Catfish, Gentiles, and the Gospel

Well, what a phenomenal day to be here. I'm so glad to be here, especially not just as a follower of Jesus Christ gathering with the family of God, but also a Georgia fan who is preaching at a campus led by a Clemson fan.

Anyways, I'm going to leave that alone. If you have your Bibles, please meet me in 1 Corinthians chapter one, where we're going to continue on in our series together, cutting through the noise. J. D. Just laid a wonderful foundation for us. If you haven't listened to that sermon, I want to really encourage you to do it, not just because it gives us kind of a paradigm foundation as we make our way through the book of 1 Corinthians. But as I wrote Pastor J. D. early on this week, I really do feel like that is a word in season for this church strong pastoral word in a lot of ways for the American church in our current cultural moment. Current cultural moment. I want to show you today we're going to talk about foolishness to the Greeks, and I want to show you how the gospel of Jesus Christ should press in on culture.

And I want to talk about it from a macro level, and then we're gonna get down in the weeds a little bit and talk about how the gospel presses in on Greek culture and what that looks like for us living in the 21st century. But to us who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will fort. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, see him pressing in on culture, and Greeks seek wisdom.

But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men. And the weakness of God is stronger than men. 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. 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.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. Just read a few more verses with me in 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

Paul says, And I, when I came to you, brothers, verses 1 and 2, 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. Will you pray with me?

God, thank you for your word. We have come in. We have worshiped you.

We have ascribed to you your worth, your just do. God, we dare not leave your presence without you speaking to us. So, Lord God, these people do not need to know or need to hear the thoughts of a middle aged man. They need to hear from an eternal God. So just like you spoke through that bush that was on fire but not being consumed to Moses and utterly transformed his life, Lord God, so speak through me your vessel. I pray that you give me great clarity, great tenderness, great love, great grace, and yet great truth. Change us today, we pray. Save someone's soul, we ask, as your gospel will be unpacked. It's in Christ's name we ask all these things.

Amen and amen. Several years ago there was a term that entered into our cultural collective lexicon. It's the term catfish. And no, I ain't talking about what you eat with red beans and rice. By the way, if you've never had catfish with red beans and rice, please do not die and go to heaven without having catfish with red beans and rice.

If you feel the death angel knocking, tell him to hold off until you can have catfish with red beans and rice. So no, I'm not talking about that catfish. I'm talking about the slang angle upon which it is used. To be catfish, typically what that means is that you've been online or you've been on social media and you've been engaging with someone and maybe you thought they were a man, but only to discover later on they're a woman or a woman, only to discover later on that they are a man.

Or maybe you thought you were talking to a Nigerian prince when in reality it's some dude named Stan living in his mama's basement who's got plans on robbing you. It's an individual who comes across one way, but in reality they are the exact opposite. Their intent is to deceive. And when the truth comes out, the level of betrayal, the level of just being stabbed in the back, the level of hurt and hopelessness is overwhelming to the point where you just want to throw your hands up in the air and not trust people at all.

That's the idea of being catfished. It's an individual who has deceived you. They've put up kind of one face, but in reality they're completely a different way. I fundamentally believe what Mark Devers says about the church. Mark Devers says that the church of Jesus Christ is called to be a reflection of God to the world. The church of Jesus Christ is called to be a reflection of God to a lost and dying world. The problem is that far too many churches are catfishing the culture, where we kind of project an image that we're one way, but when people hang out with us, when people do life with us, they are sensing something that's not just different but is almost like a polar opposite. This is the case as Paul sits down and writes the church at Corinth. I believe if Paul were writing the church at Corinth today, he would say you all have been catfishing people. You all have been projecting an image that you're one way, but when people hang out with you at the church at Corinth, they are seeing the polar opposite.

He begins by calling out their disunity. John 17, the church of Jesus Christ is called to be one, but you walk into the church at Corinth, you see nothing but divisions and disunity, as Pastor JD touched on that just last week. Not only that, but the church of Jesus Christ is called to be holy. I want you to understand there's no such thing as perfection.

No one gets it right. In fact, I honestly believe that the world is a little bit too hard on the church, as if we have a monopoly on disingenuous people. You put people together in any kind of institution, you put people together, there's bound to be levels of hypocrisy where they're not living up to the ideals, but it seems as if the church at Corinth had an extra dose of that.

