Sermon (03-Mar): "What We Preach" 1 Cor 9:18-25

Bible Passage:

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.

19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

21 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.

22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,

23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Objective: (SLIDE)

The objective of this message is to emphasize to all—as believers—what we preach

Introduction: “What We Preach” (SLIDE)

- Let me start this message off by saying that I am absolutely a fan of the Apostle Paul

- Although I must admit that it was not always that way

- Jesus, yes, of course, but one of my personal favorites was the Apostle John

- I was impressed with John’s closeness with Christ and his stance on love

- Then, when you pit that against the stance of Paul—his boldness and straightforwardness and his stance on several things

- Initially, I thought Paul to be a little harsh

- Yet, as I continued to grow and mature in Christ,

- I began to see his closeness with Christ and his love for people—the Gentiles in particular

- Commissioned by God, Paul, the former Saul, sought to bring Gentiles to Christ without compromise

- And he did it with the grace, mercy, and love of God through Christ

- No, he didn’t shy away from the issues

- He didn’t attempt to flatter the masses and please the people; he simply stayed the course

- Whether it was confronting the member that was in the wrong on an issue

- Or telling the church to put someone out of its fellowship,

- Paul seemed to always have the right words to say along with what needed to be done to fortify the church

- When I think on the early days of the church, I could only imagine the issues that were coming against it

- Facing the ideals of those that were formerly of the Jewish faith and those that had no faith,

- Our early church fathers and founders including Paul had to deal with complication after complication

- Paul was all in; He knew that Jesus had called him and what he was called to do

- One of the churches that he had to confront and correct was this church in Corinth

- The church in Corinth had all the drama of an old school soap opera and all the intrigue of today’s reality show

- From division and schism to pride and casting shade on other church members,

- Paul knew that issues had to addressed and that instruction was needed to mature the church body

- He knew that Christ had to be the center of all that he preached

- In the words of Stephen Covey (Author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People),

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

TRANSITION: So, it all boils down to Christ being the main thing—in what we speak, in how we live and what we preach—and what we preach is:

The Message of the Cross

The Wisdom of God Not the Wisdom of Man

Christ Crucified

The Message of the Cross (SLIDE)

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. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

- The funny thing is, I’ve noticed the longer and more attached I am to Christ, the more I can’t see how I ever lived without Him

- The message of the cross is so simple—yet, so profound;

Man is incapable of saving himself through his own efforts. However, through Jesus Christ we can be forgiven by God!

- It’s so simple that it has caused many to stumble…and many have been confounded

- Whereas the message of the cross and the grace of God is free to the whosoever

- They can never be looked at or considered as cheap

- I look back on the message of the cross and see where I looked at it as foolishness, absurd, or even silly

- If God’s message that He was sending via the cross was meant to save me…well, I just couldn’t understand it

- If the cross meant that my burdens would be cleared, how is that even possible

- But the thing is, we cannot fully understand the message in its entirety in and of ourselves

- We may get the gist of it and come to some level of understanding of it

- But it goes so much deeper than my finite mind can understand

- In fact, if I could perfectly figure it out, I’d think I would take some credit in choosing Jesus

- And not realize that He was the One doing the choosing all along

- If the message of the cross didn’t challenge where I was then, I don’t know where I would be

- I like to look at it as it was all in God’s timing

- It took enough time for me to digest all of what was presented to me

- The idea that one man’s death resulted in many being saved—at best, seemed far fetched

- I kept thinking and maybe you felt the same…it’s got to be more to it

- One man dying on the cross did not equal out to the many who-soevers that would be saved in my mind

- I found myself pondering/questioning, “Is there more to it?”

- Thankfully, question after question in my mind didn’t sway me

- I allowed and hopefully you have too—to be the power of God towards me—only God’s power could accomplish this

- I think on the story of one of Great Britain's most prominent art historians and authors, and the producer of the BBC television series Civilization, Lord Kenneth Clark

- He was attending the church of San Lorenzo

- In his own words, he had a curious, wonderful experience

- He says,

“…my whole being was radiated by a kind of heavenly joy, far more intense than anything I had ever experienced before. This state of mind lasted for several minutes … but wonderful as it was, [it] posed an awkward problem in terms of action. My life was far from blameless. I would have to reform. My family would think I was going mad, and perhaps after all, it was a delusion, for I was in every way unworthy of such a flood of grace. Gradually the effect wore off and I made no effort to retain it. I think I was right. I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course.”

