with God's power

Gracious Father, we thank you for the cross,

and we pray that that power might impact us day by day.

May it not be a relic of the past,

but present power to take up our cross and follow you,

and we ask it for your sake.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Just quickly, an update.

I believe you've prayed already for Joshua.

Fantastic.

He went into surgery on Friday.

Didn't go so well,

so he went back into surgery again yesterday,

and I just received a text from Josh.

Sorry, from Josh.

He's an advanced kid.

From Stuart and Emma saying,

Josh doing much better this morning.

Surgeon happy.

Praise the Lord.

Please thank everyone for their prayers.

So please continue to uphold them as they walk in these days,

and thank God for the great news.

Perfect Liberty Church used to be the fastest growing church in the world.

It had its origin in Japan

and has since spread to a number of different locations in the world,

including Brisbane.

Mostly exotic locations,

except for Brisbane, I'd imagine,

but mostly spread through a number of different places in the world.

The headquarters in Japan is considered a paradise.

At one point,

it boasted in having the most complete recreation complex in all of Japan,

and the landscaped delights like artificial lakes and cherry trees and waterfalls

were just marvellous to comprehend.

Perfect Liberty Church had a very simple theology.

Everyone who is a member is a child of God

who finds the way to eternal peace by freely exercising individuality,

and therefore you are free to express as members of the church

to express your individuality

and discover eternal peace through prayer,

through golf,

through group sex,

and frankly, whatever else you wanted to do.

The crucial thing is total freedom for individual expression.

You can do whatever you want,

so long as it makes you happy,

and it's called church.

That would be on their board in their foyer.

Come in here and do whatever you like.

On one level,

it's not hard to see why it was the fastest growing church in the world at one time.

On another level,

it's a bit hard to fathom why it would grow so fast.

The message of this church is to do whatever you want,

whenever you want,

with whomever you want,

so long as it makes you happy.

So how's that different than anyone else in the world?

One of the tenets of salvation for the Perfect Liberty Church

was you had to give lots and lots of money,

which is why it had money for its landscapes and recreation facilities.

So why would you give up your perfect freedom there

to come into this church

to give lots of money in order to have perfect freedom?

Makes no sense in my mind.

Perfect Liberty Church would have grown pretty well in Corinth.

Corinth was a city on the up.

After being flattened by the Romans in 150 BC,

they then decided they made a mistake,

dramatic transformation,

and poured lots of money into it

and rebuilt it in the early part of the first century.

Money came from all over the empire

to rebuild and improve the infrastructure.

Sorry, Corinth was a major trading centre in Greece,

crucial for the Roman Empire,

in fact, for the world.

It was a very popular tourist destination

and a great place to party.

The morals of Corinth were pretty low bar.

So it was a great place

if you wanted to let your hair down and have a great time.

The population of Corinth had exploded

from all over the Roman Empire

in the early days of the first century.

They came to take advantage

of the Corinthian cosmopolitan lifestyle.

Many of those who came were former slaves

who had bought their freedom

and were now players in the financial services industry.

And as far as we could work out from the book of Acts,

Paul stayed in Corinth for a couple of years

to teach and establish this new church.

By the time he left,

there was a church family there of around about 60 people.

The church was multicultural

and predominantly middle class,

not unlike St. Paul's Chatswood.

There were a few rich people

and there were a few slaves,

but most people were somewhere in the middle.

The other thing that we need to understand

about this church before we launch into this letter

is that it had some pretty major problems.

This letter, 1 Corinthians,

is Paul helping this church to get back on track.

And so just imagine it there.

You're squeezed together in one of the houses

of one of the rich people at Corinth

because they're the only ones who can fit 60 people in.

And you're there to hear Paul's letter.

And he says,

Paul,

called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus

by the will of God and our brothers,

to the church of God in Corinth,

to those sanctified in Christ Jesus

and called to be holy,

together with those everywhere

who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

their Lord and ours.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I always thank God for you

because of his grace given to you in Christ Jesus.

For in him you have been enriched in every way,

in all your speaking and in all your knowledge

because our testament of our Christ was confirmed in you.

Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift

as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

He will keep you strong to the end

so that you will be blameless

on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God who has called you into fellowship with his son,

Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Notice that Paul starts his letter

by describing his church in Corinth

as to those sanctified in Christ Jesus

and called to be holy,

together with all those everywhere

who call on the name of our Lord.