Not only that, but there was just this constant running disagreements they had with one another. I want to walk through that, where you had people who were saying, no, I am free to do this, and there's arguments over that, and other people saying, no, no, no, you're not free to do this, and there's arguments over that. More than that, you walk into a worship service, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, you maybe expected some sort of ordered kind of liturgy worship experience, where God was being exalted, Jesus Christ was being lifted up, and Paul's going to paint a picture. That's not the church at Corinth, you walked in there, and it was sheer and utter madness and chaos, where the punchline wasn't God, it was all about me and my gifts and my talents, and I'm just pitching a fit if I'm not getting enough attention. And as if all four of those things weren't bad enough, Paul deals with a fifth issue, right towards the end of the book, 1 Corinthians 15, where you had some Christians in the church at Corinth who were questioning the core doctrine of the Christian faith, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul has to spend a whole chapter addressing kind of their questioning of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And all this put together is just a devastating picture of how the church at Corinth had been catfishing the culture.

They had come across as one way, where in reality, they are a completely different way. Now, how does Paul deal with this? Pastor JD dove into it last week. How does Paul deal with this? Paul takes each issue, explains the issue, unpacks the issue, and then he applies the gospel of Jesus Christ to the issue.

He steps into the brokenness, names the brokenness, and says, here's how the gospel of Jesus Christ steps into that brokenness and speaks to it and repairs it and fixes it, the punchline being that's exactly how you and I should live. Now, if you were to come to our home there on the south side of Atlanta when I was a little boy and you were to look in my mama's medicine cabinet, it wasn't that complicated. She actually really had one bottle in her medicine cabinet. It was a bottle called cod liver oil. Now, if you've never had cod liver oil, consider yourself blessed and highly favored of the Lord, because cod liver oil has got to be the nastiest thing ever made. Anybody here ever had cod liver oil?

It is absolutely horrible. The problem is my mama, she had it in her mind. She never spent a day in medical school, not a medically trained doctor or whatever, but she had it in her mind. Whatever ailed you had cod liver oil written all over it. Headache, cod liver oil, stomach ache, cod liver oil, toothache, cod liver oil. Weather's about to change and she's afraid something might happen. Let's give you some preventative medicine called cod liver oil.

Unbelievable. I'm really convinced if mama was parenting today and we were little kids, she would not even pay attention to what the CDC was saying about the COVID pandemic. She says, I got the fix. Don't need to get vaccinated.

Cod liver oil. By the way, that is not an endorsement not to get vaccinated or to get vaccinated. If you've got a problem, please email me at danielsimmons at summitchurch.com.

I would love to entertain whatever questions you have. I'm being a bit facetious here when it comes to my mama, but everything in my mother's mind, you could just apply this one thing. Well, this is what Paul is saying. Paul is saying for the believer, our medicine cabinet ain't that complicated.

Whatever your brokenness may be, apply the gospel to it. Paul isn't saying we shouldn't get therapy. Paul isn't saying we shouldn't seek wise counsel. Paul isn't saying we shouldn't lean into godly community. But Paul is saying above all else, as gospel above all people, make sure we are taking the cod liver oil of the gospel and applying it to whatever brokenness may be in our lives.

It actually works that much better and it tastes a lot better as well. This is Paul's whole approach. Now I want you to hang in there with me because there is a subtle subplot that is happening in the book of First Corinthians. One of the things that is bubbling underneath the surface is that Paul is dealing with a clash of cultures. In order to understand this, we have to go back to First Corinthians, excuse me, to Acts chapter 18, where Paul plants the church at Corinth.

If you want to know what kind of Paul's missiological methodology is, you would want to go and read Romans chapter 1 16. In Romans 1 16, Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to those who believe, not to the Jew only, but to the Jew first and also the Greek. Now some at church, this is really important that you understand this, when Paul walks into a town like Ephesus or Athens or Corinth or any town to plant the gospel, he always asks two questions. He says, hey, can you point me in the direction of the synagogue?

Why? Because Paul is saying, I want to preach the gospel to Jews. So he goes to the synagogue and he preaches Christ to the Jews, and some Jews get saved.

