Michael Koulianos emphasizes the significance of Christ's crucifixion, asserting that the message of the cross is both foolishness to the world and the power of God to believers. He reflects on how God chooses the weak and foolish to confound the wise, urging the church to focus on Jesus rather than personal achievements or numbers. Koulianos challenges the audience to embrace a deeper relationship with Christ, highlighting that true discipleship involves self-denial and taking up one's cross. He warns against the dangers of making faith about personal gain and encourages a return to the foundational message of the gospel centered on Christ crucified. Ultimately, he reminds the congregation of the impending return of Jesus and the importance of being a pure and devoted bride.

Tonight I'm going to teach on Christ crucified. And I want you to take your Bibles, if you would, and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I'm going to start, thank you Joel, I'm going to start reading here at verse 18. The scripture says in 1 Corinthians 1.18, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? That's being proven more and more every day. For since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews want a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. That's true, I know that. But we preach Christ crucified. I said we preach Christ crucified. I'm going to say it again. 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 men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world, listen to this, to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. And the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen. And the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. But I should say that no flesh, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. We need that again. How badly our churches need a swift reminder that it is not about us. Actually, we can turn that on a little bit. I'm not sure it'll help me, but it's a little warm in here. Just a little bit. You're going to blow the worship team's faces off. Is that the low? Bring it down. We'll all suffer. We're considered a missions trip. Thanks, Scott. Love you. Chapter 2, verse 1. Look back down at your Bible. As I say all the time, we're breaking all the church growth rules here. We're reading a lot of Bible. Verse 1, you know when Paul penned this, he didn't pen it in chapter and verse. This is one thought. And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. Oh, I love this. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Say amen. I can't sit down all the time. I hope my doctor's not watching. I kind of hope he is, but not this part. Okay. When are the Lord? By the way, I want to say publicly how proud I am of Jess before I start. She stepped into a season that was so charged in the Lord, and I literally lost my voice for almost four months, maybe actually four months. To step in and minister and lead at that level is not an easy thing, and you did an amazing job. I'm so thankful. When the Lord first started to visit my life in a fresh way in 2003, He would say little things to me. They wouldn't happen often, but they came every three or four months. And when God begins to share things with you, they're meant to last. I said, when God begins to share things with you, they're meant to last, and if they don't, it's not His fault. And so He said something to me. I'll never forget it. He said, I'm going to give you a message so old it'll sound new again. And I thought, what will that be? And I had my Bible open, and I was reading about Jesus, and He said, it'll be Jesus. And He did something to my heart. He began to show me the wonder of the Lord. How many of you were in church last Sunday night? Okay. It was our first time singing. Jeremy led a song that the Lord gave me called Come, Lord Jesus. And when we wrote the verses, I felt the Lord wanting to provoke wonder in the hearts of people. And so, as you read the verses or sing the verses, each verse pulls you in a different direction of the Lord's nature. And the more you see of the Lord, the more wonder fills your heart. The Shulamite said, yea, He is altogether lovely. And I think sometimes we read Scripture like we're reading the newspaper, or we read Scripture so that we can get through our devotional time. I tell our students, don't come to your devotional. Come to Jesus. We don't come into His presence to merely fulfill some responsibility that vaguely eases the conscience. That's not why we come to Jesus. There should be a nature exchange in His presence, and we should leave His presence being more like Him. I'm very encouraged right now in this season, but I'm also very troubled. I'm encouraged as I see the bride emerging, and she's stuck in wonder. She loves Him. She refuses to change the channel. I'm going to give you all I've got tonight. I probably can't give you a whole lot of volume, but how many of you know volume and anointing