Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Tim: Hi, and welcome to The Unveiling. I'm Tim, one of the hosts, and along with Ajai and Mark, we are three guys discussing the One True Gospel. We hope you're encouraged by this episode. Let's dive right in.
[00:00:24] Mark: Hey, welcome everybody. Welcome back to The Unveiling. We've got the usual. Host tonight, Ajay and Mark, however, Tim needed a little time off this week, so he gave us the permission to go ahead and do the podcast without him, so thanks for that freedom, Tim. And we just want to welcome you all, and we pray that you are blessed today by the gospel, which is really what the unveiling is about, where our desire for our own lives and for you is that the spirit of wisdom and revelation would unveil the gospel to us you know, unveil it of everything that's not the gospel, every tradition, every little lie the world has put in our experiences, books we've read, things we've seen on TV, that the Spirit would filter those out, that he would put The gospel in a crucible, heated up so that everything would be burned off except for the pure, refined gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is Jesus Christ and him crucified, which coincidentally is the title of tonight's episode and what we're going to be discussing. So with that, I'm going to joyfully pass it. to my brother Ajai here.
[00:01:42] Ajai: Good to see you Mark and I want to start off with we definitely missed Tim today and hope he will join us soon but today we are going to move forward just two of us. If you would give me some permission I might take a little bit Longer to walk through a few scriptures because unless you read the scriptures that I'm going to read all of them together, you know, it will be bits and pieces. We won't get the context, but I'll try to be quick.
[00:02:08] Mark: Well, that's good. I'll give you Tim's time, but don't get into mine, Herb. Yeah.
[00:02:12] Ajai: Yeah. Yeah. So, Mark, I think I want to drive home one point about the wisdom of God. And then after that, we can go into Christ and Him crucified. I think that dabbles nicely into that. But when we talk about wisdom of God, most of us, we just go back to, Oh, okay. knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is applying the knowledge, doing the right thing, making right decisions. All that is great, but in the context of wisdom of God and what Paul is talking in the context of the gospel, it is really awesome. So I just want to dive into the scriptures real quick and then bring out that point. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, And verse 17 onwards, For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made no effect. See, right here, it says the contrast is the wisdom of words versus the cross of Christ. We have a clue here already. In verse 18 for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved. It is a power of God. For it is written, I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise and I'll bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise, where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of the sage? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God the world, through wisdom, did not know God, please God, through the foolishness of the message, preach to save those who believe. For the Jews request a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than man, and the weakness of God is stronger than man. You see here, just in a few verses, I think maybe, you know, we can pause a little here before I move forward Mark, but just in the few scriptures, see how many times the wisdom is coming. And the contrast is the wisdom of God to the wisdom of the world. And it says the wisdom of God is like foolishness to the world. And then the contrast is between just speaking really clever words versus preaching of the cross. So clearly here what it is referring to the wisdom of God is the Christ crucified. The cross itself is the ultimate wisdom of God. We'll go there again and I'll show you more how clearly it says cross is the wisdom of God. I want to zero in on this verse for now. It says, But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And again, when it's talking about Christ, it's not just talking about Christ, but it's talking about the Christ crucified, the crucified Christ, the cross of Lord Jesus Christ is both the power of God and the wisdom of God.
[00:05:23] Mark: This chapter, this paragraph makes a great, great point how so many see the cross in Jesus as foolishness. And this is comparing the cross of Christ with the wisdom of words, or wisdom of the world, you could say. And if you really think about it, if we were not believers and we were going to sit down and try to construct our own religion, our own gospel, We would never come up with something like this. We would use human wisdom to try to create something that's so attractive and so palatable and so logical that we would reach out to all people to try to draw them into it. But the famous Christian writer C. S. Lewis Who's the author of, you know, the Tales of Narnia, the Silent Planet Trilogy, so many great books. He made this point in Mere Christianity. He said that when you start to study the gospel, and he was an atheist for many years until J. R. R. Tolkien actually led him to the Lord. The strangeness of it gives it the ring of truth, you know, because the cross in itself, it's not something man could concoct. Like I mentioned, if you're going to try to invent something, you would use human wisdom and worldly wisdom. That's probably why. It's foolishness to people that are operating on that level. So, just a little point I wanted to throw in that I think really goes along with what you read.
