The fact that God is alive – that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is alive today, is the reason you’re sitting here today. The breath you’re breathing, it’s because He is upholding your life. If you find it difficult to breathe, you realise the preciousness of life. Miracles occur today because God is alive.
There’s a great difference between life and death, between the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of God. The wisdom of this world results in death,. The wisdom of God results in life. On the one side you have the world, the flesh and the devil, and death. And on the other you have God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and life.
I want to look at scriptures which highlight the difference.
1 Corinthians 3:18-20
Galatians 5 talks about the world, the flesh and the devil.
Galatians 5:19-21
Quite a list! We’re coming up to Christmas, when it’s the works “do” and there’s no one from the church is with you. Our stance is the wisdom of God. It’s what God has done inside us.
We need to value what God has done in us, but more, we need to value who He is.
What’s it like for you at a works do? Do you cave in? You don’t want to appear different? The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
One night I was coming home late at night on the train. There was vomit all over the floor. Why is the world’s wisdom, the fleeting moment, the importance of getting paralytic so you can share your experience the next morning with someone else – if you can remember it?
Romans 1:28-33 outlines anyone without God.
Without God in this world, there’s an attempt, through the wisdom of this world, to fill the vacuum with something. But only God is the answer for the need within the depths of a person.
Paul said to the Corinthians that it doesn’t matter what goes on in the world ...
1 Corinthians 3:18-20
This world’s wisdom involves people who scheme, who pursue money, fame, position. It’s automatic because without God that’s the nature of man. I want to help each one of us realise that it is ok to be a fool for Christ. It does actually mean you have a backbone if you make a stand for Christ. I’d far rather be a fool for Christ, than be heralded in the fleeting wisdom of this world. What could be more foolish that Jesus Christ hanging on the Cross? In the eyes of the world, what was that about? He was dying. Yet there was something deeper going on.
1 Corinthians 3:19
Job 5:8-14
When you are a Christian, God protects you, in that no matter what man tries in order to do you down, no matter what people say against you because of your stand, God knows what is occurring.
1 Corinthians 3:20
Psalms 94:3-11
What is Paul referring to Job or Psalms for? He is saying that as a Christian, you are from a different life source. The source of your life is from heaven, from God. The world, the flesh and the devil ... the result of that is inevitably death. Paul is saying he doesn’t want the Corinthians to glory in anything other than what God had done and who He is.
The Corinthians were getting into factions as to who had heard whom preach. And Paul had to point out it was God they were involved with. Who’s your life involved with? It’s God.
“Do you mean you go to that church? Why?” “Because what God has done for me is eternal. He’s changed me on the inside. He did it in me. And that’s why I live my life going His way. In fact He lives inside me. It’s the life of Christ inside. He’s broken the power of sin in my life.”
Jeremiah 9:23-25
What do we want for our children? We want them to understand and know God, to know Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, as Lord of their lives. We educate in every way possible to maximise the potential of each child. But underlying it all, we want them to understand and know who God is and the life of Christ inside.
1 Corinthians 3:21-24
What does Paul mean? He could just have told people not to get involved in factionalism. He was saying that, but he went on to say is that the key thing is that the word of life came to you – not the person through whom it came.
What I want in all we do is to lift up His name.
“Anything in this world, people of Corinth, everything is worked out because God is in control, and you are Christ’s and Christ is in God.” Or in other words, all things work together for those who love God and are the called according to His purpose. God moves heaven and earth that you might know Him.
Once again, let me remind you if you’ve lost your job, or face uncertainty, that you have a loving heavenly Father and you have the life of Christ inside you, and all things are yours and He has heard your prayer and will provide for you. The world can throw anything it likes at you. The enemy can taunt you with the thought of death. But I am in Christ and Christ is in God. Everything is involved in my good because God loves me. He is the God of love.
Does that mean I live any old way? No – we’ve covered that. That’s the world’s wisdom. The agenda of the world is different. For a Christian, the agenda has only one item – to please Him, the one who has given me everything, life itself.
Titus 3:3-8
That’s not a vague hope – it’s the certain hope that one day you will meet Him face to face. In the interim, it’s like heaven on earth, because by His Holy Spirit it’s His life inside you. You can’t conceive of the good things He has prepared for you because of the love He has put in your heart for Him.
I want you to open your heart, listen to the words the choir sing, and let those words confirm to you the life of God inside you.
Sunday, 2 November 2008
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