1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5

As Peter said, our reading today is from First Corinthians one, eighteen to two, verse five.

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but is but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent.

Where is the one who is wise?

Where is the teacher of the law?

Where is the debater of this age?

Hasn't God made the world's wisdom foolish?

For since in God's wisdom the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached.

For the Jews ask for signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles.

Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, consider your calling.

Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.

Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world, what is viewed as nothing, to bring to nothing what is viewed as something, so that no one may boast in his presence.

It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, in order that, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, announcing the mystery of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom.

I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.

My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom, but on God's power, and so reads God's word.

My name's Ben.

I am the executive pastor here at City Church, and I will add my welcome to Peter's here.

If you can have that passage open in front of you, 1 Corinthians 1 into chapter 2 there.

We're in our third week of this new ministry year, 26 to 27, and we are looking at the Apostle Paul's letter.

Let me start with a story, not a serious story, not even a true story.

Once upon a time, there was an American naval task force.

Okay?

They were going across the ocean in the dead of night.

They were proud, they were unopposed, they were running at top speed.

All is well.

But all of a sudden, the lead ship going through there sees ahead of them in the darkness.

There's a light.

And he says, you know, they're getting closer, he sees that they're coming along.

Communications officer steps to his microphone, clears his throat, silky, smooth delivery, says, Unknown contact, we are the USS Such and Such.

We are with Task Force Such and Such.

We are closing in, and you are requested to change course to avoid collision.

Please acknowledge.

So he listens, there's some static few moments, and then all of a sudden the reply comes back in kind of broken English, but very simple, very calm, unable to comply.

Recommend you change course.

Maybe he doesn't understand what I'm saying, who I am.

Let me try again.

He says, okay, unknown contact.

This is the USS, such and such.

Task force, such and such.

I say again, change your course.

Please acknowledge.

And once again, the reply comes back, unable to comply.

You change your course.

Well, by this stage, the communications officer, he's had enough, right?

He dropped any sense of pretense, any civility, any smoothness in his delivery.

And he kind of hisses into the microphone.

He says, Now you listen to me.

If you do not change your course immediately, we will interpret that as a hostile act.

We are here with a dozen ships, a hundred aircraft, thousands of sailors.

We will have no choice but to sink you.

The response came back very simply.

Sir, this is a lighthouse.

Now that joke was old when I heard it 40 years ago, so I apologize if you've heard it before.

But I think it's a nice segue into what we're talking about this morning.

You think about a squadron of Navy ships going across the ocean, that is sure strength and force projection.

Know what they're doing, mighty and powerful.

But that power certainly ends when you come to the shore.

You can imagine those ships just so proud and assured.

You would have seen all of that bravado just evaporate as they realized we need to take evasive action or we are going to be destroyed here.

Combine the two.

I think there's a lot of power of their military doctrine.

Now, you don't have to read too carefully in today's passage to see it's an exploration of wisdom and folly, strength and weakness.

And the wisdom and the power of this world reach their limits when they come upon the rock of Christ.

So as we look at this this morning, we're going to be taking a dive into it.

One of the ways that we can look at scripture that's not particularly helpful is we can cast ourselves in the role of the wise person, of the heroic person, of the brave, strong person, right?

If it's if we're looking at the story of David and Goliath, you know, even though the entirety of the Israelite camp was quaking in their boots, I would have been like David.

I would have been brave and faithful and I would have slain the giant.

Or if you're with Jesus in the Gospels, where the disciples are saying, you know, I think I'm going to be the most important.

No, I think I'm going to be the most important, I wouldn't have gotten into that.

I would have been focused on what was really important.

But, you know, we could look at this as well and we could say, you know, this letter to this church, these poor, misguided, foolish Corinthians.

I'm glad that our church is not like that.

I'm glad that I don't think like that.

But I think if we read this passage and really this whole book as if it's written to address issues in us, it'd be a lot more applicable.

We'll be a lot more teachable.

So let's ask the Lord to show us where we have room to grow up into Him as we go.

Today's passage, we have three questions we've got to ask ourselves, three diagnostics.

You know, what's my view on the cross?

What's my view on myself?

And uh how do I present myself?

So we'll start with the first one.

We'll get straight into it here.

What is my view on the cross?

And the diagnostic tool that we have there is right in verse 18.

