We Preach Christ

We are so thankful to be in this season.

We are in a mission vision month.

So every January we stop to really focus on the vision that God has given us to reach 1% of the Mason Westchester area with the gospel of Jesus.

And we are working to bring that into focus this January.

We believe some of y'all like you see New Year's as this like magical moment where you transform into a new person and all the bad things you did the last year.

Now you're gonna do all the good things.

But we all know like by February, it's out the window.

You're not right, you but you see this as this like hinge point.

Some of you see today is just a normal day.

You woke up, it's like, yeah, it's just another day.

We believe God did put something into rhythms and seasons, right?

We even see this in creation.

The very creation narrative is laid out in these particular rhythms, seasons that God has put into place that somehow really shape and form us as people.

And so while there's nothing maybe supernatural that happened on this morning, uh there is something that God has stirred within us to allow us all to wake up this morning thinking in some ways how you're gonna be better this year than you were last year, something of that nature, right?

So we want to take that rhythm and maximize it to be able to bring into view the vision for what God has given us here at Sacred Mission.

And so this is Mission Vision Month.

We're gonna talk about some things that we're gonna be doing this month, but uh that we'll talk about those at the end of the gathering.

But one of the things about Sacred Mission is we want to reach 1% of the Mason Westchester area with the gospel of Jesus.

How do we do that?

We do that by being a gospel-centered, city-focused church community.

So we are gospel-centered in our very nature.

Uh, that means that we believe that there's not one aspect of our lives that the gospel does not radically transform, right?

Everything from our relationships with one another to the way that we raise our children, to the work that we do with our hands, to the way that we use the resources God has given us.

The gospel transforms everything about who we are and how we engage with both God and the world around us.

And so we want to have that gospel front and center.

So this morning we're talking about we preach Christ.

Why do we preach Christ?

Because we are a gospel-centered church.

And I'm hoping to walk through 1 Corinthians 1, 18 through 25 and unpack for us exactly what that means and how it plays itself out to form a community that is completely transformed by the gospel of Jesus.

So let's dive in.

As we look at 1 Corinthians 1, 18 through 20, that first section of the text, what we're gonna see is this God makes the wisdom of the world foolishness.

God makes the wisdom of the world foolishness.

Uh Paul starts off this section of the text with creating a dichotomy of persons, right?

So if you got your Bible, if you got that, follow along with me because we're gonna go word by word through this whole passage.

He's gonna make a dichotomy of persons.

That dichotomy is this: those who are perishing and those who are being saved.

So we have to understand these two people groups, right?

There are those who are perishing and those who are being saved.

And their relationship with the gospel is completely dependent upon if they are those who are perishing or those who are being saved.

He says this in 18, for the word of the cross is folly to who?

To those who are perishing, right?

The message of Christ crucified is folly, not in its nature or essence, but it is the perception of those who are perishing.

Now, we really have to understand the gravitas of what Paul's trying to communicate to the church here in this very simple phrase.

The first thing we have to understand is the weight of the word folly.

He's not just talking about like innocent stupidity, right?

Like, oh, like a southern, bless your heart, right?

You know, when somebody says something kind of, hey, we know, we know you bless your heart.

That's innocent stupidity, right?

Paul's talking about deranged madness.

Deranged madness.

The weight of what he's talking about.

The message of the cross is what?

Deranged madness to who?

Those who are perishing.

And the perishing that Paul's talking about is not this.

So some of us have a worldview where God created all that exists, kind of spun it into motion, and then stepped back.

And the the the positives or the negatives that we experience in this world are part of that motion that God set forth.

But he's not necessarily intimately active within the workings of the world.

That's not the way that the Bible communicates the God we serve or how he engages with his creation.

The Bible constantly depicts God, communicates God.

He reveals himself as one who is intimate with his creation.

He's engaged with his creation.

So this word perishing is not some type of implication of natural causes.

It's not something that's passively happening.

What perishing is doing is God is actively bringing to ruin a group of people who view the message of the cross as deranged madness.

God is involved in the workings of these people's very souls.

He is bringing them to ruin.

