Looky, looky what they put up here. I don't know what that's for. No, that is helpful. That should help me. I'm excited about this Wednesday. We are having a churchwide prayer meeting for revival. What's encouraging about this particular Wednesday, if you don't normally come to the Wednesday night service, I wanna, if possible, if your schedule allows, I know some of you live a good distance, and I'm so thankful for many of you who drive so far just to be here on Sunday morning, so I know it might not be possible, but if it is possible, this would be a Wednesday night to try to put on your calendar to be there to pray for revival, actually, As of now, there are right around 90 churches participating around the world, which includes an estimate of about 40 different countries. I'm so encouraged by the thought of God's people, not in just one little location, not just a particular church, but God's people around the world. churches in Asia and Africa, churches in Canada, Latin America, praying. And they're gonna start, the event starts Tuesday at eight o'clock. So this is 24 hours of prayer and fasting. So if you can, if you're able to fast, begin to fast at eight o'clock, So that means you can eat dinner if you eat early. But at eight o'clock, begin fasting, and then come together with your families. We really wanna encourage family worship, family prayer time, and Tuesday night, come together with your families and have your kids pray for revival, and pray for revival. Talk about revival in your family time. And then you use all day Wednesday, go to work, And as you get hunger pains, use your hunger pains to remind you, oh, I need to pray for revival. And then come together here on Wednesday evening to pray. Now what I want you to focus on when you pray for revival is you want, regardless of what God may or may not do in our country, we don't know, I am convinced The heart to pray for revival is a good heart. We don't know what God may or may not do, but He's not gonna be displeased. He's not gonna be displeased with us longing for a greater manifestation of His Spirit among His people. That's not a bad desire for God to work. And it's not a bad desire to ask for God to work in our own hearts. Some of you may be, and I know I can become easily distracted by the cares of this world and we become lukewarm and we don't recognize it. You know, it's hard to identify lukewarmness in your life because sometimes the spiritual disciplines are being done robotically. and there seems to be a lack of warmth and heartfelt devotion. And sometimes we need God to give us a fresh word. And so we want revival to begin in our own hearts. This is not for us just to look at our country and go, shame on the United States, and oh Lord, it's Lord, revive our church. There was periods and times where that churches throughout history would have conversions on a regular basis. Would that not be wonderful? I mean, would it not be a longing that you would have? We have so many young people here and older people, and we have people here that don't recognize that they're lost. But wouldn't it be just a… Would you not rejoice to see God just picking his people out and saying, you're saved, you're saved, and just seeing that, especially many of your parents that have adult children that's been away from the Lord for years. So we want to pray for revival, for God to work. Jonathan Edwards, this little book talks about how Edwards, before the The revival that he was instrumental, God used him, and he called churches collectively, churches throughout Great Britain and in America, in the colonies, he called them to pray. And there are several churches that agreed to pray together. And God utilized those prayers. Joe Bickey said that his study, he studied revival for two years. He told me, he says, in all my studying of revival is one thing that was evident about revival. It was a call to prayer. The church began to pray before the revival broke out. And I know God can do a revival without our prayers. He can just surprise us and that would be wonderful. I'm not limiting God to we have to pray, then God does the work, but I do think it is a wonderful thing to pray, and we should pray with some form of expectations, some form of, we don't know what God can do, but we don't have because we don't ask, and God has chosen to use the instrument of prayer, and so maybe even today we can start prepping our hearts for Tuesday, and for that time of prayer and fasting and asking the Lord to work, not just in our church and our state. And by the way, there's three or four churches in our state that's gonna be praying Wednesday night with us. And there's churches all over this country praying, and all over the world. So I'm excited about that. If you have your Bibles, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter one. And I'm gonna begin this message with three questions for you to contemplate, and hopefully these three questions are tied together, especially as the sermon develops. First question number one, have you ever thought how wonderful it would be if God would save some of the prominent world leaders? I mean, wouldn't it have been amazing if God saved Obama during his