1 Corinthians 2:1-5 | The Not-So-Secret Sauce of Paul's Evangelism

Rod Gomez: Compass Bible Church North Texas is going to die

The question is when and why.

But make no mistake, she will die

When, in large part, is up to you and I.

We will have some say in that, whether we stave off death or

whether we encourage her soon coming.

Question that, that you might be asking is why, and let me just point out to you,

the Jerusalem church, the first megachurch to enter on the scene in the Book of

Acts, thousands of members added over the span of what seems to be just a few

days, and what happened to that church?

I want you to go to www.jerusalemchurch.com

and see if that's still the same one that the apostles planted.

It's gone.

Doesn't exist anymore

Charles Spurgeon's church did well for se- several hundred years.

Uh, actually, uh, not several hundred.

Uh, his pastor's college recently, recently closed down his doors.

And Spurgeon, you know, that's 200 years ago.

It's gone.

It's not a church, but his church isn't doing half as well as it used to.

I don't think they're still around.

I think they closed down 20 years ago or something

The truth is, every church will die.

Every church will die.

And all the church growth experts have reasons for why that takes

place, and there's a lot of them.

There's more than one, surely.

But there's one reason that churches die that has everything to do with you and I,

and there's one major preventable reason, and that's why we need this sermon.

We need this sermon because we want to keep our church alive.

In fact, if we wanna get more technical about this, we could say, "Well,

churches die for a lot of reasons.

You know, there's money, and there's all sorts of reasons."

But, uh, there's several things that contribute to this.

But again, one really is contingent and dependent upon you and I.

Everything about Compass Bible Church North Texas is in the

hands of the Lord, for sure.

None of us would say that's anything different.

But what is important for us to understand is that we have a major,

significant, real role in whether Compass Bible Church North Texas stays

alive for 50 years or whether she dies

wrote a book called The Autopsy of a Deceased Church.

It's by this guy named Tom Rainer, and he observes church trends,

and he tries to understand what motivates these trends, what happens

to a church that c- that dies.

And of course, he notices several things, but one chapter, which

gives one of his answers, is important for you to understand.

Here's that chapter title.

I forget what number it is, but he says it like this: The Great

Commission Becomes the Great Omission.

One of the reasons the church dies

The truth of the matter is that we need to reproduce or we die.

Now, understand what I'm saying.

The church triumphant, Christ Church, the universal church, will never die.

Christ will make sure that his church continues to march on.

It will, it will not be defeated.

The gates of hell will not prevail.

Christ Church will continue.

The question is whether this particular expression, this local church

continues, whether we allow the Lord…

Oh, allow, that's not the right word.

Whether we co- cooperate with the Lord to make this church all that it can

be, or whether we take for granted the blessings of God and say, "Well, Lord,

you, I guess you've been moving so far, like, people are doing the work.

Someone will get, get it taken care of."

Man, my burden for this church is that we not let this church die, at least

not on our watch, not to the extent that we have opportunity and ability.

We want to prevent our church's death, obviously.

This is a nice church.

I like our church.

I like you guys.

Hope you like me.

Hope it's mutual.

We don't want our church to die, but more importantly, we don't want to

fail at the reason, the purpose of our existence This is why Christ saved us.

This sermon is all about what Christ calls us to do as His disciples.

Discipleship is not just learning under Christ.

You understand, we know that.

It's not just learning what, what He thinks about our lives and

how to think about our finances.

No, discipleship is about saying, "I'm following after the master," and in this

case, the master being Jesus Himself.

We don't wanna die, we wanna fulfill our life's purpose.

And thirdly, I mean, I, I could say all, I- all of us want to say, "I,

I wanna glorify God with my life."

If you're a disciple, if your heart is right with Christ, I know for a fact

you would say, "I want to glorify God with my life, whatever that means."

I hope you'd say that.

Wouldn't you?

You would say that.

"Whatever that means, Lord, I wanna glorify you."

Well, I'm gonna help you cash that check today.

Whatever that means, right?

Blank check.

Lord, whatever you want me to do, here I am, send me.

Here it is.

I'm gonna give you the marching orders of Christ Church, and I wanna

point you to the, one of the best evangelists that's ever existed.

We might talk about Spurgeon or D.L.

Moody, all these great guys of hi- history's past, but this is

probably the best evangelist ever.

This guy was responsible for helping ignite the fire that would become the

church, and he was a late bloomer too, so it's not even too late for all of us.

He was a late bloomer to the scene, and yet God used him mightily.

And what I wanna look at today is how Paul approached this.

Paul the Apostle was a great evangelist, and we're gonna take away five

practical things that he did that we can do today, right now, because

we don't wanna die, because we wanna fulfill our church's purpose, our

individual purpose, and because we wanna glorify God, whatever that means.

Turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

I want you to see what we're looking at here, what we're working with.

I want you to see what made Paul so effective.

I want you to see the secret sauce that got Paul's evangelism cooking.

How did this guy do it?

What was his secret?

You know, you can-- people do this all the time.

Recently, uh, people asked M- do you know who MrBeast is?

I know I'm talking to a mixed audience here.

MrBeast is the most significant YouTuber of all time.

Not that he's been around for forever, but he's really good at his job.

People ask him all the time, "What's your secret?

What's your-- how do you do the thing?

You get millions or billions of views on your videos," and now

he's doing game shows with the most amount of money ever given away.

"How do you do it?"

And he, the thing is, he tells everybody what he does.

He tells them, "I don't sleep.

I work incessantly on these things.

I obsess about them, and I am a, I'm a s- I'm a slave to perfection.

I do everything I can to make this thing work."

He tells everybody what he's doing.

