Jesus is the Giver

We are spending the season of Lent and Easter Sunday focusing on who Jesus is through looking at the New Testament letters. We so far have discovered that Jesus is the redeemer, the one who paid the price for us to be able to be free from sin by dying on the cross. Jesus is also the righteous one, the one who allowed us to become right with God while also offering us an example of how to live a righteous life.

You can find all of our previous sermons on our You Tube channel. This week we will look at how “Jesus is the Giver.” Our scripture comes from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.

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.” l

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.”

Please pray with me…

I think it is safe to say that many people are struggling with being able to call Jesus is their Messiah. There are many reasons brought up but one of those reasons possibly has to do with the reason mentioned in today’s scripture. The Reason is “reason.”

They can’t wrap their head around the fact that the person who was arrested and crucified is the same person who came to earth to assure them salvation and to forgive their sins. It seems that things were not much different shortly after Jesus’ death. During that time there was division on who Jesus was and the role that he had played within Jewish society.

The Jewish people had a reason to doubt the authenticity of Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah. They first off were looking for a different kind of Messiah than Jesus turned out to be. They were expecting a Messiah that would free them from their captors and reset the hierarchy and have the Jewish faith in the one true God be the dominant force of the time.

Another reason that the Jewish people would have doubted that Jesus was the Messiah was the fact that they were able to put him to death. They believed that it would have been impossible for them to have been able to put to death the Messiah that they were waiting for.

This was not the first time that they ended up crucifying someone who claimed to be the Messiah. This was the punishment of those that chose to state that they were the chosen one of God. Therefore, if they can crucify Jesus then he must not be the Messiah.

A similar dilemma would occur for a gentile attempting to rationalize Jesus as the Messiah. The gentiles worshipped many different gods. It was believed that if a country was conquered it was defeated because the other country had a stronger God.

So, it would be practically impossible for them to believe through logic that Jesus was the king of the Jews. That is why the Romans mocked him and the Jews by placing above him the moniker “King of the Jews.” They were saying to those that believed in Jesus that the joke was on them.

A Christian apologist is someone who attempts to use evidence and logic to lead people into a relationship with Jesus. Probably the best-known apologist was C.S. Lewis. One of his most famous quotations regarding Jesus is that we need to decide who he was. He goes on to say that based off of what he has said about himself “Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.”

It was not rare for someone to believe that Jesus was a great teacher. The argument of the apologist is that this can’t be because Jesus is making the claim that he is the Messiah. So, if Jesus knew that he wasn’t the Messiah he was using his knowledge of scripture to lie about it in order to trick people into following him.

Or, Jesus believed he was the Messiah. This would mean that Jesus had some disorder which caused him to believe that he was the Messiah even though he was not. The third option is that he was the Messiah. He was and is the son of God, the anointed one.

The problem that an apologist faces is the same problem brought before us in today’s scripture. “The cross is foolishness.” It makes no sense for someone to believe that a man who died by the means of crucifixion would be able to be the Savior of the Jewish people let alone all of humankind.

I say all this to point out that the first thing that Jesus gave us is faith. Those that did not witness Jesus’ return had to have faith in the disciples that told them that it happened. They had to have faith in the human witness and faith in the possibility that a man could conquer death. They had to have faith that the Old Testament prophesies really were fulfilled.

We also need to have faith in order for us to believe. We have to have faith in the human witness offered to us in the Bible. We have to have faith in those that have been touched by the savior and pronounce the role that he plays in their lives.

We have to have faith in the possibility that a man who walked the earth could first off be the son of God, could second be willing to die on a cross to forgive our sins, and third would want to continue to be in a relationship with a broken people. A people that sin every day and who many still do not believe in his saving grace. Jesus gave them and us a choice.

We can choose to follow the crowd and decide that Jesus is not the Messiah. We can refuse to have faith in Jesus. We can decide that the disciples were lying when they said that they saw Jesus. We can decide that the New Testament was a group of books designed to make us believe in a lie.

Or we can believe that Jesus is the Messiah. We can believe that he came to earth to offer us an example on how God chooses for us to live and then died on the cross to save the whole world, not just the Jewish people. He would rise from the dead three days later and spoke to a large number of people before he eventually would go up to heaven in front of some of his disciples.

