Our main passage today is: 1Corinthians 1:17 – 26
(NKJV) 1Corinthians 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. 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. 19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." 20 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? 21 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. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
1) CONTEXT MATTERS vs17 – Paul’s context involves four things
1a) Know What Your Role Does Not Involve - Paul did not launch out aimlessly to make his mark on the world and he was not going to be moved by the folks who wanted him to do something other than what he was supposed to be doing. He had a clear goal that was rooted in an understanding of his role in God’s kingdom. He knew what Christ did not send him to do. “Christ did not send me to baptize”
Sometimes a disruption occurs in churches when someone who does not know their place engages in taking up things that do not belong to them. They can do this out of insecurity which cultivates a need to be recognized or needed in way they feel is more significant. It can be targeted at a ministry, it can involve an offense belonging to someone else and they come in acting like a hero, or it can involve a wrong attitude towards men in authority out of a desire to be in authority themselves – after all leaders put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. Those functioning outside their roles can become engaged in conversations and actions that wind up distracting them from their specific purpose and potentially hindering others who are trying to carry out what God has given them to do.
Question: Do you know what Christ has not sent you to do?
1b) Know What Your Role Involves – Paul knew what he was supposed to do and who had sent him. “Christ sent me to preach the gospel”
(NKJV) 1Corinthians 9:16 For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!
Often knowing what not to do is conditioned by knowing exactly what to do. It is obvious that Paul knew he was supposed to be preaching the gospel. He was not called to politic within the church and become its most popular leader in high demand. He was about preaching the gospel. He took this responsibility seriously because he firmly believed that Christ sent him to do just that. Had you come out to hear Paul speak you would have heard the gospel preached with great clarity and simplicity.
Why? That is what Christ sent him to do.
Question: Do you know what Christ has sent you to do?
1c) How Not to Do It – There are right ways and there are wrong ways. Paul knew how to avoid the wrong way. “not with wisdom of words”
Paul did not wish to complicate the matter of the gospel. It is not your ordinary debatable argument as if men can be won on the basis of reasoning with them. That would make salvation our work as opposed to God’s work and those most exercised in the power of reasoning would be regarded as the greatest evangelists. It is not through persuasive argument that men believe, it is through the work of the Holy Spirit and the only way to discern He is at work is to keep it simple because where faith is alive it does not require much.
Question: Do you believe someone’s salvation depends on how great a case you can make about it?
1d) Why to Avoid Doing It Wrong – Paul understood how important doing it right was because he knew what the outcome would be if he did it wrong. “lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect”
Major Question: What does it mean to say, “lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect?”
The cross is God’s means of a supernatural provision of payment for sin. It is the testimony of the cross of Christ that says to men of faith that what is required by God as payment for sin cannot be met in any man other than His own Son. To begin to realize that only God’s Son was sufficient for this is to recognize that our sin was that far reaching, that deep, that impossible to erase by our own efforts or sacrifices no matter how great our efforts may be viewed to be by us or others.
It is the effect of the cross of Christ to bring us to the very end of ourselves and rid us from thinking there is any hope in securing the righteousness required by God, or to secure His affections and favor by what we can do or bring.
The cross identifies the Savior of men with the death of men. Just by the fact that Jesus died there is a declaration made by that act that we are dead in our sins. If we lose this effect of the cross we also lose the hope of life itself. We are approaching Easter that time each year that the resurrection of Christ is celebrated throughout the Christian world. If the reality of death is not sufficiently grasped then the beauty of resurrection and the great hope it offers would be wasted on such a heart.
So much is attached to the effectiveness of the cross. This is conveyed by Paul to Timothy.
(NKJV) 2Timothy 2:11 This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him.
It is the ugliness of sin and the darkness of death communicated by the cross of Christ that the makes bright the hope of resurrection in Christ! It strips us bare of any thought of our own goodness and declares us truly dead in our sins and trespasses. It also speaks of the great lengths God was willing to go to in order to save those that He has chosen to be His.
(NKJV) Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
The cross is the manifestation of God’s love for the elect and it flies in the face of the principalities that rebelled in heaven. They being enemies will never know reconciliation we having been enemies are reconciled to God through the work of Christ on the cross. Without the cross there is no grace and without grace there is no salvation. This is the effectiveness of the cross of Christ.
Question: What does the cross of Christ communicate to you?
2) THE IMPACT OF THE MESSAGE – TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE AND TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
Perspective One/Type One - “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”
History has had much to say with regard to the human will, the human spirit, and the ability of man to accomplish great things. Even God acknowledged the ability of man in the Bible in Genesis. At the Tower of Babel God said let us go down and confound their language lest they do this thing.
Do what thing? Be as God by ascending to the heavens and demonstrating the will of man and the power of man. Men would like to think they are able to do what God can. There is a great desire to be His equal. This is reflected in Greek Mythology and in many of the doctrines of other religions throughout the world. It was this deception that was at the heart of the lie that Satan used to deceive Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. Ever since that sin entered humanity we have all been affected by the reasoning behind it. The deception is that as long as we know what is good and what is evil we will be able to restrain ourselves and achieve perfection. The great deception is to think we possess the ability to achieve righteousness as an act of our will through making right choices based on the knowledge of good and evil. This is where we get our default dependence on rules.
