1 Corinthians 4 - Servants Not Kings

Welcome to the City Covenant Podcast.

We are a warm, welcoming church located in downtown Spokane, dedicated to practicing the way of Jesus in the heart of the city.

Please join us as we dive into the Word of God together.

Really glad that you're here today.

We're looking at this challenge.

This church is a great church in Corinth.

It started off awesome.

And as they kind of kept rolling, the Apostle Paul who helped start the church there, they they had these fracture points, these weaknesses where they started elevating certain gifts above other gifts.

And this is what Paul's addressing.

He's saying, man, you know, you you look at it, and you guys can be you're great people, but listen, you can be really harsh, you can be really judgmental.

Um you can look and say, it's all about technical ability of, you know, rhetorical skill and ability, you know, of preaching.

And, you know, all the time you're you're looking everywhere you go, and you're always thinking about everybody through this lens of good, better, best.

And um honestly, guys, we got to get some stuff on track here because every skill and ability people have is a gift from God.

So that's Paul's big push and what we're looking at today, because he's just looking and he's helping us move and saying, hey, listen, good, you know, you're good at something.

Just recognize you're good at something because God gave you a gift, right?

Um, and so anyway, so that's what we're looking at today.

And and he's ultimately saying it's not about trying to find always like the best, the most impressive, the most popular.

Instead, um, rather than us moving toward that all the time, instead, we're trying to look and say, hey, where is it God is bearing fruit in people's lives, right?

Um, and how can he bear fruit in our lives?

And so we're gonna read, um, we're gonna read um 1 Corinthians 3, 21 through 4, 21.

So it's the whole chapter.

We won't talk about all of it together, but we're gonna look at this way that even Paul ends up responding.

I'll just tell you this now.

Paul's gonna tell them, man, you guys are so busy evaluating everybody, you guys are so busy critiquing everybody, I don't even critique myself, right?

That's what Paul says.

He says, I'm not even judging myself.

You guys are doing that enough, right?

So I'm not even gonna do that.

And so Paul's gonna do that, and he's like, because and he and he's gonna say, the reason I don't critique myself, the reason I'm not always just a judge of myself, is because everything I've got is a gift from God, right?

Every good thing I've got.

And then and then he goes into this thing where you're gonna he uses one of my favorite phrases of the whole Bible where he describes um himself and other Christian leaders as the scum of the earth.

Really beautiful moment.

Um, and describing that really ultimately what it comes down to is the power of the cross.

And so we'll look at that.

So I know that we're just gonna look at the chapter, okay?

So let's read this together.

This is on page 982 in your Pew Bibles.

If you don't have a Bible that you brought from home, you can just open it right there.

And we're gonna read this and then we'll pray.

So then, no more boasting about human leaders.

All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

This then is how you ought to regard us, as servants of Christ, and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed.

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court.

Indeed, I don't even judge myself.

My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.

It is the Lord who judges me.

Therefore, judge nothing before the appointed time.

Wait until the Lord comes.

He will bring it to light what is hidden in darkness, and will expose the motives of the heart.

At that time each will receive their praise from God.

Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying.

Do not go beyond what is written.

Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other.

For who makes you different from anybody else?

What do you have that you did not receive?

And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Already you have all you want.

Already you've become rich.

You've begun to reign, and that's without us.

How I wish that you really had begun to reign, so that we also might reign with you.

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena.

We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.

We are fools for Christ.

But you are so wise in Christ.

We are weak, but you are strong.

You are honored, we are dishonored.

To this very hour, we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we're brutally treated, we're homeless.

We work hard with our own hands.

When we are cursed, we bless.

When we are persecuted, we endure it.

When we are slandered, we answer kindly.

We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world.

Right up to this moment.

I'm writing this not to shame you, but to warn you as dear children.

Even if you had 10,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers.

For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.

Therefore, I urge you to imitate me.

For this reason, I have sent you Timothy, my son, whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord.

