The Gospel Makes Everyone Useful

The Gospel and Your Life
1 Cor. 7:17-24
Listen to this message here: (The Gospel and Life)

There are worse jobs than yours!

We are all caught from time to time wishing our lives were different. We long for a different job in a better house living in a nicer city blah, blah, blah. We learn from Paul in this passage that the Gospel makes everyone's station in life a ministry. God didn't make a mistake saving me in the time period and the context that He did. Its no accident that I have the job I do, the neighbors, the activities or any event in my life. My life is a mission field today, now, exactly like it is.

The Gospel has me caught up in something greater than the things I'm caught up in. My job now is not to fit Jesus into my life, work, hobbies or activities. He IS all those things. He is already here and we are to be focused on Christ's mission for me in these things.

#1 Live where I am.
Not just surviving but living for Him. Any Context! Verses 17-20 clearly show that my station in life now is a personal assignment from the Lord. The most amazing God displayed sovereign activity in someone's testimony is no more amazing than mine. The Gospel does this. It makes the most meaningless activity or work a God ministry.
#2 Forget where you'd rather be. Vs. 20-21.
If you are in the worst possible job, someone's property as a slave no less, then it just doesn't matter. Its a heart issue not a situation issue. Christ comes in and makes life context powerless. (vs. 22) The power of the Gospel transcends my life's circumstances.

(vs. 16) was Paul's start on all this. We don't know what God is going to do in our context to save a person around us. We just don't know so we serve Him where we are.  (vs. 24) My ministry is where I am right now! Life is a short term mission trip.

The Mystery Now Revealed (1 Cor. 2:6-13)

Man's problem is primarily theology. The cross will always seem barbaric until we see ourselves as barbarians. We now, thanks to the fall and our faulty theology, fear God, not relate to Him. Crime and hatred are just as bad today as it has ever been in any time period! The answer is the cross but sadly we have lost the ability to even ask the right question to get the right answer. Man is blinded. We took the glasses off and stomped them in the garden. We do not have the ability to self-diagnose. We are just beating rocks together and drawing cruddy looking cave art stick figures when it comes to theology.

This answer, the message of the cross, has yet to be plumbed. A helpless baby is the solution. Really? "You have got to be kidding me!", the world shouts. This is total foolishness. However, as Christians, we now spend our lives on this foolish mystery. What used to be boring church stuff is now wonderful and glorious, so amazing that we can't get enough of it. May we have an astonishing God awakening of this truth in a fresh way today. How about this truth from verse 2:7, before time began God decided to not only reveal this truth to us but to have it accomplish something really special in our lives. We are made humble vessels to hold God's glory! We partake of His glory, we get to ride next to Him in the convertible during the Superbowl victor's parade waving to crowd. Wow, I don't know about you but I want to know this a little better. God, open the eyes of this silly, self-made king!

Listen to the message here.

Him Crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

Tweets from the seat: I'm taking a different approach to this week's sermon wrap up. There were so many quotes in this message that were worthy of tweets that I thought it would be fun to format with them. (What are tweets and twitter? Click here:http://twitter.com/)

Click here to read the sermon's key passage: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Listen to the sermon by clicking here: Him Crucified

Message and methodology can't be separated. "And when I came" methods match the message. simply the cross of Christ. 1 Cor 2:1

Every true conviction is fleshed out in your methods. How you are going about in ministry reveals your convictions

What are the primary aims of ministry? The gospel is driving it. The pressure for pragmatism is intense. 1 Cor. 2:1-5

Ministry aim 1: I hope to be an embarrassment to you, a fool for Christ. That my devotion to Christ would make you uncomfortable. 1 Cor. 2:1

Ministry should be raw, direct and the same like a guy mowing his grass in black socks and a wife beater t-shirt. No frills

Ministry aim 2: I want to be redundant. 1 Cor. 2:2 nothing but Christ. Paul was not the poster child of the church growth gurus.

Preaching is ignoring criticism especially when its, "your message was irrelevant to me!" Christ is the power not my program.

"May every sermon I preach sound like spikes being driven into human flesh"

Ministry aim 3: I want to be forgettable. 1 Cor 2:3 You wouldn't  follow Paul on a podcast. Same simple message over and over.

Paul's messages were like simple flannel graph kids Sunday school lessons. Basics on Christ and the cross. 2 Cor. 10:10

Paul's fear was not his audience but his message. He didn't want anyone to be impressed by him and thus minimize the cross.

Not what a great sermon but what a great savior

Your faith should not rest on the method or the messenger but the message of Christ and the cross. 1 Cor. 2:1-5

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Considering Ourselves (1 Corinthians 1:26)

Remember your calling. Think back to the moment you were saved! Remember how sinful, how foolish, how lame you were before Christ found you and saved you. Why did God save you? Because you were good? Because he thought of you and your merit above all? That doesn't even make sense. Good people don't need to be saved. By very definition salvation assumes that someone is in need of being rescued. Jesus Himself said He came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10 People that don't think they are lost need not apply. I have talked to many that say "well that's nice for you but I don't need that Jesus stuff." Sermon audio

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

We were total wrecks when Christ saved us whether we saw it at the time or not. Being saved out of a literal ditch of our own depravity is one thing but being saved out of 'good' suburbia is perceived as another. Both, according to scripture, are train wrecked lives without hope, without Christ. The trophies of God's Grace are the nothings of this world. Its a beautiful thing thinking about God ensuring His glory is displayed by going after those who have no glory of their own to bring to the table.
So, in the Gospel I preach is there room for the train wrecks? Is there any room for those train wrecks here at the church?