They turn from darkness to light, and now they're followers of Jesus Christ, but he's not done. He says, now where do the Gentiles hang out? In Athens, Acts 17, they point him up to Mars Hill.

Some of us have been to Mars Hill. That's where they hang out. In Ephesus, they point him to the hall of Tyrannus. In 1 Corinthians chapter 18 verse 4, Luke writes this of Paul being in Corinth. He says, Paul tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. And so he now shares Christ with Greeks. Some Greeks come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. Some Jews come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. But now he's got a problem because these two different ethnicities and these two different cultures hate each other.

They don't like each other at all. So what does he do? Maybe if he was following the church growth gurus of the early to mid 20th century, maybe he would have started two churches on two sides of the tracks, one on the north side of town for the Jews and one on the south side of town for the Gentiles. Paul doesn't do that. Paul says, I'm starting one church and I want you to flesh out horizontally what you have already experienced vertically and that is reconciliation. I need you to display the visible reconciling power of the gospel by you doing life with people who don't look like you, act like you, think like you, or vote like you.

I want you to live this out. This is really important because you've heard Pastor JD say this several years ago. Pastor JD said our vision here at the church, one of them is we want to be 25% minority by 2025. We want to be a church of diversity.

Why does that matter? He didn't say that because that's the politically correct or in thing to do. He didn't say that because that's a wonderful church growth technique. He said that because of the truth of the scriptures and the reality of our mission field.

Some of the latest data says that the triangle area is 56% white and 44% people of color. Seen in that light, all Pastor JD is trying to lead us in is he's saying, I just want our sanctuaries to look like our mission field. I just want our sanctuaries to look like our mission field. Pastor JD is saying we're not trying to reach just part of the triangle.

We're not just trying to reach a zip code here or a zip code there. We are filled with a gospel greed. We want to see people from every nation, tribe, and tongue, not just overseas, but we want to see people also in our immediate context come to know the power of the gospel and be reconciled to God and reconciled to one another.

So here is Paul. He is sitting down and he is writing this multi-ethnic, multi-cultural church. It's filled with different cultures. And historically, like so many different ethnicities in our country, Jews and Greeks don't get along. And yet, here they are in one local assembly and what's gotten them together is not a political party.

What's gotten them together is not a social agenda. What's gotten them together is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, the power of the gospel to bring former enemies together in close community with one another. The gospel fundamentally begins on a note of God's love and we'll talk about this in just a few moments. That God loves us, but the problem is sin.

Because of Adam and Eve's sin in the garden, Romans chapter 5 tells us that sin entered the world through one man and it infected everybody. All of us born into this world because of Adam's sin are born into sin. That's why we don't have to teach our kids how to be selfish. We don't have to teach them how to lie. We don't have to teach them how to sin.

It is the default condition of the human heart. We are born into sin. And what does sin do? Sin impedes our relationship with God and it impedes our relationship with one another. I don't have time to get into this, but when Adam and Eve first sin, the first thing they do is they hide from God and they hide from one another.

Sin is profoundly social. The answer to this is not me trying harder. The answer to this is not religion.

The answer to this is Christ and Christ alone. Now you need to understand something about me. When I was a student at most levels, grade school, elementary school, middle school, college, I was a lazy student. It wasn't until grad school when dad informed me that I would have to go to grad school on my own dime that I actually started exerting a lot more effort.

Funny how that works. And so, you know, I'm a lazy student and I graduate from college. Some of my friends graduated summa cum laude, others magna cum laude.

I graduated, thank you, laude, and was finally able to make it through college. And I had a desire to go to grad school, but, you know, because of my laziness, grad schools weren't coming after me. I settled in on a seminary in Southern California. And, man, the seminary was way too expensive and I didn't have the resources and so there was this gap. It looked like there wasn't going to be able to be an academic relationship between me and that institution. What it cost was beyond my ability to get there. And because of that, in their justice, they weren't just going to give me a freebie. I mean, they had professors they needed to pay. They had bills they needed to pay.

So in their justice, they couldn't just let me in. I was able to get in because what filled the gap between their justice and my current reality was something called a scholarship. An individual had set aside money, had allocated money for people like me, specifically for individuals as the scholarship for under-resourced and represented students.

