A church centred on the cross

Good morning everyone. We're going to continue reading the full passage of what we just looked at.

So it's 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18 and we're going to read all the way to chapter 2 and verse 5.

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,

the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate.

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law?

Where is the philosopher of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God the world, through its wisdom, did not know him,

God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Jews demand science and Greeks look for wisdom.

But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,

and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

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 this world to shame the wise.

God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong.

God chose the lowly things of this world,

and the despised things and the things that are not,

to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus,

who has become for us the wisdom of God,

that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

Therefore, as it is written,

let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Chapter 2.

And so it was for me, brothers and sisters,

when I came to you,

I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom,

as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you,

except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

I came to you in weakness, with great fear and trembling.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words,

but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power,

so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom,

but on God's power.

Amen.

Well, over the next few weeks,

we're going to spend some time thinking about seven different things,

which are really important for us as a church.

Seven marks, if you like, of what church life should be like.

And the first one this week is about being cross-centered,

and we're going to look at that passage together.

So let me pray as we do that.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you

that you have spoken through your word, the Bible,

by your Spirit in our hearts as we listen.

And we pray, please, this morning,

that you might help us to understand what you've written,

that we might listen carefully and thoughtfully,

that you might be at work in us,

not only as individuals, but also as a church family.

And we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, on June the 22nd,

which I think was the week before last, wasn't it?

It marked 75 years since the docking of HMT Empire Windrush

at the Tilbury Docks in Essex.

And I think there's a picture of that.

On that day, 492 passengers from the Caribbean

disembarked to begin a new life in Britain,

arriving here on the invitation of Britain,

but finding that the country that had invited them

did a very poor job of welcoming them.

So begins the famous story of the Windrush Generations.

And there's been celebrations, haven't there,

around Brent and Westminster I've seen,

cycling around,

as the significance of that story.

Now, I know that that story is personal to many of you.

It has a profound impact, doesn't it,

on the identity of many people

and their experience of life.

Because here's the wider principle, okay?

Here's the wider principle.

It's stories of origins and history

that understand how we shape our identity.

And I think if you can click onto the next slide.

Stories of origins and history

that shape how we understand who we are.

In other words, I am who I am

because of where I am from

or because of what has happened to me

or because of what has happened to those

who are like me along the way.

Now, I want to suggest to you,

if that's true this morning

because of Windrush

or because of the history of where you're from

or where I'm from

or where you went to school

or I went to school

or what happened to my family before I came along,

then I want to suggest to you,

if you're a Christian this morning,

then there is an even bigger story,

a bigger history, if you like,

that shapes all of our identities.

Not because those other things don't matter.

They have their own significance, don't they?

It's because this is more significant

and even bigger than any of those histories.

There is an action of God in history

which transforms who I am,

shapes all of my identity,

something which forms the very center

of the Christian identity,

which is not based on what I've done,

but what God has done.

And that's the cross.

Click the next slide.

So every week as a church,

we are going to gather

and retell the story of the cross,

the story of God the Son in human flesh,

giving his life in our place,

bearing our sin that we might be forgiven,

a story of a God who is rich in love,

full of grace and truth,

who moves towards the world that he has made,

not as we might imagine

in an awesome display of raw power,

raw power,

not moving towards his creation

in dictating a book to a warrior in a cave,

not even moving towards his creation

in the silence of a meditating monk.

More miraculous than any of that,

God moving towards the world that he's made

by becoming one of us

in the person of the Son.

Jesus, fully God and fully man,

coming not to be served,

but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

Now, I want to suggest to you this morning

that so significant is that event

and the history of it

and the message of that event,

that if you're a Christian this morning,

before you are anything else,

you're a child of the cross,

forgiven, loved, accepted, secure,

eternally alive,

because in our place, condemned he stood,

sealed our pardon with his blood.

That's our shared history, isn't it?

It's why when you come to 1 Corinthians,

and look down at that if you've still got it open,

when you come to 1 Corinthians,

you find a church that is struggling and divided,

and the Apostle Paul seeks to answer their struggles

and their troubles,

not so much by addressing them specifically.