We have a choice to have a lack of faith. Isaiah 29 beginning in verse 13 talks about those who lack the faith. It says that

“13 The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught. 14 Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” 15 Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” 16 You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”? Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”?

God acknowledges that there will be those out there that do not believe. That will seek human answers when divine answers are available. They will choose as is stated in verse 20 of our scripture the foolish “wisdom of the world.” Jesus gave us the choice to seek human answers or to seek answers from God.

When we make the choice to believe in Jesus, Jesus becomes the giver of life. Scripture states that we are dead through sin. When we acknowledge that Jesus died on the cross to forgive us of our sins than we are given life.

We are given a life in which we can be filled with the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us. When we rely on the Holy Spirit we receiver a helper someone to help us with life’s choices. It can become more about listening and responding. God wants to guide and direct our lives. We just need to be willing to allow him to do it, to have the faith to believe that he has a better path for us.

I announced last week that I was appointed to a new congregation. What I stated was in some ways misunderstood and I take the blame for that. From the moment I became a United Methodist pastor I gave control of the appointment process to the Holy Spirit.

I have never asked to stay or to leave a congregation. I always tell the District Superintendent that I will allow the Holy Spirit to lead the bishop and the cabinet into making the correct decision. I believe that me being moved is the Holy Spirit at work.

We need to trust that God has a plan for me and for Kirkersville United Methodist church that is greater than we can imagine. God is at work. God has prepared the way. We have to be willing to have the faith to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit.

We also have been given eternal life. I spoke some about this last week and how we have hope through our knowledge of where we are going. When we have the confidence that we are going to end up residing with God in heaven than the fear of death can be diminished.

There is an old song that states “everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” We should want to live for Christ while we are on the earth but at the same time we can look forward to a new life with God in heaven when that time comes for us to leave the earth.

Verse 24 points out that we are also given the power of God. God gives us power in our righteousness. It is through the cross that we can be right with God. It is through the cross that the power of sin is removed from our lives. When we accept the grace of God, we accept the power of God, and we have the power to overcome obstacles in life.

This does not mean that we will not face obstacles. Everyone here most likely already has or will face obstacles in their lifetime, but it is through the power of God that we can overcome these obstacles. The power of God can create good out of any situation.

We can see this just by focusing on the cross. God used the undeserved death of his son on the cross to allow for us to be able to be free from the power of sin. God used this horrible form of capital punishment to allow forgiveness to be offered to both Jew and Gentile.

God will use the obstacles that occur in our lives to change how we view life. When we experience a death of someone, we are close to it brings the realization that I need to do more with my own life.

When we face a health issue it points out to us that we are mortal and need to become closer to God and serve him while we can. God will use the “not so fun events” of our lives to lead us into a closer relationship with him.

Verse 21 also says to us that we receive wisdom from God. God does not just offer us power, but he also gives us wisdom. My favorite scripture verse states this. James 3:17 tells us how we can tell when wisdom is coming from God. It says that wisdom from heaven is “pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”

Wisdom from heaven offers us information without all of the subtle and sometimes not so subtle biases that we find in worldly wisdom. Godly wisdom is wisdom that will always be not only for our benefit but also for the benefit of those around us.

This is because wisdom from heaven will be full of mercy and good fruit. It is not only guidance, but it is guidance that will show mercy to those that need mercy and will lead to good in all situations. We need to accept it and we need to use it.

We are able to use the wisdom given to us by God when we receive insights given to us by the Holy Spirit. We need to be willing to ask for the Holy Spirit to guide and direct our lives so that God can give us the wisdom that comes from Heaven.

Verse 3 of our first scripture reading for today reminds us that “God sends forth his love and his faithfulness.” We received the love of God through Jesus dying on the cross. Jesus gave us the ultimate gift that shows us the love that he has for us and that was the forgiveness of our sins.

Jesus has given us so many things and all of them are gifts that can improve our lives, that can change our lives and can also be used to change the lives of others. We have received the grace of God through Jesus. A gift we did nothing to earn and a gift that is available for us for the rest of our lives. A gift that we should be willing to share with those around us.

Please pray with me…