[00:06:59] Ajai: Yeah. In fact, I've been thinking, what is the difference between the world religions and Christianity? You know, we might come up with several things, but if you really look into it deeply, it's exactly what you just said. The difference between the world religions and Christianity is a cross. That's why if you take out the cross out of Christianity, it just becomes another world religion. So moving on a little bit, in again verse twenty, it says, Brothers and sisters, now I'm reading from NIV, Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world. to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world. God chose the lowly things of this world, and despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. And verse 30 here, again this is one of the quoted verses, it says, It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God. In NIV it says, in other verses it says, you know, wisdom from God, righteousness and holiness, but in NIV it reads like this, it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Again here the whole context is cross is the wisdom of God. And when the Bible says, Jesus became Wisdom of God for us, and of course He's our Wisdom. The living, resurrected Christ Himself is our Wisdom, but in this context, when it's talking about the Wisdom of God, it's talking about the cross, the event of the cross. That's the... ultimate wisdom of God, where Lord Jesus Christ, He died on the cross so that He can become our righteousness. He can become our sanctification and He can become our redemption. He was made sin for us on the cross. And on the cross, we became the righteousness of God. And then in Hebrews, it says, with one offering, He sanctified us forever. Where did that happen? On the cross. And it talks about the redemption. The other thing is the redemption. Where did He redeem us? On the cross, by His blood. So the ultimate wisdom of God, when Bible says, you know, Christ became the wisdom of God, it's referring to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. As you can see in the previous verses, but Christ crucified is The wisdom of God and the power of God.
[00:09:45] Mark: Yeah, another point that I'd like to add on to that, and when you said about The cross is the difference between all other world religions. The cross is like so totally sufficient and efficient because it handles everything. And I'm thinking of all the other world religions. There is no payment. There has been no payment for sin. There has been no justification. Nobody became sin. for somebody that they might become the righteousness of God. They're still out there trying to do the works, but they know that they're not doing them well enough, no matter how hard they try. But there has been no payment. There has been no cross. Nobody, that's what's so awesome about the cross is, it's not only forgiveness and grace, but it's righteousness and justification. God didn't just set aside the fact that he's a righteous and just judge. He accomplished that at the same time by Christ perfectly fulfilling the law in every single little point, which made him righteous, a righteous, unspotted, unblemished lamb of God who then was worthy of sacrificing himself to not only get all our sin taken care of, but also give us righteousness. No other religion in the world does that. They get you trying to work real hard to follow all the rules. But if you don't follow them perfectly from birth to death, you're condemned, you know. So that's another great, just showing the true wisdom that God exercised in the cross on our behalf.
[00:11:26] Ajai: That's an awesome point, Mark. In terms of the differences, another way of saying the same thing, the differences across between Christianity and other religions. In some of the religions like Hinduism, their God, he became human many times. They say there are many, many times God became human in a different epochs, they say. But every time God became human to save the righteous and punish the sinners. That's a general concept of other religions, but in Christianity it's the opposite. Our God came not to save the righteous, but to save sinners. It's the total opposite.
[00:12:07] Mar: And those were his very words, too. Yeah. To the Pharisees, who considered themselves the righteous. Yeah. So he said the sick are the ones who need a physician.
[00:12:17] Ajai: Yeah, so, here we see it says, Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God, and the message of the cross is foolishness. To them that are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. In other words, if you are not preaching the cross, you are neither preaching the wisdom of God, not the power of God. It's all just motivational speaking or whatnot. You are motivating the flesh to go and do something. Really it is devoid of the power of God and the wisdom of God. That's why we are so particular. about preaching the cross and cross alone.
[00:12:54] Mark: Because when you think about it, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that is the gospel, the message of God's grace. Yeah. You know, it's just so encapsulated. If someone said to you, what is the gospel? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But Paul also calls it many times the message of God's grace. Because nothing displays God's unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor that He bestows on us. Like the cross, like sending his son to die for us.It's the ultimate sign of grace. And scripture also tells us that that grace is an offense to those who consider themselves righteous and want to work and follow the rules and the law. It's an offense to them. It's not an offense to the sinner. Many times he told parables about that, and that's who Jesus went to. He went down in the lowest depths of humanity into our sorrow and pain and suffering and sin. Those are the people he brought that unmerited favor. And that's another big difference between that and other religions as well.
