a systematic theology, Jesus is not a belief system.

Jesus is the power to change our lives.

He is the power that reconnects us with God.

He is the power that defeats death so we never fear it.

When we're in a tough spot and everything's crumbling around us, we don't need to memorize more rules and more stuff.

We need God's power.

Jesus is the power of God.

He is the wisdom of God if we just connect with Him.

Dr.

Jean Kirkpatrick was the U.S.

Ambassador to the United Nations.

She said this The United Nations preamble reminds me of a secular version of the Lord's Prayer.

Because they say, deliver us from evil, yet they say it not to God, but to each other.

Let us eliminate evil.

I thought about Jesus Christ, the perfectly virtuous Son of God, who was tried before an essentially indifferent Roman court and destroyed.

God's own son was not delivered from evil and violent death through the legal institutions of his society.

I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions.

See, even when people want to do good, you can combine all the world's wisdom, if you will, into one building, and it doesn't work.

We don't have the power.

Jesus is the power to change lives.

This has always been true.

Always.

It started in the Garden of Eden.

And if you've been here a while, you know about the Garden of Eden.

But it started with Adam and Eve and this beautiful garden with beautiful trees.

And Adam and Eve had a relationship with God.

And God would come in the evening and they would talk, and they had responsibilities and they had meaningful work.

And in the center of this garden were two trees.

There was the tree of life, which they could eat freely from.

It was the most beautiful tree in the garden.

And there was the tree that we call the forbidden fruit.

It was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And the deceiver came along and told Adam and Eve, you know what?

You could be like God.

We would say godly.

You can be godly if you just know the difference between good and evil.

If you just know the rules.

You know, figure out what you're not supposed to do, figure out what you're supposed to do, do the good stuff, then you'll be godly.

God said, you know, don't go that route because it's death.

But they thought God was holding out on them, and so that's the route they chose.

They said, you know what?

We're gonna be godly by learning all about good and evil.

And so what mankind got was the law.

Good and evil.

Do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this.

And what we learned through that experience was even if we know what is good, we don't have the power to do it.

We need God's life, we need God's power.

And so God sends Jesus.

Jesus says, I am the truth, the life, and the way.

Maybe the truth, the way, and the life.

Either way, he said all three.

But he is life.

And so here in Corinth, 19 years after Jesus was raised from the dead, the whole church finds themselves in the Garden of Eden.

Metaphorically.

Because they're faced with the same choice.

What's it gonna be?

Is it gonna be our way?

Is it gonna be our wisdom?

Is it gonna be our goodness?

Can we all figure it out?

Is that what we're gonna do?

Or are we gonna choose life?

Jesus is the tree of life.

And we're all put in the garden.

And we all get to make that choice.

Can we do it?

Are we good enough?

Can we think it out?

Can we follow people?

Or do we need a relationship with the living God?

And Paul knows from personal experience that only Jesus can give us life.

Paul's going to prove it to the Corinthians.

And the proof he tells them is you.

He says, the proof is you.

Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.

Instead, God chose the things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.

And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.

God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.

As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

God has united you with Christ Jesus.

For our benefit, God made him to be wisdom itself.

Christ made us right with God, he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.

Therefore, as the scriptures say, if you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.

See, Corinth was a crazy church.

I mean, they were kind of messed up in a lot of ways.

But still, Paul says, the proof of God's wisdom is you.

First is that God did it completely different than the wisest people in the world would ever think.

He chose them.

See, they weren't the lovable, they weren't the likely.

And he chose them.

They were going to change this most important city in the whole world.

You know, it's the way he's always done it.

If you read the genealogy of Jesus, it is one unlovable, unlikely person after another.

Jesus' disciples, all of them.

Unlovable, unlikely.

The people in Corinth, very unlikely.

But God had chosen them, and God did love them.

No person would have come up with that.

It was God's wisdom.

And it wasn't just that.

It was what He was doing in them.

He was literally changing their lives.

Now, this is and always has been the greatest proof of the power of Jesus, the power to change lives.

You know, sometimes we just want to see a miracle.

We've all probably been in that in that place.

Where if we could just see a miracle, maybe a sign, maybe an angel, maybe time would stand still or something like that.

And God actually does things like that when he wants to.

He can do anything.