He says, "You do what I do, you'll, you'll be able to make it."

And yet, there's only one MrBeast.

Uh People know the recipe, they don't always apply the recipe.

Let's look at Paul's recipe, and let's see what we can learn from his example.

And this is gonna be something of a faster-paced sermon.

I got five points, which means we're gonna have to go rapidly.

I'm gonna ask you to stay in your Bibles and track along with me the best you can.

We're gonna make some progress here.

1 Corinthians 2 starting at verse one.

Lewis read it for us.

Paul starts out this way, "And I, when I came to you, brothers, I 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 fear and much trembling, and my speech

and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration

of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the

wisdom of men but in the power of God."

We heard last week as Pastor PJ closed us out in chapter one that one of the reasons

that Paul highlights the foolishness of the church, and even the foolishness of

the preaching approach, is because God doesn't want to share his glory with you.

He's not interested in saying, "Well, me and Garrett, we did this together.

We built Christ Church.

Me and Josh, we built the church together.

We did this thing."

No, it's, it's Jesus.

Jesus gets the glory.

He doesn't want to share glory with us, and he's, and he's…

And we would say, "Yes, that's right."

We would say, "That's, that's agreeable.

We want that to happen."

And so Paul's saying, "Look, let, let the one who boasts, if you're

gonna boast," as we sang this morning, "All my boast is in Jesus."

And so he's saying, "This is why God goes this direction."

And then he says, "And by the way, let me remind you how I came to you.

And when I, when I came to you, was I like that?

Was I trying to get kudos from you?

Was I trying to build a fan club?"

Remember that part of chapter one here, and into chapter two, is he's saying,

"Look, I don't want you to build a fan club around Apollos or Cephas or me.

I, I, I want you to be about the right thing in the right way."

And so it's important that you see Paul saying, "Look, I'm, I'm an example to you.

I want you to understand that as I approached you, I didn't come

with a certain kind of loftiness.

I wasn't trying to, you know, flower your attention with, with my prowess or wit."

He says, "I decided to know nothing among you."

It does not escape me the irony that we're meeting at Founders Classical Academy

that teaches rhetoric and persuasion.

Paul is saying, "I didn't rely on rhetoric and persuasion.

That wasn't my MO."

Paul's not opposed to using that.

He's not opposed to rhetoric and persuasion.

In fact…

How much time we got here?

In fact-

Okay, it's worth it.

Go to Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

It's worth it.

Just trust me, Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

I just need you to see some of the context here.

Acts chapter 18 is the place where Paul plants the church.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

He's telling you how he did this.

And so we're reading the letter that he writes to the church that he plants.

He came to them, and I just want you to see his approach.

Starting at Acts chapter 18, verse 1

Acts 18:1

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

All right, so that's a big city, Athens, Greece, right?

These are where all the philosophers are born from.

He left Athens, went to Corinth, and he found a Jew named Aquila,

a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.

These are names that you probably know.

Because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.

And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade,

he stayed with them and worked, for they were tent makers by trade.

That'll be important later, okay?

Tent makers by trade.

Paul's working with his hands with Aquila and Priscilla.

We'll come back to that later.

I'll refer to that.

Just keep that in the back of your mind.

But verse four is what I want you to see.

Notice what Paul does here.

And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath.

He's reasoning.

He's letting the scriptures be used to help him reason with

the people that were there.

Notice this in the second part of verse four.

And he tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

Okay, reasoning and persuasion.

Paul's not against these things.

Clearly, he thinks that there's a role here for him to play.

Back to our text.

I wanted you to see that because it's important to

understand what Paul is saying.

He's not saying, "I am against understanding or intellect.

I'm, I'm against, uh, there being reason or persuasion."

Obviously, that's what I'm trying to do for you this morning.

It would be a terrible sermon if I'm saying, "Hey, don't use

reason and persuasion, and by the way, I'm gonna use it myself."

No, he's saying, "I'm okay with that, except that when the form and content

get in the way of the message."

In other words, uh, the gospel is shared in weakness.

It's communicated in weakness.

It doesn't work when there's some rock star who's pointing to himself and

saying, "I'm the point of the show here.

I'm the reason that you're here."

No, Jesus is the point of the show.

Paul doesn't want self-reliance, self-promotion, or

self-confidence to get in the way.

He's okay with reason and persuasion.

He's not against eloquence or wisdom per se.

He's just for real, the real thing

Okay, that's our on-ramp into this text.

Five points from this text that I want you to see that are critical to our

making progress in our evangelism.

And the first one starts with verse one.

Notice this, in order…

And I'm even gonna read the whole verse to you.

Look at this again.

Verse one, "And I, when I came to you brothers," pause.

I'm gonna start there.

Let's do this.

Point number one, I want you, like Paul, to go to them.

Go to them.

"When I came to you brothers," it's a small phrase, and,

and this is not Paul's point.

He's not saying, "I came to you, you should go."

I'm just making an observation.

Paul went to them.

That was his whole missionary journey.

He was going to people.

He wasn't waiting for people to come to him.

We just read about him in Athens.

He, he made it a point to go to them.

In Acts chapter nine, when Jesus called Paul to himself, he said, "I'm gonna

have you carry my name to the Gentiles.

This is gonna be your job, Paul."

And Paul ob- Paul obliges.

Paul does this.

But it's interesting that Paul understands this as his job.

I think it's imperative that we understand this as our job.

God is calling us to go to them.

You must initiate evangelistic contact.

You must.

There is no shortcut to this.

I've noticed that today it's super en vogue for young people

to ask each other out over a DM.

Have you noticed this?

You just, you don't, you don't go to them in person.