He will remind you of my way of life in Jesus Christ, which agrees with what I teach everyone or everywhere in every church.

Some of you, you've become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you.

But I will come to you very soon if the Lord is willing.

And then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power.

What do you prefer?

Shall I come with you with a rod of discipline?

Or shall I come in love with a gentle spirit?

Friends, this is the word of the Lord.

Let us pray.

Father in heaven, you call us as your children, and you love us as your children.

You you want you you know us by name.

You you want us to give all of our hearts to you because you've given us all of your heart.

Lord, and in here we read the the words of the one you sent, the apostle Paul.

Lord, as as he points us back to the way of following Jesus, of practicing the way of Jesus, of being his disciples, of being his followers.

And so, Lord, would you help us give up all of the other ways, the ways that um esteem fame and power, um, that esteem um wealth and notoriety, and instead seek the better way.

The way of life in the spirit, the way of the cross.

We pray that this morning in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Okay, so the the thing like we were talking about in uh just a minute ago, they have this problem in Corinth.

The problem in Corinth is they're all judging Paul all the time, they're evaluating him, measuring him up against these ungodly standards, right?

We're kind of asking Paul in a way, are you really called?

Should you really be the leader?

You know, almost this push of like, who told you you should be, you know, helping lead this thing, right?

And Paul ends up saying, Listen, I'm not even going there.

Um, and and we'll talk more about it, but he's going and saying, I don't even judge myself.

Um, you know, essentially, only God's gonna be my ultimate judge.

Now, I just want to be careful here because I know some of you guys, you've seen these shirts that say, only God can judge me.

Different thing, okay?

Um, almost anytime, I'm just gonna tell you this is a freebie.

Anytime you see somebody wearing a uh um a t-shirt that says, only God can judge me, it's almost always, it's it's very rarely these really deeply profound, spiritually mature people who are uh looking at 1 Corinthians 4.

I'm just gonna tell you that now, right?

It's almost always the push of like no one's gonna judge me, so don't tell me what to do.

Okay, and that that's just a freebie for you, okay?

In case you're you're wondering.

Okay, I have to tell you a story.

So yesterday I went to a concert.

I wasn't planning on going to this concert, but Judah and I went.

Um, maybe some of you guys were there.

Um, and I will tell you, as we see the Church of Corinth loving rhetoric, they love fame, they love important, prominent people.

There was this thing while I'm there when I realized, oh my gosh, we just have a new way of establishing fame, establishing notoriety, establishing who's impressive.

Okay, so here's what happens.

I'm at this concert.

This is a big concert.

I literally didn't even know it was gonna happen until a couple days ago.

So we're at the convention center.

Um, it was at the end of this conference, somebody gave us a free wristband that we didn't even go to the conference.

And um anyway, so there's this guy named Josiah Queen.

Some of you guys have heard of this guy.

Okay, anyone know who this is?

Okay, so okay, so I'm at this Josiah Queen concert with Judah.

And and we're sitting there, and um, all of a sudden, Josiah Queen um says, Hey, if you want, you can like come toward the stage, come closer.

You know, he needs he needs more energy, he needs to bring up the hype.

So there's 10,000 people in the room already, all of a sudden, crush capacity, amount of people, mostly like middle schoolers, okay?

And um, they all middle schoolers and high schoolers, and all of a sudden there's this impressive wave coming forward of body odor, and um and this very impressive wave of people, right, who are so impressed with Josai Queen.

I mean, they are enraptured by this guy, right?

And and I just looked and said, oh my gosh, that's it.

We just find new ways all the time, right, of finding what should be um, you know, what should be important, right?

So I'm sitting there um before um before the concert.

I'm talking to this guy, he's from the Tri-Cities, um, and I'm talking to this guy, and he's like telling me we're definitely from different like Christian tribes.

And and he's telling me about all these like different people he likes to listen to and people that are really impressive.

And he's like, Hey, do you know about this one street preacher?

Never heard his name.