It simply meant you were PO, not poor, couldn't afford the other O and the R. And so that scholarship, watch it now, it satisfied the just demands of the institution and yet gave me the resources I need to have a relationship with the institution. Friends, this is the gospel. In the holiness of God, God is looking at us and our sin had racked up a debt that no amount of morality or our striving could satisfy.

There was a gap there. We could not get to God on our own terms and God in his justice just couldn't ignore the debt. That's when Jesus lifted his hands and said, I'll be the scholarship.

I'll step in and I'll fill in the blanks. You and I are able to have a relationship with God and a relationship with other believers, not because of the amazing consecutive quiet time streak we've been on, but because of the scholarship of Jesus Christ, who died in our place and for our sins. And it is that scholarship, it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that brings together Jews and Greeks within this local assembly together. And it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that brings you and I together under the lordship of Christ. It's not our political ideologies.

It's it's not our tax brackets. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that brings us together. This is pretty amazing. So here is Paul. And what we see Paul doing is he sits down in our text and he's talking to this multi ethnic, multicultural congregation.

And he says, I want you to understand something. Jews, the gospel has something to say to you. The gospel presses in on you Jews.

And I also want you to understand Greeks. The gospel has something to say to you. The gospel presses in on you. He's going to show us that the gospel of Jesus Christ should be contextualized in order to confront the gospel of Jesus Christ should be contextualized in order to confront.

What does that mean? First Corinthians Chapter nine. The Apostle Paul says it this way. He says to the Jew. I became as a Jew versus 19 to 23 so that I might win the Jews later on, he says, and to the Greeks or the Gentiles or to those outside the law. I became as one outside the law again, those outside the law represents the Greeks or the Gentiles.

He keeps saying I became. And then he ends in verse 23 by saying, I do it all for the sake of the gospel. Here's what Paul is saying. The gospel is driving me to engage different cultures. And when I engage different cultures, he says, I became I became the idea of contextualized. What does that mean? The gospel is closed hand.

The message of Jesus Christ, the fact that he died in my place and for my sins. We don't fiddle with that. We don't debate that.

We don't that's not up for discussion. It ain't up to how you feel. It ain't up to what you think. The message of Jesus Christ, his substitutionary atoning work, the fact that I am saved by grace through faith. I mean, this is closed hand. It is timeless. It is good news. And we don't fiddle with that good news ever. It is the timeless message of Jesus. But watch it so that the message is closed hand.

But our methods, how we communicate that not only should change, they have to change. I was thinking earlier this week there's a book I remember rummaging through a Christian bookstore in the 1990s. Remember Christian bookstores, by the way?

I was rummaging through one back in the 1990s. I came across a title back in the 1990s. It says an eight track church in a CD world. It was trying to get to the outdatedness of the church and how it hadn't contextualized.

But that title wouldn't fly today. Like, you have to change that. The concept is timeless. But how you convey that has to change. It's the idea of contextualizing.

Let me give you a couple examples of this. I pastor for 12 years in Memphis, Tennessee. In Memphis, Tennessee, I caught on very quickly, very religious town. Most of the people in Memphis, Tennessee in the early 2000s had grown up going to church. And because of that, I could contextualize by actually assuming a high level of biblical IQ.

And so that's what I did. Most of the gospel conversion stories in our church went like this. Hey, I grew up in church, grew up very religious, but it wasn't until recently that I understood the gospel. So what I had to do in Memphis is to show them that there's a difference between the gospel and religion.

Those two things are not the same. So I would contextualize in order to confront them so that I could win them with the gospel. Several years later, I found myself pastoring in Mountain View, California, which is right in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Let's just say that ain't Memphis, Tennessee. Most of people there did not grow up in church, completely secular, highly educated, highly successful individuals. I could not assume a high biblical IQ. I could not get up and say you remember the story.

They did not remember the story. Listen, same message, but I had to use different means. Most of my messages, I'm quoting secular philosophers, secular writers. I'm kind of Acts 17, Paul on Mars Hill, using their altars to an unknown God and connecting that to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I did that in such a way so that I could confront some of their idols.

