Transcript

1 Corinthians 3, look there with me and I want to share a message that I’ve entitled Foolishness in the Church. Foolishness in the church. The apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth, talks to them about how some of them, he doesn’t’ call them fools, but he says some of you are acting foolish. There’s some foolishness about the way some of you are viewing things and the way some of you are coming to your conclusions, you’re acting like unregenerate, blinded, darkened foolish men.

And so he’s reproving them again, and if you, if you don’t like to be reproved and rebuked, you might as well stay at home until we get through with Corinthians, because that’s about all Paul does in every line, he’s dealing with the baby church, the back slidden church, a church that came out of a very immoral culture. These baby Christians, coming out of a background of sin and immorality, brought a whole lot of that with them. You know when you have a lot of baby Christians in your churches, you have a lot of messes. You know what I mean, we can, we can clean this thing up and never have any messes if we just quit winning people. But when people get saved they bring all kind of baggage and hang ups and false opinions and conclusions and we’ve got to work with them and grow them through all of that.

Well, that’s what Paul’s doing in Corinth. He’s just trying to grow them out and grow them through some of the junk they brought from the world with them into the church. When you get saved, you don’t automatically become sanctified. Sanctification is a process and a progress. The key element in a baby Christian is what is the attitude of their heart. Are they humble, are they teachable, do they want to grow and learn. That’s the key issue.

Well, let’s read the text. 1 Corinthians 3:18-23. “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written he is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness and again the Lord knows the reasons of the wise, that they are useless. So then, let no one boast in men, for all things belong to you. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come, all things belong to you. And you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God”.

Foolishness in the church. Number one, the foolish think they are wise when they are not. The foolish are those who think they are wise when they are not. And the group that he’s alluding to in 1 Corinthians 3:18 when he says “let no man deceive himself, if any man among you thinks that he is wise in this world, or has the wisdom of this world and that that is important”. If anybody in the church thinks they are smart in the way the world calls being smart or being wise, and he thinks that matters in the church, he says they are foolish. They are unwise, they’ve deceived themselves.

And that’s exactly what was happening at the church at Corinth, when this group over here said, we are of Paul. And the group over here said, yeah, we’re of Apollos. And the group over here said, we’re smarter then all of ya’ll, we go all the way back to Jerusalem. We’re of Peter. We’re of Cephas. And then there’s a real carnal group that says well, we’re of Christ. We’re the most spiritual of all. You see, anyone who exalts a man or a man’s teaching is actually just exalting himself. What he’s saying is, he’s saying I am smart because I discerned that this man or this man’s teaching is superior to others. And so when you say this man’s teaching or something that he has in and of himself is superior, you’re saying that you’re smart because you picked him out. You discerned that he was superior, and that’s the kind of spirit that was working there and causing those divisions.

You see, divisions occur when you look to yourself or look to a particular group as superior instead of looking only to Christ and his word. Now Paul’s not talking about respecting and honoring the man of God or the preacher. He gives us clear exhortations about the importance of that. But the point he’s saying is, when you respect the man of God, you don’t honor that man, you honor the Christ that uses that man. You don’t honor what he teaches, you honor the scripture that teaches through him. Quit looking at men Paul is saying, because when you make up your little parties in the church and think you are superior to the other parties, you’re actually saying, ah, we’re smart, there’s something in us that gave us the ability to be superior to everybody else. And he says, that makes you a fool. You think you are wise, in this world’s definition of wisdom, but you’re really not. And he says, if that’s the way you are acting, you are actually deceived. Because you are actually thinking your superiority lies within you, or within self.

When you think you’re superior, your superiority to someone else resides in your or in self, that is self righteousness. There’s something about me that makes me superior to others. And that’s self righteousness. There are those groups that pop up and say, now of course we’re superior because we’re better educated. And then there’s a group that pops up and it says no, we’re superior because we are economically superior. And then there’s a group that pops up and says, no, we’re really superior in the things of the Lord, because we don’t have any money. And then there’s another group that pops up and says no we’re really the superior group because we’re more intellectual. And another group says, no, we’re really the superior group, because we have experienced more of the gifts and the workings of the spirit then the others have. Therefore, they say whatever it is, therefore since we have this, in and of ourselves, we can discern which teachers is the real true superior teacher and which one is not. All of it is saying we’re smart in and of ourselves, and Paul simply says here, you’re deceiving yourselves if you think you are smart, you’re a fool. There’s nothing in you that’s wise.