And he's like, Oh, he's well, he's on this influential podcast.

Okay, he tells me the podcast.

I'm like, okay, I think I've heard of that.

And then he says, Yeah, you should really listen to him.

Um, I mean, he's this great street preacher, and I say, Oh, well, I like street preachers sometimes, right?

That could be neat.

And he says, Yeah, and honestly, a couple of his clips, I mean, he's really, he's exploded.

He's really gone viral.

And that's when I have this aha moment of realizing that's the new thing.

We exchanged, right?

We exchanged like orthodoxy, fruit of the spirit, um, heart for the Lord, right?

Good teaching.

What do we do?

We exchange that in our current culture with influence, right?

With reach, with going viral.

We're saying, hey, people, if they know about you, that's it.

That's the goal.

And so here we are with this guy.

You know, we're we're asking, not, you know, is he saying something that's really like central to the gospel, right?

Um, is it is his heart there?

It's like, oh, no, that's not the point.

Seven million clicks on this one Instagram post, right?

That's what's important.

That's why you should listen to them, right?

And so what's happening in in Corinth is where they're saying, no, these guys, you should listen to them.

Some of these preachers are so technically proficient at giving a talk, they're amazing.

And that's what Paul's coming up against of saying, hold on, that's not just what it's all about, right?

And in fact, Paul even says leaders have to be faithful to the gospel, right?

He's like, that's really the measure, right?

And we have a problem, right?

Because in Corinth, just like today, they replaced um, you know, they replaced the gospel with rhetorical ability.

In America, we we replaced it with popularity.

Right?

And I'll tell you, I'm gonna tell you for a second why American Christians, um, we've always loved, especially with evangelicalism, we love popularity.

We love influence.

We always have actually.

You know why?

Because when we look at people um who are who are influential, um, we we see people that are um thinking, well, maybe shoot, if some real cultural leaders become Christians, you know, they could really influence the culture for the gospel.

See, that makes sense, right?

And so you you can see it, it happens again and again and again, right?

So just thinking about it, like I think it was in the 70s and early 80s, Bob Dylan becomes a Christian, right?

And we're like, wow, Bob Dylan becomes a Christian.

If Bob Dylan became a Christian, think about the we could really use him, you know?

And so, and unfortunately, we stop seeing Bob Dylan as like uh, you know, as a beloved daughter or excuse me, beloved son of the king, right?

We just see him as somebody who could do something for us, right?

Same way today, now fast forward, oh, Joe Rogan, he goes to church now.

He could really do something for the gospel, right?

So we start looking and saying, hey, these people that are already really popular, if they get on our team, they could really move the gospel forward.

Okay, I can even get on board.

I get why you're saying that.

The challenge is somewhere along the lines, we even stopped missing the rationale of why we wanted Christians to somehow be popular in society.

Now we're just being popular, we're just trying to be popular for the sake of being popular.

Like it's all of a sudden like we've just become like a cosmic group of high schoolers, right?

The whole, the whole Christian group and the whole country, right?

That's what Corinth was dealing with.

They just they wanted to to be socially higher, right?

And and and and what happens when you when you do that, it just devalues people as people and only looks at their gifts and skills and abilities and what's impressive.

And that's why Paul says, listen, he says, I what Paul does is he says, I have self-awareness.

I'm I'm trying to be the best apostle that I can be, but at the end of the day, I'm I'm not gonna do a ton of self-critique in the way that you guys are doing it, right?

So in verse three, he says, I'm not judged by you, nor do I even judge myself.

Then in verse four, he says, Well, I'm not aware of anything against myself.

So he's not, he's not saying there's not the possibility that there's a weakness in him as a person, right?

This is something that we have to pay attention to, right?

So this is not to say when Paul says, I'm not judging myself, it's net it's not to say don't be self-aware.

In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Paul is a very self-aware person, right?

As Christians, um, I was taking this class years ago in the covenant um called Vocational Excellence, and they said, one of the greatest gifts you can give to the people around you is self-awareness, right?

