The Message of The Cross

It’s a great day to be in the house of the Lord! Amen?

Stand for the reading of God’s word

1 Corinthians 1:18–25 (ESV)

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. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

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? For since, 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 believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Pray with me

A little about me

Wife, Kids, job

Previously a House Parent

Previously Pastored for 6 years

So I was praying about what the Lord wanted me to speak on today

Had a really cool idea about some cool analogies, some cool examples

Thought about looking at some theological complex concept

Every topic I was looking at kept leaving me a little dry

That ever happen to you?

It’s like this is my first at bat here at Lancaster Nazarene and I wanted a home run

So I’m in my devotional time looking for that thing that’s just gonna wow y’all

Trying to pull out all of my seminary knowledge and greek and hebrew word study and all the things

So I was at Planet Fitness on the treadmill listening to scripture and this passage played over my headphones and God just gut checked me

Why are you trying to come up with something greater than the cross?

Is salvation not enough?

Yeah but Lord I’m dealing with Lancaster Nazarene… these folks Love Jesus, they know the Gospel! Right?

God reminded me that you can’t get past the Gospel...

There is nothing greater or more theologically deep than the message of the cross

So let’s dive into what Paul is talking about here

So a little background

Paul is writing to one of the churches that he planted in the town of Corinth

Corinth was a city in the roman empire located in Greece

Paul planted the church in Corinth

Now when we think of churches we think of a building

The church in Corinth or in 1-3rd century was not a building but a people

The would meet in peoples homes and they would meet daily. We hear about this in the book of Acts Ch 2 when the believers met together daly and devoted themselves to the breaking of bread

Paul left to continue his missionary journey but he would keep in touch with the different churches that he planted.

He was hearing of some of the issues that Corinth was going through and so he decided to write a couple letters

They didn’t have facebook so he had to write a letter

Now what we have in 1 corinthians is actually thought to be the second letter he wrote. He references some things that he seems to be responding to that let us know there was some conversation before hand. That’s just for free

One of the Issues Paul was dealing with was authority in the church

Who they should listen to

See even here just 20 years or so after he death of Christ, we already are having divisions in the church.

You see that preference is becoming the dividing line in the church

It’s in this context that Paul is writing this letter

SO Paul addresses this issue by taking us back to the Cross

I love the question… “was Paul crucified for you?”

The original Jesus Juke

Jesus Juke

When someone hits you with Gospel truth when you’re just trying to complain and be worldly…

What the cross means

Accepting God’s love and living as someone who has been forgiven

IE living loved. Not fighting for acceptance or validation but simply being in the arms of our father

Not trying to make others earn your love but loving because you have been loved… AMEN?

loving those that are far from God to demonstrate the love of Christ

Self denial: Uh oh. Please suck in your toes because I don’t want to step on em

Living contrary to a world that says you should gratify every desire of your heart

Instead dying to your selfish and self-centered wicked hearts in order to seek after greater things. To follow Christ because his way is better

This is the message that Paul was preaching, this is the message that we are to be preaching

Because Jews want signs

The uber religious want you to prove something to them before they are willing to follow the truth

Don’t be fooled I’m not just talking about those sitting in pews in other religions

You can be one of the uber religious even if you don’t follow any faith. You can be religious about the eagles? Okay that may have gone too far

But seriously. You can have been born in a pew and still demand God to prove to you that he’s worth following. YOu follow the manual but following Christ is another thing

Greeks seek wisdom

Then there are those who are the intellectual type

They need you to logically answer all of their objections to the truth before they will allow the truth to be true TO THEM

Until you can make the atonement logical and fully explain creation and the trinity… they are not going to follow this so-called God in the flesh

What we preach and what we live is contrary to both of these

Does the Lord reveal himself in miracle and in logic… YES

Is this the message… follow Jesus because he will fix your broken arm or follow jesus because then all of the brokenness in the world will make sense?

NO

Our message is Follow Jesus because he died on the cross to take away the power and presence of sin in your life

Because the Same GOD who looked down at the creation and formed your life in your mother’s womb decided to take the punishment for every bad choice you would make

We preach the shameful cross of Christ because God condesceneded into his creation to demonstrate his love

We preach a life transformed by dying to self little by little every day

we live out our sermon by demonstrating that we don’t have all the answers but we do know the God who does

We may not be delivered from the health issues we’re facing but God is good anyway

This is foolishness to a lost and dying world and yet this is the message that God has chosen to use to reach those who are perishing

What’s even more foolish is that God chooses to use broken and lost people like me and you … and Paul to share a foolish Gospel and this is this plan that has transformed the whole world.

What man deems foolish is wiser than men and what they see as weak is stronger than men.

Pray with me