But, Paul says, to those who are being saved, he's communicating once again the intimacy of the God that we serve, of the way that he engages with his sovereign power in his image-bearers.

And what is he doing?

He is saving some.

This external power that is bringing about the redemption of our souls.

God is saving some, and to them, it, the message of the cross, is the power of God.

The power of God, that which brings about redemption from his very hand.

And so Paul says this.

What's he saying?

Listen, there's two types of people in the world.

There are those who are perishing, who are actively being brought to ruin by the sovereignty of God.

And they see the message of the cross as deranged madness.

But the ones whom God is saving through his intimate work of restoration to his people, the cross becomes the power of God.

And so he goes on to work through this understanding.

For verse 19, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.

Why do these people have these separate, very drastically different worldviews or understandings of the cross of Christ?

It is because God had determined in eternity that He would destroy the wisdom of this world.

God sovereignly ordained for the message of the cross to destroy the wisdom and to frustrate the intelligence of the world.

That's what he says in Isaiah 29 14.

This is actually where Paul's deriving this, that I will destroy the wisdom, I will thwart their intelligence.

Now, Isaiah was written sometime around 750 to 6, early 600s BC.

Paul's pinning this letter, 1 Corinthians, sometime around 45 AD.

We'll just kind of put it in that worldview, right?

So there's about 800 years between Isaiah prophesying that he would destroy the wisdom of the wise, and Paul saying this is what God was talking about.

He was talking about the cross of Jesus Christ.

Paul's using the Old Testament to interpret, to understand, and to reveal Christ in the New Testament.

And what he's saying is what Isaiah said 800 years ago still stands true today.

In fact, it's been known and seen and discovered in the cross of Christ Himself.

In us 2,000 years later, this still holds true.

Because God sovereignly ordained it from eternity past that he would use the foolishness of the cross to destroy the wisdom of this world.

That's why the gospel is so prevalent, relevant, real, necessary here today.

Because what was ordained in eternity past will hold throughout time.

Though this earth will burn and pass away, the word of the Lord will last forever.

Verse 20, he says, Where is the one who is wise?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

I love this.

This is an example of Paul's rhetoric, his ability as a communicator to really help us understand and drive home the point of what he's trying to make.

And he asks these three rhetorical questions.

Where's the one who is wise?

Where is the scribe, the debater, philosopher of this age?

What is Paul really trying to help us understand?

Well, we got to kind of go through each person to understand their place in culture and society.

So when Paul says, Where is the one who is wise?

What he's not talking about just like old man wisdom, right?

Like telling you stories about like how you shouldn't do the dumb stuff he did when he was young.

He's talking about someone who has idolizes, prides himself on understanding the perfect worldview that explains life and its meaning.

This was the pursuit of Greek culture, that they would be able to actually develop and communicate a worldview that perfectly explained life and its meaning.

This is what Paul's talking about.

Where's the one who is wise?

Then he says, Where's the scribe?

Well, the scribe were experts in Hebrew scripture and Jewish law.

Not only did they study it, not only did they memorize it, but they were actually responsible.

The scribe's role was responsible for copying holy scripture onto other manuscripts so that it could be dispersed throughout the church and be used.

So every dash, every dot had to be accounted for because that was their responsibility.

They would actually scribe the sacred writings so that it could be carried through the church and dispersed throughout.

So not only did they study the law, not were they masters of uh of the text, but they actually were so good at what they did, they held responsible to copy it.

And Paul's saying, where are those people?

Where are they?

And where's the philosopher or the debater of this age?

Where's this person with eloquent speech but yet shallow content?

You all probably know people in culture like that, right?

You you ever you ever watched like a reel on Instagram and you just wish you could like get face to face with a person and be like, I believe you don't even know what you just said.

I want you to explain back to me every word you just used in that sentence, and then I'll actually start trying to believe what you maybe you know you're putting forth.

But you you you've been around people like that where they use kind of like cultural buzzwords, maybe they have eloquent speech, but they really don't understand the depth or have any content in what they're saying.

It's just like you just spurted off a bunch of big buzzwords in a row, and you expect me to really submit my life to that?

