Being a fool for God

I have the privilege of preaching this week at El Buen Pastor Presbyterian Church here in Austin along with my seminary classmate Alex Cornell. El Buen Pastor is a bilingual church and so there is typically a 15 minute sermon in Spanish and a 15 minute sermon in English. During Advent, Alex and I preached together, I did the Spanish and Alex did the English. This time we are switching roles.

The lectionary texts for this week are rich and full of potential sermon topics. I am going to be preaching on 1 Corinthians 3:18-23:
3:18 Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise.
3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness,"
3:20 and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."
3:21 So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours,
3:22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all belong to you,
3:23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
 
I will post my sermon text next week, but as I prepared for this sermon, I remembered one of my favorite Michael Card songs, "God's Own Fool." Below are the lyrics and I would encourage you to meditate on them like a prayer. You can listen to the song with the embedded video below too. Enjoy!
 

Gods Own Fool lyrics

Seems I've imagined Him all of my life, As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God's Holy wisdom is foolish to man, He must have seemed out of His mind
Even His family said He was mad, And the priest said a demon's to blame
But, God in the form of this angry young man, Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
We in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
So we follow God's own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well

So come lose your life for a carpenter's son, For a madman who died for a dream
And You'll have the faith His first followers had, And you'll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know, Find the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes, And blinds those who say they can see