It's ages before he really comes on

to give any clear answers

to the questions they're asking.

Rather, he starts by retelling them

the story of the cross

and why his ministry is all about the cross.

And so for the time we've got together this morning,

I want us to look carefully at what Paul says here

and so that we can see

what does it mean for us as a church

to be cross-centered?

What does it mean for us as a church

to have this shared identity

of being children of the cross of Christ?

What does it mean for us as a church family

to be like that?

And I want to start with three things

that it does not mean

and then give you three things that it does mean.

I know that's slightly counterintuitive,

but it might keep your attention this morning.

Okay, so three things that it does not mean.

And there should be a slide for each of these, Neva,

so here we go.

Oh, she's chivvying me along.

Being cross-centered does not mean being impressive.

Just look down at the passage

and look at verse 17,

just before the section that Jen read for us.

Paul is describing his own ministry

among the Corinthian church

and says in verse 17

that it wasn't with wisdom or eloquence.

Literally, it was not with word of wisdom.

And that's because verse 18,

the message of the cross,

appears foolish and not impressive.

Now, it's not hard, is it,

to see why Paul says this?

Think about it.

At the center of Paul's ministry,

at the heart of the church in Corinth

that he started,

is the news of a man hanging naked

and dying on a Roman cross.

A man facing the most shameful death, no.

But a man who, Paul says,

should now be worshipped as divine.

There's a famous bit of ancient Roman graffiti,

which is teasing a guy called Alex Aminos.

I don't know whether you've seen it.

There's a slide of it.

Alex was obviously a Christian,

and the person who scratched the graffiti

paints a picture of him in front of a cross

where there's a man with the head of a donkey.

And the graffiti says,

which you might not be able to read the graffiti,

it says,

Alex Aminos worships his God, it says.

It's teasing it, isn't it?

What a foolish thing.

Imagine worshipping a guy dying on a cross.

It's ancient kind of satire.

But if we're honest,

it's not just the first century Romans

who thought the cross was stupid.

It's the same today.

Imagine tomorrow morning,

you're in a conversation with a colleague or a neighbor,

and they ask you that sort of unlikely question.

I'm trying to think about identity

and what it means to be me.

They're never going to ask that, are they?

But you just imagine that they do.

And you say to them,

I'm so pleased you asked that question.

We were talking about that very thing at church yesterday.

My identity is all about

a guy who hung dead on a Roman cross.

What are they going to say?

They're going to think you're crazy, aren't they?

I mean, if you say,

oh, no, actually for me,

it's all about living by Jesus values.

Well, they might recognize that, might they?

They say, oh, yes, yeah,

do to others as you would have them do to you.

I think that's a great thing for your identity to be in,

a great thing for you to live by.

But as soon as you say,

no, no, my identity is in the blood and the gore of the cross,

that's a bit weird, isn't it?

Very impressive.

And here's the rub then for us as a church.

We can either be, as a church,

we can either be impressive,

or we can be cross-centered.

It can't be both.

It can't be both.

We can either choose to gather and tell the story of all of our achievements,

what we've done,

how well things are working out for us,

and how hard we're working,

or we can choose to gather around the story of what Christ has done on the cross.

So which will it be for us?

Impressiveness or the cross?

Now, I know, because you're all good Christian people, aren't you?

And, oh, of course, we want to be people of the cross.

We don't want to be impressive like that.

We want to be people of the cross.

But how would you tell if you were people of the cross?

It's easy.

When you get home,

ask yourself what you were most pleased with at church today.

Was it that it ran smoothly?

That we didn't start too late?

That Steve wore a shirt instead of a t-shirt?

That was a good thing for him to do.

Or is it that you were left with the very clear idea

that your only hope in life and death

is what Jesus has done for you

and not anything you've done for yourself?

Second thing that a cross-centered church is not,

it is not logical.

It is not logical.

Look again at the passage.

Look down at verse 19.