There's too much at stake there, so you just send them a DM and

say, "Hey, you wanna go out?"

Lame.

Be a man and go talk to her face to face

Just saying, guys

There's nothing inherently wrong with the text.

I'm just saying, that's not the way we do- when we were your age

Dad, dadness

We must put ourselves in a place of great vulnerability

and discomfort and go to them.

Simple point.

You're not surprised by this, but this is the whole idea

that Christ has called us to.

In Matthew 28, this, the famous text, 18 through 20.

I'll be referring to this all throughout.

Matthew 28:18 through 20.

Matthew 28:18–20

Christ calls us to go and make disciples, making disciples

being the imperative command.

This is your life's call, make disciples.

And so he says, "Go make disciples by going, by reaching,

by teaching, by training."

This is what he calls us to do.

This is what he wants us to do, making disciples.

And it's interesting because we of- often think about go make

disciples as being the, the command.

It isn't.

Um, it's as you're going about your life, you're making disciples.

As you're going about all the things that you're called to do, the vocation

that God has given you, you're a student, you're a teacher, you're a grandparent,

you're a nurse, you're a doctor, all these things God calls you to do.

He's saying, "As you go about these things, it is imperative

that you understand your point, your call is to make disciples."

You must do this.

You must initiate contact.

We have to.

There's no other option here.

Acts chapter 17, when Paul is preaching in Athens, let me just

Acts 17 · chapter mention

read you what ha- what he says here in verse, verse 16 and 17 really,

but verse 17 is where I wanna focus.

He, he goes to Athens, he reasons in the marketplace every day with

those who happen to be there.

I never saw that phrase.

He reasoned every day with those who happened to be

there, whoever was in his path.

Providentially, God brings someone in front of him and he says, "Ah, there's

a person God wants me to talk to."

He starts initiating conversations with them.

Do you know the name Edward Kimball?

Edward Kimball, you probably don't know his name.

He was a Sunday school teacher from Boston who had a pupil in

his Sunday school, and he thought, "I need this kid to know Christ."

And so he walks to the kid's place of employment He goes past the

door of the place of employment and says, "I just can't do it.

I shouldn't bother him.

It's a working day.

This would…

This may not be the best time."

And so he walks past the door, but then he feels something inside

him that causes him to go back.

And so he goes back to the place of employment.

He walks in, he finds the young man, puts his hand on his shoulder, and begins

to tell him about the love of Christ.

The young man recalls this experience and retells the story

later as he evangelizes the masses.

You might know his name as D.L.

Moody.

Do you know Edward Kimball?

Nope.

I didn't know Edward Kimball.

I read about Edward, and I said, "That's fantastic."

He's a nobody telling somebody about the somebody, and that guy

actually did something really cool.

Like, well, we can't guarantee that our evangelistic efforts somehow recruit the

next Spurgeon or Billy Graham or D.L.

Moody, but what we can do is say, "I'm gonna be faithful, and I'm gonna

trust God with the consequences.

I will go and initiate contact."

You must.

We have to.

This is a non-negotiable for us.

They're not gonna come to us.

They're not gonna…

They're, they're just not going to.

It's rare that I have an opportunity, even as a pastor, when they find out who I am.

I, you know, I get a haircut for the first time.

"Oh, what do you do?"

That's what they all ask.

It's a female, usually not the men.

Men don't care.

The female will ask, "What do you do?"

And then I'll say, "Oh, I'm a, I'm a pastor."

How do you think that goes?

Those are one of the most awkward transitions that most

people struggle to navigate.

Like, what do I say to a pastor?

And so I say, "Oh, yeah, I'm a pastor, and I, you know, I've

been doing it for this…"

I try to fill the conversation and give them a lot of things to work with.

You know, with Prosper, and I've been doing this for this many years.

Uh, people struggle to know, "Well, what do I say?"

You know, "What do I say to that?"

It's awkward.

It's gonna be hard.

But even with that, I've never had someone say, "You know what?

I'm glad you're here.

Tell me how to get saved.

I've been dying to have my sins cleansed.

Seems like you're a gift of God.

Please tell me."

It doesn't happen.

Therefore, I have to make it happen.

You have to make it happen.

Simple point, simple ill, simple application then, I

need you to initiate contact.

It can be anybody.

Uh, your, your barber, your stylist, your delivery driver.

Maybe you set up a snack shop for your delivery driver, and

there's gospel tracks in there.

That's something.

That's not nothing.

Your neighborhood walks.

Maybe as you're walking past your neighbors and you see them mowing

their lawn, or you see someone like me watering their f- foundation, you

talk to them, strike up a conversation.

Say, "Hey, what's going on today, neighbor?

I don't know if you know me.

I'm at this address."

Let me just say another quick thing here.

You're never gonna feel ready.

You're never gonna be there.

You're never gonna be like, "Man, I am so thoroughly equipped,

and I know all the apologetics.

I'm so evangelistically trained.

I can just talk to anybody at any time."

You're probably never gonna feel that.

We do it anyway.

You initiate contact.

And in fact, Paul's point in this section is not to say you have to

have it all together or you have to be super, uh, persuasive and eloquent.

In fact, that's the opposite of his point One of the things that we use

as Christians is we say, "Oh man, the decision that you wanna make about where

to go next or, you know, what, what job to take, do you feel at peace about it?"

That's not necessarily a wrong thing, but if that's the only thing

you're measuring, you're gonna find that peace is often not attendant

to sharing the gospel with people.

Paul himself is gonna say there are some serious issues

that he himself wrestled with.

You're not gonna feel the peace of God as you're going into the conversation.

In fact, what you'll feel is butterflies.

