Letting The Gospel Be The Power

Chad Myhre

Topical • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

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1 Corinthians 1:17–21 ESV

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 18 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. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 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? 21 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.

1 Corinthians 1:17–21 (ESV)

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

18 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. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Intro:

Paul is making a profound statement about human wisdom…

Man’s greatest badge of honor… is his brilliance… his smarts… his genius..

Over the ages, man has multiplied significantly in knowledge.

Even in my lifetime..

Even in the past 20 years…

When Julie and I got married..

We didn’t own a computer… we didn’t have a cell phone… things like this iPad were merely, science fiction.

I had a pretty fancy typewriter… but that’s about it.

Much has been learned… and still, I believe the next ten years will still, blow us away.

If humanity were asked to declare it’s worth…

First and foremost… before the arts… before the works of literature… before the physical accomplishments of man..

Humanity would declare …it’s knowledge.

Look what we have discovered.

Look at what we have learned.

Look at what we can do.

If humanity declared it’s worth…

Knowledge and wisdom would be at the core of its answer.

And I am thankful to live in a world that provides us with so much cool stuff.

I am thankful to live in a world where Doctors understand how germs and viruses work…

…how to take something that is broken within us, and fix it.

…how to identify and illness, and cure it.

I am thankful for so much of what man has accomplished…

But… even has humanity might declare knowledge as being its strength…

I know… that we can’t.

We benefit from it..

But it is not our strength…

1 Corinthians 1:25 ESV

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

Think about that for a moment…

The wisdom of men, has produced some mind boggling stuff…

And yet, if there was such a thing as ‘God’s foolishness’… it would still be wiser than anything that men could come up with.

Verse 17 has declared… that the use of man’s wisdom, to extenuate the message of Christ…

…will, in fact… empty the cross of its power. Or… more specifically, it will render the power that is in the cross, useless in our attempts.

We just can’t improve upon the simple Gospel message.

…today, in the common church… in the organized gatherings and governments which have been devised over the last 1700 years or so…

…in the methods of our worship… our liturgy… our ministry… and even our preaching…

How much effectiveness… efficiency, and success of the gospel, are we missing out on?

Much of what we do in ministry is frameworked and infused by products of …

… man’s wisdom.

We schedule our meetings to fit in conveniently with the commitment availability of the people..

We have created an order of worship, which has Biblical elements…

This leaves me wondering… in all the things that we do as a church… in all the methods we employ and philosophies we engage… are we, in any way… adding our wisdom to the Gospel? And if so, are we robbing the cross of its power by doing so?

But ultimately, someone significant in the ancient church decided a basic format of liturgy..

And the church as followed in that basic format now for some time.

We get together with our board… our committees… in our business meetings…

And we make projections and financial decisions based upon a physical provision…

…more than, a spiritual leading.

We consider the things that the world does well… their marketing… their psychology… their sociology…

And we transfer them from the secular… to the spiritual..

If the gospel was given to a group of people who had no exposure to Church history and the modern church culture…

And we do this… because we want church success to look like business success..

We want church success to look like secular success…

We don’t want to be struggling mom and pop neighborhood stores…

No way! We want our churches to become Costco’s and Sam’s Clubs…

And if the mom and pop churches get shut down..

Well, they just couldn’t keep up with the times.

We do all of this stuff…

The marketing… the entertainment value… the improvements of image and presentation…

We do all this… because our culture… our ‘wisdom of man’ culture…

Has told us… this is what you do if you want to more effectively declare the Gospel.

Here is what I’d like to see…

If the gospel was given to a group of people who had no exposure to Church history and the modern church culture…

And that group embraced the message of Jesus… and became followers of Jesus…

What would THEY do?

What would THEY do with the Gospel?

How would they carry out the declarations… the commands… the calls… and the suggestions of God’s Word?

How would they serve, fellowship worship, and organize?

I can’t even imagine what that would look like…

Because I can only think of my relationship with God, and my call to assemble and serve with other believers…

…in the context of my experience, my culture, and my church history.