Tim Keller says whenever you walk into a town, you've got to know what the idols are and be able to take the gospel and speak to those idols. In Silicon Valley, it's a highly successful kind of a lot of success idols that are happening there. In fact, Palo Alto has the highest concentration of childhood suicide in the country. You would never know anything about it. They jump out in the middle of trains. They don't write articles about it.

They're worried about copycatting and things of that nature. The reason for that, sociologists tell us, parents driving their kids too hard, this success thing. I had to take the gospel and show them how the gospel presses against that culture. The gospel speaks to every single culture in every single locale.

Now let me back up and come to your neighborhood. What is culture? Culture has been described as the house we live in. It's a combination of location, time, how we were raised, ethnicity, economics, a whole bunch of different things. All of us in this room right now, we have been shaped profoundly by our culture.

And all of us in this room right now, we are in one of two camps. Either our culture is driving our gospel or our gospel is driving our culture. The gospel of Jesus Christ must press against how you have been culturally shaped and culturally formed.

Let me go here. There's some wonderful things about being an African American man. I have been created in the image of God.

God did not pull the Stevie Wonder when he made me and a part of how he made me is black. Fearfully and wonderfully made. And there's some good things that go into that. Yes and amen. But there are also some other areas that I've got to allow the gospel to press into my blackness. I do not allow my blackness to drive my gospel, but I allow my gospel to drive my blackness.

So it is for those of you who are white, so it is for those of you who are Asian, so it is for those of you who are affluent, for those of you who are poor. There are things about our culture that are great and there are things about our culture that the gospel must constantly press against as gospel above all people. Thank you for the golf clap.

I feel like I just hit a great nine iron. So here's Paul. Paul says, as we round third and head for home, Greeks, let me show you what the gospel has to say about you. Greeks, let me show you. Let me just take the gospel and let me press in on you Greeks. That's very important as we wrap up our sermon. Paul is talking to obviously the church at Corinth.

The church at Corinth, as we learned last week, sits on a very busy thoroughfare. And as such, it was a popular place for the Greek sophists to come and hang out. And when we talk about sophists, it's the Greek word for wisdom. Originally, wisdom is the idea of skillful living. But the time Paul writes, this idea of Sophia, this idea of wisdom, wasn't just speaking of skillful living. It was also speaking of skillful teaching and skillful communicators. It spoke of individuals who were masters at rhetoric. And by the way, Greek culture, they've given us that three legged stool of rhetoric. It was the Greeks who said great speakers. They had logos, ethos and pathos. They said a great speaker had logos.

That is content. You always left a great speaker going, I learned something today. They said the Greeks were not just great at logos, but great Greek speakers had ethos. The idea of ethics.

It's the idea of when you listen to a speaker, there's just this sense of this person is living what they're talking about. They have ethics. They had logos, ethos and pathos. Pathos is the idea of passion. But remember, the Greeks, they're very stoic individuals.

So the idea of pathos to the Greeks passion isn't animation as much as it's talking from your gut. And so they said that these great Greek speakers, you would learn something. There was some deep knowledge there. There's a sense of ethos. They were living it out. And there was a sense of pathos to them. There was a sense in which they were talking from their gut. And so Corinth was one of the major stops for these Greek sophists to come through. It was like speaker's corner in their day or it was like walking into an auditorium about to listen to a lineup of TED talks.

It was these individuals one after one after one after one and they would come here and they would just kind of teach and speak the birds out the trees. And yet Paul is saying, I got to tell you, as enticing as they may be, they are dead wrong in what they are saying. And I want to show you how the gospel presses in. One of the first things that Paul does is he shows us the foolishness of the gospel to the Greek culture because the Greek culture was steeped in this celebrity culture. Look again with me, if you will, at verse 26.

It says, consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise, according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth. 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. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Paul is saying this.

You are breaking your neck to hear these celebrity speakers. They've got big names, but I want you to understand when you look at how God operates in redemptive history, more times than not, he doesn't go after the big name. He goes after the person you've never heard of before.

Oh, friends, we need to hear this word. There is a theme woven throughout the tapestry of Scripture that shows that God has a soft spot for what I call little people, people that the world would pass over. I could take you.

It's all over the Bible. I could take you to Ruth. Here's Ruth. She's a starving immigrant on the brink of death from Moab. She ends up being shown incredible kindness and favor by Boaz.