are not one and the same? I'm going to give you everything I've got, and the Lord will do the rest. I'm very encouraged by that. I think, and not I think, I know purity is much more powerful than gifting. Much more. It's more piercing. It causes hell to tremble. Gifting can wow you for a moment, but purity sustains you at a root level. In case you feel like glorying in your own purity, I just want to remind you, you have none outside of Jesus. So true purity and dependency should go hand in hand. If you're super aware of your purity, it's because you're not walking in it. Because only He is pure. See, when Jesus comes into your life, He blinds you to everything, even to the things you think you're doing really well. And the end result would be, and this might scare you, the end result would be that you only see Him, which is the point of the Christian life. You see, if you lose everything but Him, you've arrived. I'll say that one again. If you're left with nothing but Him, you've arrived. It's not to say you shouldn't have things. I'm talking about the heart. So I'm encouraged. I see the Lord doing wonderful things. And at the same time, I'm troubled. I'm troubled by what we've made this all about. I don't know. I guess we start believing that church is just about our gifting and us and our vision and me making it to my destination. And we don't even know what the destination is anymore. Is the destination a big turnout? Is the destination a big church? Is the destination a big budget? Is it a large team? Is it even massive crowds and glorying in numbers of people that are saved? Well, let's be real. At the end of the day, He's the Lord of the harvest who sweeps the sickle. It's His harvest anyways. I told our school, I was shocked by literally I had to get off Instagram, not because of disgusting photos, but just because of the number of ads for churches trying to get people in the room, which can be good, but it can be really bad. And there's such a temptation to glory in our ability and not in His wisdom. Paul said, He has become wisdom to us. He is our wisdom, Jesus Himself. And so when the Lord began to touch me, He would just show me a little bit of who He was, and it would take months to recover. Am I talking to anybody? Months to recover. I spent four years in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I was blown away by His nature. And it wasn't just what He was doing, but I was blown away by when He did it, and then who He did it with, and who He let in a room, and who He kept out of a room, and when He fed the masses, and when He healed, and what provoked Him, and when He slept, and when He hungered, and when He was satisfied. And all of this began to stir my soul, and I just became addicted to the wonder of Jesus. And a few years in, I thought, Oh my gosh, I've seen so much, only to discover I didn't even see His pinky. And so what Shulamite says, Yeah, He is all together lovely. What is she saying there? She's saying He's not just lovely. He's not just all lovely. He's not just together lovely. He's all together lovely. That means the more I behold of Him, the more I love Him. And so when we come to Jesus, and He saves us, and draws us, you know, I was telling somebody a few months ago, before I lost my voice, when I first started in the ministry, I thought I was so ready to lead, and that was my problem. When we first begin, we all feel much more qualified than we are. We're qualified in many ways positionally, but this thing isn't merely about position. This is about a trusting relationship. And the longer I've walked with Him, the less I am convinced of my own ability. Yet when I was young, I was super convinced of it, which was the very reason God could not trust me. So I'm deeply grieved. I'm grieved when we activate people in ministry, but don't teach them to love Jesus. That's what we do. We activate, and we get them going in their calling, but we forget to tell them what their calling truly is, which according to Jesus, the will of the Father is to cling to the Son. So we skip that part and say, go fill a stadium. When they go fill a stadium, but don't know John chapter one. Don't know they're supposed to forgive their enemies, or love their neighbor, or be quick to forgive, or to take care of their family. You know, I'm not a big resume guy, but if somebody comes to Jesus Image and wants a job, I'm not going to look at their resume so much, but I will look at their wife. That's the resume. Show me what you're like behind closed doors. Because the day of trying to produce publicly and not have garments of white privately is coming to an end. And the Lord, as John the Baptist said, is swinging his axe. He's putting the axe to the root, because origin is everything. And the Lord is coming to an end, because the age is coming to an end. The bridegroom's coming. I said the bridegroom's coming. He's coming out of his chamber like the sun coming up in the