Simplicity Of The Gospel

SIMPLICITY OF THE GOSPEL

By Pastor Jim May

1 Corinthians 2:1-5, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

Man is ever searching for knowledge. Knowledge is growing at an exponential rate as man’s hunger to know all things is every increasing. Man’s desire to have complete control and power over his environment has pushed his power to know and understand to the limits of sanity. We are ever searching for deeper meanings and great discoveries but the one thing we lack is the wisdom to handle all that we know.

In the latter days of World War II, the scientists who worked on the splitting of the atom for the very first time were totally overwhelmed by the magnitude of what they had finally accomplished. Atomic energy was hailed as the discovery of the century and yet man’s wisdom did not know how to keep that knowledge and power from becoming the very force that would destroy life as we know it.

With the advent of computers and the now the Internet, man’s knowledge has had a literal explosion around the world. There is so much information available now on any subject imaginable through the Internet that the power to learn seems boundless. Even with this power though, man faces great challenges as he sees the dangers of electronic warfare and complete meltdown of our society,

If you are among those few who live to learn some new thing, this message probably won’t seem so wise and grand to you at all. This is a simple message of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Like the Apostle Paul, I do not come to you this day with great flowery speeches or any kind of verbal excellence. I do not come to entertain you, to educate you in some great and deep theological study, or to dazzle you with my oratorical skills, of which there are very limited few.

I come to you today to tell you about Jesus and what He has done for me and to tell you that He will do the same for you.

Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, came down to this small speck of dust somewhere in the vast greatness of the universe that Jesus created, leaving the splendor and glory of His throne in Heaven, to be born into poverty and a world filled with sin and darkness.

He was Light that is come into this world of darkness is the way the John said it. He came to shine forth as the only source of hope and life to a world of men who lived in absolute darkness of sin and without hope. He came to illuminate our path that we could see those pitfalls that were already there ready for us to plunge into eternity without God.

He came as the source of light and truth to bring a reason for existing to man who was created in God’s own image.

His Light gives us the energy source needed to sustain life. His light brings illumination so that we can what is already there and that Satan is our foe to destroy us because we were blind in darkness and could not see what our adversary was doing. His light gives us the revelation of what is to come and reveals what the Word of God says to us. His light heals us of our sickness and disease because we can now understand that the stripes that Jesus bore are for our healing. His Light is sharper than any two-edged sword, more powerful than any light saber, and more penetrating than any laser beam for it has the power to separate the soul and the spirit.

As a Pastor, I often must know what is happening in the lives of the flock that God has entrusted to my care and watchful eye. But, there are times, like those in these verses spoken by Paul that I feel that I could do a much better job of preaching to you if I did not know every situation of your life.

It is too easy, as a Pastor, to worry about the sheep and have the problems of the sheep come to mind as a hindrance or at least a factor that must be considered in every message brought forth. I never want to reveal secrets of needs that I know people have. I never want to focus on any individual or any secret sin, or pinpoint any one event in your lives to make a point lest I wound the very sheep that I am called to lead.