One of the greatest gifts you can give to people around you is self-awareness, right?

And here Paul is a very self-aware person, but he says, I'm not aware of anything I've done wrong here.

I I'm not I there might be something, but I am not thereby acquitted or justified just because I'm not aware of something.

But then he says, he uses the word judgment again, he says, but don't therefore don't pronounce judgment before the time.

It's not your job in this role to judge, right?

God has called the apostle Paul to do this work, right?

Ultimately, Paul is living in this spiritual location.

And he says, Hey, I get it.

I'm not the star of the show here.

This story is not foundationally about me.

Paul says the story is ultimately about Jesus, and I am simply pointing people along the way toward Jesus.

That's my job.

Guys, I will tell you what.

If you are a Christian, that is an incredible way to live, right?

You're like John the Baptist.

Your job, you know, the story is not about you.

You know you're not even worthy to untie the feet of the one who sent you.

That's it.

It's just really simple.

You you know your place in the world.

And I'll tell you, if you know your place in the world, you can function in the world a lot better.

Amen.

Right?

If you know this, and that's what the apostle Paul did.

The apostle Paul understood himself really well in that.

Right?

And he said, and then Paul pauses and he says, because honestly, even if you're looking at how good I am of a preacher, you know, you're comparing me to all these other preachers, you're comparing me to all these other pastors.

He says, I'll tell you what.

When you we want to start looking at people's abilities, what type of abilities does anybody have that they didn't receive?

What type of gifts do you have that you didn't receive?

Right?

And he says, so why would you boast in it?

You didn't even bring it to the table.

God gave it to you as a gift.

This is something that's interesting because when we look at this, what we're ultimately saying on the on the simplest level is everything that you're really good at, everything you have is not foundationally ultimately because of you.

It's because of God.

So uh I'm gonna tell you this.

I'm gonna tell you a couple stories as we look through this.

Years ago, um, I'm gonna tell you about gifts.

Years ago, me and I were in a pickle.

We just honestly, we just um I was working at um another church downtown, and we just looked and said, man, it feels like we're we're we're right where God wants us.

We we're doing right what God's called us to do.

Um, you know, we're gonna be planting it, you know, they're gonna plant a church in a couple years.

This feels awesome.

But man, we're gonna need some way just to make the the economics work, right?

And so we said, well, what if we built an apartment building, right?

I have this master's master's in urban planning.

And anyway, I talked to a couple friends and I talked to this buddy of mine that's on plan commission with me at the time, this um guy who recently retired commercial lender, and his name's Mike.

And um, Mike, and I say, Mike, do you do these type of loans?

No, I don't do these type of loans, but I know a guy who does.

I'll I'll send you his direction.

Okay, great.

And then I talked to my good friend, some of you guys know Dave Menard.

He was at one point the chair of our leadership team, and um, after we planted here, incredible friend.

And and I say, Dave, do you do you do loans like this?

No, but I know a guy who does.

And they both, in a unknown to me, they both um call this guy, okay, this other banker named Cager.

And and they both say, Hey, there's this young guy.

He's not mostly a developer, but he can do this.

You should give him this loan.

And um, I didn't know that, right?

All I knew is they called me and said, call Cager.

So I called Cager.

We built the building and it worked pretty well.

At the end of the build, I get a phone call.

Um, and Cager says, Hey, I want to see you, my my banker.

And the world in commercial banking, when your lender calls you, you just you call you answer the phone and you respond to them.

They're in charge of you, right?

And so I go into his office and he says, Hey, the building turned out great.

Oh, well, well, thanks, Cager.

He said, Hey, I wanted to ask you, I just wanted to check with on one thing.

Do you know, you know, we've gotten along pretty well.

Yeah, we have, Cajer, that's nice.

Do you know why I gave you the loan on this?

I mean, I I would assume, you know.

I mean, you saw our pro forma, you know, you saw our business plan.

You you saw that.