She would be engrafted into the lineage of Jesus and she would become the grandmother of David or take David when Samuel shows up at Jesse's house to anoint the next king. David, his own dad, doesn't even think highly enough of him to bring him out with the rest of his brothers. He's left out in the field. He's deemed to be that insignificant by his own father. And yet Samuel, when he gets to the end of all the brothers, he hears God say of him, Listen, I want you to understand man looks on the outside.

I look at the heart. Samuel says, Is there another one? And Jesse says, Yeah.

And he's out in the field. And that's David, this little insignificant one God would use to usher in Israel to her golden age or take Israel. Israel is referred to as the dusty ones by the Egyptians. They're seen as being so insignificant. And yet what happens?

God uses them to pull off the biggest upset of all time by taking down mighty Egypt. Take Mary. She's from a she's from a potent village. She's not from some kind of big metropolitan city.

I'm just kind of getting to know the area. No offense, but Mary's probably from not me, Bane. Mebane.

She's probably from a section that people would say, I'd never guess that. And yet what does God do? God says that's exactly the kind of person I want. What about Jesus? Jesus doesn't come to earth as a Roman centurion or senator.

He comes born to poor parents. Jesus comes taking on flesh dwelling among us. Jesus himself says birds of the air have nests, foxes have owls. I have nowhere to lay my head. God has a soft spot for little people.

Why? So that when God pulls off his glory, it is for his glory, not ours, so that people would look and not be impressed with us. They would be impressed with God. Oh, if you're here today and you feel insignificant, you feel overlooked, I want you to understand you are right in the cross hairs of the kind of person God uses. This doesn't mean God doesn't use affluent people.

Yes, he does. Abraham's affluent. Joseph is affluent.

Daniel is affluent. Lydia, so on and so forth. But God has a weak spot for the little people. Secondly, Paul presses into Greek culture by telling him it's little people versus celebrities. But secondly, he challenges this whole Greek notion of apotheia.

The idea of apotheia to the Greeks, it's our English word apathy. They pictured the deities, the gods as being emotionally removed. To the Greeks, it was unthinkable that a God would be emotionally invested in humanity. Paul says that is the foolishness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ begins on a note of love. John 3 16 says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. We see Jesus invested emotionally in humanity. John 11 35. Jesus wept.

Paul writes in Romans Chapter five that God demonstrated not his apathy, but God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And I want you to understand some of you have major daddy wounds. Some of you when you reflect on your father growing up, the image you see is a permanent scowl or maybe the image you see is a absent dad who was not emotionally or physically invested in your life.

And what do you do? You take that image of your father and you attach it to your Heavenly Father. But if I could just say it very nice in all theologically sophisticated like God ain't your daddy.

He is a physically and emotionally involved dad who says of you that he loves you. He says of you and I what he said of Jesus. This is my beloved son.

This is my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased. He sees you not through the lens of your behavior, but through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You are profoundly loved by God. So what does God do? He takes the gospel presses into Greek culture, and he says, Look, little people versus celebrities apathy versus love.

He goes on to talk about detached versus attached in the Greek mindset. God would never come down. God would just kind of stay in his corner office and be detached from humanity. What does the gospel say? The gospel rises and falls on the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The incarnation means that Jesus Christ, who is God, took on flesh. John one tells us and dwelt among us.

He walked with us and talked with us. Because of that, the writer of Hebrews says we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. Jesus Christ is human enough to relate to our frailties, but God enough to have overcome them. Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us. And, of course, as we wrap up, the greatest affront to the Greeks understanding was this whole idea of God dying on a cross.

Greeks said that would never happen. Romans wouldn't even allow their own citizens to die on the cross. What does Paul say in First Corinthians 2 one through two? He says, And I, when I came to you brothers, 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. Paul rightly understood the cross to be the centerpiece of both the gospel and human history, for it is our only hope for salvation. This is why Paul would say to the Colossians, Look at it with me, and you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling, canceling, canceling the record of debt against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

I'm in my seat, but you need to hear this. When you were crucified, the record of debt was nailed above your head on that cross. The record of debt, as it sounds, it lists all your debts out. In modern cultural parlance, it would be our credit report. It would list everything we've ever owed. It would it would list all of our creditors. Paul uses the record of debt imagery to speak, not financially, but morally. He talks about the record of debt. Every sin we've ever committed are committing and will ever commit has been nailed to the cross.

