The Cross is Enough Part 3

Hey, recap, where have we been?

We started in First Corinthians, Chapter one, verse eighteen and

eighteen to twenty five was handled in one sermon that

was titled Wisdom and Power, and it was this juxtaposition

between the world's wisdom and the world's view of power

compared to godly wisdom and godly power that's revealed in

Christ Crucified. And then last week we took a look

at verses twenty six through thirty one, and that sermon

was titled what do you boast in?

Because the call of that particular.

Passage was that as Christians, the only thing that we

have room to boast in is in the Lord, is

in the Cross of Christ, which is nothing that we

did on our own. And then today we're going to

be in verses one through five of chapter two, and

the title of this message is the Cross is enough.

The Cross is enough to rest all of your hope,

and the Cross is enough to rest all of your

life on. So if any of you have either lived

in a house or lived in an apartment, or been

a part of building a house or building an apartment,

or been inside of a building like this, then you.

Are in here because a long time.

Ago before the building was built, the developer of that

building did a geotechnical report, a soil test to understand

what the soil beneath the future structure is made of.

And the reason that you have to do that before

you build anything is so you make sure that your

building is going to be built on solid ground, that

it's going to have a firm foundation, because you might

look get something.

From the view of your own eye.

It might seem like, well, sure this is a big

enough foundation, and I'm sure it'll hold. And maybe it

would for a period of time, for a year, for

two years, for a decade even but eventually, if that

building is not built on a firm foundation, where that

soil has been tested for the proper engineering of the foundation,

then the building will fail. And we see Jesus use

this same analogy in Matthew seven when he talks about

the parable of the wise.

Versus the foolish builder.

You probably remember this one where the wise builder builds

his house on a rock, which stands for godly wisdom

revealed in Christ crucified, whereas the foolish builder he would

build his house on sand or anything other than Christ,

on riches, on human wisdom on worldly success or worldly power.

And what does Jesus say that eventually the storms of

life will roll in, And the one who has built

his house on the rock, the one who has built

his house on Christ, that house will stand.

Versus the one who has built.

Their house on the things of the world, that house

will not prevail. That house will be ruined.

And so as we.

Look here where we are, where Paul is writing to

the church in Corinth, we've already talked about this. This

church was jacked up. This church was having some problems

of its own. There was divisions amongst the church because

different people within the church were saying, essentially functionally, putting

their faith on the foundation of men. Well, I like

this teacher, and I like this teacher, I like Paul,

I like this other teacher. They were rooting parts of

their faith not on Christ alone, but on men. And

then because of that there was sin that was coming

out sideways, and they were in a pretty jacked up situation.

So what Paul is using here in this argument is

to remind them that in his ministry he decided to

know nothing but Christ crucified. He didn't want them to

build any part of their foundation any part of their

building on anything but Christ alone in the power therein.

And so he reminds them in this passage that it

wasn't his authority that he was there on. He reminds

him that he was weak from a worldly standpoint, so

that Christ's power would be on display, and then ultimately

that their attention would be put on Christ alone. And

I think that if we were to look at our

own lives, if we were to take stock of ourselves,

many of us have said, okay, we're are My life's

hope is on Christ alone, And yet there would be

areas of.

Our life that were prone to drift from that.

We might think of who is our favorite teachers and

be tempted to put our hope in their ministry, or

we might think about even in the call to evangelize,

that we would be so concerned with how our message

would be communicated, or even how we might compel this

person to believe, Like we would rightly want to respond

out of obedience to evangelize, but we would be so

concerned about these other things as if it's up to us,

and then we would do it either faithlessly or maybe

even not do it at all, or even in your

own faith, that you would be tempted to rest on

something else from the world, from the world's standards, and

not on Crist. This passage should serve as a reminder

to those people that would struggle with that. To us,

we're constantly being tempted to rest our hope in other things, families, children,

et cetera. More than just Christ crucified, but he is

the rock that he has called each of us to

build our lives upon. And so this passage reminds us

of that simplicity, something that we too often just overlook.

That Christ Crucified is enough. And so if I were

to say this passage in a sentence, it would be

this that our faith in practice, being our preaching, our evangelism,

our discipleship, the things that we do as Christians must

rest on Jesus Christ Crucified, for its authority, for its power,

because He is the point. Christ is the point. Let's

read the passage. Starting in verse one, Paul writes, and I,

when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming

to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ.