And again, I always thank God for you

because of his grace given to you in Christ Jesus.

And again, you have been enriched in every way.

And again, you do not lack any spiritual gift

as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed

and he will keep you strong to the end

so that you will be blameless

on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, at the beginning of this letter,

Paul looks back to what this church has received

in Jesus Christ.

And then he tells them to look forward to the goal

as you eagerly await the Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

And he promises them that God

who has called you into fellowship with his son,

our Lord Jesus Christ, is faithful.

They have a beginning in Jesus

and they have a future to aim for.

The day when Jesus Christ is revealed.

And the problem for this church in Corinth

is they have forgotten what it means

to live in between times.

They've forgotten what it means

to live out their future hope in the present.

Even though they were the Christian church in Corinth,

an inordinate amount of Corinth was in this church.

And so Paul's writing this letter to get them back on track.

And how does he do that?

He does it by getting to refocus on Jesus.

Twelve times in the start of this letter,

we have Jesus Christ or our Lord Jesus Christ

or Christ Jesus our Lord mentioned.

Paul is simply telling this church

to refocus on the crucified Jesus

as the foundation of how they live out their life

together in the present.

That is fundamentally his core message

through this letter.

There is a beginning in Jesus

and a future that they are heading to.

And in between, he's calling them right now

in the present to live the cross

shaped life.

That is what the Corinthian church needed to get

because they weren't living the cross shaped life.

They were operating like perfect liberty church.

The first evidence of that is the divisions

and the factions in the church.

Listen to how Paul describes it in verses 10 to 17.

I appeal to you brothers in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

that all of you agree with one another

so that there may be no divisions among you

and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

My brothers, some from Chloe's household,

she got dobbed in,

have been informed me

and informed me that there are quarrels among you.

What I mean is this,

one of you says I follow Paul,

another says I follow Apollos,

another I follow Cephas,

still another I follow Christ.

Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Were you baptised in the name of Paul?

I'm thankful that I did not baptise any of you

except Crispus and Gaius

so no one can say that you're baptised into my name.

Yes, I also baptised the household of Stephanas.

Beyond that, I don't remember if I baptised anyone else.

For Christ did not send me to baptise,

but to preach the gospel,

not with words of human wisdom,

lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Corinth was no different than Jatswood,

no different than Sydney,

no different than Australia.

Like us, they had a celebrity culture.

The big celebrities in Corinth weren't the singers,

or nowadays the chefs.

They weren't the movie stars,

they weren't the socialists,

they weren't the sports people,

they were the public speakers and the orators.

People flocked from everywhere

to hear these speakers deliver their lectures

on the latest ideas.

When Paul talks here about human wisdom,

he's talking about human worldview.

These guys came in and just spoke about stuff.

They would speak about everything and anything,

politics, architecture, sex, leisure, art.

The better that they presented,

the more adherence they got,

and the bigger the payday it was for them.

People would come and hear their favourite speakers,

and then they would argue their viewpoints with one another.

The disciples of each one of these speakers

would argue their viewpoints with each other.

One of Paul's contemporaries,

a Greek orator and historian of the Roman Empire,

a guy named Dio Chrysostom,

wrote this about Corinth.

He himself was a historian and an orator.

He said,

When I arrived,

I was escorted with much enthusiasm and respect,

the recipients of my visits

being grateful for my presence

and begging me to address them and advise them

and flocking around my door from early dawn.

One could hear rival crowds around the temple

shouting and reviling one another.

Disciples of one fighting with the disciples of another

as the writers read their stupid works.

It's a little ironic that he should call other people's works stupid

when one of his most famous works

was a speech called,

In Praise of Hair.

It was against baldness.

So what Dio Chrysostom describes there

wasn't football hooliganism,

it was philosophy hooliganism.

The celebrity culture,

the worldviews of Corinth

fed all into the life of the church.

We see it there in verses 10 to 17.

If the Corinthians were a little bit underwhelmed by Paul

and his speaking,

they loved Apollos.

Oh, we love Apollos.

He could really preach that guy.

And this led them to start saying things like,

well, we're Apollos people.

Another group over there said,

well, we,

Paul's our guru,

we're Paul people.

Another group says,

no, no,

we're Peter people,

most likely the Jews,

we're Peter people.

Some who presumably thought

they were all above all church leadership.

No, no, no.