Now in 1 Corinthians 3:18 the last part he says, let him become foolish that he may become wise. In other words, he said, your attitude ought to be this. I am totally depraved and I conclude that I can in no way trust my natural heart, my natural mind or my natural emotions. I can’t trust them. My mind, my heart, my emotions may give me strong sincere conclusions but I determine that I’m a fool. And I cannot trust the conclusions of my human mind. I cannot trust the conclusions of my human emotions or my human intellect or my human heart. God says, that is the man that’s wise. If you want to be wise, then declare that as a human as far as man wisdom goes, you’re a fool. Jeremiah 17:9 said, “our hearts are desperately wicked and deceitful beyond all things”. You can’t trust your heart. The psalmist said “we come forth from the womb speaking lies”. Jesus said in Matthew 15:18-19, “but the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and those defile the man”. Now here’s what he says is in the heart of natural man: “For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and slanders”.

Calvin was so right when he said, “all are under a mistake who depend upon their own judgement”. He said, if you want to be wise, then you conclude that you can in no way, about no conclusions trust your human intellect and your human emotions that you have to go to this book and find out what it says, kick everything else out. Then he says you’re wise. Then and only then. Man must absolutely lay aside the conclusions of his natural heart and his natural mind and look to the scripture to find truth concerning the matters at hand. Some of you sitting here today have gotten yourselves into messes. Raising your kids, or into messes in your marriages, or into messes in your financial affairs, or in to some kind of mess in your business life or some kind of mess within the church family, because an issue arose and you responded out of the human intellect, you responded out of human emotions, you responded on this well, I think or I feel, and bingo, you made a mess. You thought, there was some wisdom in you and there’s none. Instead of saying, I’d better check what I feel, I’d better check what I’m thinking, with this absolute wisdom book. And then when this book contradicts what I’m thinking or what I feel, I kick out what I think or what I feel out and go with the book. That Paul is saying, is true wisdom. You can’t trust yourself.

Now notice he continues on, look at 1 Corinthians 3:20. And again the Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that’s the reasoning of the worldly wise, the man that rejects God. Again the Lord knows the reasoning of God, that they are useless. Now the point he’s making is, you believers in Corinth, or maybe a majority of ya’ll has slipped into acting like a non-saved person. You are acting like fools. And when he says the reasoning of the worldly wise are useless, there are two senses this used in. Now first of all, he means that true knowledge, there is a lot of true knowledge out there in the world. Two plus two is four. That’s true knowledge. True knowledge when used to achieve an end that God did not purpose for that knowledge to achieve or accomplish, then it is totally foolish.

I don’t know why but immediately the love peace movement of the 60s came to my mind. And what they did, they took something good, but it became totally futile or totally foolish because they tried to use some good knowledge to achieve and end that God did not mean for that knowledge to try or to attempt to achieve. For example, what was one of their slogans? Make love, not war. Make love not war. See, you turn on TV and they’d have on these tie dyed shirts and this maggot infested long hair and these bell bottom jeans and they’d be wallowing in, wallowing all over and gnawing all over each other, making love instead of war. Now it is true that the power of sexuality is a very strong power. And sexual love is a very wonderful and precious gift given by God for married couples only, and I mean a man and a woman in marriage. So they took true knowledge that sexual love is strong and compelling and they tried to make it the salvation of the world, and God says utterly foolish. True knowledge yes, perverted and misused for an end God never meant for it to be used for.

And what about this modern movement that education is the savior movement. Every problem that pops up, somebody will get up and say, well, we’ve just got to educate people. Well, we’ve just got to educate, if we can just educate them on this and educate them on that and educate them on this and educate, well, then we’ll just cure the problems of planet earth. And education is now the messiah to bring peace and harmony to the world. We can just educate people, we can save the environment. We can just educate people. We can rid the world of wars. And all the education movement is an extension of old humanism. Well, education is good in the right definition, we need to learn math, we need to learn science, we need to learn some biology, but God never meant for the learning of man within those realms and disciplines to be used as the savior of the world. Then it becomes total foolishness. That’s what he means when the reasoning of the wise are foolishness to God. They think in that learning they can somehow save the world.

One of the old scholars, when he looked at science and the liberal art, he said this, “They must be looked upon as empty and worthless until they have become entirely subject to the word and spirit of God”. Isn’t that good. They are what? Empty and worthless, all those disciplines, unless they are entirely subject to the word and the spirit of God. So in one sense the reasoning of the wise are foolish, because they try to take true knowledge, good knowledge, but use it for an end that God never intended it to be used for. But secondly, its utter foolishness when the wisdom itself, or what passes in this age and is called wisdom, is in itself just foolish. For example, the, the whole religion of humanism. The whole philosophy of humanism, that there is no God, there’s no absolute authority, man is his own savior, man is his own god, science is his tool and man can save himself. That, that’s foolishness lock, stock and barrel, in completion. Because it in itself is foolish.