You might start feeling some indigestion.

That Chipotle you had earlier is coming back.

It's coming back with a vengeance.

But that doesn't mean, oh, the, the Lord doesn't want me to share the

gospel 'cause Chipotle's coming back.

No.

That means I'm being obedient, even if it costs me something.

It's going to.

Initiate contact.

Let's go back to verse one.

Let's keep going here.

I told you this is gonna go quick.

"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony

of God with lofty speech or wisdom."

Okay, now we're getting into the what and the how.

"I didn't come to you proclaiming the testimony of God with

lofty speech or wisdom."

This is a callback to what we covered a few weeks ago in

chapter one, verses 20 and 21.

We read this together.

I got to preach…

I, um, rather 18.

18 through 20.

Uh, I got to preach on this, so it's kind of convenient that I get to now close

the book on this, at least this section.

Uh, Paul is saying, "Look, uh, we don't wanna come in a certain way.

I don't wanna come lofty or arrogant.

I don't wanna boast in myself."

Uh, this is an attitude of the opposite of arrogance and superiority.

He disavowed all manner of pretense.

He wasn't coming to say, "Look, I've got a PhD."

And by the way, Paul did have incredible knowledge and training.

Remember, he taught, rather, he learned under Gamaliel, who was one

of the preeminent teachers of his day.

Paul was a sharp student.

He was incredibly intellectually gifted, and yet he says, "When I came,

I didn't come flaunting my credentials.

I wasn't trying to impress you with my words or my presence."

He didn't put on airs or speak with flowery language or highfalutin language.

He spoke with humble and plain speech, as one of the commentators put it.

This is kind of his MO.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter two, Paul describes his approach there.

He says, "I didn't come with words of flattery or pretext, but I was gentle

among you like a nursing mother."

He, he shared not only the gospel, but also his own self,

which ought to tell us something

The manner of your, the manner of your delivery matters as

much as the message itself.

The message really matters, but the manner of your message matters, too.

Paul is saying, "I can't come to you with an attitude or a kind of arrogance

about myself that violates the message."

It's contradictory to the message itself, which means he comes

with lowliness, proclaiming, so he's still being assertive,

proclaiming to you the testimony, not with lofty speech or wisdom.

If you go to the doctor, a good doctor will not say to you, "You're presenting

with acute myocardial infarction."

Right, that's what I said.

Well, what does that even mean?

But if he's got good bedside manner, he'll say, "You g- you're, you're

having a heart attack, and we need to, we need to get you in the room quick."

Uh, the f- both doctors said the same thing, but one actually

got you to move . The first one, acute, I know that's a bad word.

Myocard, cardio, that sounds like heart.

That's, that doesn't sound good.

Something really bad about the heart.

I don't know what an infarction is, but that sounds terrible . The

first doctor told you the truth.

The second doctor got you to move 'cause he said, "You're having a heart attack.

Come in.

Let's, let's do something about this."

Now, this kind of…

This is the kind of doctor that Paul wants to be, and he wants us to be.

When we're talking with people, one of the challenges that we have is that it's

not that we're pretentious, but we can say, we can say something like, "Hey,

brother or sister or friend, neighbor, uh, the Lord Jesus Christ wants you to

repent of your sins, putting your hope in the substitutionary atoning work

of Jesus Christ, who was resurrected from the da- the dead three days later

in accordance with the prophecies, and now he wants you to repent and

put your trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, so that you can

be washed with the water of the blood."

Most of you understood what I said.

Most unbelievers have no clue what I just said.

They have no clue.

Everything in there is basically a foreign language.

There was a day when Christianity was en vogue and everybody knew the language.

It's like when America's pastime used to be baseball.

Everyone knew baseball.

Everyone would watch baseball.

When someone was playing, people knew about it.

Inside baseball was the normal conversation, so if you were talking

about ERAs and EBTs and CDCs and all those acronyms that you all

know, everyone understood the conversation, and so it made sense.

You didn't have to explain yourself.

But today, like baseball, Christianity's no longer popular

Sorry, I couldn't, I couldn't…

That's between me and Pastor PJ.

That wasn't for you, that's for him.

Just took my shot

Christianity is less popular, and people consequently don't

know about the language.

They don't understand sin, repentance, even faith.

When you use the word faith, put your faith in Christ, people

are just, "Oh," they don't, they import their own meaning into that.

Which means preten- pretentiousness might accidentally come out.

It means that we have to be aware of our Christianese, our jargon, so that

we can speak plainly to people and not come with highfalutin language.

We have to put it down on the bottom shelf.

You have to understand that when we talk as Christians, we're

playing insider baseball right now.

When you bring your unbelieving friends to a gathering like this,

they're gonna say, "I, I don't know what he was talking about."

I had this experience.

We, we brought a friend to church, this is a while ago now, a clo- a

close friend of my, my wife's and my, my wife's possessive S, not wives.

Possessive S.

My wife's friend.

Just to be clear.

I thought my sermon was super clear.

I s- 'cause I knew this friend was there, and she, she's an unbeliever,

and so I was, I was compelling, I was trying to be charming and just

say everything with pristine clarity.

I'm like, at the end of that, I'm like, "I felt good about that."

I, I was as clear, as clear can be.

At the end of this, her friend said, "You sounded really excited."

I said, "Yeah, I was.

Well, what'd you think of it?

What, what did you think about what I said?"

She said, "I didn't understand any of it."

Any of it?

Like, you just, uh, well, like, well, I know she understands

the words, but, like, nothing…

She's like, "I, I have no idea what you were talking about."

That never left me.

Forever and for always now, my thinking is, "Okay, could, could

an unbeliever understand this?