[00:14:01] Ajai: Yeah. The other thing I think we want to emphasize is the gospel is cross Christ and him crucified in other religions.
They don't have the cross and just the works. But the gospel is just the cross and we must not think that it is cross plus something else, right? It cross and Christ and nothing else,
[00:14:21] Mark: know, when you think about it the word gospel literally means it's Evangelion in the Greek which means the good news. Yeah, the cross is good news Works are not good news. If you're in another religion And you have to do A through Z perfectly every day, dress this way, eat this, don't have that. How is that? How is that a gospel? That's not good news. You know, that's just a burden on your shoulders and a yoke of slavery, which is what Paul calls it when Christians do that too.
[00:14:54] Ajai: It is. It is. Yeah, I'm going to chapter 2 now, coming to our 1 Corinthians 2? Yeah, 1 Corinthians 2, and coming to our phrase, the gospel phrase, Christ and Him crucified. And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom again. Declaring to you the testimony of God, for I am determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. In other versions it says, I am determined not to know anything while among, it means Paul is referring to himself. He's saying, when I am with you, I determine not to know anything except Christ and Him crucified. In other words, if he himself doesn't know anything except Christ and Him crucified, obviously, when he was with Corinth, or Corinthians. He did not talk about anything else except Christ and Him crucified. And then he goes on to say, I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. Again, the contract here is You can talk very cleverly using all kinds of anecdotes and whatnot, right? Excellent language. That's all wisdom of man. There's no power in it. But Paul is saying that I was in weakness, fear, and I did not use persuasive words. All it did was he talked about the cross. And what he's saying is, on the other side, there's no power. You can speak all kinds of good words, but it doesn't come with the power of God. But when you speak about the cross, Christ and Him crucified. It comes with the power of God.
[00:16:44] Mark: Absolute truth. And we've always kind of shortened it to saying that the power is not in the messenger. It's in the message. And that like you pointed out, that's what Paul is saying. He's saying, Hey, I didn't come to you with eloquence or human wisdom. He's not saying I don't have any eloquence or human wisdom. He's saying that he was determined that he was resolved. Not to lean on that, because that's ineffectual. He said he didn't come with eloquence or human wisdom. He didn't come with confidence either, or strong and, or strong and persuasive words. He said he came with fear and trembling. But he said, but my message and my preaching were with a demonstration of the Spirit's power. So he's telling us wherever this power came from, it wasn't him. He didn't bring eloquence. He, in fact, he came just the opposite. Fear and trembling. And yet his message was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's because that's how God made it. He imbued the message of the gospel. And there are many scriptures that tell us that Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone. Yeah. The message is God the power.
[00:18:00] Ajai: Yeah. I was going to quote the same scripture and I was also going to continue with one more, the following scripture. It says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, because in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed. That's Romans 1, isn't it? So why the gospel is the power of God? Because in the gospel you find the righteousness from God. There is no other place you can find the righteousness of God given to us.
[00:18:32] Mark: That is by faith, he said.
[00:18:34] Ajai: Yeah. It's like God is taking the righteousness and then offering it to us in a plate or in a cup. All we need to do is receive it. And because we are made righteous, gospel is the power of God unto salvation because we are being saved from the wrath of God. If we don't have that righteousness, we are under the wrath of God because the Romans goes on to say, because the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness. So what saves us from the wrath of God that is against all unrighteousness? He is that righteousness comes to us as a gift through the finished work of our Lord Jesus christ.
