BY THE SPIRIT

How many of you would prepare for or take a job whose traditional description indicates that you would not be able to accomplish any of the goals that are most obvious. Further, no matter how bright and bushy tailed you could work you way up to, most of your worldly clients wouldn't have a real clue as to what your product was and what it could do for them? Again, your product would be unwanted by 67% to 75% of the population and of the remainder of those who were indeed persuaded, very many would not like your brand of service, but another more spify and pleasant model that was assumed to be superior to the antiquated brand you were selling? And finally, who would want to work for a boss who you couldn't see, never meet and whose working manual was written more than two thousand years ago in two languages that no one understands very well in our time?

This is not a trade that might not bring in too much in the way of Christmas profits or stature in the business community! In addition a certain part of the world will absolutely hate your guts and do everything worldly possible to destroy you and your organization. And on your part, you must learn to grin and bear it all on your shoulders with the promise that One Day, your boss will return and establish an everlasting kingdom! Do we have any takers for such a career option? Then what in heaven are you doing here today? No wonder that the Bible reports that even the Angels desire to look into these matters!

Isn't it true beyond a reasonable doubt, that you have been called by the God and Father of us all into a glorious institution being prepared for eternity! Otherwise, who could bear the unpopular media image of those other worldly religious nuts, who are hounded and never ever given a positive encouragement in the world's market place. Now, we have a serious calling in the passage before us today. We must be concerned with three things in this calling, as Roger Ellsworth would outline it. There is a message, there is a method and there is a motive to our other worldly organization which we have known as Christ's true Church.

The message with which we are trusted is the testimony about God and His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Here in the inspired words of the Apostle Paul we may learn that this message is sufficient. After all, Paul had come to Corinth from Athens where he had tried to intellectualize and argue the real profundities of the Christian message. And what was the Athenian reaction: scorn, ridicule and skepticism. So Paul, who was a very discouraged church planter, resolved to try a different approach.

You know, I have learned a lot from this chapter. In my first church, I was young, confident and eager to be popular. In a short year and a half, the congregational attendance flew from seventeen to seventy-five and I had an equal list of families outside of the church who I wooing by almost every means possible. Two other neighboring churches were likewise impressed by what was humanly possible. In fact, when the liberal Presbytery became alarmed at my popularity and refused to allow me into their organization, some were afraid that I could and would take a large number of people with me if I chose to do so. Since, the Lord laid it upon my heart that very probably that prediction was true, I carefully examined the situation and decided that since the great majority would make such a change for me rather than for Christ, I quietly slipped away since I had no right on my own to lead people who did not put their faith and trust in God alone.

The gospel message is ever and always the driving force of Christ's Church, therefore we can never ever put anything before that. This is why Paul is writing to the Corinthian church in this letter. Since he has been gone for some time, he is writing to advise them how to handle specific problems that he has heard of. It appears from the context of these chapters that the people in Corinth were putting the preachers and their skills ahead of the message that should be the proper focus. This is too often a problem in Christ's Church. In one old book I read about the competitive preaching used in Scotland between the various churchers. Each congregation would go out of their way to bring in a talented hired "gun", excuse me, "preacher" who by oratorical skills, good looks and the most modernistic learning to lure away the sheep from the other flocks in town. This is not to be as Paul admonishes in the context of this letter. No indeed, the most important item is not the messenger, but the true and faithful message of Christ crucified!

Our second concern is the method by which the message is proclaimed. Paul would not be too popular a preacher in our day and time. In one place I remember reading that some complained that Paul read better than he preached. At Cedarville Colleger there was a professor whose students spent a quarter studying preachers and how to evaluate their ministry. The professor would bring in the most popular charismatic leaders imaginable and also bring in more ordinary fellows whose message content was truer to the word. Every time, the students would be enchanted by the popular charisma and look down upon the more staid and studied preachers. Then he would hand out printed messages from the same stable of competitors and the student's opinion would be exactly reversed. At the end of the quarter, the professor would lead a discussion of the apparent lack of comprehension on the part of the students. Usually, they could not believe that they could so easily be snookered by worldly means.

Yes, we would appreciate it if the gospel message were more popular and it would seem that methodology has been more important for at least two generations in this land of ours. Aimee Simple McPhearson wowed them in the twenties with an exciting celebration of easy Christianity. And in order to keep their flocks too many pastors imitated her style. Over the years, fad after fad has swept the church and probably the majority of worshippers would feel like a complete stranger in a biblically austere ordering where the means and methodology were truly less important than the message.

Imagine Paul in such a sitting preaching in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. Now, there are some Pastors who are fine enough actors that they can feign almost any manner or style. I have met them and am unimpressed. Congregations are more intelligent that they are given credit when it comes to the sincerity and godliness of their leaders. Usually they don't want too much of either because it would challenge their own ethics.

Some months ago, I was politely warned by another pastor not to delve too deeply into the commandments in this series. He had had to leave a congregation on that account some years ago. But, I wish to persist in this endeavor because I am learning so much more than I intended by the challenge of God's revelation. More than once in these last few months, I have doubted if I should continue this calling. Yes, there have been discouragements, but at a more profound level, the law of God is so fearsome in its absolute integrity, that I am convinced that no pastor can give the law its just regard.

Everytime, I turn around, there is complete failure on our part, (yours, mine and our whole culture) to give God His rightful respect and even a minimal obedience. But I must continue because I am certain that the better proclamation of God's law is more likely to lead to revival than any other investment of time, treasure and thought can ever accomplish. I well know that there is some unsettling within us all. We are affected by the world too much, but hopefully there is through my poor words and lackluster performance a hint of the Spirit working here and there within us and around us.

This leads us to the last point this morning. Paul tells us what our motive should be within Christ's Church. He says that our faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. In this season of the year when we celebrate the coming to earth of a baby Christ child, that otherworldly wisdom should be self-evident. But too often we do not go on to consider the grown up Christ who stepped boldly into the center of history and turned the world upside down. God works differently that we might expect. I have known for a long time that you are not going to invite people to hear a brilliant young, good looking pastor here at Christ Covenant. And that should never ever be the reason for inviting anyone to visit. Instead, if you have heard the voice of God through the Spirit, then you should tell your friends and family what the Spirit has told you.

And don't be afraid to talk about the Spirit. The worst thing that can happen is that one of your friends might show up with a tambourine! By the end of the service they will have that hidden away! If we would focus upon the spiritual power of God and let Him speak to our hearts. Charles Hadden Spurgeon once observed:

"The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher; otherwise men would be converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher's learning; otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men. We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a sould would be converted unless there were mysterious power going with it - the Holy Ghost changing the will of man."