ES1COR03 1 Corinthians 1:17-31
Notes
Transcript
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
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,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. 30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—31 that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”
Intro
Very much like we see in John 17 we see that we are called to be in the world but not of it. We are not called to be separate and isolated from the world nor are we to assimilate the world’s culture into us, yet we find the Corinthian Church doing exactly that. The world’s wisdom and power are not the same as God’s yet we are enamoured and attracted by it.
God has chosen the small people to understand; those who do not understand how the world works; those not those in power. For the wise, in the end, will be confounded...they will have no wisdom, no answer before God.
So, we will, as God’s people, have discovered that we are completely reliant upon God for we find we have nothing to be proud of because everything we have and are comes from knowing God. And this knowledge is made complete in Jesus. Jesus is wisdom. Wisdom personified. Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus is our sanctification. Jesus is our redeemer – for out of the marketplace of slavery He bought us with His blood shed on a cross. We, in the eyes of the world, are the lowest of the low but, with Christ, we are richer and wiser than all those in power.
It is therefore all the more surprising that Christians chase after the world’s wisdom and power yet the thing we have to grasp most is that Christians cannot use the commonly accepted wisdom that guides the surrounding culture as the standard for our thinking and living. Let me put that in other words for this is incredibly important: worldly wisdom is practical wisdom on how to do well in a particular culture. We think that there is nothing wrong with that, surely? But God’s wisdom focuses upon His purposes for His creation and this puts it at odds with worldly wisdom and culture. This is plainly the case with Jesus who did not fit in with the culture of the time so much so, as it says in John’s gospel, they hated Him.
17
Words and skill with words was highly sought after in Greek and Roman times. But, Paul starts with saying it was not with words that are amazing, long, big, elegant, special and with cleverness that make you stand in wonder as with the oratory skills of speakers such Winston Churchill or those claimed by Obama or other such famous people. How we clamour towards such people. Of course, there have been other orators who are infamous for the wrong reasons like Stalin, like Hitler. Then there was Herod who gave a speech and his audience enraptured declared that Herod is God! This surely reveals the danger in this kind of wisdom.
Paul says that the only thing that is true wisdom are those that draw attention to the cross of Jesus and away from themselves. Famous people want to bask in the limelight and seek all the attention and glory but the preacher of the gospel reflects God and points to the cross for their power – power indeed that can save people from their sins and bring reconciliation with God. We are not trying to persuade with fantastic words so that you will listen and follow – because, then, who are you following?
And the Gospel, the message of the cross, is hard to take despite being so simple for it cuts to the heart of self-centeredness and pride. We speak words of truth that seem foolish to people but is made effective by God’s power in the Holy Spirit revealing to their hearts its truth and resonating with them that it is God Himself Who has spoken. We are simply to speak the facts of the Gospel.
The message of the cross is one of self-renunciation and obedience to God which may lead, as it did for Jesus, to death. Whoever would save one’s life will lose it and whoever would lose one’s life will save it.
The world’s wisdom is something that we should not be integrating into our lives but are any of us immune? Well, we need to recognise it first. Is the wisdom that we have of the world or of God?
Wisdom, knowledge, intellect, and education are the primary cultural currency today. We all want to make it—to have influence, to “make a difference”—and the way that we seek to accomplish this is through the accumulation of knowledge. Our culture places a high value on intelligence, thoughtfulness, and articulation. At the end of the day we respect those who have “made it”— through university, especially if it is Oxford or Cambridge, or by extraordinary entrepreneurial effort like Alan Sugar or Richard Branson or Elon Musk. It is believed that the more knowledge we have, the more we can achieve for ourselves. The more degrees and educational prowess that we can attain, the more we will be able to think we’ve made it and attach our personal worth.
Have you ever wondered why one of the top fears is public speaking? We are not necessarily afraid because we don’t have the ability to speak well in public; rather, our fear is that we may be mistakenly perceived as inarticulate or less thoughtful than we actually are. In a culture that prizes knowledge, we do not want to be seen as unintelligent.
Where is the wisdom of the world? In times of financial crisis it goes down the pan because of trust in riches rather than in the God who owns everything and can provide for His own. True wisdom is in them who look to God through Jesus, who are filled with the Holy Spirit because we have the only One who can be relied upon when we are in trouble to help us. But if our self-worth is caught up in our education, employment or financial security and we start to lose any of these to whom will we go?
If anyone lack wisdom let them ask and God will give. We need a heart after God for God’s perception of reality is different to ours. We need to see things from His point of view.
[Don’t use?] ILLUSTRATION: Two elderly women were window-shopping and strolling downtown. A small commotion in front of the local soup kitchen caught their attention. "What's going on?" Asked Helen. "Oh, that's just street preacher Mike talking to the young people!" Replied Bertha, a stout, white-haired lady. She continued, "He's been coming here for at least ten years, and everyone just seems to love him!" Helen watched in amazement because she had never seen so many young people seem so interested to hear the word of God. "Let's go watch," said Helen as she grabbed Bertha's arm and urged her closer to the gathering. Being a former schoolteacher, Helen was impressed at how wise beyond his years street preacher Mike was. The words he spoke touched the core of her heart, and she just knew this had to be a man who spent much of his life in college or seminary, gaining theology degrees, and the like. When street preacher Mike finished, Helen quickly approached him. Grabbing his hand and cupping it with the other, she stated, "What a wonderful job you do here! What university did you attend? I bet your parents must be very proud of you!" Street preacher Mike smiled gently, and replied, "Well, thank you ma'am, but I've never known my parents. The closest thing I had to parents was a nice teacher I used to have in elementary school who took a special interest in me. And, I regret to say that while I would have loved to attend college, I didn't have the means to do so. " Helen patted street preacher Mike's hand, and said warmly, "There is the knowledge one can obtain within the walls of a school, and then there is a type of wisdom that comes from one source alone: God. You may not have known your earthly father, but your heavenly Father certainly knows who you are!" Street preacher Mike nodded, and before he could say another word, a young girl yelled out, "C'mon preacher Mike! We're waiting for you!" With that, the two new friends smiled and parted ways. However, as Helen and Bertha crossed the street, Helen suddenly remembered something the street preacher said, and immediately yelled out, "Pastor! What was the name of the elementary teacher you said was nice to you?" Street preacher Mike waved and then shouted, "Helen! Her name was Helen!"