Probably not."

We're, we're 'cause we're doing insider baseball right now.

What that means for you and I is that our ma- our manner, our demeanor has to

be humble, lowly, plain, understandable.

We have to go to people with a willingness to say, "Look, I,

I'm gonna talk to you straight.

Uh, when I ta- when I say the word sin, uh, here, I need to explain that."

Um, we have a lot of insider language in the church.

We've just gotta be careful with that.

If I'm gonna just give you one simple takeaway from that, I'd love for

you to just use the words the Bible uses, but be sure to explain them.

Use biblical words, that's appropriate.

Explain what they mean.

No one's gonna naturally understand substitutionary atonement.

You have to tell them.

Sharing the gospel then is a little sh- more challenging than it used to

be, 'cause we have to be a, a lot more sensitive to the hearers and help them

understand what we're s- talking about.

Verse two.

Verse two

Paul says in verse two, "For I decided," notice that, I decided.

Paul chose this tactic.

I decided to do it this way.

It's not that I couldn't play the game that the Corinthians play.

I, I couldn't show up with eloquence and, uh, persuasive speech.

I chose to do it this way.

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

Amen.

You can highlight that in your Bible.

That's good.

Paul chose to do it this way.

He decided to know nothing, which means he could have come one way, he didn't.

He's not anti-intellectual.

He's explaining his mindset, and what his mindset communicates is that he

is single-minded about the gospel.

When he talks to people, when he's planting churches, he's thinking,

"I don't wanna say anything or do anything that isn't somehow

connected to this organizing theme.

My life's about Christ and Him crucified."

The primary stumbling block of that audience, they would have stumbled over

the fact that Jesus was crucified in shame and humiliation and dishonor.

So Paul says, "This is my life, man.

I'm okay with that."

The, the centrality of Paul's life was, was the cross.

It was all that Christ is, all that Christ would be.

It informs his total vision of the Christian life, as one commentator put it.

Everything that Paul does is about that.

You might write this ch- this, this reference down, Galatians 6:14.

Galatians 6:14

Paul says this at the end of this letter.

He says, "But far be it from me to boast," as we just sang this morning, "except

in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I don't wanna boast in anything except Jesus.

I'll boast in what Jesus is doing.

I'll boast in what Jesus has accomplished.

I will boast in the Lord.

All my boast is in Jesus, we sang.

That's what Paul would say

When you're talking to people, you already see the point here.

Number three, preach Christ crucified.

When you're talking to people

I understand, we all get it, how nerve-wracking it can be to get to Jesus.

We know the second we say the word Jesus, things get weird for them and for us.

Because we know that when we say, "I'm a Christian," they start thinking

about, ah, Fox News, Donald Trump, the, you know, the far right-wingers.

How far right-wing are you?

There's all…

There's sorts of things that are being imported into their mind when you

start opening your mouth about Jesus.

Not to mention the fact that there's spiritual warfare

happening in that very moment.

Demonic warfare that would love to shut you up and love to close their ears to

any opportunity to hearing the gospel.

When we start talking about Christ to u- our unbelieving relatives, friends,

and others, we gotta be willing to say, "Look, I need you to know about

something that's the most important thing to me, and I'd, I'd rather get

over it now than wait till we're three years into our relationship where, you

know, you see me as a good neighbor, and now I can talk to you about Christ

'cause I've earned some credibility.

I, I'm gonna earn credibility, yes, but I'm also gonna tell you

who Jesus is at the same time."

I, I, I need you to get to Christ quickly.

Preach Christ crucified.

Get to Him fast.

Don't delay.

The longer you wait on this, the more you wait in your relationships,

the more awkward it will be.

Because if it really is what you believe that y- that, that the gospel

is, namely, that everybody will stand before God and give an account for his

life, and either he'll stand, he'll stand righteous in the robes of Christ,

which we also sang about this morning, or he or she will stand condemned.

You bring that up to your friend that you've had, you've had a relationship

with three years now, uh, "Why are you just telling me this now?

Haven't we been friends for three years?"

"Well, I was gonna get to it.

I was waiting for the right time."

I get that.

I get that.

I've said that to myself.

I want them to think of me as a good person first.

I want them to, to see my life as a testimony.

I, I get that.

And that's not wrong.

But it's wrong when that slows our process down, because in our minds

we say, "Well, we got lots of time.

We got lots of time."

Is that the truth, though?

Do we have lots of time?

We have no idea how much time.

Tomorrow, my brother would've been 38 years old.

You heard me right.

My brother would have been 38 years old

We plan our days to be this many.

We plan their days to be this many.

The reality is we have no idea.

We just don't

And that doesn't mean you should, with your hair on fire, run down

your block and say, "Repent, believe.

Repent, believe."

I know there's, there's gotta be some wisdom in here.

But I just wanna light a fire under you to say this matters,

and time is of the essence.

And while we can have our hobbies and the things that we love talking about,

this has gotta be up there for us.

People accuse us of having ulterior motives, and I'll

push back on that gently.

I understand, peop- we understand when people start looking at us like,

"Oh, you just think I'm a project.

You just want another notch on your Bible Belt to, to make people

think that you're a good person."

And it's like, "No, that's not it at all."

I don't want you to think that.

A- and that's not it.

Hopefully it's not it for you.

But every conversation you're having, every relationship that God has given

you, God's put there for a reason, and one of the biggest reasons is He wants

you, Christian, to tell them about Christ.

There's no, there's no one else.

Like, I, I wish I could say, "Well, if you don't do it, God'll send somebody else."

Maybe, but maybe God wants you to do it.

No, I take it back.