presidency. I actually prayed for that. And wouldn't it have been amazing the testimony of him changing direction in his testimony and his verbiage right in the middle of his term and he began to witness to everybody. It's like, man, God, do that. That would bring you such glory and that would be such an aid to the kingdom of God. Or what if some of the leading scientists would be converted or some of the renowned philosophers of our age, or even some celebrated Hollywood actors. If we could get people with big platforms that have a big microphone, if we could get them converted, or if God would reach down and call them. What amazing thing that would be, we would think, for the kingdom of God to advance His cause, to get the respectable groups, the elites among us, around the world, and focus on those men, women. Convert them, and through their testimony, and their platform, and their prestige, and how respected that they are in the world, that they could use all that to spread the gospel. So, have you ever considered that? Wouldn't that be wonderful, maybe, you would think. Second question, have you ever considered and thought to yourself, I am the least qualified to be a Christian. I mean, when it comes to spreading the gospel and evangelizing, I'm just not very good at this. You ever felt to yourself, thought to yourself, I am, I am just not, not just worthy. That's one thing to not be worthy, but I'm just not qualified. I'm not gifted. I am, I am very, I feel so incompetent. You know, there's nothing worse than feeling incompetent to a job, feeling like the job is way bigger than your abilities, and it's like I can't meet the standards that are placed upon me. You ever felt that way? I know a lot of you have, and I wonder why God called you, of all people, why He called me. I mean, I don't, I can't do much. Why would God choose me? The third question leads into my third question here is why does God choose to save nobodies and pass over the elites of the world? You know, why save people like us and not save the renowned, powerful, celebrated people of the world? I mean, you know, the nobodies, the people like us that the world doesn't even know exist, for the most part. Well, what Paul is doing in our text, chapter 1, verse 26, through the end of the chapter, he's given his second argument, his second reason why the Corinthians had a false metric when they judged Who's the better preacher between Paul and Apollos? Apollos had better speaking abilities. And for that reason, the majority, so it seems to me, the majority of the Corinthians were gravitating to Apollos, and the Apostle Paul wasn't gifted in speaking. In fact, Paul says of himself that his speaking is of no account. You know, it's not much to talk about. And here's Apollos who's trained He's a professional speaker. And for this reason, the Corinthians were evaluating and judging Apollos' speaking skills as more valuable than the Apostle Paul's preaching. And Paul is going to give his first argument we looked at last week. He says, the power is not in the presentation. The power is not in the speaker. The power is in the gospel. It's the simple message of the gospel that saves souls. So don't put and look to the preacher as what is important. It's the purity of that which is preached, the clarity of the gospel. That is the power of God unto salvation. That's his first argument telling the Corinthians you got a false metric of how to judge what is spiritual and what is powerful. This comes to our second argument when we come to this text. Really, it's the fourth paragraph of this book, but it's a second argument for how to evaluate preachers. And he says, consider your own calling. Look with me at verse 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. But God chose what is foolish in the world. Now, this is what he's basically saying, we're foolish. 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 the things that are not. I mean, that's who we are. We're the nobodies. things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. So that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. So here, consider your own calling. God didn't choose you and pick you because you were the top student in your class. Rather, you had either failed the class or you were expelled from the class. I mean, if you had a position and you were hiring people for your job, you don't go to the rejects. You don't go to the bottom of the class and go, I'm gonna choose you to be my workers. You don't do that, no one does that. You want the best workers, the top selections. You want the cream of the crop. The Lord says, okay, I need workers. Where do I look? Okay, let me go look at the bottom of the barrel. Let me find the dreads. Let me find the outcasts, the foolish, the despised, the ones that have made a wreck of their lives, the ones that really don't know what they're doing, the ones that are failures. I'll use them. And he tells us to consider ourselves. I mean, we're not noble. We're typically out of the poor class of society. We're uneducated. We're not the elites and the powerful. We're not the Obamas and the Clintons. We're not the scribes and the Pharisees. We're not the kings and the