I like to read a lot of Puritan scholars, because they were so much more thorough and so much more godly than so many of the contemporary scholars, one of them said this, “All autonomous thought, all autonomous thought is apostate thought”. Now autonomous means of us. Its of man, its his. He says, all autonomous thought, that means without God, is apostate thought. That means rejects God. Because the thinking that begins with man can never end with God. If it came out of man it cannot arrive at God. It never will, never has, never can. In other words, human knowledge is entirely inadequate to save man, that can be accomplished by the gospel alone. So what are the two ways that the reasoning or the wisdom of this world are foolishness. Number one, if its true knowledge that man tries to use to achieve an end that God didn’t mean for that knowledge to achieve. or secondly, if that knowledge in and of itself, or that philosophy, whatever, is just foolishness in and of itself. completely, as it stands alone, its utter foolishness.

So first of all Paul exhorts this church and says, I want you to know that the foolish are those who think they are wise when they are not. As you and I walk down the street, as we live our lives, as we live in our marriages, as we interact in our church family, we’d better have a residing, continual ,concrete conclusion in our heart that says, I cannot trust my mind, I cannot trust my emotions, I can trust this book. That’s why as I lead you here as your pastor, you’ll hear me say this phrase over and over, as best we understand the word, this is the direction we’re going. If God shows us something different in the word, we’ll fine tune and adjust as we go, but as best we understand the word, here we go. Now folks, that’s the best we can do, amen. I mean, there’s nothing in the word about putting Bermuda or Zoysia grass on the church yard after you do the landscaping. But the best way I understand the word, we’re going to use Zoysia grass. You know why. We got a lot of it given to us. Hey, that’s the best we can do. Amen. There’s nothing in the book on it, and we just head out and trust God and see where he takes us.

Well, amen. Number two. The foolish will be exposed in their foolishness. Now that’s a caution to all of us. Now listen church. You run around here half cocked, plugged into your emotions, your emotions are going to tell you things that do not coincide with the word of God, you are going to draw conclusions, form positions, or give opinions based on what your emotions tell you, and you’re going to be exposed one day as acting foolish. Just like Paul’s exposing this church for acting foolish. And that’s exactly what he means in 1 Corinthians 3:19, look at it there. “For the wisdom of the world is foolishness before God, for it is written, he, God, is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”. In other words, the principle here is, if you think you, in and of yourself, apart form, thoroughly examining God in his truth, you can decide God’s will, God’s way, the way God would want you to do it, he said, you’re going to be exposed as a fool. Or at least, better yet, better worded, you’ll be exposed as one whose saved but acting like a fool, acting foolish.

One example of this, years ago we had a couple in our church, sweet couple, and I loved this couple, they loved me. And this couple was just totally enthralled with Jim and Tammy Bakker and the PTL ministry. I mean, they just totally absorbed, they would send them money all the time, the’d go up there all the time, and some of us on the staff would say, hey, we know there are some good things going on, but we want you to know according to the scriptures, there are some real questionable stuff up there. But you know what, they were reacting based on emotion. They’d say, man, we’d go up there and its the most holy thing, its the most stirring thing, the singing and the hotel, and its just wonderful, its just glorious. And we’d say, now listen, you just need to be careful. Because there’s some stuff about that whole ministry that’s questionable, you need to be careful. It wasn’t six months later that that whole thing fell apart. And they were so embarrassed. Hey, what had they done? Ignored the guidelines and the principles of this book and made their decision on how they felt about the good things that were going on, and God exposed the whole thing.

You know what happened, and this happens to a lot of ladies, and I’m not saying this to be demeaning to ladies, but to be cautious, if you don’t have a strong spiritual leader at home, be careful, satan will manipulate your emotions. God’s designed you ladies to have a great emotional capacity, because you’re the nurturer, you’re the main carer of the children, you need that capacity, but also if you don’t have the guidance and protection of a good spiritual leader, satan will sift you and manipulate you, be careful, if you don’t have a strong spiritual leader as a lady. And what had happened, those ladies had acted on the emotional conclusion of their heart. And not on the teachings of the book. And these ladies are wonderful ladies, but in their immaturity they acted on emotional conclusion, not on the book. God will expose your foolishness. Don’t be, don’t be caught, as a child of God, functioning in foolishness. Declare to God, God I don’t trust my thoughts, I don’t trust my conclusions, I don’t trust my emotions, no matter how strong they are, I subject them to the authority of Christ and the scriptures. So that when all things are said and done, I’ll not be exposed as acting foolishly.