[00:19:12] Mark: One little point I want to add to what you're saying, Ajai, lest some of our listeners say, well. He said to the Corinthians, when I came to you, I resolved to know nothing. I just want to, we talked about this off the air, but that the, the almost all, if not all of Paul's epistles were circular letters. They may have been addressed to the Romans or to the Galatians, but they were passed to different churches. And in the case of the Galatians, that was a province that had many, many churches in it. So this wasn't specifically just for the Corinthians. And I wanted to give a little insight into here. I think I mentioned him before, but at the turn of the 20th century, early 90s, the leading historian and archaeologist in the world on Asia Minor, which is where almost most of the churches that almost all the churches that Paul planted on his missionary voyages were planted. And William Mitchell Ramsey, he had a list of PhDs as long as your arm. He was an atheist. And he got, he got Oxford and a number of American and British universities to fund an archaeological expedition. And his mission was go to Asia Minor and prove that the historian Luke was a historian of the lowest ratings. And that Paul and, and the book of Acts were fake, that they never happened. And I guess you can probably guess what happened. Halfway through he was digging up so much archeological evidence for specific sites and magistrates and, and geography and topography that he came to the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously the spirit was at work in him, but what a powerful testimony to go out to disprove it in seeing so much evidence that. The Spirit opened his eyes to Christ, and from that point on, he switched his field of study to the New Testament, and where he was earlier one of the greatest historians and archivists in the world, now became the greatest New Testament scholar. And one of the great things he pointed out through his experiences on his expeditions and in Bible study was that if you read the Epistle of the Apostle Paul in chronological And they're not in chronological order in the Bible. I think a lot of Christians probably don't know that, and I didn't know that until maybe a year ago. But if you read them in order, you see the gospel that the Apostle Paul preaches become more and more and more refined. Because as he went through his life, bringing the gospel all over the world at that time, He saw how the Spirit worked. He saw that Christ in him crucified. When he preached that, he saw the demonstration of the Spirit's power. So that by the time he got to the Corinthians, that is what he had decided to do whenever he preached the gospel. It was Jesus Christ and him crucified. Read the book of Galatians. He says the same thing. In fact, he calls down a curse. on anybody that preaches anything different than Jesus Christ in him crucified. And he there expounds on and says that the gospel is living in the grace of Christ. And that's the cross, really living in the shadow of the cross and just Contemplating that and letting that transfer.
[00:22:45] Ajai: Amen. Mark, do you know, I think Romans is one of the later books, right? It's not one of the earlier ones.
[00:22:50] Mark: No, I don't really know. Yeah. And, and that doesn't mean he didn't preach other doctrines and other theology, but as he went to preach the gospel, he determined to know nothing but Christ and He crucified, so.
[00:23:04] Ajai: Again, the central piece of every book is this cross and Christ. Yep. There's no doubt about that. And then grace,
[00:23:11] Mar: yeah, and what's very interesting and powerful is you can say the same thing about the old covenant, even though it was doing more types and shadows and prophecies and pictures of Christ. It had that same purpose of bringing focus to the gospel that Jesus was coming, that he would be the lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb of God that fully met the righteous requirement of the law.
[00:23:39] Ajai: Amen. Yeah, I would like to read a couple of more verses, again, pointing back to the wisdom of God. And this time it talks about the hidden wisdom. I'm reading from NIV now, in, again, 2nd, 1st Corinthians chapter 2, starting from verse 4. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of Spirit's power. So that your faith Might not rest in human wisdom, but on God's power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom in a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. And it says none of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Well, the cross is a hidden wisdom of God. In fact, look at the wisdom of God. All the people crucify him, crucify him, crucify him, right? The devil thought he was using those Pharisees who were shouting, crucify him, crucify him. They were, devil thought he was actually, they are rooting for him, right? He thought he was using all those Pharisees for him when he got them to crucify the Lord Jesus Christ. But that's a hidden wisdom of God. In that crucifixion. We had salvation. If the devil had known that, the devil would have done the opposite, not provoke the Pharisees to crucify, but somehow save the Lord jesus Christ.
[00:25:18] Mark: And what a great point, Ajai, I've never heard anybody point that out before. He was unwittingly, as he provoked the crowd to shout, crucify and crucify, Yeah, it was unwittingly. playing right into God's plan. And it's funny too, because earlier on when Jesus started, he tried to get Jesus not to follow God's plan by promising him all the kingdoms of the world. So it's just like, I love that. Just the wisdom of God. You know, it was, it's a mystery. The cross is a mystery. And in fact that he duped the very one who's trying to stop people from coming to Christ. He, he was duped into going along and actually helping fulfill the plan. That's a great twist.
[00:26:06] Ajai: I think it's the ultimate example of God causing all things to work together for our good. He caused the devil's schemes and provoking the Pharisees with lies to crucify the Lord. Right? You know, sometimes when we... See movies on the cross, you know, sometimes in our ignorance, we feel bad and I've even seen people cursing the Jews who are shouting, crucify him, crucify him, right? And they're crying that they did that, but you know, if they didn't do that, we wouldn't have salvation. So thank God for the Jews who crucified our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:26:41] Mar: Amen. Amen. Yep. Definitely. And I love it. One of the things that the Pharisees already yelled at him, while, while we're yelling at him while he was up on the cross was, if you truly are the Son of God, come down from there and we'll believe you. Yeah. Yeah. But he proved he was the Son of God by staying up there, not by coming down. If he came down, we would have no, we'd have still all be in our sins and without God and without hope.
