First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge

• The problem wasn't that the Corinthians were seeking and desiring wisdom; the problem is that they were looking for it in the wrong places. The "wisdom of this age" is insufficient, limited, fleeting, changing, and unreliable. By contrast, the "wisdom of the Lord" is certain and eternal; it doesn't wax and wane with time.
• Reflection: In what ways are you tempted to rely on the "wisdom of this age" rather than "the wisdom of the Lord"?
• God has made Himself known to us by his Spirit. The Holy Spirit, dwelling inside of us, enables us to experience and understand God in a such a personal, intimate way that would be impossible in our own power. The Spirit bridges the gap between the deep things of God and the human heart.
• Reflection: How do you know that the Spirit is at work in your life? How do you know God is revealing Himself to you?
• The Corinthians were seeking wisdom, power, direction, and fulfillment from the world, but the real source of those things were already dwelling within them.
• Only by the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us, can we come to know and understand God and His Word, can we mature and grow in Christ, can we come together as a body of Christ and build up that body with care. Our lives as Christians completely rely on a deep dependence on the Holy Spirit. Apart from Him, we can do nothing.
• How comforting to know that we aren't ultimately responsible for our own growth or the growth of others: God is! He gets all the credit and the glory! And yet, how encouraging that God invites us to be part of that work. We all work together as a body to care for it and build it up, some of us plant seed, some water the seeds, some till the soil... but it is God that does the growing.
• We are not to build on our own foundation. There is only one foundation, and that's the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is unshakeable and unifying.
• The "church" isn't a building, it's the body of believers! We are the church! “When the church joins together on the foundation of Christ, it’s the very container in which God chooses to dwell on earth!” (Stephen Um) We make up the very “dwelling place” of God himself!
• There’s no need to go out and search for wisdom or identity, there’s no need to “boast” in men or anything else in this world, because God has given us “all things.” All things belong to Christ, and WE belong to Christ!
• Reflection: What is preventing you from growing in the Lord? What are you “boasting” in outside of the Lord? (The answers to these questions will reveal where your loyalties lie, where you're seeking wisdom outside of Christ, and where you're relying on the world instead of the Lord.) May we remember that regardless of these answers, it doesn't change the fact that our past, present, and future has been confirmed, secured, and sustained in Christ. Amen to that!

Psalm 107 gives us hope that we’re not locked into wandering and futility forever. We don’t have to be prisoners of the past. Nor do we need to despair over the future. We’re called to cry out to the LORD I AM exactly where we are hurting. And in the process to offer ourselves to him, broken as we are, to go wherever he leads us.

• We need to understand that this as a letter addressed not just to the Corinthians back then, but to all “Corinthians” everywhere . . . it’s a letter for you and me and for the church today, and for “all those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."
• How encouraging that Paul begins his letter with such love and tenderness. He tells a troubled, broken and confused church, that our past, present and futures have been confirmed, secured and sustained in Christ.
• “Paul looked at the Corinthian church, and although there were many flaws that needed correcting, he saw first the evidences of God’s grace” (Andrew Murray). Which are we more aware of in our church? The flaws that need correction or the evidences of God’s grace?
• Paul (and more importantly, Jesus) longs for us to be unified, to be “one with one another.” One reason they’re divided is because they have individual loyalties to different people (Paul, Apollos, Cephas . . . ), and this behavior “empties the cross of its power.” Although we may have differing preaching preferences, we should never allow those preferences to divide us as a body of Christ. We should never be clinging to anything tighter than we are clinging to the Lord. The gospel of Christ is what will bring us back together and set us apart as Christians in the world. It’s the solution to our division.
• “This isn’t an argument for uniformity, for them to all look and act the exact same. It’s an argument for unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it isn’t an argument for long, dull, unimaginative sermons. It’s an argument for recognizing where the power to save really comes from: not from the presentation, but from the proclamation of Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected” (Stephen Um).
• We are to live in the world but not of it. How do we do that? How can we find our “cultural blind spots,” the ways in which we’ve over-accommodated with world or isolated ourselves too much from it?
• We need to understand that the world has a right-side-up culture, and God presents us with an upside-down gospel. If we measure the wisdom of God against the world’s standards, it appears foolish! If we measure the power of God against the world’s standards, it appears weak! Jesus became the “power of God and the wisdom of God” and turned everything upside down. The gospel is completely counterintuitive.
• What other areas of God’s economy (of the upside-down gospel) does the world regard as foolish or weak?
• “The ways of the world have only been turned upside down once, and that was at Calvary.” He said, “The cross presents us with the most extraordinary inversion in history. It pits the epitome of weakness against the epitome of strength. It takes a bleeding, naked, brutalized and dying, innocent man, and puts him next to the military and legal might of the most powerful, wealthy, and unstoppable empire the world had yet known . . . And yet, this cross of Christ – seemingly the symbol of weakness – became the means of victory” (Andrew Wilson).
• How can we live counterculturally as God’s people? How can we have an upside-down gospel-centered view of the world (as God does) rather than the world’s right-side-up view?
• In what ways is your life shaped by the cross?

Psalm 1 is a wisdom psalm. It contrasts two life trajectories. One denies the end is coming and believes we can figure out lives ourselves. It flows along with all the glitter and worry and concerns of those with no roots in the reality of God. It’s a life that withers with nothing to show for it. Ultimately, it’s a desert.


The other is a life drawing from the deep wells of God’s Word. We drink the living water that is Christ. He turns the desert of self into an oasis. He puts the name, “Abba, Father” in our hearts and on our lips. When we follow that trajectory of life, we step out in faith to call him Father. To come to the Father by the love and sacrifice of his Son. Then we find, experientially, the joy that we are not our own. We belong to the family of God. We are not alone, we are in relationship with our Creator. We don’t have to fear the end or anything else, because we are living for the faith, hope and love that makes life truly blessed.

How can we be sure we that we are serving our Savior and now ourselves?
Exalt the Lord and not yourself.
Listen to the Lord.
Focus on what he wants.

Giving is meant to open up response. To open up love. To keep relationship going. Our God is a god of exchange. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have been giving of themselves to each other from eternity. Our faith tells us that the world exists in the overflow of their love.

Our mothers bear us for pain and for death. Jesus bears us for joy and for endless life.

We have to set our course. To turn from darkness and make for the light. We sail on toward the heart of the sunrise. We believe into Jesus, propelling towards him. We sail up the bright river of life, making for the Source as we worship Jesus our Dawn.

Christ Jesus is the Desire of the Nations, the Christmas Star shining in the dark, the savior who comes to take us from death to life.