nobles. Rather, we're tax collectors and sinners. That's who we are. We're out of that group. We're the woman at the well that has had multiple husbands. You know, we're the Samaritan. We're the ones that have no ability to even apply for the position. We're not going to be accepted. But in God choosing the lowest of us and coming after the foolish ones, the ones that are not, the nobodies, how then are we qualified for such a great work? I mean, how could we be qualified? Ever been in a position like you felt uncomfortable, like you don't belong there? You're among a lot of rich people. I mean, personally, I just feel uncomfortable when you're in a dinner table and there's multiple utensils. I mean, I'm looking at those plastic forks and spoons and barbecue on the table, elbows on the table. I mean, that's where I'm comfortable. Put the elbows on the table. That's my people. That's where I fit. Every now and then, I find myself in a position where I don't know which fork to choose and your left hand is under the table, you know, for some reason. And it's like, there's powerful people in the room and rich people in the room. And I'm like, I'm from, I'm from Backwoods, Arkansas. I don't know how to behave here. I don't, this is not, this is, I'm uncomfortable. It's like, here, you've been chosen. You, you know, you're a bunch of Arkansans. Some of you are from Canada. I mean, goodness gracious. Here you are, you're chosen to be the children of the king. To represent royalty. You're chosen. You're going to be representative of Jesus Christ. You're going to be the sons of the living God. You're going to be put in heavenly places. And we don't know how to behave. We don't know how to act. We are not educated. We're not koof. We're just not qualified. Why? And what makes us qualified for such a high calling, for such a noble task, for such a great responsibility? Why would he choose you and me? Well, there's two reasons, according to our text. Reason number one is because you are unqualified. In other words, you're qualified by your disqualification. It's a fact that you are a nobody that makes you able to do this job. Second is Christ, and only Christ is your qualification. Let's look at this first point, and this is good news for us, but it's humbling, and in fact, it's humbling for all of us, but this is why it's good news. The first reason we're qualified to be the sons of God and representatives of the king It's not because we've been cherry-picked because we're just going to be the ones that really represent the Lord well, and we can do it in a way that the world is going to be impressed with. No, the reason we've been chosen is because we're very much unqualified. We're disqualified. We see this for various reasons. First of all, in verse 26, we were not chosen because we're wise. It's like, well, God chose me because I'm very smart. No, not really. Look at verse 26. For consider your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. This word here, wise, could be translated as just learned or cultivated or skilled or even highly educated. You know, where are all the philosophers and the debaters of the age? Paul previously asked, where are they? You know, you're looking up at the world and go, you know, these scholars are amazing. And Paul says, well, where are they at? They're not among us. They're not here. There's not many, he didn't say no, but there's not many learned scientists among us, leading scholars, respected educators. Rather, Christ says, I'll take you fishermen. You know, you don't have any letters behind your name. The unlearned. I'll take you fishermen, and I'll make you disciples of men. I'll take what the world is going to bypass, you know, truck drivers, garbage men, housewives, things that the world despises or looks down or doesn't think highly of. I'll use you to do a mighty work. I'll use you to represent me. So there's not many wise among us. Secondly, we see in verse 26, there's not many of us who are powerful. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. The word here is one who has clout in the community, has a respectability. And because of their position or their wealth, they can do things and get things done. They're movers and shakers. You know, if you want something to be done in the city of Conway, there's people you can call that can make it happen. Don't look at me. I mean, I'm not going to be able to help you. You know, who are us that can really get things done? We're not the ones who have power. We're not been in the world. We haven't been elevated into positions of kings or leaders. often were very uninfluential. God bypassed King Herod and Pontius Pilate. God didn't go after those men, did he? He said, well, if God could have chose the emperors of Rome and just focused his time on Herod and Pilate and some of these major leaders, then the kingdom could advance much further and faster. But no, he goes after Those who have no prestige or power or position. God chooses unknown day laborers. Third, we're not chosen because we're among the elite. Look at verse 26, the end of it. Not many of noble birth. This is not merely referring to nobility. Those who are born in the right families. But those who