Here, Paul, talking about the message of the cross,

says that it destroys the wisdom of the wise

and the intelligence of the intelligent.

So much so that he says, verse 20,

where is the wise person?

He says, they've gone.

Where is the teacher of the law?

Literally, the Jewish scribe.

They've gone too.

Where is the philosopher of this age?

Where's the expert of the times?

Where's the professor who knows what they're talking about?

Well, she's gone as well.

Nowhere to be seen.

Beginning of verse 21 sums it up.

Let me read it to you again.

For since in the wisdom of God,

the world through its wisdom did not know him.

Here's the point.

The message of the cross,

being cross-centered as a church,

is the opposite of what you would be by nature.

And it doesn't matter whether you're from a religious background,

like the scribe,

or from a secular background,

like the philosopher.

The message of the cross is so countered to the way that we think,

that we wouldn't,

given all the time in the world,

we wouldn't have dreamt it up.

Why?

Well, because the cross defies human logic.

How so?

Well, because the cross doesn't say the sort of things that we think.

The cross doesn't say,

do you know what?

Work really hard and God will bless you.

It doesn't say that.

It doesn't say,

you know,

sort out your life

and God might then be interested in you.

It doesn't say,

you know,

listen,

you've got this.

Just dig deep,

be mindful,

live in the moment,

be the best version of you

and everything will be okay.

The cross-centered church doesn't even say,

you're a wretched sinner

and you spend the rest of your life feeling terrible about it.

It doesn't say that.

Instead,

the cross-centered church says something

that we wouldn't have dreamt up

given all the time in the world.

It says this,

that at the heart of the universe,

the glorious God who made us,

the one who in his eternal brilliance

did himself not need to be made,

that God loves sinners,

loves them.

And not with like a kind of passing affection or pity,

but in a love that willingly gives himself up for them

in the person of the sun,

in his human nature,

dying on a cross.

And you say,

when you understand that,

that makes absolutely no sense.

Why would the God who did not need to be made

become one of us in the person of the sun

and give himself on the cross?

The people unlovely like us

makes no sense.

And when you say that,

you go,

I'm beginning to get it.

That's exactly right.

The cross makes no logical sense.

It's the opposite of what we would think.

Honestly,

I think this is one of the reasons

that you can be sure that the gospel is true.

If you're sitting here this morning,

I've got loads of doubts.

I'm not sure whether this is true.

Well,

I think one of the reasons you can be confident

that this is true

is it's the opposite of what you would think by nature.

You know,

when you come up with something yourself,

when you tell a story

that's not quite true

and you're inventing it yourself,

you always come out really well

out of that story.

Have you noticed that?

The stories we make up always flatter us.

You know,

gods that we make up

are ones that are like superheroes

or ones that make us like superheroes.

You know,

they're distant gods

and they're approached

by acts of great righteousness by us.

Oh,

well,

if I come and pray or I fast,

then God will be impressed.

Those are the gods that we make up.

You know,

if I say the right prayers

at the right time

or I wear the right things,

that then God will be pleased with me.

But the God who's real,

there's nothing like that at all.

Because the God who is real

has an inhuman love for his people.

And in the person of the son,

he goes to the cross for them.

And that's not logical.

Okay,

the final thing

that a cross-centered church is not,

a cross-centered church is not appealing.

Appealing.

Again,

look back at the passage.

Look at verse 23.

What's the instinctive response

of the Jews

and the Gentiles

to this cross-centered ministry of Paul's?

What does he say?

It's a stumbling block to Jews.

They trip over it

and it's foolishness to Gentiles.

Here the sentence is that the Jews,

they trip over the message of the cross.

There's something about the gospel

which causes them to fall over.

We've seen it already.

Religious people fall over

or trip over the gospel

because it offends

their sense of self-righteousness.

Religion says,

do this and God will love you.

The gospel says,

God loves you

already

in Christ.

The gospel tells religious people,

listen,

you are way worse than you thought

because you cannot cover it

with your works

and tells them at the same time,

you are loved

way more than you ever dreamt

because God is more loving

to sinners than you ever imagined.