At it’s root, Christianity is a relationship with God.

But… in that relationship… there is a great emphasis on interaction.

We are provoked to grow, provoked to stir up love and good works… through fellowship w/one another.

And, we are called to give… In service and worship…

And this is supposed to happen in the context of ecclesia…and koinonia, and diakoinia.

…in our shared gatherings, fellowships and ministries.

But… we all have developed our own way of doing these things..

But we are all doing it in a way, which is knitted together, somewhat, according to the wisdom of man.

We have molds that we comply to…

We have outlines… orders… plans… and programs…

And the wisdom of man inevitably, leaves its mark on the methods we employ

It almost, can’t be helped…

Because this is the way it’s always been… this is the way it is..

And if we came up with some other way of doing this…

…well, who’s to say, that the new idea wasn’t also a product of human wisdom, rather than the leading of the Holy Spirit?

Paul is often pushing back on the wisdom of man… on the strength of man… on the ways of man… And he always reflects a message of contrast… emphasizing… God’s wisdom… God’s strength… and God’s ways…

So when I read these challenges from Paul… I’m forced to consider the work that I do… and I’m forced to asked these questions:

Where is my wisdom getting in the way?

Where is my strength carrying a work that God intends to carry?

Where are my ways employed, in contrast to God’s ways?

I think about it… because I’m concerned that the Gospel isn’t being as effective as it should be in our midst…

I know we all want the gospel to be super effective.

We want to see unbelievers fall under the conviction of the HS…

…because they have heard, in simplicity, the Gospel that Paul defined in …

the message of God’s Son,

…coming as the scriptures prophesied,

…to live in perfection,

…to fulfill the law,

…to die on behalf of a sinful humanity,

…to rise up again from the dead

…and, to be seen by hundreds, who in turn, turned the world upside down…

I want to see believers renewed in the reality of the Gospel…

This basic little story about Jesus… should still amaze us..

There’s an element of Paul’s Gospel message that describes the many who saw the resurrected Lord… the Apostles and over 500 others all at once.

That’s the element of the Gospel, that we believers should still be walking in… that’s our ongoing participation in the Gospel story.

We, like those witnesses, have experienced the power of the resurrected Lord… and like those first believers who saw Him alive… we should continue, to be those who go out and turn this world upside down.

We are those, who, because of this little story… should be motivated to turn the world upside down.

We should be those, who are still amazed by the reality of ‘grace’

And if ‘grace’ doesn’t amaze us…

Then we have forgotten what grace really is..

And our lives will suffer stagnation, complacency, and a lack of joy…

We need to be renewed in our comprehension… of grace.

I want the Gospel to be effective…

So, of course I’m prone to wonder, if we are operating in the wisdom of man… or in the wisdom of God…

Listen.. we could blow the doors off of our churches and fill up all these seats with the wisdom of man.

All we have to do… is spend some money, improve our image, hire some consultants…

…send out a bunch of mailers, follow a proven marketing strategy..

Do a lot of freebie stuff for a while…

Get all of us amateurs out of the band and replace us with some professional performers…

Shorten our sermons… because, that’s not why people go to modern churches…

And, if we were all organized and motivated with the program…

We’d get more people in our churches..

But..

Here’s the problem…

We could fill our churches up… BUT!!! Those seats wouldn’t be full because of the Gospel..

They would be full, because we catered to the dissatisfaction and discontentment of our local Christian Community and their consumer mindset.

Our seats would be full… and for every 10 seats that we fill…

There would be 8 or 9 new, empty seats in other local churches…

That’s something that I don’t ever want to be part of.

I want to be part of something where the Gospel is working effectively, in the power of God…

As opposed to… the wisdom of man.

13 years ago, I returned from a trip to Sudan…

When I did, I began to talk about us being a church without walls.