I mean, we met, we had good rapport.

Um, perhaps it was like you you liked the construction drawings.

He's like, oh yeah, all that.

There's actually another reason.

Oh, why?

Because Dave Menard called me, and so did Mike Eakins, and they said you could do it.

All this time, I thought I got it because of me.

It turns out I got it from somebody, I got it because of somebody else.

It was this amazing gift to me.

I didn't actually earn it.

I worked with what I got, right?

And that was true work.

But I could have never gotten it on my own.

I only got it because these two people who advocated for me, right?

I received it.

It was a blessing, right?

That's why I can't boast.

It was, you know, and Cajor wanted me to know, don't boast.

It was because of Dave, right?

And the thing is, everything in life, it's like this.

If you understand the gospel, so frequently we we misunderstand this.

We think we got where we're at now because of our own skills and abilities.

Americans, we love thinking that.

We love the idea of rugged individualism.

We love the idea of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps without even realizing.

We forget that you had bootstraps to pull up, right?

Somebody gave you the boots.

Where'd you get them?

Right?

The boots were a gift.

Even if you did pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right?

You pulled those boots up and you got them somewhere, right?

You look and you realize everything in your life that you can work with, you got as a gift from God, right?

The family you were born into, you didn't choose, right?

The fact that there were schools with teachers that could educate you, right?

The century you were born into, all things outside of your control, right?

Your ability even to work hard, right?

The fact that your physical body works well enough that the menis guy in your knees are still functioning enough that you can go out and in and walk around and do labor, right?

We were out there at the workday yesterday.

I don't know if Andy's in here.

Um, Andy Andrews, are you here in the room?

Oh, there he is in the back.

Okay.

Andy, I'm gonna quote you for a second.

I'm trying to tell you about that.

Um, it's gonna be nice, just so you know.

So Andy, Andy is just this, you just have to know this.

I wish you guys would have seen him.

You could have all, we could, I should have taken a video, we could put it on the screen.

Andy is just this amazingly hard worker.

So I ask Andy, as he's like with a trowel thing.

Um, Andy, what's that tool called?

A koloski or something.

Okay, it's like a fireman's tool, and Andy is a retired fireman.

So he's just hacking away at the dirt, and I'm watching him work, you know, because I'm managing him.

And um and so as I'm managing Andy, watching him do his work, I say, Andy, you are such an incredible hard worker.

How do Did you become such a hard worker?

He said, Well, my dad was a really hard worker.

And I watched him do it, and I just kind of did it too.

I said, Man, that's awesome.

I feel so bad for Judah and Levi, they don't even have a chance.

You know, and uh and Andy said, Don't worry, it's not too late.

And I said, I think it is.

And um the thing is, Andy is an incredibly hard worker.

He didn't actually just become a hard worker on his own.

He inherited it, right?

He kept it going though, right?

So in the book Outliers, you some of you guys have read this book by Malcolm Gladwell, Malcolm Gladwell would say, um, success, um, success happens at the nexus of opportunity and hard work, right?

So you could have somebody who's deeply brilliant, incredibly gifted, right?

Um, the best mind in all of planet Earth.

But even though they are incredibly brilliant, but they lived in Mogadishu, they weren't gonna start Microsoft, right?

It just wasn't gonna happen for them.

So what we have, the gifts we have, that's the opportunity.

What you do with them, that's the hard work.

When you have both, you have incredible success, right?

That's what we see, right?

You have to look and ask this question, though, right?

You look and say, Well, listen, where I got, the way I got here was because I was working my butt off.

In the words of Tim Keller, you have to ask, where'd you get your butt from?

Who gave you your butt, right?

God gave it to you, right?

You might have worked hard though.

I mean, imagine two line runners lining up for a race, right?

And one runner just says, Man, I worked harder than everybody else.

I trained, I disciplined myself, I earned this position.

And you know what happens?

Paul basically says, Yeah, I know, but who gave you the legs?