The religion of the Jews

was about status

and heritage

and moral performance

and the message of the cross

is about humility,

undeserved kindness

and owning up to your sin

and it's unappealing to them.

So it is to religious people today.

The message of the cross

is no help to someone

who is convinced

that they're able to earn God's love.

And for the Gentile

which is literally

the nations,

the rest of the world,

the gospel is unappealing

because it just sounds nonsense.

It sounds crazy.

Who would believe that,

they say.

Now there's loads more

that we can say from the passage.

We're going to say a bit more

but hopefully you can see

that being cross-centered

as a church,

having the cross of Jesus

at the center of our identity

as a church and as individuals,

the story that we're going to tell

week in and week out,

that is not a recipe

for worldly success.

In other words,

preaching Christ crucified,

shaping our church life

around that message,

discussing it in small groups,

teaching it to the young people,

singing about the cross

when we gather together,

praying in line with the cross,

understanding our identity

in the face of the cross of Christ,

none of that is going to make us popular.

If we want popularity,

we need to teach rules

or self-help.

Those are the options.

And we need to sing things like,

I am dynamite or whatever it is,

but not in Christ alone.

Let me say,

this is why being cross-centered

as a church is so difficult.

Being cross-centered as a church

and as an individual

is not complicated.

It's really, really simple.

It's difficult

because there's an aversion

in each of us against it.

We will hate the unpopularity

that it will bring.

We'll resist the fact

that it will bring out

the worst in us

and the best in God.

We will long for something

more palatable,

easier to sell,

a quicker fix.

Because being cross-centered

is not what?

Impressive,

it's not logical,

and it's not appealing.

So why on earth

would you want to be cross-centered?

Well, let me show you

three more things

from the passage

that will hopefully answer that.

Being cross-centered as a church

means these things as well.

It means speaking the truth.

Speaking the truth.

Come back to verse 18.

Let me point out

something really important

to you here.

I'm going to read it again.

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.

Now, the word in our Bibles

that translated message here

is the Greek word logos,

which more literally

is the word word.

This is the word of the cross.

Which contrasts

with verse 17

where you have

the word of wisdom,

the logos of wisdom.

So here, if you like,

are the comparison

of two stories.

It's the word of the world,

the word of wisdom

and eloquence,

or it's the word of the cross,

which is the power

of God to save.

And here is the point.

The message of the cross

is important

because it's the word of God.

It's truth.

It's the logos.

Now, I think that's interesting

because I think

if you or I were writing

verse 18,

we would say

it's the cross of Christ

which is the power of God.

But it doesn't say that,

does it?

What does it say

is the power of God?

Not the cross of Christ.

It's the message

of the cross of Christ

which is the power of God.

It's the word of the cross

which is the power of God.

Paul is not contrasting

the world's wisdom

with sort of

a silent belief in Jesus.

He is contrasting

the word that the world says

against the word

that God says.

He's not contrasting

just a kind of

religious experience

with the word of the world.

Instead,

he's comparing

the message of the cross,

the spoken message

about Jesus Christ.

Telling,

declaring,

saying

what his death

on the cross has done.

That's the power of God,

he says.

Now,

I hope you're thinking

in your mind.

There are loads

of implications

of that,

aren't there?

But one really important one

is that there is no distinction

for us as a church

between being cross-centered

and being Bible preaching.

I think I've got that

on a slide,

Niva,

that says

cross-centered

equals Bible preaching.

There you go.

You cannot be

cross-centered

without the message

of what the cross means

which is the message

of the whole Bible.

And you can't be faithful

to the Bible

without being cross-centered

because on every page

the achievements

of Christ's cross

are articulated for us.

or to put the same thing

in a slightly different way,

you can't be cross-centered

without preaching the Bible

because it's the declaration

of the message

that's so important.

It's about listening

to the word of God

instead of the word

of wisdom and eloquence.