[00:27:11] Ajai: And right after that, the next verse says, you know, again, I'm just reading it in context because unless we read all this in context, we won't get it right. We don't understand things in context. So then it says, however, as it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard. And what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love, and these are the things God has revealed to us by spirit. Again, if you look at the context, we again think like when we hear this verse, we think about, oh, God kept something secret for me. eye has not seen, ear has not heard. He will reveal to me someday some kind of mysterious treasures. But if you look here, what no human mind has conceded, that's referring again back to the hidden wisdom of God. So it's talking about the cross. So these are the things that God revealed to us by the Spirit. So what God primarily reveals to us by the Spirit is a cross and the riches of the cross. Even in my own Christian life, the more I grow in the Lord, the more cross becomes bigger and everything else becomes smaller and smaller because at the cross, God provided everything we need. He took away our old man. He crucified our old man. Our sin is forever removed. Our sin died and death died on the cross, and then through the resurrection, because of the cross, because of the righteousness on the cross, you know, God is able to raise Jesus from the dead. And that's where we have everything, right? Even in this life, when we are walking this life, when we often fall and sin, we need to look at the cross and understand that this flesh, this very thing that seems to cause trouble is already crucified on the cross. And buried and dead. And the moment we realize that our old man was crucified and we, we identify ourselves, the old man or flesh with the crucified Christ, the resurrected life comes to life in us effortlessly.
[00:29:10] Mark: , that, that's a great point. And when you think about that, what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard. What no human mind conceived. He's definitely talking about the cross, the gospel, the mystery of the gospel. And then the next verse down from the scripture you were reading says that God didn't give us the spirit of the world. But he gave us his spirit so that we might understand everything he freely give gave us at the cross. Yeah. Yeah. And what a great thing. That's one of the reasons. I mean, there are many reasons he gave us the spirit, but one of them was to reveal the things that our minds and our human eyes and our human reason can't understand, which to many that are perishing our foolishness. But God gave us his spirit so that we could Understand that and be changed, transformed.
[00:30:03] Ajai: That is actually my favorite scriptures. Mark, again, we hear that the purpose of the Holy Spirit and the one that you just quoted, what we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely. The freely is a keyword, what God has freely given us. Until we understand what is freely given to us, we cannot receive it. So I believe the primary, in fact you said one off, but. For me, I believe it's a primary purpose. One of the primary purposes is to continually reveal to us the things that God has given us at the cross. And the more we see, the more we walk into it. There are some of the revelations like even healing, most of us don't walk in it. I, myself, I think is something in the future, but Bible clearly says at the cross, everything is provided. By his stripes, we are healed. So the more we see, the more we appropriate the forgiveness again. Bible says He forgives all our sins, He heals all our diseases. And in many places, Lord Jesus said, Son, before healing, He said, Son, your sins are forgiven. So I strongly believe that the more revelation of forgiveness we have, healing also follows. And both of it is a free gift given to us at the cross.
[00:31:24] Mark: Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And so, Ajay, we're getting close to time here. Do you have, would you like to do one more point and then we'll summarize and close?
[00:31:35] Ajai: I'm okay, Mark. I think if you want to close, if you have anything, go ahead and then we can summarize.