Who gave you the body that responds to training, right?

Who gave you the parents who taught you discipline?

Who gave you the temperament to enjoy competition?

Right?

Who gave you the school where you learned?

Who gave you the historical moment in which these particular sets of gifts actually function to achieve something?

Oh, and who gave you that desire to work hard?

Right?

The point is not that hard work isn't real, is that hard work itself actually rests on God's gift of grace to us.

Everything we have is a gift from Him.

Right?

And it is remarkable at times how we feel that the station that we are in in life is uniquely because of our own hard work.

As a Christian, that is antagonistic to the gospel of grace that says everything we have, all the goodness we have, is because of God's goodness to us.

Amen.

That's the gospel.

I will tell you, that's a way better place to live than thinking every good thing you have in life is because of you.

Because bad news, if that's true, all the badness you have in life is also something you earned.

Right?

What the gospel instead is able to do is say, all the goodness we have is because of God's goodness to us, right?

All the badness we currently experience, right, is because of the fallen, um, broken experience of planet Earth.

And that's for another sermon.

We'll talk about that later, okay?

But that's where when you look and you realize, oh my gosh, the gospel is so elegant in the way it helps me understand the way the world actually functions.

The challenge with this notion of grace, though, is this we don't actually like grace.

That's the problem with it.

The problem is we like thinking.

We're the ones who got ourselves here, right?

The other thing is we like knowing when we sin that God has grace for us.

What we don't like is the idea that God would have grace for other sinners.

Right?

So sin, I mean, sorry, excuse me.

So the problem is grace is problematic for us, right?

Because sometimes it is something we don't like.

We like the idea instead of merit.

Instead, Paul says, Oh man, listen, all the good stuff you have, don't boast in it.

You're right, because God was the one who gave it to you.

God's how you got here.

So as Paul keeps going in 1 Corinthians 4, he says this thing.

I just so you know, Paul goes into sarcasm mode.

There's a couple places in Paul's letters where they're difficult to understand because it seems like he's saying two things that are opposed to each other.

Do you guys if you start reading the New Testament letters, you'll see this.

That's what's happening.

Paul is using this writing style where he has like a um like an invisible sparring partner as far as um, you know, in in like rhetoric.

And so he's using this invisible sparring partner, and he starts saying, like, oh wow, yeah, you guys have just become so impressive.

You just you become kings.

You guys are amazing.

You know, all of us apostles, we're nothing, right?

We're just spit upon.

We're, you know, he uses this word, we're the scum of the earth.

Okay, the word scum of the earth, just, you know, I love it.

The word the scum of the earth is so authentic.

It's where you see the brilliance and the full humanity of the written word of God, don't you?

Right?

Because real people wrote the Bible, even though it's fully inspired by God.

And so Paul says, us apostles, we're like the scum of the earth.

The word scum there, there's a couple different ways that maybe it's used in the ancient Greco-Roman world.

Um, one is it, it's this stuff literally on the ground, right?

It's garbage, it's refuse.

Um, um, it's stuff to be spit upon, it's to be stuff that's just like garbage that's swept away.

It's insignificant, these are insignificant people.

That's the scum of the earth.

He says the world thinks we're just insignificant people, but our true identity is in Jesus.

And so even when they just see us as the scum of the earth, you know what?

I don't even need to be popular to them.

They can think I'm the scum of the earth.

Because I know who I am in Christ.

I mean, imagine isn't it incredibly freeing if you look and say, you know what, I don't I don't have to worry about them anymore.

Whoever them is.

Can you imagine if you live like that?

You know you can live like that.

That's the gospel.

That's what the gospel empowers you to live like.

Right?

It's to say, I might be the scum of the earth to to everyone out there.

But Jesus thinks I'm something.

You know, you need a cheerleader in life.

You know, and and we look for him, and we look for him, and we look for him.

Right?

So we if um you know, if you're single, you go out and you try to find a cheerleader that you can marry, right?

Um, what's that song we read the or not read?