Like, where is this debater, this eloquent speaker who lacks content?

Well, these people are not found within a community formed by the gospel, they're not discovered within the people of God.

A community of those being saved by the power of God and the message of the cross, because their messages themselves has been found unable to provide what they promise.

Every message of the wise, every message of the scribe or the debater or philosopher of this age has been proven again and again, unable to provide what they promise.

But the gospel still stands.

The foolish preaching of the cross of Christ still stands.

God makes the wisdom of the world foolishness.

Verses 21 through 25, we see we preach Christ crucified.

We preach Christ crucified.

Paul uses his third four in the beginning of verse 21.

He says, Four sense in the wisdom of God.

The world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who he believed.

So let's break this down and unpack it.

What's he saying?

Four sense, what in the wisdom of God.

What is the wisdom of God?

The wisdom of God is this it is the ability to direct all things to the best end.

The wisdom of God is the ability to direct all things to their best end.

God is orchestrating every aspect of history and creation through his sovereignty to accomplish its best end through his wisdom.

So, what was that?

His purpose set forth was for no man to know him through the wisdom of this world.

So, how is God taking his wisdom, the ability to direct all things to their best end?

The way he's doing it is this: determining that no man would ever know him through the wisdom of this world.

That's God's sovereign power on display in creation.

He determined no man will ever know me through the wisdom of the world.

Why?

Because he says it pleased God.

This language of pleased is literally it brought him glory.

Me and my wife were talking yesterday about a Bible study she's doing, and we were talking about why does God not just provide mercy for all people?

Why does God not just provide grace for all people?

And we had to ask the question, what's the fundamental purpose of God?

Is the fundamental purpose of God to save all people?

Well, then we're kind of serving a God that really can't come through on what he determined to do.

Or is the fundamental purpose of God his glory?

And if the fundamental purpose of God is his glory, does God not also get glory in the just condemnation and judgment of those who reject the gospel of his son?

Yes, he does.

God will get glory in the salvation of those by his power, he redeems from the pits of hell, and God will get glory when the day his justice is unleashed on all of those who rejected the gospel of his son.

God will get his glory.

And what is Paul saying?

It brought him glory that through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

So God in his infinite wisdom to direct all things to their best end determined that man would never know them through his own conjured up wisdom, but that those who he would save, he would save through the foolish preaching of the gospel.

Man.

That is powerful things that Paul is putting forth for us this morning.

Verse 22 for Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and a folly to Gentiles.

The Jews are looking for this external evidence of who God is.

And we see this all throughout the gospel narratives, right?

They were constantly pressing on Jesus to give them a sign, give them a sign, give them a sign.

But here's the funny thing.

Jesus was constantly giving them signs.

What was the reality of it?

That they were unsatisfied with the signs that he was providing for them.

And ultimately, here's what he said.

He said, You want a sign?

Here's the sign.

Here's the sign.

You didn't believe me when I turned water into wine, when I healed the blind, when I opened the ears of the deaf, when I raised the dead from the grave.

You didn't believe me?

Here's your sign.

You ready?

The sign of Jonah.

When I enter the belly of the earth for three days and on the third rise again as I'm spat out of the tomb by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But that sign is a stumbling block to the Jews.

It's a stumbling block.

The Greeks, they're looking for an internal illumination of life in the world.

They want to have the answer for life in its meaning.

But Paul and the apostles are resolved to preach Christ crucified, the revelation of the saving power of God.

Because Christ crucified disrupts and destroys both of these vain pursuits.

To seek a sign or to seek wisdom, Christ crucified, annihilates these pursuits and creates them futile.

You see, the Jews, this sign was a stumbling block.

Literally, it's something that keeps them from relationship with God.

Where are they getting this idea of a stumbling block from this sign of the Messiah?

Well, it's Deuteronomy 21, 22 through 23.

We see this that if a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death.

So let's look at the story of Christ.

He was put to death.

Why?

Because he was charged or accused with blasphemy.

So because he blasphemed God according to his accusers, he was charged and put to death.

How was he put to death?

He was hung on a tree.

He was hung on the cross at Calvary.

And that the Bible says, but you shall bury him, uh, you shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.