[00:31:40] Mark: Well, I want to just encourage all our listeners, in 1 Corinthians 2 2, that whole paragraph is where Jesus Christ and Him crucified comes from. Go into your online Bible or digital Bible, . Well, read all the different translations of the Bible, that one line, because it's very powerful as you get slightly different angles of view on it. I wanted to read just one for you here, but just want to mention a couple of the words that are used. Some translations, like the ASV and the NIV, say that Paul was determined Not to know anything but Christ or resolve it took determination and resolve to say I'm going to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going to get caught up on, you know, worldly views or using my own talents or focusing on getting rid of sin in my life. Or, boy, I gotta work harder to get good work, good works, or give more money. He's saying, no, I resolved, I determined, I just love the strength of that word. Because some just say not to know, but those two say that he was determined not to know. Just love that. I also wanted to read the Amplified Bible, which gives a little extra words added on to there to kind of bring out the meaning. But the Amplified Bible says, for I made the decision to know nothing. And then in brackets, that is to forego philosophical or theological discussions regarding inconsequential things and opinions. So he's not doing that. And how many... I don't want, I hate to be critical, but how many pastors... Christian leaders, do you hear getting into theological discussions regarding inconsequential things? If you're not preaching Christ on the cross, whatever you're preaching is inconsequential. Or as the Apostle Paul said in Titus 3, 4, it is not excellent and not profitable. So, Jesus Christ preaching him is profitable and excellent for everyone. And in Paul also says in Titus that that message, preaching that to people actually ends up in them doing good works, because that's where the power of the Spirit is who brings his fruit forth. like fruit on a tree effortlessly in our lives. So just a little side note there. And, and then he says he preached only Christ and him crucified in parentheses again and the meaning of his redemptive, substitutionary death and his resurrection. And I think a lot of people might be thinking, wow, Paul must have gotten boring real fast if all he ever preached on was Jesus Christ and him crucified. But not so. One of our little themes, theme sayings that has developed over the year, year and a half we've been doing the unveiling is that All roads lead to Christ. Whatever topic or theme we decide to talk about, it always goes back to the cross. So it doesn't limit you to preach Christ and Him crucified. It explodes and opens up every area of your life to the Unequal ramifications of the power of the cross. It just totally affects every single area of our life, every molecule of our body. Amen. So, Ajay, why don't we summarize now? And once again, I just want to finish with just encouraging people to read different translations because sometimes, it doesn't say different things, but it gives you a slightly different approach or angle into understanding, so. So I'll let you summarize first, Ajay.
[00:35:27] Ajai: Yeah, I'm going to close with the same verse that you read in NLT. For I decided that while I was with you, I would forget except Jesus Christ, and comma, the one who was crucified. So he's saying, I decided to forget everything except Christ crucified. The Jesus Christ is the one who was crucified. So I pray that as we grow in grace, we also decide that we forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified, because Christ crucified is the power of God. And He is the Wisdom of God, and that's all we need.
[00:36:09] Mark: And I'll just finish up by saying, we've already, yeah, the Gospel, the Cross, is the Wisdom and Power of God. We've earlier discussed how when Paul preached Christ and Him crucified, there was a demonstration of the Spirit's power. How he said, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, because it's the Power of God. The other thing, it's the power of doing, other than just... Salvation is transformation. 2nd Corinthians 3 18 said and we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory which is from the Lord who is the Spirit. So when we take the eyes of our heart and focus on the cross, focus on Christ's glory in the cross and God's perfect plan We are transformed. We are changed. It's not just the power for salvation. It's the power for sanctification, which is a big word that really, at its core, just means being transformed into the image of Christ. Romans 12, Paul said the same thing. He said, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. When we turn the eyes of our heart to the cross, our minds are renewed and we're transformed. Just, just beautiful. There's an old hymn that called Jesus my all in all. I just love that all in all. That's what Christ and him crucified. It is our all in all. It is more than enough for everything, for salvation, for sanctification, for leading a rich abundant life, to conquer death for eternal life, the riches of our glorious inheritance. We're going to spend the rest of our lives here on earth. Turning to the cross and having that Spirit who reveals, reveal that to us. So, we just want to thank everybody tonight. Thank you, Ajay, for a great job as usual. We're very thankful to the Spirit of God that opens up His Word to us. We hope you all were encouraged and blessed tonight by this conversation, and we pray that it's only a start for you of going deeper into the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the message of His grace. Jesus Christ and him crucified. We will see you next time. Have a plus week, everybody.
[00:38:38] Tim: Tim again. Thanks for listening today. We hope you were blessed by today's message. If so, we encourage you to subscribe and share our podcast with your friends and family. Our entire catalog of episodes can be found on our website at www. churchofchrist. org. www.theunveiledgospel.com, or you can listen and subscribe on most popular podcast apps. If you have any feedback or questions, you can send us an email to the unveiled gospel yahoo.com. You can reach out to us on our Facebook page, the Unveiling Podcast, or you can leave a question or comment on our listener line at 3 5 2 3 9 8 0 0 8 9. Maybe you'll hear yourself on a future episode. That's it for today. As always, God bless and we will talk to you the next time.