are born wealthy are even privileged. You know, the World Economic Forum is a unelected, governed body that chooses its members from what they consider to be the elite of the elites. They choose the most powerful and prestigious, and they go after various actors, and they bring together, once a year, the world leaders in the elite of society. This is what they call stakeholders. And literally, these are the most important people in the room. They are overlooking us. They would not have come after us. There's nothing we could bring. Why would they choose you to come? You would not be able to add any credibility to their group. In fact, they're only after the best of the best. You would think Christ would organize his kingdom in the same fashion, but he doesn't. He doesn't go after the elites of the elites. He comes after comes after us, comes after you and me. We're among the forgettable. We will live and die and for most of us, we'll live and die and be forgotten. But why did God come after us? Fourth, we were not chosen because we're righteous. Now, verse 30, we'll get into this in a minute when he talks about Christ being our righteousness, implying that He didn't choose us because we are righteous now. He didn't come for the self-righteous. He didn't come for the scribes and the Pharisees. He came for sinners. Jesus said, I didn't come to call the righteous, but I come to call people like the prodigal son that had wrecked their lives, who had made a mess of everything. The ones who have just proved to be a failure, who have taken all that they had Wasted it and come to the end of themselves. It's like I have nothing nothing nothing That's who he comes to save is sinners You see the pharisees stumbled over christ Fellowshipping with tax collectors and sinners. They didn't understand they they thought the messiah would choose them. They were the leaders The messiah would come and elevate them into positions of power but here comes the messiah and he simply walks by them, past them, and doesn't pay them attention. And it will set down at a Samaritan woman who you and I would probably just bypass. Have you ever seen the videos of San Francisco, of the street tent cities, of the people walking around high on drugs? You know, these are people who are not just not adding to society. They're not contributors. But they're sucking from societies. They're not just downcast and outcast. They're the low lives of this world. You know, it takes other people to support them. And they're a detriment to themselves and to society. Why would God come after them? You know, why would God come after those who have nothing to give him, nothing to offer him? You see, this is who Christ has come for. Those who have no way of contributing to society or in themselves advancing the kingdom of God, the heathen, if you would, the wretched, the nobodies. Charles Spurgeon says, men choose those who would be most helpful to him. God chooses those who he can be the most helpful. It is very, he goes on to say, it is the very opposite way of choosing. We select those who are the best because they are the most deserving. He selects those who are worse because they are least deserving. That so his choice may be more clearly seen to be an act of grace and not of merit. I say it clearly, contrary to man's way of choosing. Spurgeon goes on. God passes by the king on purpose that he might meet with the beggar. He leaves the noble that he may lay hold upon the base, passes over the philosopher that he may receive the fool. Oh, this is strange. It is passing strange. It is marvelous. Let us praise him for this wonderful grace. You see, The reason we are qualified to be Christians and to work that He's called us to do as Christians is because we're altogether unqualified. We're good representatives of His grace. We're representatives of His mercy and His kindness. And so we're qualified. The only thing you need to be saved is acknowledge that you're a sinner. That's the only qualification you need. To come to Christ, you don't have to be somebody. You don't have to do anything. You have to rather come to the conclusion you're nothing and a nobody and have zero to give. You have nothing to offer him. He doesn't need you. In fact, he doesn't need the rich either. He doesn't need the noble. He doesn't need anybody. He doesn't need any of us. But thus, we must come to the conclusion that we have nothing to offer the Lord. And this thing of salvation is truly 100% receptive. We must be beggars. We must receive. We're not exchanging anything. We have nothing to exchange. We must cry out, Lord, have mercy upon me, a wretched sinner of no value of worth. See, this is what qualifies us. Now, why does this qualify us? Well, Paul goes into two important reasons why you're qualified by your disqualification. Why you make a good candidate for salvation because you have nothing to offer Christ. Two reasons. First, our disqualification qualifies us because we are in a position to bring extra embarrassment upon the elites of this world. You know, it's one thing to get beat by the great teams, the best teams. It's quite embarrassing to get beat by the losers. I mean, if Alabama beats Arkansas, that's