Let me just … God wants you to do it.

He wants us to do it.

It's our privilege.

It's our responsibility.

Speaking of Spurgeon, he was asked by one of his protege preachers, "What if the

text doesn't have a reference to Christ?

What do I do with the text if it doesn't mention Jesus Christ or

it has nothing to do about Jesus?"

Here's what Spurgeon said, and I quote, "Then I will go over hedge

and ditch until I get to Him."

I love that.

Christ isn't in the message, I'm gonna find a way to Christ.

It's, it's the old canard, you know, make a beeline to the gospel, which

people say he never actually said.

Who's to know?

But here's, here's what he did say, and I read this in The Soul

Winner, which is a great book.

I didn't put that in your notes here under the recommended reading.

By the way, your recommended reading, I have notes for you.

Like, I got, I got direction for you.

But here's a book that you should read.

Here's why.

I didn't put Soul Winner, I should have.

Soul Winner by Spurgeon will light a fire in your bosom.

You need it.

You want it, high octane.

I didn't put that there, but that's one I should've put on.

Here's what he said in Soul Winner again, just to give you the…

He said, "I, I would go over hedge and ditch until I get to Him."

What a good mentality for all of us to have.

This is how we should approach our sports, our weather, our g- everything.

Every one of those roads is a, is a road to Christ.

The question is whether or not we're just gonna do it.

I sh- I just want you to encou- I wanna be encouraged.

This is what Christ is calling us to.

This is, this is what it means to be a disciple, to open our mouths and say hard

things because we love people, because we love them God help us if we choose to stay

silent because we're afraid or concerned.

For some of us, let's be honest, I don't have enough knowledge.

I'm not sharp enough biblically.

I don't know my Bible that well.

I get that.

That's a big one.

Um, you know, what if there's a good argument I don't have access to?

Or recently, I heard somebody-- I was so proud.

I was talking to one of you this week, and they told me, "I had an opportunity

to share Christ with my, one of my employees," and they said, "I knew I could

get fired for this, but I did it anyway."

They said, "Whatever.

The Lord will take care of us."

I, I applaud that.

I applaud that.

I was so proud of them.

So proud

Good news in that is that person was responsive.

Didn't make a profession of faith right then and there,

but that person was responsive.

That happened this week.

It was one of y'all

That's the, that's the mentality.

I wanna get to Christ.

My life is about that.

Your life is about that.

Your parenting is about that.

Your occupation, your calling is about that.

This is what we're about.

This is who we are.

We preach Christ crucified.

He's the only path to our salvation

One time I was sharing the gospel with a gal at…

You don't know this if you're, unless you lived in California, the Irvine Spectrum.

It was at night, had a group of teenagers there with me, we were talking to

people, and there was this one gal sitting at the fountain, and I thought,

"Great, this is a good opportunity.

She's not going anywhere.

I don't see any friends around."

So I sat down next to her and said, "Hey, how's your night going?"

And she was pleasant.

It was nice.

It was a great exchange, at least for the first 10 seconds.

Then I said, "Hey," something like this, I don't remember the exact conversation,

but it was something like, "Hey, has anyone ever talked to you about Christ?

What, what do you think's gonna happen to you when you die?

Do you, do you believe in heaven, hell, afterlife?"

That kind of thing.

I thought it was a pretty innocuous question.

I, it was a simple startup.

I wasn't trying to be, you know, verbose or anything.

I was trying to do what Paul was teaching here.

I tell you, if looks could kill, I would've been dead right there in

the middle of the Irvine Spectrum.

She gave me this dis- I mean, almost like bile was coming up into her body

and is ready to come and overflow at me.

She was so offended by the question.

She didn't…

This is the worst.

She-- I'm sitting next to her.

She looks at me with this, you know, like, "Ugh."

She didn't even give me an answer.

She just got up and walked away

I, I've had some bad encounters, but that one just stuck with me.

That was one of the worst.

I thought, man, I just felt so ugh on the inside.

I felt so gross.

I just, I wanna throw up myself 'cause this was a terrible conversation.

But I thought, this is what I was told to expect.

This is what my life's about.

This is what I'm here for.

This is what we're here for, to suffer the derision and the scorn and the

shame that people throw at Christ.

And because you're aligned with Christ, what did Jesus say?

"Because they loved me, they're gonna love you also."

You remember that verse?

That's right.

I don't remember that one either.

Because you're aligned with Christ, they hate me, they're going to hate you.

All right, bring it on.

So be it, Lord.

So be it

This is our lives, guys.

This is what we're about.

This is what our church is about, and that's easy to say, "Yep, I

subscribe to that," but this is what we individually are about, preaching

Christ crucified, making His name great.

Verses three and four, Paul says, "Then when I was with you…"

How was I with you?

He's, He's about to explain.

How did he conduct himself?

What was the demeanor in his character?

"When I was with you, I was with you in weakness, fear, much trembling,

and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in

demonstration of the Spirit and in power."

Weakness, fear, trembling.

Let's quickly talk about those here.

Weakness.

There's a bit of debate about what kind of weakness Paul is undergoing

here, whether it's his physical frame, whether it's that he's not a good speaker

or, or whether that there's, uh, he's got some kinda sickness or illness.

Some connect this with 2 Corinthians chapter 12, where Paul says, "I was

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

afflicted by a messenger of the devil."

Uh, we're not entirely sure what weakness he's referring to.

It could just be the fact that this is the way that he presented himself.

He wasn't boasting.

It, uh, could be any number of things.

It could also be, as I told you when we were looking at Acts chapter 18, it could

Acts 18 · chapter mention

be that he didn't come like the normal orators who were supported by their

disciples and the, their congregation of people that would give them money.