It says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So if you're perishing, i.e.

not being saved, the idea of the cross is folly, it's foolishness.

But if you're being saved, i.e.

not perishing, it's the power of God.

There's not really any middle ground in this discussion.

You know, C.S.

Lewis once wrote that Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if it's true, it's of utmost importance.

The only thing it can't be is moderately important.

Our view of the cross points us to one of two diagnoses: either saved or perishing.

Now, notice that this verse starts with the word for.

This isn't the Apostle Paul starting a new thought.

The section is for or because of what came before it.

If you were here last week, you'll know that Mark spoke on how the gospel, the good news of Jesus, doesn't rest on eloquent words or worldly wisdom.

He said that this kind of wrongthinking would empty the cross of its power.

The cross isn't some man-made, man-conceived way to salvation.

I think it's safe to say that none of us would have actually come up with that.

We would have thought to save the world that way, would have thought to have the God of all creation, you know, the highest, the holiest, to lay aside his strength and his majesty and to enter our world.

We wouldn't have thought to have him come not in strength, not in power, not with fanfare, but in humility.

We wouldn't have thought to have him ultimately die this undeserved death on behalf of us, unworthy and broken people.

The Corinthian church, as we'll see as we get into this book more, they seem to have been very focused on what was impressive, right?

What the world would have been impressed by or thought was great.

But here Paul is showing them how not even Jesus, not even the head of the church, came in a way that would have been impressive.

To the world, the cross of the Lord Jesus is folly, as we saw in verse 18.

And verse 23, it says it's a stumbling block.

It's not something that's going to impress or excite people.

And yet, to those who are being saved, to Christians, depending on the saving power of Jesus at the cross, Paul describes a very different view.

Verse 18, the cross represents the power of God.

Verse 24, Christ crucified is the wisdom of God.

Verse 25, it's far and away stronger and wiser than anything the world has to offer.

Now, if you look at verse 22, you'll see that Paul knows his audience.

He knows who he's talking to, understands the context and the worldviews that are in play here.

He says, Jews, which would have been some of his audience, Jews demand signs, he says.

And we can see this in the Gospels.

If you've read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you'll have seen stories and ideas about signs.

Jesus would go into cities and towns and villages and he would proclaim the message of the kingdom of God, but he'd usually start off with some signs and wonders, right?

Healings and miracles and casting out demons.

Those are signs.

John chapter 3, you see Nicodemus come to Jesus and say, You know, we know you're a teacher, come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God's with them.

John 3 · chapter mention

So this idea that Jews look for signs that tracks.

And the Greeks, they look for wisdom.

He says, in verse 20, Paul writes about the debater of this age.

Greeks love to debate ideas.

We can see this in the book of Acts.

When Paul preaches in Athens, there was this high cultural value on wisdom, on eloquence, on oration, trading ideas back and forth.

But if you go on to verse 23, he says, but we, right, the Greeks are looking for wisdom and the Jews are looking for signs, but we preach Christ crucified.

Notice he doesn't say, Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Jesus, the good moral example.

Not uh Jesus with all the good principles for living, not Jesus the one who spoke truth to power, not Jesus the lifter of the broken, not Jesus the performer of miracles, healer of diseases, loyal to his friends, smarter than the Romans, turning the world on its head.

Of course, Jesus is all of these things and more.

But Paul jumps to we preach Christ crucified.

Why do you suppose he does that?

I think it's because this is the aspect of Jesus' life and ministry that's gonna cut across these prevailing worldviews.

And he says that, right?

He says it's a stumbling block to the Jews.

He says it's folly to the Greeks.

How you see a how you see the cross as a point of departure, a point of division.

You'll hear atheists, even today, you'll hear atheists and agnostics say, you know, that Jesus guy, he was he was a good moral example.

Right?

He was influential.

Probably the world would be a better place if we all lived like him.

That's a different different question.

But maybe it's not.

Maybe you've noticed something here that it says, Jews demand signs.

What's what's a sign?

A sign is a picture of God's power display there.

Greeks look for wisdom.

Paul is saying, these worldviews, the Jews and the Greeks, they're looking for wisdom and power.

And the cross of the Lord Jesus is wisdom and power.

Of course, it's not the wisdom and power that they're looking for, not what they think it should be.

But again, verse 25 says, this power and wisdom are higher and better and greater.

To put it another way, the wisdom and power that the world would chase, those are counterfeits.