And him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear

and much trembling. And my speech and my message were

not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the

spirit and of power, so that your faith might not

rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power

of God. Let's jump in first point, the Cross is

the authority. We see this in verses one through two.

Made it clear I was not the authority. No human eloquence,

no human wisdom, none of that can compel a believer

to believe.

The authority is Jesus Christ.

Paul says, I did not come to you proclaiming the

testimony of God things about God with lofty speech or wisdom.

In other words, it wasn't Paul's eloquence or human wisdom,

is lofty words, his high sounding rhetoric that would give

him authority. But it was Jesus Christ crucified. He came

with a simple message. He endeavored to proclaim Christ. And

I think that we can go back to Acts eighteen

to set the scene to see what this looked like.

Because Paul arrived in Corinth, and he did what he

would do when he would show up to a city,

he would go to the synagogue and he would preach

and teach to his people. Says in Acts eighteen that

he reasoned with them, trying to persuade both Jews and

Greeks that Jesus was the Messiah. And I think we

know this, but a question to the audience, how did

the Jews respond to that message? They rejected him, they opposed,

and it says reviled him in Paul.

We know this about Paul.

He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, as it says in Philippians,

by schooling, by status, by his own righteous living as

a Pharisee.

He was a man amongst the Jewish people.

And yet none of that was authoritative to his ministry

to them.

He decided to know none of that.

Just Christ crucified, which spoiler alert was the most offensive

thing that they could hear.

And that's why they rejected him. That's why they reviled him.

His preaching didn't emphasize any sophisticated prose that he would

have been trained in. It didn't emphasize this beautiful rhetorical

skill that I'm sure his teachers modeled to him, and

he had all the skill.

To do so.

But he reduced the sophistication of his message so that

it would be clear that it is not about him.

But it is about Jesus Christ.

I think of a professor that I had when I

was taking one of my seminary classes. I can't remember

what the professor taught, but I just I remember this

one part about his message. One day in class that

I was watching online, he rebuked these seminary students by saying,

he doesn't ever want to hear any of his students

use to be describing something in this scripture and be quoting,

like what is the Greek word of this?

And then the meaning?

And here's the Hebrew word, Like he didn't want his

students to emphasize their knowledge of the languages. And that

wasn't because he didn't think it was valuable. Quite the opposite.

He had given his life to teaching, to learning and

understanding the languages, to teaching other men to be faithful

with the languages. But he was basing it off of

this passage right here that it's for the preacher. For

the teacher, it's not up to them to impress or

compel the hearers with anything other than Christ crucified and

he didn't want any of his students getting in the

way of that endeavor, and he was a wild man.

So it was hilarious hearing him say that he didn't

want his own students, which is as a class of

seminary students that are just so proud of all that

they're learning. And he's like, that's not how you handle

God's people with God's word publicly. And so Paul says

then in verse two, for I decided to know nothing

among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified all of

that schooling, all of that work was so that he

might know and rightly cut God's word. But for the people,

he wanted them to know Jesus Christ, which we've already

said that was the single most offensive thing to the Jews,

and then the Gentiles we know from earlier verses that

they thought this was foolish. So the one thing that

he decided to know nothing other than was the thing

that was going to be the most offensive and the

dumbest to his hearers. How's that for a proposition to

teach him to preach? And so you know this that

Paul would have been tempted to add a little bit

here or to take away a little bit there to

soften the mess.

But he knew that he wasn't the authority.

He knew, and he was an example in this regard

that it wasn't his authority that he was trying to

compel them to believe. He was pointing them to Jesus

Christ crucified. And what we know from earlier passages is

that when people hear the message, some will be turned away.

In others God will save by his.

Power and for his glory.

And we think about this kind of authority as we

organize as a church and as we seek to shepherd

one another faithfully like elders. Elders don't have authority on

their own. It's not their education. It's an office that's

established by the Lord to be respected by his people.

But it's under the authority of Christ.

And if you start having shepherds that are yielding authority

as if it's their own.

It goes sideways.

And so that's a rebuke to the leaders of the church,

but it's also a rebuke to one another that even

a small group members as we seek to minister to

one another, and maybe we're a little bit further along

than our brother or sister that we're ministering to. If

we think that it is our authority, it's gonna help

them with better ways of living, not pointing them to

King Jesus, helping them worship their way out of their sin.