We listened to a song on like repeat forever one summer called Cheerleader.

Who's it by?

Omi?

Okay.

So we listen to a song called Omi.

Or sorry, a cheerleader.

Sounds great.

I love the idea of Mia being my biggest fan, um, of being my cheerleader.

Not always hap doesn't always happen.

I love the idea.

But then you know what we did?

We acquired children.

Because when they're little, they think you're amazing.

It it's very brief.

I'm just gonna tell you now.

If if you're thinking, acquire some kids, they'll think I'm awesome.

It's so limited.

I'm gonna tell you, it doesn't last.

It doesn't last.

It's for nothing, it won't work.

Um, they're gonna have a very real view of you so fast.

In fact, you'll see them do things and you're like, oh no, they're even right.

It's not even that they like have a bad read on it.

That that'd make it a little bit better.

But they're you know, they're really accurate, they they they know everything about you and some of the good stuff, they know a lot of the bad stuff about you.

Okay, so these are all things.

You're looking for a cheerleader, right?

You you you go out, you know, you get married, ah, didn't work.

I have kids, didn't work, you know.

Oh, people go have affairs because they're like, oh, I found this person that are 20 years younger than me, they think I'm awesome.

Not for long, you know, because you you you just it the cycle starts over, right?

Then you have kids and they have a realistic view of who you are.

And so and you just look and say, I needed a cheerleader.

Nothing worked.

Guys, you know why nothing worked?

Jesus is your cheerleader.

Jesus is the one who knows who you are, he knows everything about you, and he he is in he's just absolutely enraptured with you.

He thinks you're incredible.

Not because he thinks you're perfect, he just thinks you're so lovable.

He thinks you're so incredible.

And he thinks you're so incredible that he said, I'm gonna actually, I'm I'm gonna fix the brokenness in this person through the cross, and I'm gonna call them to something to be even uh even the best version of who they are.

So much more than they could ever think or dream or imagine of who they could be.

I have massive plans for them, and that's what God has for you, right?

In Jesus Christ.

I can tell you that as a pastor.

Right?

Rather than submitting to like this invisible ranking system that we're all that we all inhabit.

Jesus says, oh, listen, the only ranking system that matters is where you rank with me.

Right?

We're at homecoming yesterday.

Some of you guys were probably not the dance, you know.

They wouldn't let me in, I'm too old.

And um, no, we're at Duncan Gardens.

There are, I don't even know how many people.

I'm just gonna throw this number out.

2,000 people.

I think every person that was going to homecoming last night from Lewis and Clark earlier was at Duncan Gardens.

It's very full.

We're there, and what's amazing is as you're there, you realize, oh my gosh, this is it.

This is like there's this invisible ranking system.

There's all these different groups of people.

There's a hierarchy in high school, right?

And you just look and you know that if you guys have been in high school, you remember this, right?

Because every high school has an invisible ranking system, right?

Who's attractive, right?

Who's athletic, who's funny, who's popular, who's dating who, right?

Who's going to be successful?

Who gets invited to the parties?

And here's the thing, what's fascinating is if you went to high school, nobody has to explain to you the ranking system.

Right?

You just feel it, right?

You you walk into the cafeteria, and you know where the tables are.

Guys, the Corinthians had a cafeteria too.

Their tables are, oh, the Apollos people are over there, the Paul people are over there, the Cephas people are over there, the sophisticated people are over here, right?

The powerful people, the impressive people, and it's all broken up.

And Paul essentially is just saying to them, and you brought the cafeteria into the church.

Guys, this doesn't work.

This isn't the gospel, right?

Here are all these ways.

This is what Paul says.

Here's all these ways.

Guys, you're missing it.

You're going off, you're going the way of the world, and you're imitating the world.

And they impress you, and it's but it's getting you really off track.

And Paul says, don't imitate the world.

He says, imitate instead, imitate me as I imitate Jesus.

Do that.

Right?

We esteem the wrong people sometimes.