No, he made tents.

So he was weak in his impression, he was weak in his words,

he was weak in his demeanor.

Uh, he could be, it could be weakness in his eyes.

There's even suggestions that he had some kinda eye condition

that prevented him from seeing.

All sorts of things that could be there.

But the point is, he is weak in his impression.

People weren't looking at Paul and saying, "That dude, he should be

an apostle of the highest order."

Some people walk in a room and they've got a voice and they've

got a big barrel chest, and you're like, "That dude's a leader."

You just, you look at him.

He's got that vibe.

Paul was not that guy.

Could've been short, could've been unimpressive in, in his speech,

which a lot of his letters suggest.

He was weak.

Fear and trembling.

This is interesting because fear and trembling, again, we're looking at

verse three here, fear and trembling usually is a reference toward God,

and that's, that's appropriate.

Paul could be saying, "Look, I have fear and trembling before

God that as I come to you, I'm not trying to make me look cool here.

I'm trying to preach Christ and Him crucified.

I don't wanna make it seem like I'm preaching me, and I don't wanna get

you confused that this is about me."

So Paul is saying, uh, it could be, uh, "I am afraid of being, of offending God.

I'm afraid of, uh, fear, fear and trembling before God."

But, but, but, but I want you to write this text down.

I don't have time to go there, but Acts 18:9.

Acts 18:9

We just were there a second ago.

Acts 18 was the same section where Paul plants a church at 1 Corinthi-

uh, the church at Corinth, rather.

Acts, Acts 18:9.

Acts 18:9

Here's what Jesus says to Paul.

Pay close attention to what Jesus says to Paul.

Ready?

Here it goes.

I'm gonna read it to you.

Here's what He says: "Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent."

Did you catch that?

The apparently fearless and powerful winning evangelist, the

Apostle Paul, needed Jesus to tell him, "Do not be afraid."

And not only that, don't, d- don't, don't be afraid, but go on speaking and don't be

silent, in case it wasn't clear to Paul.

Go on speaking means, Paul, open your mouth.

Don't be silent.

Don't be afraid.

His fear and trembling very well could be both toward the Lord and

saying, "I love the Lord, I wanna honor him," but also toward people.

"I'm, I'm afraid, I get nervous, and y- I'm afraid that you might hurt me."

Paul…

I think Paul had legitimate reason to fear people.

I think there's real, there's a real reason there.

The Lord Jesus tells Paul, "Don't be afraid

Plausible words of wisdom, we've looked at this previously.

Again, this is a-- the, the rhetoricians.

The cultural power of the day was in s- crafting together skillful

words and phrases that are meant to pull on people's heartstrings

and impress them and persuade them.

Paul says, "I can't do that.

I can't do that.

I'm gonna come to you differently."

He says in verse four, "I'm gonna come to you in demonstration of

the spirit and of power," which does not mean miracle working.

That would actually be the opposite of Paul's point here, right?

He's trying to say, "Look, I didn't want you to depend upon me or the works.

I want you to depend upon the Lord."

So the demonstration of the spirit and power is the fact that these

Corinthians, contrary to their desires for skillful speaking, were

converted under the plain preaching and teaching of the Apostle Paul.

Think about that.

They're now sitting in their pew seats, maybe in a cafeteria

like ours, and saying, "Paul, we wish you were a better speaker.

It would make us look a lot better.

More people would, would be enticed to follow Jesus if you just did

your job better, you spoke more cleanly, and you had better

applications and phrases perhaps."

And yet Paul says, "A-actually, guys, slow down.

Remember, you were saved by my plain speaking of the gospel."

Which doesn't that make sense?

If Paul's point is stop putting yourself i-in the place of favoring teams, rather

favor the Lord, that makes perfect sense.

That makes perfect sense.

So point, point number four then, I need you to welcome your weakness.

Welcome the weakness that attends who you are.

Not educated enough?

Great, you're enlisted.

Not eloquent enough?

Fantastic, you're eligible

I'm kind of nerdy, I'm awkward in social settings, great.

That's exactly the kind of person Christ can use.

Because then you don't get the glory.

Now, that doesn't mean that you can't be some kind of rocket surgeon

with incredible speaking skills.

When Paul says, "Not many of you were noble," he said not many, not, not any.

But I want you to welcome your weakness.

Welcome the fact that you aren't put together, or welcome the

fact that you are inadequate.

Do you have weakness, fear, and trembling?

Great, you're qualified to share the gospel with your neighbors.

Are you not educated with a seminary degree?

Congratulations, you're still qualified to share the gospel with your grandkids,

or your classmates, or your coworkers because this is what you're about.

This is who you are.

Paul Tripp says it this way, and I'm kinda loosely paraphrasing him: "Weakness

is a vital ingredient of an effective evangelist if it makes you run to

God's grace for moment-by-moment help."

If you know you're weak, that is a starting place of actually being

strong for the sake of Christ.

I mean, think about the people that were also weak.

Moses couldn't speak well.

Jeremiah was a boy.

He…

I mean, both of these guys, mighty warriors in the hands of the Lord.

Isaiah, "I have unclean lips," and yet God uses these very

people to accomplish His purposes

Your fears, your inadequacies, your weaknesses are actually

the very thing that qualify you to make the Lord look great.

Your weakness forces you to pray.

It forces you.

It forces us as a congregation to pray.

If the Spirit's power and the demonstration of His working is what

we're looking for, we need to pray.

Our evangelism and our prayer must be married together.

Why?

Look at verse five.

Look at verse five, "So that," here's the purpose that Paul is leading up to,

here's what his goal is, "So that your faith might not rest," might not stay

or be somewhere that it shouldn't be.