And I love it. He says the death of Jesus canceled it. The Greek word there for canceled. It means to wipe clean as though it never existed. Maybe some of you are here and maybe you've got a criminal record. Maybe at one time you had a criminal record. And maybe at that time you experienced profound grace where that criminal record was expunged.

When a person has their criminal record expunged, it is wiped clean as if it never existed, as if the offense never happened. And now it is restored unto you the full rights of citizenship. Friends, Paul says that's what Jesus did for every follower of his. When we came to the cross again, every sin we've ever committed are committing and will ever commit has been nailed on our spiritual credit port. It has been nailed to the cross and our record has been expunged as if it has never existed. And now you and I are in the kingdom having the full rights of citizenship. We are daughters. We are sons. We are no longer slaves or hired hands because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is the foolishness of the gospel. Some years ago I was hanging out with a pastor friend of mine. He invited me in town to speak to him.

This is in the southwest. So we're spending the day together just getting to know one another and we're hanging out and small talk and then the conversation goes a little serious. I decided to up the ante a little bit. I said, can you tell me how you came to know Jesus? He just paused, smiled, says you won't believe it.

I said, try me. He said, I grew up in a home. My father was a former athlete at the time. He was a high school baseball coach. Whatever your picture is of a professional athlete, that's what my dad did.

He wreaked havoc on our household and just lived a totally thorough pagan life. He said Sundays was kind of our days together. We're a huge Denver Broncos fan and so we'd sit there and watch the game and this one Sunday we're watching the game and Dad's doing what he's always doing. He's taking his beer and he's chugging his beer and he's chugging his beer and he's chugging it. He's working through several beers and he says, man, at this point Dad's buzzed. He's not drunk, he's buzzed.

We're watching the Broncos game and we're about to kick an extra point field goal. He says, I don't remember what it was. Right as we're about to kick this extra point field goal, again Dad's chugging beers, buzzed, the camera pans in the stands to a dude with a clown suit holding a sign that says Romans 10, 9, and 10. He says, my dad stops and says, get me a Bible. My friend says, man, I didn't pay Dad any attention. I mean, that had to be the beer talking, but he says, Dad was adamant, get me a Bible.

He says, man, I tear that house upside down. Several minutes later, I come back with a Bible. We flip to the table of contents, make our way to the book of Romans, read Romans 10, 9, and 10, and it's right there that my father surrenders his life to Jesus. And he says, I was skeptical, but when I tell you in the days to come, I saw a total 180 degree change in my dad.

He says, my dad would end up leading the rest of us in his household to faith in Jesus Christ. Friends, that's the foolishness of the gospel, that God could take someone in a clown suit holding a sign at a football game while someone else, listen, he's not dependent on my feeble attempts of articulation. God doesn't need you to dot all your theological I's and cross all your theological T's. He doesn't need you to read Wayne Grudem's systematic theology and be able to argue fine points of doctrine.

I'm not saying don't be prepared. I'm not saying don't learn apologetics defenses, but you do know God was saving people before apologetics came along. God doesn't need us to have it all in order. God takes foolish things, and he works his profound wisdom so that only he gets the glory. This is the foolishness of the gospel, and it's this gospel we present to you. So Father, I bless you. I thank you for the good news of Jesus Christ. I thank you for how the gospel of Jesus Christ turns former enemies into friends and to family.

And I pray that that's the case here. I thank you, Lord God, that your gospel presses in on every single culture. And I pray that we would be a gospel above all church, a church, Lord God, where it's clear that the supremacy of Christ is over, above, and beyond everything else. And I also pray, Lord God, for us called to be your ambassadors, your witnesses. Yes, Lord, may we learn, may we study, may we get better at defending the gospel of Jesus Christ. But may we also be like Paul and be willing to be fools for you, that you take the simple message of the gospel and you draw sinners unto yourself. I believe right now someone needs to know you, Lord God, as Lord and Savior. Would you draw them unto yourself? It's in Jesus' name we pray all these things. Amen.