It means,

doesn't it,

in youth work,

in Sunday school,

in small group discussions,

two things are really important,

aren't they?

Two things are really important.

One is to have an open Bible

and the second is

to show how that particular

part of the Bible

points you

to human inability to save

and God alone can save.

Let me say,

in my experience,

it might be different here,

but in my experience

as evangelicals,

we are better at the first one

than we are at the second one.

Right?

We understand

we have to open the Bible.

We know that.

But we are really good

at opening the Bible

and telling people

to be better.

Or opening the Bible

and using it

to give people information.

What you really need

to understand

are these stories.

Now,

being a better person

and understanding

the stories of the Bible,

both those things

are good,

aren't they?

But that's not why

God's word was given to you.

God's word is given

because it teaches you

the message of the cross,

which is what Christ has done

and not what I have done.

Open Bibles

but not seeing the cross

is not seeing

God's sovereign power

to save.

We've not really understood

our Bibles

unless we've seen the cross.

I could go on,

but I've got years to go on,

so I'm not going to do that

just this morning.

Let me show you

a second thing

that being cross-centered

means as a church.

It means we have access

to God's power.

Access to God's power.

We've touched on this already,

but notice verse 18,

the message of the cross,

the declaration of what

Christ has achieved

in his death and resurrection.

The message of the Bible

is to those who are being saved

the power of God.

In other words,

this message,

which is foolishness,

illogical,

unimpressiveness to the world

is to God's people

power.

Now, what is it

God's power to do?

Is it God's power

to give me all I want,

power to have a good week at work,

power to heal me

from every disease,

power to put money

in my pockets maybe?

Well, no, it's not, is it?

Follow the logic

of the passage.

You'll see verse 21.

Notice the same contrast.

The wisdom of the world

versus the foolishness

of preaching.

You see that?

What is it that

the foolishness of preaching

can do

that the wisdom

of the world cannot?

Well, it's enable people

to know God,

isn't it?

By being saved by God.

Here then,

the message of the cross,

being cross-centered

as a church,

means we have,

listen, this is it,

God's power

to know him.

God's power

to know him

and be saved by him.

It doesn't mean

that we will always know

why God is doing

what he's doing

in my life

at any particular

given moment,

but it will mean

that even in the midst

of pain and suffering,

even with the tears

strolling down our face,

we will be able to say,

even now I know God

and I know he's with me.

I can experience God,

I can relate to God,

I can delight in God,

I can enjoy him

through the message

of the cross,

which is the message

of the Bible.

Think about it like this.

I think I've got

a picture for this.

Imagine that a friend

invites you out

to go and eat burgers,

okay?

I didn't put a particularly

good picture of a burger up

because I didn't want you

to salivate too much,

but imagine, right,

a friend invites you out

and says,

listen,

I found somewhere new

on the Kilburn High Road

to eat burgers.

Let's go and eat burgers.

It's going to be great.

We're going to have

an awesome time.

Come with me.

I'll show you where it is.

So you go,

you follow them,

and you sit in the shop

and you take a seat,

and all over the wall

of the shop

are pictures of burgers.

They look great.

And you're sitting there

and your friends sit in there

and you're looking

at each other

and you're looking

at the menu of burgers

in front of you,

and then your friend says

to you,

should we leave now?

And you get up

and walk out

a bit confused

and they say,

wasn't that great?

Wasn't that a brilliant place?

Didn't you really enjoy that?

What are you going to say?

You're going to,

well,

that was rubbish.

I didn't even get

to eat a burger.

I went to eat a burger.

I didn't even get one.

What a terrible,

terrible time.

Now, listen,

it's a silly story,

isn't it?

But that is like church

without the message

of the cross.

Hearing the message

of the cross

is how the church

gets to eat,

and I hope this isn't

irreverent,

how we get to eat

the burger of the delights

of God's goodness.

This is the feast

for us this morning

as we gather around

the cross of the Lord

Jesus Christ,

hearing his message,

feasting on him.

And it doesn't work

if you don't preach Christ.