How wonderful that God does not require us to first gain a degree before we can begin to reap the awesome benefits of His divine wisdom, and allow His truth, love and light to transform our lives!
You cannot find God on your own. You need help for we cannot gain enough knowledge and wisdom to understand. You may understand that God is Almighty from creation and that He is creative. The plan of God is hidden no matter how hard you search for it.
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
The way to life is narrow, Jesus says, and the wide way to destruction is to hold to human wisdom but God has blocked human wisdom from the true knowledge of God and to salvation. Human wisdom and knowledge is supposed to make it possible to attain wealth and fame but all this does is segregate people from the have and have-nots, the trained and untrained, the orator and stutterer but the cross, as we are told in
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
The cross makes us all equal before God for everyone has access to God in salvation through the gospel and the cross.
God must reveal this knowledge to you by those who declare the message of who God is and what He has done through Jesus Christ.
We need not be afraid to share Jesus with others and what He has done for us through the cross. None of us are so eloquent with our speech, I don’t think, that we are in danger of giving more place to words then to Jesus. This means that as we share these things with people the Holy Spirit can do His work in His own time to make alive the message so that they can respond. It is He after all that convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgement. God wants all people to be saved and the door is open to all that will receive and come in but it is up to us to tell people in this area. If we don’t, they will continue to perish as there are only two types of people in this world – those who are saved and those who are not.
For us who are saved the gospel of foolishness is highest wisdom for we know that the cross where Christ was crucified satisfied the wrath of God in that we are now forgiven and have no penalty to pay – there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The wisdom of this world ignores God and does not see the impending doom but we as Christians are in danger of losing this sense as well as we live very much for the here and now, forgetting that what is ahead is eternity.
The Greeks’ wisdom knew not God. The Jews’ righteousness pleased not God. (Findlay)
Yet their coming Messiah who they hoped would liberate them from the Romans was the one that was branded a criminal and crucified by them.
Today people are just the same especially academics who ridicule this way – God, they say, wouldn’t send His son as a sacrifice – and they are those who remain foolish before God.
Yet God chooses people like us to shame the wise, learned, rich people of this world and so it should not surprise anyone that the Church is full of redeemed people with problems – those problems work to God for His glory as it is when we are weak He is strong.
So, we call this the gospel, the good news. When there is a time of recession, without work, potential loss of homes, changes for the worse rather than the better we know that in God, who redeemed us, we have a hope steadfast and certain...we have the promises of His Word that say that if we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness He will provide for us...and He normally provides more than we need. We need to be looking upwards to God and not downwards to earth and our problems. It is easy to say but if God has sent His only Son, He surely cares for us and our daily needs. God being ever present with us means that He knows about the worthless sparrows and feeds them, but we are of much greater worth.
The cross is true wisdom because it is a call for intellectual humility and the admittance of human limitations from a God who chose to humble himself and experience human limitations. The cross is true power because it is a call to share the weakness of a God who subjected himself in order that he might share himself with others.
Perhaps the scandal of the cross is not ‘in our face’. The cross was no heart-warming, inspiring, positive, wonderful thing. It was the ultimate torture that no Roman citizen was allowed to suffer. It was for the worst criminals and insurrectionists. God being crucified was never meant to be the plan - at least, from a human point of view, for it says in:
23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.
How can God be cursed? It is perceived as foolishness. There is a cave drawing in the 4th Century of a donkey on a cross with a man with raised arms next to it - and written beside it says: Alex worshipping his God.
No wisdom of the world could have conceived of the cross as the way to true wisdom and power for it is the way of humiliation, especially for God. The rules for us in following this kind of God are not the same as for the world. And we are supposed to be the salt of the earth turning things the right way up.
When Paul speaks of the foolishness of God – it is still wiser than the wisest man!
23 Thus says the Lord:
“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
24 But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
I, personally, hate those self-help books and videos because it is applying the world’s wisdom and perceived success into our lives rather than God’s pattern which is about where the weak are strong and the poor are rich. If it was because of our status that God chose us, we would not be here. He chose ordinary people so that we could not boast before Him. The status we have now is a gift of God. That status is that we are His children, the King’s kids, and we will reign with Him…
Knowing the Lord is the height of wisdom and knowledge, this should be our highest aim for He has opened our hearts and minds and souls to receive Him, so now, as it says in the last verse: he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
Benediction
Benediction
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Um, S. T. (2015). 1 Corinthians: The Word of the Cross. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
Vang, P. (2014). 1 Corinthians. (M. L. Strauss, Ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.