one thing. But you don't want to get beat by, you know, the worst team in Division II. I mean, that's humiliating. So God wants to show up the wise of the world, so He chose you. He chose you to put to shame the wise and the leaders of the world. God chose those who are shameful to shame those who are deemed praiseworthy. And because we are nothing, we are in the perfect position to shame those who are something, or those who think they're something. You see, we see in verse 27, God chose the foolish to shame the wise. Look, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. In other words, this could be translated as God chose the foolish ones. The philosophers are the wise one. He chose the uneducated, the illiterate of us, the foolish ones, those who've made terrible mistakes. That's who he's chosen to shame the wise, those who are ignorant, Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven on earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and you've revealed them to little children. Psalm 82, from the mouths of children and infants, you have ordained praise on the count of your adversaries. To silence the enemy and the avenger. Jeremiah 8, 9, the wise will be put to shame. They will be dismayed and trapped since they have rejected the word of the Lord. You see, God has chosen to, on the day of judgment especially, but even in today, he's chosen to shame those who are the most wise among us through revealing himself to the ones that are most foolish among us. You see, this goes on. God chose the weak to shame the powerful. Look at 27. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. You know, James tells us he's chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith. He's chosen literally the leftovers, the rejected. What the world rejected, He chose. He chose the outcast, the shame, the elites. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. Those who are of low predigree, those who are despised, such as the woman at the well again, that's not who you would go and have a meeting with. Let's be honest, if there was a room of powerful people that come into our church, powerful people, notable peoples, celebrities. We'd all gravitate to want a little time with that person. If a poor person came in here in racks and no one knew who they were, it might be that we don't even think about going and talking to them. And while the world is chasing after the notables, the celebrities, paying them attention, Christ Jesus is finding that little woman at the well. He's looking at you. You may be, this is good news for some of us, because you may be the one that feels like you're nothing. You feel like you're being overlooked, that no one's paying. He's like, well, you don't have anything to offer, so you understand why you're being overlooked. But that feeling of incompetence and littleness and loneliness, all that feeling that comes in with this sense of nothingness that you have, it's a hard feeling, but don't be discouraged because Jesus comes after those very ones. He comes after you, he comes and looks and pays attention, so let's have a conversation, let me talk to you. And he'll bypass the leaders. He'll bypass the celebrities. He'll bypass the powerful and the rich and the notable, the platform people. He'll bypass those and come and sit down with you and says, you are the perfect one for my job. I have a work for you to do. I have a mission for you to accomplish. And you say, well, I can't do it. I know you can't do it. That's why you're qualified. That's why I'm choosing you. Because you know you're nothing. I need you to show up the powerful. I need you to shame the elites. I need fishermen and not rulers to be my disciples. You know, think of this illustration of Michael Jordan. Everybody here knows who Michael Jordan is. Even if you don't like basketball, you know who Michael Jordan is. He's the best, right? Yeah, amen. I mean, there's no doubt that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player in all history. There's not even a distant second. I mean, he takes first and second place. He's so good. Distant third may be LeBron James. Maybe. But what if Michael Jordan told LeBron James, listen, I want you to go pick out, I want you to pick out four players and you're going to play my team. You pick out any players you want. And LeBron goes and picks out four of the top players throughout history. Picks the best. He gets the perfect team. And he comes to face Jordan. And Jordan, he's so good, he goes to Bologna Pee-wee squad. And he doesn't even pick from the first team of the Pee-wee squad. He goes, what are the players on the bench? And there's some pretty good bench players. He goes, no, I don't need those. They're still too good. Who are the players that got kicked? No one doesn't make the peewee squad, but which player didn't make the peewee squad? And he goes after them. You know, it's the guy that's blind, the kid that's blind. He's like, I'll take the blind kid. Oh, that one-legged kid, I'll take him. He'll help me out. And he picks out two more just, You know, the nerd, you know, three sets of glasses. I'll take that little dumpy kid. And he gets his team. And think about that, Michael Jordan