Why is the cross of Christ a stumbling block for those who seek a sign?

Because how could the Savior of the world, the Messiah, the Christ anointed one, be a cursed man?

He can't be a cursed man.

He has to be a blessed man.

He has to be the anointed one of God who is the inheritor of all of his blessings and riches and glory, but they don't understand the kingdom, they don't understand the gospel, and they can't see the truth of God in a crucified Messiah.

He says, then for the Gentiles, the message is deranged madness.

He expands Greek here.

He says the Jews demand the sign, Greeks demand wisdom.

He expands Greek to incorporate all Gentiles.

And he says, this cross that you so preach is to them deranged madness.

It literally, by some emperors of its time, the message of the cross was deemed socially dangerous because of its impact on people and the culture that they dwelled in.

But, verse 24, you gotta love Paul's fours and buts, right?

He just constantly coming back and forth.

He's hitting us with this beautiful illumination of the gospel.

Those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Paul's identifying a group of people again by what?

Those who are called.

The gospel becomes the power and wisdom of God.

You see, there's a reality where all of us have a call on our life to repent and believe the gospel.

It's a general call that God makes to all mankind.

Repent and believe the gospel.

But there are so many of us within this world that remain as those who are perishing, and the message of the cross, the call to repent and believe, seems as though it's deranged madness.

But there's this effectual call of God.

The God who is intimately near with us, who reaches out and grabs us by the chest and says, Come near to me, to those people, the gospel becomes the power and wisdom of God unto salvation.

How do you think, if you are sitting in this room this morning and you don't see the cross as foolishness, but you see the cross as power to save, how do you think you got to such a state?

It's because the God of the universe called you effectually unto himself that you might not see the gospel as deranged madness, but the power and wisdom able to bring the salvation that your soul knows that it needs.

And it's people called by every nation, both Jew and Greek.

It is a universal message of truth.

Christ, the message of the cross.

Verse 25 for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

There is nothing that man or the world can create that would be able to produce the salvation we need.

Nothing.

So for us as a church, we don't work to preach the message of this world.

We work to preach Christ crucified.

So for us, the thrust of this text is this: that the gospel alone is the power to save.

The gospel alone is the power to save.

The message of a crucified Messiah is the means by which God has determined He will get His glory and save His people.

The cross alone.

There's nothing conjured or created by man that has the ability to produce the salvation it promises.

And that's the thing.

We know we need redemption.

We know something's not right in this world.

And every man through worldly wisdom is trying to discover the remedy for the brokenness that our soul feels.

We're trying to discover the remedy.

And so we continue to try to create and conjure up wisdom of this world to be able to provide a solution, but every solution that we put forth has no ability to come through on its promises.

It is impotent in the power it proclaims that it has.

It cannot come through.

The world will do all it can to produce a sign or a philosophy or a worldview, but it will always fail.

The cross then alone becomes our anthem.

Because the cross alone is the power of God for salvation.

And we as a church have to be committed to preaching Christ crucified.

I've said this before as Sacred Missions Pass, but I think it deserves reiteration.

If you ever come to this church and you don't hear that Christ died for your sin, that he was buried, that on the third day he was gloriously resurrected from the dead, and that we as the church await his second coming where he will fully consummate his bride, the church, then go find a different church because we've already gotten too far away from the gospel.

We've already tried to bring into our teaching and our message the wisdom of the world so that we might be soft or light or approachable or nicer or more attractive to those who are trying to seek God.

God makes seekers of Himself.

I don't have to worry about what message I preach because it's not my responsibility to make you a seeker, it's the Spirit's responsibility to awaken your heart that you might seek and worship the one true living God.

And it is the gospel preached faithfully that will bring life to your soul and salvation to his people.

So we're a church committed to preaching Christ.

But many of us, if we're honest with ourselves, we're very much like the Jews and the Gentiles that Paul speaks of in this passage.

We demand God to prove himself to us.

Jews seek a sign, Greeks seek wisdom.

What are they doing?

It is the clay speaking to the potter, prove yourself to me.

What arrogance do we have?