- His experience with the Holy Spirit and the message of the cross was one that was merely a sample of what His life could be

- Instead, he thought of everything that was on the table—people’s opinions and what it would cost him to change

- And, he said, “No, thank you.”

- What God does in our life is so spectacular that it is beyond what we can imagine…

- Spectacular in the sense that we may not reach the mountaintop in the world’s eyes

- But, in the eyes of God, his trajectory and path for us is better in so many ways that we didn’t consider

Transition: The message of the cross is available for us to either receive and open it as addressed to us or return to sender

The Wisdom of God Not the Wisdom of Man (SLIDE)

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 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.

- I love how Paul calls out who the world deems to be wise

- This wise person that he first talks about could have been someone locally or within a traveling distance that was possibly a sage—had life experience, greatly sensible, someone with perspective

- Growing up there was always that elder, he or she, that was able to give wisdom

- It might have been good to an extent but in some way it overlooked God

- It overlooked God being the vital Source aside from our natural talents, skills and abilities

- The teacher of the Law cared so much about every jot and tittle

- Yet, it neglected the spirit of the Law

- Whereas the letter of the Law was concerned with what we can perform and do

- God’s thought and intention was very different

- The Spirit of the Law is about God doing everything through you

- The Spirit working through us accomplished great, spiritual things

- The Law thrust upon us only results in condemnation and death

- No matter how hard the Israelites tried; they couldn’t get it right

- All the sacrifices and offerings didn’t result in atonement (reparation or reconciliation) for their sins

- It simply covered them for a year—for the time being

- I remember around Easter Resurrection Sunday 1999 and realizing that I couldn’t do it on my own

- I couldn’t figure everything out, I couldn’t do everything—it was going to take a God move in my life

- From that moment and even to this day and into the future, the second I think differently…

- I’m headed down the wrong path

- In the words of Paul,

“[God] has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” – 2 Cor 3:6

- I’ve come to this conclusion,

Any person or system leaning on or championing itself overlooks or discounts the Source of wisdom

- The wisdom of man looks to anything else but God to give it credit

- As opposed to some of the characteristics of the wisdom of God (James 3:17),

17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

- By His wisdom, only God could create a plan of salvation that brings us into peace with Him, allows the fullness of His mercy, shows His impartiality to each individual person and…

- Showcases His sincerity in allowing His Son to be crucified

Transition: Which leads me to the last of What We Preach…Christ Crucified

Christ Crucified(SLIDE)

22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

- When we look at this passage as a whole,

- Paul is laying out to the Corinthians the essentiality of the message that is preached

- We are not to preach self-help series, how to get wealthy in ten steps, how to get better in this area or that one

- No, it comes down to this…Christ crucified

- It all points to Jesus Christ

- Paul writes in Romans 10:4,

“Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

- Christ is the very end of the Law; everything that we, the Israelites, and our forefathers tried to accomplish on their own…

- Christ put an end to it so that our belief in what He did for us is satisfying to God

- More than anything that can be accomplished in our flesh; Christ checked that box for us

- The Jews stumbled over Jesus as Lord and Savior

- Jesus went so far against the grain in His time that it angered the religious leaders

- The fact that Jesus spoke “truth to power” and challenged the way they did ministry and were getting away with;

- It caused them overwhelming frustration

- They couldn’t handle their convictions and beliefs being confronted

- And Jesus being crucified, in many ways, continues to be a stumbling block for them

- And to the Greeks or Gentiles, Christ being crucified for all people is non-sense

- In no way, does that add up to what God would want from humankind

- In their thoughts, someone must have it twisted and misunderstood

- How could One Who died in “weakness” ever solve their problems?

- One thing’s for sure; we err if we think our understanding and wisdom matches up with God’s

- Yes, He has surely given us as humans wisdom but “the weakness of God” will always be stronger than human strength.

- When all else fails, we look to and lean on Christ’s death as the only thing that God counts as worthy

- It’s nothing we could ever do that would come close to what Christ did

CLOSING: As I begin to close, we preach what Paul has preached

- Paul wanted it to be clear that it’s about the message of the cross—the message of the cross is that we can be forgiven by God

- It represents God’s power to those being saved

- And, as believers, we preach that human wisdom overlooks God as the source of all true wisdom

- It’s never about how much we know…it’s always about Who we know—that’s the wisdom of God

- And, if we are willing to receive Him, the Father will in no way cast us out

FAITHpoint: Only a sin-less sacrifice [Christ] could redeem sinful man—that’s what or Who we preach

- Will you pray with me?