Number three. The foolish miss the true treasure by holding to worthless trash. The foolish miss the true treasure because they hold to worthless trash. We see this beginning in 1 Corinthians 3:21. I tell you, the truth here is just absolutely mind boggling. Paul here in 1 Corinthians 3:21 says, “so then let no one boast in men for all things belong to you”. Now he’s saying, he’ saying, do you see what you foolish Corinthians are doing. You’re exalting a man, and you’re saying this man has wisdom and the insight. And what you’re doing, you’re trading that man for God. You’ve got everything, you’ve got the God of everything, the God that owns everything, the God that can do anything and everything, and you are trading him off to exalt some finite fallen man. Why would you boast in some teacher when you’ve got God. Why would you glory in some teacher when you’ve got God. Church don’t go out here and praise your pastor, go out here and praise your God. You know what I’m saying. See the God behind the servant, don’t magnify the servant. Paul says, man, you’re looking at some worthless trash, the human teacher, and you’re missing the true treasure. Look what you are doing. Look at 1 Corinthians 3:21, as he continues, last phrase, for all things belong to you. “All things belong to you”. When you look to man over God, you’re choosing no thing over everything. Did you hear me. When you look to a man instead of God, you’re choosing nothing over everything.

Look at 1 Corinthians 3:22. In verse 22 he begins to list the specifics of all that we have as God’s children, as members of the true church of Jesus Christ. Now I don’t mean First Baptist [Grace Life] Muscle Shoals, I mean in the universal sense of the church, all true believers everywhere. Now first of all he talks about all the servants of God are ours as members of the church. All the preachers and teachers. And that’s why he says in 1 Corinthians 3:22 “whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas”. In Ephesians 4 gives us the beautiful picture that God says that I have given some gifted men to the church. The preachings and the teachers are your gift form God, they are your servants to help you understand all that you have in God. Look past them and to the God who gave them to you to serve you. They are for you, they belong to you in that sense, they are there to serve you, to reveal to you all that you are and all that you have as God’s child. Don’t get stopped on them, they are just the conduit, look through them and see the God they are showing you. You foolish Corinthians. Don’t stop on the worthless trash. Go on to the true treasure of who you have. Don’t look to them, look to the God that they preach. And these guys were choosing one teacher against the other ones, which was foolish and worldly wisdom, which was once again them saying, I’m smart, I know where the true wisdom is. Again, they were getting hung up on this base level. All preachers are God’s gifts to the church. He says, hey, they are all for you, they are your servants to help you know all that God has for you.

And then he says something else, not only the teachers, but notice next, he said, “whether Paul, Apollos or Cephas, or the world”. In other words, God has preserved this world for the benefit of the church. I want to say that again. God has preserved planet earth for the benefit of the church. Now listen to what Hodge says. He said “the present order is maintained and directed to the promotion of the great work of redemption”. Its all for you. This earth wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Its for you, the world is for you, the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours for the church. The earth orbits around the sun once a year for the church, for the benefit of us. That’s what he’s saying. Why would you exalt some fallen finite sinful teacher that I want to use as my conduit and miss all that I have for you and in doing for you. And one day the earth will rotate on its axis the last time and one day the earth will take its last orbit around the sun when the reason for its existence has finished, because the bride is complete. It only keeps spinning and only keeps orbiting and it only stays here for the church’s benefit. Isn’t that overwhelming. Isn’t that incredible. Its ours. Its for me. Its for you. This world. That we see out there. All the events of heaven and earth work together to the perfect and ultimate end of glorifying God and blessing his church. What an amazing thought.

Well he says, there’s more. Not just the teachers and not just the world, he says “or life or death”. Life or death is for us. In other words, the peo, people of God live and die in this dispensation according to what is to their good. Did you hear that. The people of God live or die in a particular age, in a particular way and die at a particular time in a particular way, unto their own ultimate good. God says, life and death isn’t just an arbitrary thing that happened, God says, I’ve designed it for the good of the church, its for you. Hodge said, “the greatest men of the world kings, statesmen, and heroes, ministers, individuals, believers and unbelievers live or die just to the best interest of Christ’s kingdom”. Think about that. Every king, every statesman, every politician, everyone who ever lives or dies, God allowed to live or die in his absolutely sovereignty to the end that it would best benefit the church. You say, brother Jeff, I can’t see how its benefitting the church. You will one day. One day you will have perfect understanding that every molecule that existed on planet earth functioned and did what it did under the sovereign guidance of God for the benefit of the bride of Christ.