The struggles of mankind are the same throughout time they are just packaged a little differently with each new generation that arrives. In an age where human wisdom and accomplishment means everything it is understandable that a message that strips men of their own efforts might be considered as being foolish.
The message of the cross says man is utterly incapable of bringing anything to God in the work of salvation and righteousness because man is devoid of having anything worthy of the grace of God.
This is offensive and makes no sense to a natural man or a self-righteous man as we will see later in the passage when it differentiates the Jew from the Greek.
Perspective Two/Type Two - considers the message of the cross to be the very power of God. Those that are being saved share this perspective.
We know God is at work in someone who does not reject the message of the cross. This is a sure sign they are being given revelation of the Holy Spirit. This is our key to true discernment regarding where God is at work.
People can become passionate about many things. They are especially passionate about what they feel they are accomplishing or what at least makes perfect sense to them. So when we speak of the message of the cross we are not talking about what you or I sacrifice in life and call it bearing our cross for Jesus. Nor are we speaking of something logical to the natural man’s mind.
This is only received as good news to those who have ears to hear. But to those who just cannot fathom the idea of having nothing to bring to God, or for those who do not think they have to worry about eternity it is nonsense. This is why God also chose the kind of method He wanted to use to message out.
3) BEWARE THE IDOL OF RELEVANCE
“it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe”
Here we discover that preaching this message is something to be esteemed. It is to be esteemed because God takes pleasure in it. This tells me there is a different reason behind preaching this message than just the mere communication of it.
Preaching it pleases God. It is God’s way! His way is always relevant!
God has chosen to take something as simplistic as preaching the gospel to identify those that He has chosen to be His.
This means preaching and teaching will never be outdated or antiquated in any way. This means it is still a vital and important part of our lives and most needed. God has His reason for wanting to administer the truth in this manner.
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God”
God has chosen something that confronts the arrogance of man. He has a chosen a simple message. Notice there is no condition of result placed on this method. It simply shows us that this method and message reveals the truth about where people are at in their hearts.
4) Same Message Given to Two Kinds of People Revealing Two Different Responses
“but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,”
The Jews – a chosen people now set in their ways and practices to such a degree they think they have a right to expect a sign according to their liking. They do not realize that any sign given to an unbelieving heart will mean nothing. Even the miraculous is wasted on unbelief.
It says Christ crucified is a stumbling block. Perhaps part of that stumbling lies in what Paul revealed in Galatians.
(NKJV) Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"),
Imagine being raised a Jewish child and being told all your life that you a part of a chosen people of God and therefore not under a curse but a blessing but now you are being told that you are under a curse as a sinner unless you believe in Christ and that is because Christ took the curse for you. You would struggle with that knowledge unless God drew you in and through the work of the Holy Spirit He granted you spiritual insight and faith. That is what vs 24 is telling us:
“but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The Greeks – a people were a people who arrogantly saw themselves as highly educated and therefore more cultured and refined than the rest of the world. They desire to be convinced by profound arguments of irrefutable fact that registers with their way of thinking. They considered themselves to be forward thinking people.
It says Christ crucified is foolishness to the Greeks. Their thinking may be in part due to the idea that they must be reconciled to the knowledge of needing someone to die in their place due to their sin. But add to that the understanding of their culture that all who hang on a cross are criminals deserving death due to insurrection or crimes worthy of death and forward thinking people would struggle with such knowledge unless they were given insight by the Holy Ghost.
Both Jews and Greeks share something in common in that both lack belief. Notice though that the terms are the same for both Jew and Greek.
“but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
God is not partial to one race of people over another. But one thing that keeps recurring as a theme in these passages is the idea that only those called of God will understand and believe. This makes the gospel message without partiality and relevant for every race on earth.
5) The Great Equalizer of Men
“but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The only way someone struggles with the gospel is they lack belief, and the only way they lack belief is that they have not been chosen.
Belief is the key and the root of it begins with God. The fruit of it is manifested in men but its origins rest with God.
If someone does not respond to the preaching of the gospel it is because they do not believe. If they do respond it will be because they believe and that will all be according to the work of God in them.
One thing we can know for certain is that those who truly believe are saved and have no problem with the idea that salvation is to the credit of Christ alone and that Jesus is the very wisdom of God and the power of God! That is what we see testified to here in this passage.
So in closing we should conclude that:
1) Getting the message right does not improve our chances of seeing more professions of faith, but it will weed out those who are called and those who are not.
2) Keeping the message simple enables us to avoid interfering with the work of the Holy Ghost by letting the cross maintain its effectiveness.
3) The right gospel message is a great discernment tool.
4) God is not partial to one race over another so neither should we be. There is nothing special about a birthright anymore unless it is to say one has been born again in Christ.
5) No one on earth is capable of bringing anything to God in order to merit His attention. We are all on an equal playing field, we stand on common ground.
6) The only thing separating us from those that are lost is the mercy of God we have received.
7) Testifying to Christ being the wisdom of God meaning there was no better way to bring about salvation than the way God chose to do so, and that Christ is the very power of God meaning the supernatural work of salvation is seen only in Jesus Christ and no other. This is what the message of the cross does for those who are called and have believed in Christ.