Those are those are idols, right?

Those offer what they can't deliver, and they keep us from the only one who can.

And that's how idols work, right?

They take something that's good and they twist it just enough so that we're looking for that good thing in the wrong place.

Now, that wrong place might be a vice, it might be a virtue.

But wherever we're looking for our significance, wherever we're looking for our meaning or our identity or our ultimate satisfaction, if we're looking for those things in the things of this world, we're gonna be let down ten times out of ten.

So, what can we do with this?

How can we apply this in our lives?

Well, let's examine our own views on the cross.

And not just to see, okay, am I generally speaking okay with the idea of Jesus crucified?

But are there aspects of the cross that I still struggle with, that I still find offensive or weak or foolish?

Just a few examples of that that we see in our world, right?

Some people have said that the cross is an example of divine child abuse, right?

That the Father made Jesus do this, rather than the biblical view that Jesus went willingly.

Some would say that the cross was unnecessary, that you know, we all have the power within us to work our way to God, be our own Savior.

Some would say that the cross really didn't achieve anything other than being, you know, a good moral example, a good example of what brotherly love is.

Some people would see the cross as a reason to be fearful or shameful.

Look what you made Jesus have to do.

Some would see it as a reason to justify living any old way you want.

Some would see it as outdated, barbaric, blown out of proportion.

Some would maybe say it puts too much emphasis on sin and not enough on love.

There's lots of ways that we can stumble over Christ crucified.

And if any of these resonate with us, this passage would say that we're trading heavenly wisdom for worldly folly.

Let's not do that.

Let's remember how the Apostle Paul describes the cross, Christ, the power of God.

Christ, the wisdom of God.

On to the second question.

What's my view on myself?

How do I see myself?

We've already spoken a little bit about how the Christian uh Corinthian church seems to have had a lot of self-promotion going on.

How can I make myself seem more impressive?

How can I build a following?

How can I win people over to my camp?

Maybe I can flex a little bit with my wealth.

Maybe with my wisdom and eloquent speech.

Maybe by my connections to the right people.

Maybe, maybe I'll look better than everyone through my holy and pious demeanor.

Lots of ways to answer basically the same question.

And Paul's words here feel like he's saying, you're not really very impressive.

But in saying that, he's pointing them to a bigger truth, and that truth is you don't have to be impressive in the world's eyes.

Verse 26 for consider your calling, brothers.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many of noble birth.

That power and wisdom that we were talking about just a minute ago.

Paul is saying here, most of you didn't have it, even though you're all looking for it.

And what we have to recognize, you know, looking back from the 21st century, you know, there was not a lot of social mobility in the Roman Empire.

But the gospel, as we can we can even demonstrate here today, the gospel's a great leveler.

In any given church in the first century, there would have had, you know, people from higher classes and lower classes, would have had slaves and merchants, elites, citizens, non-citizens.

Paul's saying most of you weren't in that top end when you came to faith.

But what seems to be happening here is rather than celebrating their unity, celebrating that, you know, we're all together here in Christ, you had people trying to jockey for position.

You had people trying to pump themselves up there.

Maybe people on the lower end were trying to step up and step over each other.

Maybe people on the higher end were trying to hold other people down so they could hold on to their to their worldly spot there.

But both of those efforts are so out of touch with the idea of a new identity rooted in grace, rooted in the cross.

But I don't think he wants to just knock them down here.

He kind of pivots here a little bit and he shows us a little bit of God's purposes.

God chose the foolish, the weak, the low, and the despised to shame those that the world considers uh wise, powerful, high, and mighty.

What's the end result of that work, verse 29?

So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

You see that?

People on the low end can't boast because God elevated them, not for their own glory, but for his.

And people on the high end can't boast either because they're not any higher up or better off than the low ones.

No one can boast.

Now, I don't know if you're old like me, probably not many, but you probably can remember a time when we used to rent videos.

Anybody remember video rental?

Good days?

Yes, indeed.

Probably could dig through my stuff and find my old Blockbuster card.

But if you're familiar with Blockbuster, just as an example there, they were at the top of their game, right?

They were one of the biggest video rental companies in the world.

They had the best titles, they had the best customer experience, they even sold stuff like, you know, cinema popcorn and sweets to make you have that real good movie-going experience.