What pride do we walk around with to demand that our Maker prove himself to us through the ways that we demand him to?

Some of us we demand God prove himself through signs.

This can be formal, right?

Like some of us, there's this like a scientific reality where if we can just have the right ontological argument, or if we can observe God through a microscope or discover him through proper scientific method, then we'll believe in God if He just gives us a sign.

But some of us we're not even that eloquent in the way that we actually understand it, or maybe we don't even know how to word it, but it's hidden within our hearts that we're demanding God give us a sign, and it comes out in this language.

God, if you would just, God, if you would just give me the family I've always longed for.

God, if you would just fix my marriage, God, if you would just secure my future with the right job.

God, if you would just heal me, if you would just deliver me from this situation, God, if you would just, I'll believe.

These really are cries of the soul for God to prove Himself through a sign.

We're looking for a sign because the cross seems so foolishly insufficient to us.

And so the cross then becomes a stumbling block to our very faith.

I can't come to God through the means of the cross.

I need something more.

God, if you would just.

But others of us, we demand God prove Himself through intellect.

The world is continuously trying to fabricate a worldview that will bring the redemption that you know you need, that this we know that this world needs.

And everybody in culture right now is trying to spit off some worldview that reveals itself or tries to demonstrate itself as that which will bring you your redemption, that which will cleanse you from your sin, that which will deliver you from your enemies, that which will undo all that has been destroyed, that which will make us in right standing with the cultural judges of this world.

Whether that's secular humanism, critical theory, queer theory, anti-racism, MAGA, social justice, QAnon, all of them are trying to present the wisdom of this world as the solution for the redemption our souls know they need.

Every single one of them.

But it's the radically foolish message of the cross that actually proves God.

It's not the signs that we say we need him to show us, it's not the intellect that we pursue understanding, it is the cross that proves God.

How dare we stand and demand God prove himself to us when God has stood before all eternity and graciously proved himself at Calvary?

So the hope of us in the gospel is that God proves himself through a crucified Messiah.

Look at the grace of God.

He did not need to prove himself to you.

Who is my son?

Who am I?

Who are you?

In light and in the shadow of our Maker.

This is the grace of God.

That though he did not need to, though we did not deserve it, he proves himself to us.

And how does he do it?

Through the cross.

Paul helps us understand this in Romans 5.8.

Romans 5.8, Paul says this But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That word shows is literally God proves.

And what did he do?

While we were those who were being brought to ruin, who saw the message of the cross as deranged madness, God proves himself to those who did not deserve it out of his own free will, loving kindness, grace, he proves himself how?

By taking the life of his own son to save us.

Church, how good is the God that we serve?

That he proved himself through the death of his own son.

Does the cross seem foolish to you this morning?

Then I want to call you to fear and tremble.

For it is only foolishness to those who are being brought to ruin by the sovereign hand of God.

But as the gospel, does the cross appear as God's power to you?

Then, church, rejoice.

Be filled with peace and joy and comfort and gladness.

Be filled with the Spirit of God because He has called you unto salvation through it.

My hope for us, Sacred Mission, is that we would be a relentless Christ-preaching church.

A relentless Christ-preaching church.

That we would see the gospel message as the power of God that is able to save us, that is able to transform the culture around us, that is able to bring in the advancement of the kingdom in our living rooms and in our workplaces and in the school systems and in government and in every area that the gospel can impact and transform and restore every single place.

It is the gospel alone.

Let us not be a church that shies away from declaring truth, that starts bringing in the wisdom of the world to try and make this place a little bit more attractive or comfortable for those who might be seeking after God.

Let us be a church that says there is nothing that this world could ever bring or fabricate that would bring you any hope or redemption.

If I stand up here and I preach the wisdom of this world, all I am doing is hating you because I am providing no hope for you.

I'm destroying your soul and I'm causing you to place your faith in some empty promise that has no ability to come through on what it made.

But the gospel, it can save us.

It can save us.

So sacred mission, we preach Christ.

It's not going out of fashion, it's not outdated, it's not irrelevant, it's not anything but God putting on display his power and glory through the crucified Messiah, Jesus.

Let's pray.