We're Jesus people.

That's the trump card on you all.

Even the Jesus people faction here

are meant to be read negatively

because they weren't Jesus people

out of submission to Christ.

They were Jesus people

to beat the other factions.

The church hadn't actually split,

but they were heading that way

because they had adopted the wisdom

and the worldview of Corinth

and focused on personalities

and outward gifts and appearances

and skill and polish

rather than this cross.

And here I think is one of the main issues for them.

They began to think of their teachers,

their pastors,

in terms of itinerant philosophers

and celebrities.

and their new faith

in Jesus

as the product,

as a new wisdom

for Corinth.

The gospel message

became something

that they just attached

to the end of their life.

The Christian faith

has become

more than,

nothing more than just

simply a bunch of ideas

that they have

given intellectual assent to

and claim to believe.

And Paul's message here

in this chapter,

in fact,

I think the rest of the book,

is that

the crucified Jesus

isn't another piece of wisdom

that you collect

and you stick it on your CV.

The message of the crucified Christ

stands in total contrast

to human wisdom

and power.

The cross of Christ

is in fact

the great reversal

of all those things

that you long for.

This is how Paul puts it

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 the power of God

for it is written

I will destroy

the wisdom of the wise

and the intelligent

of the intelligent

I will frustrate.

Where is the wise man?

Where is the scholar?

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

miraculous signs

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 man's wisdom

and the weakness

of God

is stronger

than man's strength.

You see,

power was a big issue

in the culture

of Corinth.

It didn't matter

whether you were Roman

or whether you were Greek

or whether you were Jew,

sort of the three main cultures

that made up Corinth.

Power was essential

in one way or another.

That is why

they had forgotten

the cross

because Jesus

on the cross

looks defeated.

He looks weak.

It's an embarrassment

in that culture.

It's a stumbling block

in that culture

to preach

a crucified Messiah.

And if I asked you today,

just today,

to share with me now,

if we had a roving mic,

stand up

and share with me

some of the great displays

of the power of God

in the Bible.

There is a number of things

that you could turn to

but who here would stand up

and say the cross of Christ?

That's the power of God.

That's the display

of God's power.

God's power.

What sort of philosopher

in human wisdom

would ever come up

with God himself

dying on a cross

in total weakness

being the great demonstration

of that God's power?

Jesus,

through his weakness

in dying on the cross,

has dealt with sin

and has become life

and power

for all of eternity.

He descended to the lowest

of lows

in weakness

and he is now given

the name that is above

every name.

That at the name of Jesus,

every knee would bow

and every tongue confess

that he is Lord

over everything.

God's power

and he is now given

what Paul is saying here

is you can't get

the cross of Christ

and attach it

to your human wisdom.

It blows human wisdom

out of the water.

God has more wisdom

on a bad day

than all the minds

of the world

together on a good day.

He has more power

in his little toe

than the might

of a world superfowl.

And the only answer

for this church

at Corinth

is to

abandon

their human wisdom

and look

to the crucified Jesus.

There's only one thing

that can bring

this church family

back together

and to stop

it splittering.

There is only one

antidote

to their boasting

about their cleverness

and about their cultures.

It's the message

of Jesus.

Death on the cross.

What they need

to discover

is that the message

of the cross

isn't simply

another idea

to intellectually

debate over

and to put in

their CV.

The gospel

isn't another

form of wisdom.

The gospel

means belonging

to Jesus.

It's not just

the intellectual

idea.

It means

you belong.

That's what

the gospel is.

Isaiah 3 · chapter mention

Chapter 3

says,

And you are

of Christ

and Christ

is of God.

Chapter 6

says,

You were bought

at a price,

therefore honour

God with your body.

You no longer

live for yourself.

You belong to Jesus.

The only answer

to all the

Corinthian problems

and our problems,

the problems of

individualism

and personal preference

is to live

a cross-centred

life together.

And what does that

mean?

It actually means

to make Jesus

and his death

the main thing

in our lives,

both individually

and corporately.

make Jesus

and his death

the most important

thing in your life,

the thing that

you're passionate about,

the thing that

shapes your behaviour

and your thinking

and your decision-making

and your choices.

This really is

the central message

of this letter.

We are to be

people of one

thing,

people of the cross,

living cross-centred,

cross-shaped,

cross-defined

lives.