If you come to church

and someone says

something other

than the message

of the cross of Christ,

it's like going

to a burger restaurant

and not getting

to eat one.

Or if you don't come,

well, it's like not even

turning up anyway,

isn't it?

Actually, gathering

as a church

around the message

of the cross

is how we delight

in God,

how we get to feast

on him.

It's the power

of God to save,

the power of God

for us to know him

and delight in him.

Finally,

a cross-centered church

means a divided church,

a divided church.

Now, I put it like that,

which I think should be

on the next screen,

being divided.

I've put it like that

to make you sit up

and listen,

because I knew

this was the end.

Surely you think,

wow, division in the church,

dude, that's a terrible thing.

This is your first Sunday.

Don't stand up there

and preach division.

That would be

a terrible thing to do.

We don't want that.

And of course,

division in the church

is a bad thing,

but there are,

or there is a certain

kind of division

that the cross brings,

which is really,

really important.

Because a cross-centered church

will expose

a division in the church

between those

who trust in Christ

and those who do not.

Between those relying

on human wisdom

and those relying on God.

As we preach Christ

at the center,

it will make this division

increasingly clear

that there are those

who believe

and those who do not.

And the temptation is then

to change the message,

isn't it?

Or to water it down

just a little bit,

a little bit,

or be a little bit

less focused on it

just to mask that division.

Because it means

hard things, doesn't it?

It means that

some young people

will stop coming

because they don't

believe the message.

They want the word

of the world,

not the word of the cross.

It means some friends

we invite

don't want to come back

because they're offended

by the idea

that God alone

can save them

and they can't do

anything themselves.

Now, don't get me wrong.

We don't want to be

deliberately offensive.

Christians can be

deliberately offensive,

can't they?

I'm sure we've all

got a bad experience

of that.

It's as if

it takes some weird

spiritual delight

in being obnoxious.

I'm not talking

about that at all.

If people leave the church

because we are rude

and unkind,

then that's our fault

and we should repent

and find them

and say sorry.

Well, the point is

that even if we are

really friendly

and really warm

and really welcoming,

even if the welcome

at church is amazing,

the fellowship is warm

and sweet

and the food is delicious

over lunch,

if we preach the cross,

this division will become

clear in the life

of the church.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 11,

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Paul says the division

becomes really clear

as you gather around

the Lord's table

because some people

are allowed to eat it

and others are not.

Literally,

as we eat the visible

words of the cross,

which means that you

really belong to church

by believing in the message

of Jesus Christ

and his cross,

not just by coming.

Don't say West Kilburn

Baptist Church

is my church

because I come.

You say West Kilburn

Baptist Church

is my church

because I believe

in Jesus Christ alone.

That's why I'm here.

And that means,

doesn't it,

as we finish this morning,

I need to ask you

and I need to ask myself

this really important question,

which is this,

do I believe

in Jesus Christ

and him crucified?

Do I believe?

Do I believe

that my sin

is so bad

that I cannot

save myself,

but my Savior

is so lovely

that he's done

all that needed

to be done

to save me?

Do I believe that?

This morning,

have I abandoned

all hope in myself,

every last little bit

of self-reliance

and thrown myself

on Jesus?

Do I see myself,

before I see myself

as anything else,

I'm a person

defined by the story

of what Jesus

has done for me?

I'm a child

of the cross.

That the most

foundational thing

is that I belong

to Jesus.

He loves me.

He died for me

that I might be forgiven.

Do you believe that?

Because if you do,

then welcome.

Welcome to a company

of unimpressive,

illogical,

unappealing people

who have access

to the truth of God,

experience the power

of God

and know God

through the thick

and thin of life

and stretching

into eternity.

There's no better

place to be.

Let me pray

as I close.

heavenly Father,

thank you so much

for all that you've done

for us in the Lord Jesus.

Thank you for this

indescribable love

that you have

for sinful people

even like us.

and we thank you

that you've saved us

not by what we have done

but by what Christ

has done for us.

So we delight in that

and we feast on that

this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.