We find the wrong people impressive.

Imagine you got two pastors.

One has two million followers.

Viral clips, packed conferences, people asking for selfies with them, right?

This is like the Beth Moore of pastors.

Or the other person, the other pastor, 47 people in their church, right?

Oh, and of those people in the church, one of them's struggling with addiction.

Uh one of them is a teenager, stops going to church altogether, right?

Another is an elderly gal who is super lonely.

Someone else needs a ride to the doctor.

And and and so what he does as a pastor, he he literally just spends Tuesday night sitting at a kitchen table listening to someone cry.

And you look and say, okay, so by the measure of the world, which one of these two pastors is more successful?

Which one is more impressive?

The world knows the answer to it.

But Paul gives us a different answer.

The one who's faithful.

Right?

The the one who leans into Christ, the the one who is is led by the Spirit.

Right?

Paul says, Don't imitate the world.

Imitate me.

Paul says that to three different churches, right?

He says it in Corinth here, he says it in to the church in Philippi.

He says it to the church in Thessalonica.

And the word he uses is the word mimic or like word like the word mime.

Copy me.

Learn from me.

And when he's saying that, here's why.

Because he says, What I want you to do is my whole life is wrapped up in being a disciple of Jesus.

I want you to be a disciple of Jesus.

I don't want you to be a fan of Jesus.

I don't want you to watch me.

I want you to mimic me.

And that's the distinction.

Paul doesn't need them to be impressed with him.

He wants them to follow him as he follows Christ, as he points them to Christ, as he points us to Christ.

Right?

What's amazing about it is in this chapter, he gave this incredible chastisement toward them.

But he does it as a kind father.

He always leaves room for grace.

He always leaves room for growth.

Guys, I will tell you, in the way you interact with other people, when you give correction, you know what you gotta do?

You always have to have room for growth.

You always have to have room for grace.

There always has to be in the mix, midst of your truth, there always has to be grace.

If it's only one, it's not, guess what?

You're not just telling the hard truth of the gospel.

The hard truth of the gospel is grace and truth, right?

The gospels say Jesus came in grace and truth.

It's always both.

That's why Paul does that.

And ultimately, he says, this is where we're going to close.

He says, because ultimately, it's not just in words of wisdom, it's in power.

The word that he's using there is where we get the English word of dynamite, right?

It's not just in great rhetoric, it's not in great speeches.

He says, it's in the word though that he uses it, he says it's in the logos, right?

Where we use that word in the Gospel of John.

In the beginning was the logos, and in the beginning was the word of God.

He says, it's not just in words, but it's in power.

What he's doing is he's going back to John 1 and saying, Jesus is in embodied the power of God.

And that's what we saw on the cross.

At the foot of the cross, we see God's great power.

Right?

Instead of going to the cultural idols of fame, right, in Corinth, right?

Here our cultural idols might be things more like recreation or quality of life.

Paul says, No, go to the power of the gospel.

That's what it's all about.

That's you know, and what's amazing about it is Paul ends with this is he says, it's about the power of the cross.

We're reminded what Paul had said in 1 Corinthians 1.

When he said, Hey, I know, I know to Corinthians, it looks like the cross is foolishness.

To Jews, it looks like it's a stumbling block.

And here what he says is, oh no, no.

You know what the cross is?

The cross is the power of God.

Can I ask you, is that the power that we actually hold on to?

Is that what we lean into?

Is that where we say, Oh, I want to hide myself in that?

Right?

So we want to find ourselves in the power of the cross, or do we want to find ourselves in the fleeting fame of culture?

Right, what what are we gonna do?

What were they gonna do in Corinth?

What are we gonna do?

I think the answer is clear.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, thank you so much that as much as um the world is telling us to reach out for fame, to reach out for notoriety, you call us instead to hide ourselves in the shadow of your wings.

Lord, help us actually live in that.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

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We are located at 512 South Bernard Street, Spokane, Washington, 99204.