morning. And he's arrayed in white. And he wants a bride who's arrayed in white. A bride who's not for sale. A bride who's found her satisfaction in Him, so there's nothing you can do to move her. There's no offer. She's not going with you. I'm talking to you. The Lord's speaking to some of you. She's not going to go with you. There's no offer more precious than His touch, and she'd rather die than exchange the touch for something somebody offers her. She's been wounded in the best way, deep in her soul. He's run her through with the sword of His love. And it hurts so bad, this ache she has for Him, that it feels so good. And that ache is possessed with a cry, come Lord Jesus, come. How do we get to a place in our Christian lives where it becomes about us? You might say, well, it's just about me. And here's the deal is, it's typically the worst condition when you don't know it's about you. That's when we need the most help. We need the most help when we think God needs our help. And so we compromise in the name of ministry. And we bend the Scriptures in the name of reaching people. Assuming that He who formed the eye cannot see. Oh, He sees every disagreement at home, and He waits for the reconciliation. He sees every devotion with your children, and when we don't do it, He waits on us to do it. He sees every staff meeting when we make a decision to cast our crowns down in the dust. Even though He put them on us. That's what we do. We throw our crowns down. That is heaven's culture. He rewards us, we throw the reward at His feet. Because that's the nature of a son. That's the nature of the cross. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done. I think we got here because we forgot about that wooden tree. And we hear things like, oh, you shouldn't have any images of Jesus on the cross. He's not on the cross anymore. You're right, but He's not petting sheep either. He's not walking on water. You're okay with that one. He's not multiplying bread and fish. You're good with that one. What is it about that that provokes you? You're good if He's got a rainbow behind Him riding on a white horse. What is it about the tree and the bloody Christ that provokes you? I'll tell you what it is. It's the same thing that provoked the Pharisees when they said, come down. Yes. You see, you want power, huh? I'm not mad at any of you. I'm talking to the nation right now. Because, listen, the Levitical calling is not just to sing songs. We do. We're all Levites. We're a nation of priests. But don't forget the Levites had swords on their hips that removed mixture from the camp. You see, don't you know that there's a wedding coming? Are you hearing me? Are you getting this? There's a wedding coming. That's the whole story. That's what this thing is about. It started with a wedding, and it's going to end with a wedding. You're coming to the table tonight, but I have news for you. One day you'll come to His table, and He's humble enough to be the host of that meal and the food at the table at the same time because He's all in all. There's a wedding coming. He wants His bride to look like Him, sound like Him, talk like Him, think like Him, to wear His fragrance like Esther wore the fragrance in the bath before she approached the king. Guys, this is as real as the manger and as real as any story you've ever read or chosen to believe in the Scriptures. Jesus is coming soon. He's coming soon. You say, that freaks me out. I'm afraid. You're scaring me. I want to quote Mike Bickle right now. He said, shock me now, Lord, but don't shock me at the throne. Shock me now. You say, are you challenging my faith? Absolutely. That's what I've come to do tonight, challenge you because the Christian life has been so dialed down, so dialed down. We've told the world you can come to the altar and repeat this prayer and just get the prayer right and then get plugged into our whatever the groups are called now, this track and that track and just do that. And then after you're done, you can just do whatever you want to do with your life and write the songs you want to write and lead churches the way you want to lead them and make those churches about you and put your face on every stinking thing rather than glorifying Jesus because you prayed a prayer at an altar and God's using you. And we forget that God used Judas and we forget God used Saul. And in revival circles, we tell them God wants to use you. God wants to use you. God wants to use you. God's not a slave driver. Yes, he wants to use you, but he's got a lot more in his heart for you than to just use you. God wants to love you and he wants you to love him back. And if you love him back, you'll never have a problem being used. But if you settle for just being used and never fall in love, he'll use you, but you'll die feeling all alone. Just used. Just used. Because one day the crowds will leave. Maybe one day social media will be gone. Hallelujah to the man. And we'd read our