From Self-Glory to God's Glory: Embracing Divine Paradox

he tells us how proud he was how boastful he was what did he boast about well he boasted about the fact that he was so religious he not only boasted about his birth and his upbringing he said us touching the law blameless exceeding all others in Zeal and in knowledge and in everything else he was gloring in himself he said look at me I'm fasting I'm sweating I'm praying I'm studying the scriptures I'm expounding them this is what I'm doing and I'm a good man I'm better than others I'm a Godly Man look at me boasting calling attention to himself glorying in himself but that was when he wasn't a Christian when he becomes a Christian he says him that glorious let him glory in the Lord God forbid that I should Glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ [00:18:00]

the first thing we have to grasp about the Christian faith is that it's something that God has done it is God's action which is offered to us which we're asked to believe and to receive in which we are asked to rejoice and from which we are asked to benefit the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is Jesus is is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord now there it is at the very beginning and yet I trust that no one will resent it if I again put my questione you are understanding of Christianity my friend started at that point had you always thought of it as something which the Blessed glorious God himself has done [00:19:08]

God's way of of saving men is entirely unexpected and surprising it is a complete reversal of everything we would ever have thought of and everything that we would ever have imagined now this is to me in many senses more and more the most vital point of all now it's my privil often to talk to people about these things and intelligent intellectual men and invariably I'm confronted by the same situation God knows I understand it I've been guilty of the self same thing myself their whole approach seems to be this they've read and they've studied and they've thought they've considered this View and that view well now then here's this Christian view and they approach it in exactly the same way [00:20:20]

Christianity is the reversal of everything natural and everything human now that's not an over statement that is an exact and a scientific statement it is a reversal of that which is natural and human now it's put here in this form I the Lord have brought down the high tree and have exalted the low tree have dried up the green tree and have made the dry tree to flourish now you can't imagine any greater reversal of a position position than that the high is brought down the low is raised up the green is made dry and the dry is made green a complete reversal [00:21:40]

the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men for you see your calling Brethren how that not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called well what's been happening God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are Mighty and base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yay and things which are not to bring to not things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence [00:24:14]

the whole tragedy of the position is that men and women speak and think and argue and debate as if Paul had never written a all they will not realize at the very beginning that here they come into a realm which is altogether different that all the categories to which they've been accustomed must be left outside and that they start in an entirely new world and with an entirely new outlook I'm emphasizing this I'm trying to underline it the Christian message the Christian salvation is absolutely unlike anything that man has ever thought or imagined it has the uniqueness of a message that comes directly from God [00:26:15]

if your conception of Christianity hasn't come to you as a surprise as something Passing Strange and wonderful as something that has caused you to reverse all your ideas and as it were to stand on your head or be turned upside down to use the New Testament language at a point if it doesn't come like that I say you've never known it if you just as a natural man have taken up Christianity if you've espoused some kind of Christian philosophy well I'm sorry but as I understand this statement you are just not a Christian it's the complete reversal it's a turning upside down inside out it's entirely different from from all we've ever known [00:27:16]

everything about the Lord Jesus Christ was surprising it was Passing Strange it was astonishing it it was so strange is see that people wouldn't believe it the Jews wouldn't believe it the Gentiles the able Gentiles the philosophers they likewise rejected it why well because it was so absolutely different from anything that ever expected now the Jews as the result of their prophetic teaching were awaiting the coming of their Messiah they were looking forward to this they said when he came he would do everything that they needed and it's and he would set them free then in the fullness of the times he came and appeared before them and preached to them and they resented him and they rejected him [00:31:29]

when the Son of God came when the mighty deliverer arrived it was in a stable not even in the Inn crowded out in the stable with a kettle and his little body laid in a Manger he came in loneliness he came in abject poverty he came to use the scriptural imagery as a root out of a dry ground no pump and ceremony but the Son of God the creator of the world came in utter weakness like a helpless babe indistinguishable from any other babe to look at him and to handle their he is you see at once we are in this new realm this strange way of God men would never have ordered it like that men don't order things like that they do things in King's palaces [00:32:04]

you would have thought that when the Son of God came here on Earth there would have been everything wonderful about his way of living and about his upbringing his teaching his training and the display of his knowledge and so on no I need keep you you know the actual record is the exact opposite of all that he came and was brought up as a boy and he began to work as a carpenter with his hands and not his hand that's how he spent his life indeed the most astonishing thing of all it always seems to me is this that until the age of 30 he spent his time entirely in that way now not in the schools not in the academies not in the then seats of learning not being trained even as a Pharisee no but just doing this manual labor this ordinary work [00:34:33]

he was given the name of friend of publicans and sinners at any Rich you would have thought that when the Son of God comes to save he would spent his time with the religious the doctors of the law but no he spends his time he's a friend of publicans and sinners he eats and drinks with them you see it reverses all our ideas we've got this idea of natural religion and that the Christian is the good man and the man who makes himself better by his own efforts and striving and is religious and this and that and goes on with his old tradition in which he's been brought up and there's the outsider on the street and in the gutter they've got nothing to do with all this we good people my dear friends it's the very negation of Christianity [00:36:00]

they took him they arrested him they tried him they condemned him they nailed him to a tree there is your savior nailed to a tree helpless speechless with a terrible thirst just in a great Agony crying out a cry of dereliction the end of everything he seems a complete and an abject failure but you know that's his way of saving what's he doing on that cross putting principalities and powers to shame making an open show of them mastering them conquering them it's there he saves our symbol is a cross ridiculous monstrous no power no word no philosophy weakness helplessness [00:37:28]