Awesome thought. Well he says something else, not only life or death, its more than that. Then he said “things present”. That means all the events of this present age happened to the benefit of the church. In God’s absolute providence the rich man who hates God and drives his Rolls-Royce and lives in his multimillion dollar estate, has all he has, and does all that he does to the benefit of God’s church. Well, brother Jeff, I’ll just take the Rolls-Royce. Sense its all for us. No listen, its to the benefit of the church. If it will benefit the church more for a ha, hater of God to have it, then for the church to have it, the hater gets it. Are you with me church. God knows what’s best for us. He knows what’s best for us.

And then he said, not only things of the present, notice how he concludes it all there, “or things to come”. Now that refers to the future. See, not just is this present world for our benefit, but all the future of all eternity is for us. The plan of God contemplates the permanent exaltation of the redeemed. Everything is for us, even all of eternity is for us. And Paul says, why do you keep exalting some man in his earthly wisdom as special when you’ve got the God of the universe and everything is yours. Don’t get hung up on trash, we’ve got the true treasure. That you have when you look to God. You see, you may not get the Rolls-Royce, you may not get the transportation, but you are getting transformation. You may not get the grand house, but you do have a glorious home. And he’s going to give you what you need to benefit you as God’s child in God’s church.

And then he gives a summary statement there in 1 Corinthians 3:22, last, four words, five words, “all things belong to you”. Paul said, I could just go on, let me just say it again, its all yours. Every single thing, the earth exists for you, the earth is preserved for you, the earth rotates on its axis for you, night and day is for you, the universe is for you, life is for you, death is for you, as a matter of fact, death used to be your enemy, but now Jesus has converted death over to where death is now your friend. Death used to be your enemy, but now death is that kind envoy that carries you to your glorification. Life is for you, death is for you. Its all for you. The present world is for you and all eternity is for you. Its all yours. All of it is yours. In Romans 8:15-17, the apostle Paul says, “you’re not longer slaves, not you are sons. And as a son, you are even a joint heir with Jesus Christ”. Our wealth is immense.

But, you’ve got to factor in 1 Corinthians 3:23. But look at verse 23, “and you belong to Christ”. We are the Lord’s of the universe, but we are his bond slaves. They are both true. You see, we rule to be ruled. Finley said it best when he said, “a man cannot own too much provided he knows who owns him”. God says, look at all you own, and remember who owns you. Isn’t that awesome. Some of the brethren and the sisters, has struggled a little bit with class envy I’ve noticed. Among some and I have struggled here and I’ll be honest, I’ve sinned even here before. Among some there’s a notion that if a real wealthy person loves God, there’s got to be something sinister in that person’s heart. Their motives have to be impure, they’ve got to be corrupt in some way, a real wealthy person really can’t love God. But the real issue is, it doesn’t matter how much a man owns as long as he knows who owns him. You see, a man’s total worth may be $100, but if he doesn’t know who owns him, he is worthless for the kingdom of God and he commits the sin of materialism and the love of money. And a man that is worth $100 million but knows who owns him can be a great servant for the kingdom of God. But the man with $100 million, who owns all of that, but doesn’t recognize who owns him is worthless, regardless of how much he can do with his money, or how many missionaries he could send out. And that same man that’s got $100 but knows who owns him has immense work for the kingdom of God. The issue is not how much a man owns, but does that man know who owns him. That is the issue.

Paul says you have immense wealth. But you are Christ’s. And in case you think that’s a little unfair to be Christ’s bond slave you remember he’s co-equal to God the Father, but willingly for the purpose of saving you became subservient to God the Father. If he’s willing to be the bond slave of God the Father, not for his own benefit, but for your’s how much more should you be the bond slave of him who is infinitely superior to you in every way, shape or fashion. Paul said church at Corinth, I want you to know there’s some foolishness in the church. And you ought to get rid of it because look what you have in Christ. Don’t think like the world, don’t look at things like the world, don’t trust your mental opinions, don’t trust your emotions and your feelings, go to the God of the universe and the authority of his word and kick everything else out. Because you could draw from the vast resources of the universe and even eternity, it all your’s and you are Christ’s.