If you think it's going to be you, because you've

got it figured out that you're going to compel them like,

that's a losing proposition.

It's going to.

Tire you as the disciple maker, and it's gonna it's

gonna wear out the person that you are discipling. I've

been there on both sides, and I'm sure y'all have

as well, And so we have to remember that the

authority that we have been given is under Christ. It

is his authority. And so we meet people where they're at.

And like the Christian that might be here even this

morning that's stuck in some particular sin, ay, I'm praying

with you.

We're here with you.

We have been stuck in sin ourselves, and if not

for the grace of Christ, we would be in there

with you.

But my encouragement is, let your leaders.

Let the people that love you, let the people that

are pursuing you help point you to King Jesus. He

is worthy, He is sufficient, and he is the authority.

It's not just follow these other people that got it

more figured out.

Maybe that's a part of it, but the reality is

the hope that you can have in putting to death

that sin is in the authority and the power on

display through Christ, and he wants to help you worship

out of that sin.

Let the people who love.

You pursue you in those ways, and guess what, They're

not going to get it right every time.

It's not going to be perfect.

But there's a lot of people around here that have

seen Jesus work in their lives, and they want to

help you do the same in yours by looking not

to them but to Him. So Christ is the authority,

and Christ is also the strength, and so the cross

of Christ is the strength. It is the power, which

is our next point. Paul faced much opposition in Corinth,

yet it was clear he was not the hero. Y'all

can go ahead and move that slide to the next point.

He wasn't the hero. In verse three, he says that

they saw him in weakness and in fear and in

much trembling. Paul's ministry was marked by his own insufficiency.

He wasn't the hero.

It was weakness and fear and trembling that marked him,

which I would say, when I look at that, I

believe that that validates the genuineness of his ministry. His

weakness validates the genuineness of his ministry. And I think

this is what he's arguing to the Corinthian Church. It

was his humility that magnified the power of Christ, and

it was the power of the mission that Paul was

called to that's being magnified in this. I think I'm

kind of a nerd when it comes to military things.

I love reading military books, you know, historical accounts and

more recent books as well of you know, watching videos

and movies and documentaries, and I kind of nerd out

on that I never I didn't personally serve, and maybe

that's part of it. I'm envious of those who did,

so I nerd out in my living room, not out

in the field. But anyway, one of the most beautiful

things that I have encountered in that nerding out is

when I watch videos of men that have been awarded

the highest honor.

In the US military, the Medal of Honor in others

as well. But I'll stay up there at the top.

And I think I stopped short of saying one hundred

percent of the videos or accounts that I've read or watched,

but almost one hundred percent of the time, those men

who have done the most courageous acts, who have every

right to be elevated as the hero, would deflect any

sort of personal praise to them. The men that have

walked through and have tasted the fear themselves, have experienced

their own personal weakness in the moment and rose to

the occasion based on the mission and the power of

the brotherhood and the mission that was at hand, those

men would deflect any sort of personal praise. If any

praise was given, they would give it to their brothers

who are no longer with us, who no longer survived

that event. There's a humility that validates the genuineness of it,

y'all get in that picture. If you compare that, there's

videos out there of like stolen valor videos where somebody is,

you know, saying that they did you know, this service

and it's revealed that they did not, And like every

single one of those videos.

It's a guy glorifying himself.

In other words, you don't have to even look at

it too hard or too long to bid it to

be revealed as fraudulent. And I think this is where

Paul is going with this, like the one who faced

the real danger, the one who has the right sense

of their own vulnerability.

But for the mission that.

Was at hand and the and the power of in

this case Christ himself, they would not have moved forward,

They would not have the power to continue that mission

on their own.

They would have surely failed.

And Paul is saying, like you saw me in my weakness,

I had to rely on this other thing, this other

thing being Jesus Christ.

And so we see in verse four he says that

my speech and my message.

Were not implausible words of wisdom, but a demonstration, but

in demonstration of the spirit and of power. The power

was not in himself, was not in his words, but

it was clear that the power was the Lord's. And

I think we have to be thinking of a comparison

between the itinerant speakers of this age that would have

come through town with kind of the flavor of the

month on some new concept or some new idea, or

some new set of beliefs, and it was beholden like

it was upon them. They were beholden to try to

compel the hearers to believe what they had to say

based on the externals, based on their own winsomeness and

their own wise words, and that it was incumbent upon

them to compel. And that is the opposite of where

Paul's at all says I did not have plausible words

of wisdom. I wasn't compelling or persuasive on my own.