I don't want your faith to rest, where?

In the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Number five, point them to God's power.

Point them to God's power.

It's not you, it's not them.

I want their faith to rest, to settle, to find shop, to, to, to make a home in

the power of God, not the wisdom of men.

Last week, Pastor PJ brought it up.

Jeremiah doesn't want us to boast in men.

Jeremiah, in chapter 17 of his letter, doesn't want us to put our ultimate trust

in men, but rather in the power of God.

It's the power of God that changes lives.

It's the power of God that converts sinners.

This is why w- when parents who fumble their way through parenting

can still produce godly kids.

How does that happen?

It's the power of God.

This is why when you go to work and you talk to your coworker with the clarity of

God saying, "This is what the gospel is.

This is why you need to repent," and you've made the best case you can

possibly make, they still walk away because it's not about intellect.

It's not about understanding facts.

It's about the power of God converting people.

We have to say, "I, I wanna, I want to point them to God's power."

They, they can't do it.

They can't do it

Gospel's about a transfer of trust to Christ and not people

God designed your faith to rest on Him so that it would survive the loss

or deconversion, the deconversion of anyone who helped you believe.

I remember one of the first times I heard about a spiritual hero

of mine falling face down flat because of some disqualifying sin.

It rocked me.

I was, I was rocked because I thought this, they taught me and they, they, they,

they helped me understand the gospel.

What do I do with all the things they gave me?

And if it can happen to him, what about me?

If he can fall, this gifted, godly dude, if he can fall, then what about me?

And that's God showing me, you're putting your faith in the wrong place.

You're putting it in the wisdom of men and even the power of godly men.

It's gotta be the power of God.

I gotta put my faith squarely where it belongs, and that temptation starts

early on in our conversion, doesn't it?

You start to look at people and give them a, a much greater role and

deference in your life than you should.

Nothing wrong with saying, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

Nothing wrong with having heroes.

But there's everything wrong with letting that hero supplant

your ultimate hope in Christ.

You know where this can often happen without you knowing?

Is in your marriage.

You begin to rely on that person, your spouse, in ways that maybe

God never intended you to.

You might hear the phrase, "I don't know what I would do without you," and then

sometimes we mean that playfully, and that's, I guess it's true to an extent.

I mean, we would have to reorient our whole lives.

One of the tempt-temptations of being married is that you put so much weight

in your spouse that really only Jesus can carry, that you set yourself up

that when something happens, it will happen, that you're left high and dry.

And you start to think to yourself, "Well then how am I gonna live?

They were my everything.

They, they, you know, they were my uh.

They were everything to me."

When we're talking with people about Christ, we want to point them to Christ.

It's a silly, it's, it's a silly thing to say, isn't it?

But it's true.

We can't allow ourselves to, in any way, start to point their attention

to the jars of clay, which is the word that Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 4.

We wanna put their faith in an arguments or in an apologetic method.

We wanna put their faith in Christ.

This is why we're focusing on him.

I told you that our church is going to die.

It will, and that saddens me.

But it also motivates me because that tells me there's something we can do to

prevent that, at least in our lifetimes.

There's something we can do that would change that and give her life, and it's as

simple as being willing to say, "I, I want to be used by the Lord to reach people

with the gospel," to not let the Great Commission become the great omission.

And I just laid out to you Paul's not-so-secret sauce.

He went to them.

He used simple language.

He preached and focused on Christ crucified.

He welcomed his weakness.

He didn't let that stop him, and he pointed them to God's power, not his own.

That's it.

If you wanna know how, how this works, it is God's power through your

evangelistic efforts, through my efforts.

This is our job.

If we're a burger stand and we don't make burgers, we're a bad burger stand.

If a church doesn't make disciples, we're a bad church

Thankfully, that's not where we are right now.

We are not a bad church.

We are making burgers.

But I'm telling you, there's a lot more burgers to flip in this community.

There's a lot more fries to be s- oh, this is taking this too far.

There's a lot more work to be done.

There's a lot more work to be done.

Let me encourage you, Compass.

We are on the precipice of a new season ahead, and we can decide right now

together to say, "So help us, God, our lives are about making disciples.

I will open my mouth, I will embarrass myself, and I will fall flat on my face."

I'm confident we're, we're gonna mess it up.

But the Lord will use it, and the Lord will bless it because it's God's power

through our evangelistic efforts.

This is how He builds a church.

This is it.

As-- there's not a growth campaign, it's not the best

music or the best this or that.

I mean, we're in a, we're in a gym, we're in a cafeteria, and the

Lord's still growing His church.

I want us to be on that.

I want us to be on that wave.

Together, as we commit to this, holding each other accountable, we

say this is what we're about: making disciples for the glory of God.

God's power through our weakness, so help us.

Let's pray.

God, we need, we need Your help to do this.

We do feel our weakness.

We feel our inability, our inadequacy, and we can't do it apart from You.

We know that.

No one in here is so delusional to think that they've got it all together.

But Lord, we do pray, please, don't let us just be motivated

right here and right now.

So easy for us to say to ourselves, "Yeah, we want that."

But when the rubber meets the road, we hit the eject button.

We get bored or tired, fearful, weak.

Oh, Lord, help us

And Father, I trust that there's several of us in this

room here who need to confess.

We have made our lives about so many other things, and we've

neglected the most important thing

Please forgive us

Your word says that if we confess our sins, you're faithful and just

to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness,

and so we confess it right now, Lord

And we pray, please let us be willing to do the hard work of loving

people with Christ, with His gospel, like Paul, like Jesus, your Son.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.