And I wasn’t speaking physically… of the walls here in this building…

We built most of these walls… This building was pretty much, wide open when we moved in…

We took a basic blueprint of this warehouse… and we drew some lines on it…

Then, we started to build walls…

We put up the studs… we ran the electricity… we put in insulation…

We put up the dry-wall and we painted it.

These walls get to stay for now..

They were put there with purpose…

But maybe there are walls that we have put up… or inherited… or even brought with us from our previous church experience…

Walls of routine..

Walls of traditional evangelism

Walls of “snails pace” spiritual growth…

Walls of financial short-comings…

Walls of unrealistic expectation…

Walls of lacking faith…

Walls of compromise and complacency…

Walls of strained relationships…

Walls of regret…

Walls of our making…. Due to mistakes and offenses..

Let’s talk about some of these walls… let’s talk about traditional evangelism… let’s talk about unrealistic expectations… let’s talk about lacking faith…

Look back at I Cor 1: 18-25

1 Corinthians 1:18–25 ESV

18 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. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 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? 21 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. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1 Corinthians 1:18–25 (ESV)

18 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. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 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? 21 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. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Paul was smart… he was highly educated. He could debate and reason better than most. But Paul recognized that his education and his wisdom had a tendency to get in the way of the Gospel.

And yes, the Holy Spirit uses these approaches, and yes, people are saved…

But often times, we just end up arguing with a person who, according to the Bible, cannot even understand what we are talking about…

He realized, that believing in Jesus was not something he could reason people into…

We want to debate the merits of the cross… and they can only see it as foolishness… and our bibles tell us… that they can only see it as foolishness…

1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

People believe in spiritual truth, because the HS uses the Spiritual message of the Gospel, to convince the heart. We might declare the Gospel, but our part is pretty small… and the smaller we keep our part, the less chance we have, of getting in the way of it.

We should be able to recognize whether or not a person is being convicted by the Spirit.

If they are not… we are just proverbially… casting pearls before swine.

Remember how Paul opened this section of scripture… He said, “preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”

In chapter 2 he says,

1 Corinthians 2:1–2 ESV

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2:1–2 (ESV)

2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

When Paul says that he proclaimed the Gospel… He was speaking of the simple story of Jesus…

Which he defines for us in I Cor 15..

Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures

He was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, according to the scriptures

He appeared to many… and lives were transformed radically.

Paul said, in vs. 22… that God would use…

the folly of what we preach to save those who believe

Preaching means, ‘declaring the good news’

The new testament defines good news with the word ‘gospel’

Paul defines the word gospel, as the prophesied and fulfilled story of Jesus, dying for mankind, rising up from the dead, being witnessed by many, and changing the world.

Now… why would anyone be changed by hearing that simple story?

Yes… that would be logical…

But I want to encourage you to try something foolish… something that Paul calls, “folly”.

Just try, to tell people the story of Jesus…

And let the simple Gospel work powerfully through it.

Have an awkward moment with a co-worker…

“Hey Bob, can I tell you something that I consider to be super important?”

Bob will, with a tiny bit of skepticism, answer… uh… sure.

I believe the OT perfectly prophecied the coming of Jesus… His life, His death, and His resurrection. I believe He fulfilled the Law, and died for the sins of humanity. I believe the world has been rocked ever since those first 500 people saw Him walking around after His resurrection.

It’s because of this incident in History… that I now have peace with God for all eternity.

Bob, I know this is awkward… but I talk with you about unimportant stuff all the time..

I thought maybe, just this once… I’d share something important.

It seems like folly to just share this story. - I know, Paul felt the same way.... but this was his lead in message when addressing unbelievers. This is the main message he determined to share.

I want to encourage you… to tear down those walls of fear… And take 60 seconds… and tell people about Jesus…

If the Holy Spirit runs with the ball… and you see that something is happening..

Then you share your testimony… you share the Romans Road… you talk about hell and eternal life and forgiveness…

The freight cars, and the passenger cars on the train are important…

But they aren’t going anywhere without the locomotive..