You guys know that, y'all remember when I was here.

The content of the message is what was compelling. In

his human weakness, he was able to point to the

power of the Spirit in Christ crucified. And this is

what the Corinthians believed in. It wasn't just believing in

his message, It was believing in the Christ who he proclaimed.

And just like the war hero that we see, the

power of the action was in the mission. The power

of the action was in the brotherhood. The power of

their action was outside of themselves and were compelled by

that story. This is Paul in the same way saying

it wasn't about me, look to the Lord, which should

be a really healthy reminder to us as we try

to walk out our Christian faith faithfully that the preacher

is not the hero. The preacher is the one that

points to Jesus or us as we seek to disciple

one another. It's not us being the hero. We're pointing

the person that we're discipling to Jesus so that they

would worship him. You well, I'll say this, I would

make a horrible savior.

I think you probably would too.

We need to help others see Jesus. And then, even

as we consider evangelizing the lost, and we talked about

this a little bit at the intro, that we would

get gummed up and maybe even not open our mouths

and say anything because we're concerned about how we might

be compelling.

This should give us hope. Our job is to.

Point the here to Jesus. And you know what, they

might think we're stupid and foolish, just like the Gentiles

did here in Corinth. They might think that, you know,

they might be offended by it, just as the Jews

were here in this time. But God has his people

out there. As a matter of fact, in Acts eighteen,

God even appears to Paul in a dream and says, like, dude,

take heart, I've got many people out here.

Keep doing what you're.

Doing, keep preaching the gospel. By my power, they will believe.

So I'll say this that the power of Christ too

is seen in you guys.

Like as I was even reflecting on the strength of

the Cross and the power of Christ, I was thinking

about how so many of you that I know a

lot of your stories, people that we've been walking, you know,

hand in hand with over many years now, in some

in more recent even months.

Where you have testified, and I.

Have seen in your lives that you have put sin

to death that once had a stronghold in your life,

decades long addictions to drugs and alcohol and lust and

impurity that by the power of the spirit, you have

put to death in your life. And you are walking

and living proof of the power of God. And So

if you're here today and you're like, yeah, I appreciate

my friend inviting me to come. Not a Christian interested

in what y'all got going on, I would just encourage

you to hang around, spend some time.

With these people.

If you're curious to see the power of Christ at work.

Get to know some of these folks, ask them their stories,

and they will testify not to their own self help project,

but to the power of Jesus being worked out in

their lives for his glory. The Cross is the authority,

The Cross is the power, and because of that, the

cross is the point. The cross is the point which

takes us to our third and final point of the sermon.

Paul knows that if the Corinthians' faith terminates on anything

other than Christ crucified, then it will falter.

That it will not glorify God.

No human wisdom, no human power, no human leadership can

hold the weight of your faith. It must be on Jesus.

Verse five, Paul says that in his weakness or his

weakness was made clear, so that the purpose of it

is that your faith might not rest on the wisdom

of men, but in the power of God.

See.

A faith that depends on clever reasoning will be demolished

by new ideas. A faith that is based on man

will falter with that man and all men will falter.

A faith that seeks worldly approval will cave to the world's.

Evolving sensibilities.

If we try to believe just because that's what others

are doing around us. Once the cultural tides shift and

other people believe.

Other things, that will take our faith away. With it.

A message that is based on the Cross, which is

the gospel of Jesus Christ. It will turn away many,

it will be foolish to the wise, it will be

weak to the strong, and it will be offensive to

the natural man. But the reality is that it will

never be tarnished. It will stand for all eternity. The

Cross of Christ is the main point of Christianity that

we should build our foundation on in every part of

our life thereafter.

So what is the cross?

I would summarize the cross as this, It's Jesus's work.

Jesus Is redeeming work on the Cross, which is to

say that each one of us as humans has sinned

and fallen short of the glory of God. Every one

of us has failed God in our our sin, has

rebelled against God. And then, rather than just leave us

in our sin an ultimate destruction, because God is a

righteous God, perfectly righteous, imperfectly just, rather than leaving us

in that to face impending judgment, he sent.