Bible again and pray again and fast again and wait again. There's no substitution for it. And the bridegroom's coming from his chamber, waiting on the green light from the father. You take the cross out of the Christian life. Of course you lose power, but you remove Christ crucified from your view of Jesus and you relinquish lordship. Jesus said stuff like this. If you lose your life, you'll gain it. Yes. We tell people, find what you love to do and do it and ask God to be included in your process. Is that making noise? Okay. The cross of Jesus. In John chapter one, John the Baptist releases a cry and he says prior to releasing the cry, there's one standing among you. Listen carefully. There's one standing among you whose sandals I am not worthy to unloose. He said, I baptize with water, but one is coming after me who will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. Fire. It's interesting to me that before John saw him, listen carefully, that before John saw him, he knew he was standing among them. That's amazing. That means he was aware of his presence before he saw him with his eyes. You come into a room like this tonight and there is one standing among us. I said there is one standing among us. There is one standing among us. We all want these amazing encounters, but fail to steward his gentle touch. How did John know he was standing among them? Well, don't you remember John leaping within his mother's womb? He knew that touch. Never let anyone tell you that it's a waste of time to sit in his presence. It's the way of love. So John announces Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In our culture, when we say Lamb, we just think of a nice, white, fluffy little animal. My mom will tell you behind my grandmother's house growing up, I remember being a boy and I remember a lamb that would get bigger and bigger and bigger throughout the year. And then the morning after we celebrated Easter, the lamb got raptured or something. The lamb got raptured. I remember one with a little rope. A bunch of them up and down the street. You'd hear them. Come Saturday night, the strike of midnight, we'd all sing a wonderful hymn. Christ is risen from the dead. With death he has conquered death, and to those in the tombs he has given life. We need preaching like that again. And then we'd gather in the home and feast and sing it again in the house. And for 40 days, when somebody would say hello to you before you started the conversation, the first thing out of your mouth would be, Christ is risen. And then they would answer and say, truly he's risen. Then you'd enter the conversation. But the feast was amazing and the centerpiece of the feast was a lamb. And we ate really well. The next morning, the neighbor's pet was gone. As a boy, you didn't know how. Finally, you figured it out. Now, biblically speaking, biblically speaking, for John to call Jesus the Lamb of God was to say that this is the one who comes to die. Did it mean he was gentle? Yes. Did it mean he was meek? Yes. Did it mean he was lowly? Yes. Did he wouldn't quench a smoking flax? Yes. But at the end of the day, what it ultimately meant to call Jesus Lamb of God was to say, he's the one who comes to bleed and lay his life down. And this is initiated in Genesis. When Adam and Eve sin, the Bible says God clothes them with animal skins. Many theologians think it was a lamb. We have no way of knowing. But what is introduced at that moment is the power of the atonement and the covering nature of the blood. And in Genesis chapter 3, I touched on this Sunday morning, verse 15, after Adam and Eve fail, the Lord preaches the gospel to the enemy. The first gospel preacher is the Lord himself. I said the first gospel preacher is the Lord himself. He set the pattern. And this is what he said. I will put enmity, opposition between your seed and her seed, and her seed will crush your head through the bruising of his heel. I want you to think of God's method of crushing Satan. Not through wielding a sword or some person riding a lion, like some of y'all T-shirts, Christian T-shirts y'all wear. That's not the way it goes. God determined to crush the enemy through the bruising of his son. God determined to kill death through the death of his beloved. I'm trying to figure out why we're running around arguing with everyone when all God asked us to do is come and die. Every time an issue arises, we've got something to say, something to combat, and oh, do we start roaring. And then we get distracted and lose our way. But in God's great wisdom, death to self crushes the serpent. And in that moment, is this okay? In that moment, God announces a man is coming and he'll destroy the devil. We see this in Exodus chapter 12. This is Passover season. We see the first Passover in Exodus 12, where God gives Moses, don't forget this, the secret to their deliverance. I believe Exodus is a foreshadow, a type and figure of the end of this age as well. One