Start with the Gospel…

I’m not going to say that any other method of evangelism is wrong…

As long as Jesus is being preached… I’m happy.

But this is what the Apostle Paul did… so I’m merely encouraging you, to try something simple… and see if maybe, the Gospel will be powerful and effective on its own.

Let’s read the rest of this chapter:

1 Corinthians 1:26–31 (ESV)

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

This is where we find our qualification as pastors…

Everyone here … every single person who is redeemed under the blood of Jesus… is qualified to serve Jesus..

Not many of us are… very wise… or mighty… or noble..

We don’t have to be. God intends to carry the burden of wisdom, mightiness and nobility on His shoulders… and use us to confound the wise and the strong in this world.

Look at vs. 27… you know how some people say that they have a ‘life verse’?

Well, if I had one… it would be this one…

This is why I, for the past 20 years, have been able to stand in front of people and teach the Bible.

Because I don’t find approval with the standards of the world..

The Holy Spirit is recruiting people serve God…

And He’s looking for the foolish, the weak, the base and the despised.

He’s not skimming off of the top…

He is actually… scraping the bottom…

And that crusty burnt sludge that He brings up on the edge of His spoon…

He takes that… and He makes 5 star restaurant goodness out of it.

I’m praying that the Lord will heal as many strained relationships in my life as possible..

When people leave the fellowship, I have a hard time continuing the relationship…

It’s really hard for me… I’m so invested in those that are here…

And I take this family thing seriously…

That when family leaves… that void is a little painful…

And I’m a shepherd here in this pasture, and I’m convinced that I need to keep my focus with those who remain in this pasture…

But… those who go from here… are still family..

And even if I am not continuing regularly in fellowship with them…

We are still, family… and reconciliation is super important.

So I’m stepping out of my comfort zone..

And I’m reaching out…

There’s this weird thing that happens here…

Lots of time… people come back.

And when they do, I want them to feel at home… instantly.

We are Christians… one of the most appropriate Christian things we can do… is seek reconciliation.

How about the walls of unrealistic expectations???..

Not just upon others.. but upon ourselves also.

I hope, that we can be a fellowship that tears down every wall that prevents us from experiencing and extending the grace of God.

We are a mixed bag of blessing and offense.

Sometimes… a person who shows generosity and service… shows an occasional lack of good behavior…

What do we do? Do we forget the five goods for the one bad?

Offenses should be dealt with, and Matt 18 gives us a formula for that…

However… we need to extend grace as Jesus extends grace to us.

Conclusion…

So… let me conclude with a few questions:

That we would be a people who walk in love, forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation, and encouragement.

Have we discovered ways, in our ministries… where the wisdom of man has crept in, and we’ve had to root it out?

We’ve seen a lot of people leave…

Do we struggle with insecurity about our own qualification? Do we compare ourselves to others in an unhealthy way?

We’ve helped to plant 6 churches… and when Fluvanna started… well, we never built back up to those numbers…

And I’m okay with that…

What can we do, to not only declare the Gospel to unbelievers… but how can we encourage and transform the life of believers with the Gospel message?

Do any of you guys struggle with confidence? If so, is that a bad thing?

We don’t have to be a lot of people… to be healthy.

In the past couple years… some people have moved on locally… and some people have moved away…

People go…

May we love them still..

But I think God is giving us all these empty seats for a reason..

Not so other Christians can leave their churches and come here…

There are at times, valid reasons to move on from one church to another…

But dissatisfaction isn’t one of them.

These ever increasing empty seats are here..

Because there are unbelievers who are waiting for you to invite them in..

Because there are outcast Christians… who have abandoned fellowship for some reason…

And you are going to be the ones who reach out them, and invite them in.

And I pray that they come in… and they know your love and friendship…

I pray that they experience what it means to be your brothers and your sisters…

They don’t need to be impressed with our band or my preaching or our coffee…

They need to be impressed with the love of Jesus…

And we need to be the avenues through which that love is shown.

PRAY!!!

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