His son.

To live the life that we couldn't live, and to

die the death that each one of us deserve. And

so that one that died the death that we deserved,

was then buried in the tomb and raised on the

third day to prove himself to be God and the

one sufficient to save us from our sins. And so

when we put our faith in our trust, when we

build our life, the foundation of our life on that cross,

on that Christ, what we say is I am no

longer I'm repent my sins. I see myself as a sinner.

I'm in need of a savior, and I'm putting my

trust in Jesus as that savior. And so what that

looks like is I take the crown off my own head.

I no longer can be king of my own life. Rather,

I put that crown.

On Jesus's head, and I say, Jesus, I.

Am crowning you as the lord of my life, the

ultimate authority.

My life is yours.

I'm in your hands. And that doesn't mean that we're

going to live out of life perfectly. We repent and

we believe, and then that is the path of Christ's lordship,

is that we live a life of confession and repentance

until glory.

But this is what it looks like to base our life.

To put our hope in the cross, is to repent

of our sins and to trust in Jesus is perfect

work in his ultimate death as our sacrifice. As one

commentator put it, he said, to have your faith rest

on God's power, which is what Paul says here, is

to believe the Cross to be the way of salvation,

being convinced by the work of the Spirit in your

own and other believers' lives, and to shun any trust

in self and human wisdom as a way to God.

Our only way to relationship with God is through Jesus

Christ alone. And so the challenge or the encouragement is

for many of us that would say, well, I have

already put my faith in Jesus is yes, that is

a right first step. But then to take stock of

our own lives and say, well, what areas of my

life might I be putting my trust in other things

where I might be adding on doing this addition to

my life, and I might not be taking stock of

the soil that I'm building in. As it relates to

our personal finances, as it relates to our time, how

we spend our time, as it relates to the service

that we would that we would practice with others, caring

for one another and thinking through that, there's a particular

project that I'm working on in in my other work

in real estate, commercial real estate, where I'm taking an

existing building and I need to do just a very

small addition adding this canopy.

There's I don't need.

There's maybe some concrete footings, but it's it's basically this

steel canopy, very simple, very small part of the product.

And you know how.

Engineers can be always wanting to over engineer everything. The

very first question that the engineer asks is have you

done a soil study on that ground? I'm like, dude,

another fee for something more time, Like I don't, I

don't want to waste my time with this. Just build

the thing and let's keep moving forward. And isn't that

the way though, that we handle our own lives, Like yes,

I'm Christ, I'm his, and now I'm moving forward. And

then we just start bolting on all these other additions

to our lives without taking stock of what they're being

built on, without testing the soil first and seeing if

this is sufficient, if this is rooted in Christ alone,

in his firm foundation, Because as they say, with a bridge,

you know, how does it fall little by little and

then all at once. It's like in our own life,

the areas that we haven't built them on the firm

foundation of Christ will eventually fail, and they might not

fail right at once, and it might not be that

catastrophic of failure, But ultimately is the or is every

part of your life built in such a way that

it will withstand the test of time? And that would

glorify God the Father? And so that is my encouragement

to the church this morning in the band, y'all can

come up as we close this out. The encouragement to

the church this morning is that we would consider using

that analogy of testing the soil of our lives.

Hey, let's start with your life at large.

Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone?

Are you counting on the fact that you were raised

in a family home, counting on the testimony of someone

close to you in their faith? Are you counting on

something other than Jesus Christ?

And when you've done that wrestling, then I would.

Encourage you, Okay, what areas of my life might I

be building it on a foundation that's not going to

withstand the test of time, that's not going to withstand eternity,

that's not going to.

Glorify the Lord?

And so as you engage with one another in small group,

that would be the big question that I would encourage

you all to ask. And so in conclusion, as we

look to even wrap up this whole series, I would

say that we are prone to allow Christ to shift

from the center of our lives, of our ministry, of

our teaching, of our practice, of our faith. That we

are prone to do this, And so let this all

be a reminder that the Cross of Christ is the

wisdom and the power of God. Wisdom and power is

not found in this world. That He is our only boasting.

No cool thing that you or I can do is

worth standing on and boasting in, but Christ alone for

those that are His. And that lastly, he is the

center of our faith. He is who we should build

every part of our lives on. Let's stand and worship

that one who is worthy of all of those things.