with his team of rejects facing off LeBron and all the best other players. Why would Jordan, I mean, hypothetically, why would he choose such poor players? Well, Jordan wouldn't, but the Lord Jesus did. He did. He bypassed the best of the best and came after the least, the worst, the rejects. And the reason why is to show how pitiful the best of the best are. How foolish the wise people are. Do you know the wisest people in the world are still fools? The most talented of the world are still fools, even the most celebrated celebrities. I mean, they only have a moment of fame and they're going to be in eternal darkness and obscurity for the rest of eternity. What fools? What do they have? They have nothing. They have zero. They have nothing. You know, there's really not a lot of difference between the wisest and the most foolish among this world. Compared to God, we're all fools. But he chooses the weakest of us all in order to bring shame and embarrassment and disgrace upon the greats of this world. Remember Gideon, he says, you got too many people. Let's cut that down. You still got too many people. Let's cut that down. You still got too many people. Let's cut that down. Like, get down to 300, and in fact, that 300 didn't hardly do anything. They break some clay pots, and God shames the Medianites, puts them in disarray, and he wins the battle through a few handful of people. Think about D.L. Moody. D.L. Moody was illiterate, grew up, didn't even know how to read. And when he was saved, the Lord saved him. He felt called to preach. But the people all every one of them told him, you are not called to preach. You can't even speak. You have speaking issues, you're in fact, every one of them viewed him like you have you're going to be used by God, but not in preaching. Everybody discouraged D.L. Moody. And before D.L. Moody died, he preached to over 100 million people. God chose the least candidate to bring about a great amount of salvation and sanctification in his church through a nobody of D.L. Moody. So don't think, hey, I'm not qualified. Don't think, I can't do anything great for the Lord. Who am I? Well, yeah, that makes you qualified. That makes you ready. Once you can come to the realization that you can't do it, that's when you're ready to do it. That's why Paul was like, you're looking at different preachers wrongly. You're evaluating one preacher based upon natural gifting and talent, and you're looking at other preachers that can't even speak, and you go, no, that's not how God works. The second reason he chooses disqualified people and qualifies them through their disqualification is that all the glory, not most of it, but all the glory will go to God. That's what verse 29 says, so that no human might boast in the presence of God. He's chosen the worthless in order that the worthless doesn't take credit for it. I mean, D.L. Moody, I mean, he can't go, look what I've done. Why was his preaching attended with such amount of fruit? It wasn't because he was a gifted speaker. We can't take credit. Why were we saved? It's not because we did something and we earned it or we impressed the Lord. We were saved because we had nothing. And this brings glory not to self. It doesn't go, look at me. It brings all the glory to the mercy and the grace and the power of God. Verse 31 repeats this, like the Apostle Paul is coming back to this again. So that it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Jeremiah says, this says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness of the earth. For these are the things I delight, declares the Lord. I mean, this is the beauty of the gospel. It brings glory to Jesus Christ. And you're in a perfect position to bring God glory. Not if you're self-righteous, not if you're wise in your own estimation, not if you're puffed up and arrogant, not if you think you're somebody or something, or you think that, hey, I need to be listened to, I'm smart. Not if you're looking to yourself in any way. You're not ready and need to be used. When you come to the point that you're weak and you're lowly and you're incompetent and you feel that you can't do it, you feel your own... frailty and your incompetency and you feel that, hey, I just not capable of living this Christian life and being a witness and evangelizing all these things. I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, Lord, have mercy, help me. Lord says, oh, I can use someone like that. I can use someone like that, because though you can do nothing, you can do all things in Christ Jesus. This brings me to the second thing that qualifies us. First thing that qualifies us is we're unqualified. That makes us qualified. The second thing is that our qualification comes in Christ alone. Look at verse 30. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. You see, here's how us nobodies, that are not wise, noble, prestigious, this is what qualifies us, is that we're, though we're nothing, we're in Christ. This past week I was attending the G3 conference and I brought my little boy, Britton, into the green room and they gave me this little pin. It represented that I had the the privilege of going into the green room. But I was a kind of a coming in there on the, as a, you know, not really a speaker. I was kind of a pre-conference event. And so they went ahead and felt sorry for me and they gave me a little tag. And so I go into that green room and here's all these amazing speakers. And like, I'm like, am I really supposed to be here? And You know, I felt uncomfortable about it, and I brought one moment, I brought Christian, no, Britton in there, and there was this ice chest. I mean, if you're just a tender, you gotta spend $10 on a Coke. For the speakers, they have an ice chest full of Coca-Cola and Sprite, and I said, Britton, you want a Sprite? And he says, can we get one? I said, I think so. You know, I think we can. And, you know, and I said, let's just get one. And, you know, he's timid, I'm timid. I get the Sprite out for him and, you know, we, you know, like crack open the thing and he's drinking it. And I thought to myself, I don't, he and I know we don't belong here. You know, we're not among, you know, we don't belong here. But I got this tag. I got this tag that says I can come here. You know, you feel like you don't belong in the kingdom of God. You don't belong in the great works. You don't have a purpose. You don't like, well, who am I? I'm just, I'm just, I don't fit. I don't fit. I don't fit. But you got the name of Jesus on you. You have, you have a tag. And your qualifications, your credentials, is not you. It's not you. It's not that they recognize me in Britain and say, you two, y'all belong here. No, they recognize the credentials. And because of the tag, you can come in. Hey, you're nothing. But you've got Jesus's name on your lapel tag here. a right into the throne room of God. You have access to the power of Christ. You have access to all the glories and riches and all things that pertain to life, righteousness, sanctification and glory. All the things that you need to perform the task set before you. All the resources are not within you. You don't have resources in your own natural giftings and talents. You're bankrupt, but you have access. You have an ice chest full of grace. And just go ahead and help yourself. Get what you need. You can get everything you need to fulfill the task in which you're called to because you're completely qualified in Jesus Christ. And to say, I can't do it, is somehow Not trusting in Jesus Christ, and He's your only confidence. And with Him, you can do all things. You see, Christ is our wisdom, verse 30. Christ is our power. Christ is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. You see, Christ is the full credentials for all of us. And if we have Christ, we are qualified. Let me close. Hey, this clock, I haven't looked at it. So it may be not really helping much if I don't look at it. But we're doing well. So let me take five minutes to close this out with some application. This is good news for us who are outcast. Spurgeon says, How encouraging is this for us this morning? Because he preached this same passage some years ago. Some of us cannot boast of any predigree. We have no great learning. We have no wealth. Our names are all unknown to fame. But awe, what a mercy. He has been pleased to choose just such foolish things as we are, such despised creatures as ourselves, such things that are not to bring to naught the things that are. This is good news for us. It's good news for you and I. You know, and even this is good news for the rich and the noble and the powerful. Maybe there are some among us that do have clout, that do have a little power or nobility in their blood. It doesn't say none, does it? No powerful, no wise. It just says not many. Queen Elizabeth pointed that out. She says, I'm glad it doesn't say none. And so maybe you are born privileged more than the average person. Maybe you are a little more wealthy than the average person. Maybe you do have a position of power and prestige in the eyes of the world. There's still hope for you. But that hope comes through emptying yourself. It's not because of these things. It's like the rich young ruler. Jesus looked at him and says, you have to forsake that. You have to forsake that, you cannot have any confidence in that. We all come to Christ the same way. Empty. Understanding our useful, uselessness, our unworthiness, our bankruptcy. We all come to Christ. And so here, it doesn't matter your status in society, it doesn't matter. What matters is you come to realize that all of it is rubbish. Paul says, I advanced and I was making, I had credentials. I was trained under the best instructions. I was the Pharisee among the Pharisees. All these things that would have advanced my career and brought prestige to my name, all that I consider as dung and worthless, as useless. I reject all of that. That is nothing in my mind. I say that has no value to me. I reject that in order that I might know God. If you want to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, some of you are already at the end of yourself. You already recognize that you have nothing to offer God. Well, here's good news for you. You can come to Christ as you are. Bring your sins, bring your disgrace, bring your shame. Don't hide from it. Don't pretend like it's not there. You bring it to