day we will leave our Egypt. I said one day we will leave our Egypt. And there's a great parallel between the 10 plagues of Egypt and the plagues that will be poured out that are referenced in the book of Revelation. But their deliverance did not come in Moses' great preaching or even self-confidence. Moses wasn't even convinced in his ability to speak. But God had had enough. And God told the children of Israel, take the blood of a lamb, a lamb for every house, slaughter the lamb, dip hyssop in the blood. Hyssop speaks of faith, the confession of our faith. David said, thou has cleansed me with hyssop. Revelation chapter 12 says, we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. The word of our testimony should be of the blood. Listen to me, that's what that passage means. It doesn't mean every testimony we share qualifies. It means if you're going to testify, testify of Christ crucified. So God says, I'm bringing you out, not with an argument, not with great strategy, not with the best plans. I'm bringing you out through the blood of the lamb. Somebody better say amen. So Moses takes the blood and he instructs Israel to smear their doors, the two doorposts and the lentil in the shape of a cross to stay in the home that speaks of staying in Christ and staying in fellowship with the church. We need Jesus and we need each other right now. And that angel comes and passes by to bring destruction to any home not smeared in blood. And God takes out the firstborn of Egypt. Do you know why? Because Egypt would not loose God's firstborn to go into the desert and worship. God called Israel my firstborn. God said, if you won't give them up, I'm taking yours. Give God what is his or you will loose it anyways. God can only trust you with as much as you're willing to let go of. Did you hear that? To the measure you're willing to let go is the measure God will trust you with it. If you're willing to let it go, he knows it doesn't have you. I heard people all around going, the church is at stake. The church is going to be taken out. We're going to loose the church. Nobody can steal God's reward to his son. Good luck. The church is the only thing Jesus gets for the cross. Do you think the father is going to let some human being or government steal the eternal reward of his faithful son? Stop arguing. Start singing. It's just, it's not going to happen. There is one way you loose the church though. According to the book of Revelation. And it's not through exterior attack. But it does come by falling out of love. That's what Jesus said. Return to the first works. You've lost your first love. Return to the heights from which you've fallen or I will come and put out your lamp stand. The church that's in love glories in persecution. She grows in persecution. This church doubled in size when I couldn't talk for four months. That wasn't the most encouraging thing for me. I could have taken that many ways. But it does remind me, unless the Lord built the house, they that labor, labor in vain. So they don't just cook the lamb and look at the lamb. They consume the lamb. Jesus is not going to settle for your admiration. He wants union. He's not looking for fans. Looking for a bride who lost her name in the marriage ceremony and took his name. And so no matter what comes her way or what compliment comes her way, she's programmed to go, it was Jesus. Well, I mean, yeah, I know, but you know, but you yielded. I know he taught me how, but you said, yes, he's too beautiful to say no to. But you know the word so well. He taught me the word. He's the author of the word, the content of the word, and the greatest preacher of the word in history. Michael, you have nothing left to glory in. Thank you, Lord. That's the plan. That's the plan. Abraham offers Isaac. God stops him. Here's a voice that says, God will provide a lamb. But a lamb's not caught in the thicket. A ram is. Type in shadow, yes. Perfect fulfillment, no. The one who's coming is greater than any lamb or ram or goat or offering. He's coming. And finally, he shows up to marry his beloved Israel. And John the Baptist, as the best man, sees him and says, that's the one Genesis 3 talked about. That's the one Exodus 12 is all about. That's the perfect fulfillment of the life of Joseph. That's the one Isaiah saw in Isaiah chapter six. That's the one David cried out on behalf of in Psalm chapter 22, when he said, my hands and my feet are pierced. I am lowly as a worm. That's the one Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 53, Isaiah 50, Isaiah 52, Isaiah 54. He's the one. He's going to bleed and die. He's the one who carries his cross. In Exodus chapter 12, when they roasted the lamb, they tied the lamb to a wooden pole and suspended it over an open fire. And slowly that lamb would turn black. Here comes the true lamb of God, fastened to a pole. He would die a slow death, just as that lamb would be cooked slowly. And as that lamb turned darker and