But if you want to see a true miracle, the proof of the awesome power of God, just look around this room.

Just look around the room.

That is the power of Jesus Christ, that He is changing lives.

It is the most difficult thing to do of all.

To change someone's whole life, to soften a hard heart, to heal a broken and lonely heart.

Jesus Christ is the power to change lives, to change hearts, to change minds.

He does it all the time.

He's changing us.

For goodness sake.

If he can do that, if he can change me.

And he was changing the people in Corinth.

And if that wasn't enough, Paul wants to give him one more piece of proof.

Himself.

He says, When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn't use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God's secret plan.

For I decided that while I was with you, I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.

I came to you in weakness, timid and trembling, and my message and my preaching were very plain.

Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.

I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom, but in the power of God.

Paul himself was a scholar.

He was an impressive intellect.

He was taught by the best.

He could have dazzled them with the way that he thought.

He didn't need any of that.

In fact, he purposely forgot all of that.

Straightforward message, plain speaking.

If it was going to be powerful, it was going to be the message of Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit bringing it home.

That's why we never want to get away from simply talking about Jesus and trusting the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and to change our minds and to change our lives.

It may not be as stimulating as politics or end times prophecy or a dozen other things we could talk about, but it is the only power to change lives.

Jesus.

And Paul just wants to make that clear from the very start.

Because he's going to talk about other stuff.

He's going to talk about what's going on in that city.

He's going to correct some crazy ideas the Corinthians have, and he's going to encourage them in some other stuff.

All of it's just talk without God's power.

And Jesus is the power to change their lives.

This is an unusual section of the Bible.

It's one of the very few places where foolishness is actually talked about in a good way.

So this week, why don't we take advantage of that?

What if we just get a little bit foolish ourselves?

Do something counterintuitive for a week.

I mean, just a week.

What if we're stressed out about money and we find a way to be generous?

What if we forgive someone who hasn't even apologized?

What if someone asks us, how's it going?

And we tell them how Jesus is changing our lives?

What if we don't have enough hours in the day and we take an hour to help someone else?

What if we accept that Jesus has completely forgiven us, even if we haven't been able to forgive ourselves?

Foolish.

But it's only a week.

Maybe there's something you're really worried about.

What if we ask Jesus to help, and then we take a deep breath and we let Him have it for a week?

We'll find that the foolishness of God is more powerful than all the wisdom of man.

And that Jesus is the power to change our lives.

So if the worship team comes up, we'll stop there this morning.

Let's stand up and get ready for the last song.

You know, following Jesus doesn't mean that we have to check our brains at the door.

You know, I had to list, or it was a couple pages, and it was quotes from famous people from uh throughout history, leaders of the world, leaders in science, uh, presidents, um, artists.

And they were all talking about how it was Jesus that had changed their lives.

See, it wasn't that God hadn't gifted them with intellect, it wasn't that God hadn't given them abilities.

They just knew that there was something bigger, something better, something more powerful.

It was a God that loved him, and his son he sent to save us.

It may be foolishness to some, but it's God's wisdom in the world.

And to connect with Jesus is just like it's really the tree of life.

It's just making a choice.

You know, am I gonna do it my way or am I gonna connect with God?

There's not a formula.

We just do it in our own way, in our own words.

You know, for a lot of us, it's it's well for me, it was if you're real, help me.

You know, show me, teach me.

And that's how it started.

You know, for others, it's just I want to follow you.

Um we can't do that ourselves.

We don't get scrubbed up to do that.

We come just the way we are with all of our stuff, and then he takes over.

And we're gonna read about that, how it's his spirit, how he fills us, and our spirit comes alive and starts changing us from the inside out.

He does the heavy lifting if we just connect with him.

So that's something if you haven't done, boy, please do, please do.

It's the only thing that can change our lives.

All right, let's uh pray.

Father, I praise you.

Thank you for today.

Thank you for being the power to change our lives.

And God, we ask you to change our lives, to finish what you've started, change us from the inside out, mold us to be more like you, to be how you created us to be.

We trust you with that.

And God, I ask you to bless everybody here this morning.

We all got different things going on in our lives, and you know what we all need.

Would you please just give each one here exactly what we need today?

And we praise you and we love you and we trust you.

Jesus, it's in your name we pray.

Amen.