The overarching

challenge of this

letter is to live

all day,

every day,

together in a way

that is controlled

by God's wisdom

and he has shown

it on the cross.

And that means

taking up our cross

and dying to self.

I was at a birthday

party yesterday

and one of the

questions during

a party game

was something

like,

use one word

to describe

the birthday girl.

I was thinking

about various

people

yesterday

as I was writing

some of this

and I was thinking,

can I come up

with one word

to describe

what they are

passionate about?

You know,

you look at the person,

you just,

you know,

hold random,

look at the person

and go,

yeah,

golf.

You know,

surfing,

retirement,

children,

job,

career,

flowers,

caravan,

gardening,

ballroom dancing,

single malt scotch,

fishing,

travel,

holding cars,

Sydney swans.

I mean,

it just quickly

came to my mind,

just think a whole

random,

one thing to

identify them.

Now,

don't get me wrong,

there's nothing evil

about any of those

things,

with the possible

exception of

Sydney swans.

What I'm saying

is,

they cannot be

the main thing

in our lives.

it is just

foolishness.

The wise thing

to do,

the only wise

thing to do

is to make

Jesus and

his cross

the controlling

centre of

our lives.

And I suspect

that if I did

a similar sort

of thing today

in a survey

and just whipped

around all

of St.

Paul's and said,

what's the main

thing about St.

Paul's?

There is a number

of things that we

could identify with

and say,

this ought to be

our main thing.

And what this

passage says,

no, no, no.

If it's not

Jesus crucified,

it's not the

main thing.

And so Paul

does something

really unusual

as he finishes

this chapter.

See what he

says there in

verses 26 and

27?

Brothers,

think of what

you were when

you were called.

None of you

were wise by

human standards.

Not many of

you were

influential.

Not many of

you 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

to shame

the strong.

He basically

says there,

hey guys,

just for a

moment,

look up.

Look up.

He said,

heads up,

just look

around the

room.

Look at the

people sitting

in front of

you and

beside you.

Look at

each other.

Aren't you

a strange

lot?

What a

weird collection

of people.

people.

He basically

says only

the cross

of Christ

can explain

that.

Conventional

human wisdom

can't explain

it.

You're not

here because

you were wise

and powerful

and you

wanted to

join a group

of wise

and powerful

people.

If God

worked

according to

conventional

wisdom,

if God

had handpicked

his church

on the

basis of

human

qualification,

let's face

it,

I for one

wouldn't

get a gig.

It dawned

on me this

week in

preparation,

I didn't

include it,

it dawned on

me this

week,

I'm not

number one

in the

world at

anything.

At

anything.

In fact,

I'm pretty

sure I'm

not number

one in

chats

would at

anything.

I'm

pretty

average.

That's

partly

depressing,

but it's

the wisdom

of God.

The cross

is the very

expression of

how God

works.

He works

to bring

people like

us,

relatively

unimpressive

people from

all different

backgrounds

together,

and he

empowers

us to

do what

we cannot

do on

our own,

and that

is to

die to

ourself

and pursue

unity in

Jesus.

That is

the wisdom

that the

United Nations

hasn't got

and the

power that

they don't

have.

If we

make Jesus

our main

thing,

then God

gives us

the power

to do

something

incredible,

the power

to stop

boasting

about

ourselves

and our

personal

preferences

and our

cultures.

See what

it says

in verse

28,

he chose

the lowly

things of

the world

and the

despising

the things

that are

not to

nullify

the things

that are

so that

no one

may boast

before him.

You see,

when we

look to

Jesus,

when we

look at

Jesus on

the cross,

we won't

look to

ourselves.

We won't

waste our

breath trying

to convince

ourselves or

anyone else

that we

are fantastic.

Oh, but

friends, how

prone we are

to do that.

How skilled

we are at

it.

I think it

would be both

entertaining and

quite revealing

if each of us

had a flashing

beacon on

our heads

and that

beacon was

wired to

our hearts

and it

went off

every time

we started

to talk

about ourselves

and to

think ourselves

up.

Every time

we thought

high thoughts

of ourselves,

every time

we took

credit for

other people's

ideas,

every subtle

little reference

to how

spiritual we

are or how

good parents

we are or

how well

things are

going at

work and

how smart

at all,

or even

if it's

just simply,

my, my,

I would

not do

that.

And the

beacon would

go

zzzz.