darker and darker, it was symbolic of Jesus becoming our sin. And the lamb of God crucified during the Passover as Israel is feasting on their lambs. This is the Christian message. This is the Christian life. Help me, Joel, please, very softly. This might sound morbid to you, foreign, boring. But Jesus said, if you lose your life, you will gain it. This life is not going to get easier for the world or the church. I hate to say it. But when his pain becomes your focus, you'll start to forget about your pain. Oh, the cross isn't boring. No, no, no. Paul said this. He said, at the end of his life to the Philippians, I've been in the prison cell that he wrote these words from. After accomplishing more in ministry than any human we know, he wrote over half the New Testament, multiple missionary journeys, shipwrecked multiple times, beaten and bloodied, left for dead as he stoned, preaching the gospel, and his own team raises him from the dead. That's a good leader, by the way. That's when you know you've done a good job, when your team can raise you from the dead. We've got to up our game. Accomplished so much. Preached to Caesar's entire household. Preached to Felix. And at the end of his life, you can tell that he's been whittled away. I hope you're hearing me in the Spirit tonight, because you won't get this outside of the Spirit. And if you don't understand what I'm saying, just respond in about five minutes, and then go back and re-watch it once you're filled with the Spirit, and you'll get it. We want God to add to us. Give me more. Trust me with this. Trust me with that. I'm not so sure God's in that business. What I am sure of is that he is in the reduction business. He takes his holy scalpel to all the addition, and so slowly trims away at the fat, and the mixture, and the heaviness, and the multiplicity of our ways that Isaiah said. If you're tired tonight, do you know what Isaiah said in the Scriptures? This is for you. You've wearied yourself with your many ways. And at the end of Paul's life, we hear these words, after having accomplished so much, that I might know him. That I might know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed unto his death, if by any means I attain the resurrection of the dead. Paul didn't say, I just wish I preached another meeting. I just wish I was more known. He didn't say, I wish I worked a little harder. He didn't even say, I wish I planted more churches. I'm not devaluing that, but I'm just saying at the end of his life, that was not his heart cry. Quite interesting to me. That perhaps the greatest apostle the Lord ever raised up at the end of his life. I want to know you. I just want to know you. And in case we're confused as to what knowing the Lord actually looks like, he gives us the bookends, the A and Z of knowing the Lord. The fellowship of his sufferings, and the power of his resurrection. What's he saying there? Madame Gouillon said it this way, Paul wanted the Jesus of Calvary as much as he wanted the Jesus of the Mount of Transfiguration. Everybody wants the shiny Jesus who multiplies bread and fish, and makes your dreams come true. But when you're in love, the naked Savior hanging on the tree, skinned alive, is beautiful. What did Paul mean? He said, I want to know what hurts you. If there's pain in your heart, I want to know. And I don't just want to know here, I want to fellowship with the sufferings of your heart. If you were naked and rejected, count me worthy to be considered a fool in the eyes of the world. And this wasn't a small issue to Paul. In fact, he said, if by any means I attain the resurrection from the dead, it's a big deal knowing Jesus. That means without knowing him, there's no resurrection for us. Now, I wonder what you said yes to. But do you know why I'm saying this? Because I've grown up in America, and I've heard the preaching that most of you have been hearing your whole life. Unfortunately, much of it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you said yes to just coming to this one who makes every aspect of your life end up the way you want it to, or one who is just a sin eraser, that's not the response he's looking for. If you heard a message that was void of the cross, you didn't hear the gospel. Does Jesus come into our heart? Of course. But is that the fullness of the gospel? Or did he say, if any man desire to come after me, let him first deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. And the cross is not about decoration. It's about execution. We are those who carry the tree. And we are those who come to die. Because our leader carries the tree, and he himself comes to die. The Christian message is an all or nothing message. To be a disciple is to give all. To be a Christian is to lay it all down and glory in Jesus, so that one day, as that song so beautifully said, we shall behold him, and when we do, we shall be like him. Why will we be like him? Because the wedding is coming.