But there came a point, and that point wasn't that long ago, where they just started asking all the wrong questions as the world was changing around them.

Instead of figuring out how to improve their retail locations, they needed to be asking things like, you know, how is the home entertainment space changing?

What innovations are coming into the marketplace?

How is technology changing the way people interact with films?

As you're more than likely aware, physical media would change and will ultimately be replaced by streaming.

So boasting in our worldly status is like boasting about having your great market share in a dying industry.

Like having all the right answers to all the wrong questions.

But at the same time, I don't want us to miss the good news in this section here.

Based on what I might uh just shared, you might come away with the idea that, you know, gosh, everyone's bad.

Some have worldly advantages, social, financial, hereditary, but we all come to Jesus, he smushes us all down.

We're all way down here in this lowest possible level where we look up, we see his glory, we see our futility, and no one can boast.

But that's not what's in this passage.

Verse 30, because of him, because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

So rather than being smushed, and that is a technical term, rather than being smushed to the lowest level, we are raised up in Christ.

It says, Jesus became to us wisdom from God.

So that worldly wisdom that you're chasing, trying to win respect through your eloquent speech, Corinthians.

Forget it.

You're in Christ.

Wisdom from God.

That applause that you're looking at, looking for to try to make people think you live this holy and pious life, forget it.

You're in Christ.

You're God's righteousness, sanctification.

That status that you're trying to gain by moving up and out of your low social class, forget it.

You're in Christ, God's redemption.

Fact is, whatever it is that you're trying to gain in life through your own failed efforts, you already have by being in Christ.

So while one takeaway from this section is don't think too highly of yourself in worldly terms, it would be wrong to say that the gospel is just an exercise in self-loathing.

Humility is not a lack of confidence.

It's locating that confidence outside of myself.

It's not that our our reason, yeah, it's not that we're don't we don't boast, it's that our reason for boasting is not from within.

You may have heard it said even here that humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

So that answers our question.

How do we view ourselves?

But now let's move on.

In light of both of those, how we have a view of Jesus and how we have a view of ourselves, our final question is how do you present yourself?

And I love that Paul doesn't say, gosh, you know, you need to present yourself this way or that way.

He points to himself in a way that would not have been particularly flattering, not particularly impressive.

You figure for at least a slice of this church, we saw this a couple of weeks ago.

Paul was their guy, right?

Remember chapter 1, verse 12, it says some of them were saying, Oh, I follow Paul.

That's my guy.

That's who I identify with.

That's the tribe that I belong to.

Paul's saying, you're trying to be impressive by whose camp you're in.

Don't forget I wasn't impressive when I came in the first place.

Or maybe a better way of looking at it, I'm not just telling you not to seek the world's approval, doing it myself.

Not just teaching, I'm doing.

And what was Paul doing?

Look at verse 1 of chapter 2 there.

He says, And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

Lofty speech like the eloquence he was speaking against in the prior chapter.

He didn't roll into town under a brand, you know, Paul, orator, Paul, debater, Paul, best TED talks this side of Jerusalem.

He didn't try to win people over to the gospel with this polished rhetoric, as if people should come to faith in Jesus by how much of a silver-toned devil he was.

In fact, you look at verse 3, you see that there was weakness in his approach.

There was fear, there was much trembling.

He wasn't assuming that people would respond to him based on some sense of self-assuredness.

He wasn't in there with a fake it till you make it.

Not false bravado, not arrogant presumption.

Just the honest testimony of one who was once lost, but now is found.

One who went from death to life because of the grace of Jesus.

You look at verse 4, it says it was not with plausible words of wisdom, not adapting his message to make it more palatable.

Simple message, straightforward gospel, so the Spirit is the one bringing the power into the discussion.

So that verse 2, the one on display is Jesus, not Paul.

So that in verse 5, they'd have faith rooted in God's power, not in human wisdom.

Now, I think we need to say very clearly here that Paul's point is not that the gospel is nonsense.

Okay?

Gospel is not something that lacks wisdom.

There is, of course, a rational clarity, an internal consistency, plausible logic in all of it.

There's room for discussion, room for questions.

Ours is not a blind faith.

Ours is not a senseless faith.

Paul isn't rejecting any of these things.

He's not rejecting logic or critical thinking or reason.

He's rejecting that form of oration that relies on a certain style and formula to be convincing.