God. Lord, I don't have anything but wickedness. I don't have anything but my foolishness. I don't have anything to give you. Could you use a poor fool like me? I come to you. Have mercy. And if you have things that you take pride in, turn from it. At the end of the day, it's nothing. You have nothing. We're all equally undeserving. Another application, we really don't know how useless we actually are, how needy we are. One of the two things that I struggle with, I don't know how great God is. My vision of God is slow. I have a pixelated, fuzzy, incomplete, poor vision of God. That's why I have such lack of faith. God is not as big as he actually is. I can't see God in his greatness. And I want to see him more and more and more. And I see through a glass darkly. I recognize that. So that's one of my problems in my Christian life is my lack of sight and vision of God. The second problem I have is that I think too highly of myself still. I'm still too competent in my own mind. I still, I look too much to my gifts. I'm gifted. No, I've done this. I still trust too much of myself. And that hinders me. Why are we not doing great things for God? I think part of the reason is that we're doing too many great things for ourself. And so we need to come and see more and more just how needy we are. God comes to the needy. He comes to the beggars. He comes to and it's not like exchange. It's like we come to the full realization. I have nothing. And it's not that doesn't change after salvation that progresses into a greater realization that I still have nothing to offer God. And I just, I need grace. I need more grace. I need help. I need divine favor. I have to be a recipient. God is choosing those who need, not those who give or have something to offer him. So he comes for the useless, the needy. Spurgeon says, now what is your spirit this morning towards this subject? Do you kick at it? Do you say you cannot bear it? You know, some of you say, I don't like this teaching. The Pharisees didn't like it. That's why they hated him. I talked to an old man on his deathbed. I said, you've got to reject your righteousness. He says, that's not fair. I've been a good person my whole life. And I gave him the parable of the... The prodigal son getting the fatted calf, and the older brother did everything right, and he was rejected from the party. He says, that's not fair. So some of you, your problem is that you think God owes you something. Come to the realization he owes you nothing, nothing. And just ask, Lord, you owe me nothing. I have nothing to give you. I'm an unworthy servant. have mercy. And God will have mercy upon you. He's promised. He's looking for those who are humble. He's looking to exalt those who are lowly. He's looking for those who see themselves as nothing. In fact, the Apostle Paul Because of his elevated status, he saw visions, and he planted churches, he wrote scriptures, and Paul tells of himself, unless I become conceited, God put a thorn in my flesh. And many people struggle what this thorn is. I actually don't know what the thorn is. Some people say it's poor eyesight. I think it has something to do with humiliating him. Maybe it was poor speaking ability. Something that brought a measure of humiliation. Because the purpose of the thorn is to keep him humble, to keep him seeing his need, to not begin to trust the elevation of all that God had done through him, to begin to take it for granted that it was he that did anything. So God had to humble him. And often God puts us through things. He puts tests in our lives. He puts trials in our lives to remind us, not that we didn't know that, but to remind us that we are nothing, that we can do nothing, so that we don't look to ourselves. And Paul says it's only when we are weak, that we see our weakness and our need, that we are actually useful and strong. It's only when we come to realize that we're empty vessels, broken vessels, that we are fit instruments to bring not ourselves glory, but Christ's glory. So our goal is to not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. Our self-confidence should not be in our gifts or education or self-worth. These things can become I'm not saying are a hindrance, I'm saying they could become a hindrance to us. Last thing I want to say, and I want to say this to myself and to all of us. The way up is the way down in God's economy. And if you're struggling with trying to be a Christian witness to your children, or finding the right words to say to your co-workers, or if you just want to be used in a way that God would receive glory, then recognize that Christ will be glorified in your dependence upon him, upon your weakness, and upon your inabilities. God can use someone just like you. Let's pray. Lord, we're thankful for this word. It gives us hope. It does crush our pride, but it gives us hope. We don't have to pretend anymore. We don't have to have a facade of greatness. We can come down to reality and to be honest with you and honest before the world. We are nothing but Jesus Christ. He and he alone is everything. To him alone be honor and glory and majesty and power and prestige and worship and fame forever now in this day and for all eternity. Amen.