It would

be particularly

entertaining so

long as I

could take

mine off and

watch everyone

else's go

off.

And more

importantly the

red beacon

would go

off.

More

importantly it

would be so

revealing because

it would be

a reminder to

us every time

we took our

eyes off the

cross.

That's what's

happening when

the beacon

goes off.

We're taking

our eyes off

the cross and

we're putting

it fair and

square on

ourselves.

You see,

when we focus

on the cross,

we simply

can't talk

ourselves up.

We can't

boast about

ourselves,

but we will

start raving

about Jesus.

We also

won't make

our personal

preferences and

our culture

the main

thing.

The very

things which

every day

threaten to

divide us.

You see,

it wasn't

Paul,

it wasn't

Apollos,

it wasn't

Cephas,

it wasn't

Steve

Jeffrey,

it wasn't

Chris Jones,

it wasn't

Brian Tung,

it wasn't

Fay Lowe or

anyone else

who died

for you.

It wasn't

anyone else

who brought

you in to

the family

of God.

It was

Jesus.

He is the

one who

brings us

into his

family and

he is the

one we are

to follow.

He is the

one we

serve,

he is the

one we

boast about.

Right at the

end of the

chapter,

verse 30,

Paul says

this,

just a

reminder of

the significance

of Jesus.

He says,

because of

him that you

are in

Christ Jesus

who has

become for

us wisdom

from God,

that is,

our righteousness,

our holiness

and redemption.

Paul uses

three very

different words

here to

describe what

Christ has

done for us

and the

motivation for

us to keep

looking to

him and to

live the

cross-shaped

life.

The first

word here is

from the

law courts,

it's righteousness,

it's a legal

term.

Jesus has

made it

possible for

us to be

given a

perfect record,

not just a

clean record,

a flawless

record.

One where

we've done

absolutely

everything right.

The second

word is from

the temple,

it's holiness,

it's Jesus

who has

cleaned us

up and

made it

possible for

us to

come into

the very

presence of

God.

And the

third word

is from

the slave

market,

it's

redemption.

it's

Jesus who

has broken

the chains,

broken the

chains of

slavery,

slavery to

sin and

selfishness and

individualism and

the judgment of

God.

Jesus has

broken the

chains of

bondage and

brought us

home to a

master who

makes us part

of his

family.

This is what

Jesus has done

for us,

this is what

the cross

achieves for

us,

and what

should we

do?

we're

enslaved to

boasting about

Jesus.

Verse 30,

therefore as

it is written,

it's written in

Jeremiah,

let him who

boasts,

boast in the

Lord.

And so

friends,

we're not the

perfect liberty

church,

doing whatever

we want to

do that makes

us happy,

but we have

perfect liberty

in Jesus,

a perfect

liberty that

serves Christ

and serves

each other.

We have

been set

free and

empowered to

do what we

cannot do,

that is to

serve Christ

and to serve

each other.

And 1

Corinthians calls

this church to

do what Jesus

called his

disciples to do

when he says

to them in Luke

Luke 9:23

chapter 9,

verse 23,

if anyone would

come after me,

let him deny

himself, take

up his cross

daily and follow

me.

That's what

Paul's calling

the church of

Corinth to do.

You see,

Christ died to

save us from

hell, not to

save us from

the cross.

He died so

that we could

be glorified,

but not to

keep us from

being crucified.

crucified.

The cross of

Christ is not

merely a

past place

of substitution.

It is also

a present place

of daily

execution for

the Christian

to die

to self.

And so,

930

congregation,

it is only

by looking to

the crucified

Jesus and

taking up your

cross will

you in a

couple of

weeks walk

willingly down

to Chatswood

Club in order

to do church

without grumbling.

It's only the

cross of Christ

that will allow you

to do that,

to do it for the

sake of others.

When Christ

died on the

cross for

sinners,

he not only

stood in my

place doing

what I could

never do,

that is,

forgiving my

own sin,

but he also

showed me

what I must

do if I

would save

my life,

namely to

take up my

own cross

and to join

him on the

Calvary Road

and die

to self.

And so I

beg of you

today,

don't treat

the cross

as a historic

relic.

it is the

very power

of God

to change

everything in

your life

and especially

the power to

change our

inclination to

make much of

ourselves.

If you would

be his

disciple,

if you would

save your

life and not

lose it,

take up your

cross and

treasure Jesus

together.

Amen.