In God's economy, that's not where the power is.

Remember what we saw earlier.

We preach Christ crucified, Christ the power of God, and Christ the wisdom of God.

That's the gospel, that's the material, that's the substance.

Paul's saying, better to have substance with no style at all than all the style in the world with no substance.

I can point you to a project I did back in my university days.

This project, by all standards as it was written out, I deserved to see for it.

It wasn't very good work.

But I dressed it up.

I made it look really good, and I got a B for it.

That works.

That works in quantitative methods courses.

It doesn't work with the gospel.

If we're keeping away from the substance and trying to make up for it with style, we're missing the point.

And maybe you can think of a church that operates that way.

Maybe you can think of modern churches that maybe tone down the message of Scripture, where there are more self-help than self-denial, more vibes than devotion, more hype than holiness.

But, like I was saying at the beginning, let's take this passage not for what it might mean for someone else, but how we can avoid falling into these traps.

I'll talk a little bit about how the elders of City Church would seek to apply these ideas well.

First off, and you'll know this if you've been around City any length of time, we tend to go through whole books of Scripture.

We don't pick and choose our favorite passages, we don't skip over the hard stuff, and believe me, we're going to see some hard stuff in this book.

But we're committed to this methodology because it lets God set the agenda.

It lets him go by his word and doesn't let us off the hook for anything we might want to skip over.

Second, we encourage you to follow along, right?

I'm not just up here with the passage as a jumping off point to what I wanted to say anyway.

Today's passage, you know, I didn't touch on every single word of every single verse.

But I was diligent, I was careful that the main point of this passage was the main point that we'd be talking about here today.

And you know what?

If you're following along today and you're like, hey, you know, you missed this really important point.

I'll be down front afterwards.

You can come and talk to me.

I'm accountable to the word and I'm open to questions and discussions.

Third, we recognize that the Lord's work is not dependent on whoever is preaching.

I've been here, I've stood before you before and just kind of made my way through a sermon.

Feel like this is just not working.

Points aren't hitting the way I want them to.

I'm stumbling over my words.

Not a great time down here in the lights.

But then have somebody come to me afterwards and be like, that's just what I needed to hear this morning.

The Lord really used that.

Tells me it's not about me.

God does his work through his word by his spirit.

Now, this doesn't mean we don't try.

This doesn't mean that we're, you know, just kind of winging in on a Sunday morning and hoping for the best.

I mean, we do put work and effort and wisdom to work as we prep for Sunday morning.

Even try to present it well.

This past week I spent hours reading and studying, researching, seeking the Lord's help to get my own head around this passage.

And then I spent more hours writing, laying out how best to apply this to the congregation.

Now, if a turn of phrase helps to make this more accessible, great, if a story or an illustration or a light hearted remark helps you to connect to it better, great.

But what this passage warns us against is thinking that that, that style, that way of approaching it is what it's all about.

If I'm more concerned with writing jokes in my sermon so that you like it, then I am about applying the passage.

If I'm more about making it sound profound and inspiring, then letting God's word shine forth.

If I'm leaving out points that I don't think you'll like rather than sharing the truth of Scripture, then I'm living as if the cross is falling.

May we all approach God's word, acknowledging our own weakness, coming with fear and much trembling so that we don't get things turned the wrong way around.

May we not rely on that lofty speech or worldly wisdom, but instead leave room for the Spirit to do his work.

And may we keep one another accountable lest anyone should stray.

And understand, I'm not just talking about people preaching on a Sunday morning in front of everyone.

This idea extends to our community groups, to city kids, to service teams, to conversations that we have inside and outside of the church.

Let's give some real thought to these questions before us.

What is our view of the cross?

Let's ask his help as we chase God's wisdom rather than the world's.

What's our view on ourselves?

Let's let our boasting be not in our own brand or our own following, but in the Lord and his redemption.

How do we present ourselves to the world?

Let's not be all sizzle and no stake.

May our words and our actions, our very lives, reflect Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Let me pray.

Father God, we do come before you with uh hearts that want to be taught and led by you.

We don't want to get sucked into the power and wisdom structures of this world, but to be wise in the things of you.

Help us to count what is important and to live according to that.

Thank you that you've given us your word, Lord.

May we take it on board as you grow us.

Step by step, day by day, would you show us where we need to where we need to grow and rejoice that you are the one doing that work.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.