Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTENTION

One of the first public acts of our new president was his appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast just a few weeks ago.

While other less conservative politicians have seemed uncomfortable in such arenas, President Obama seems to be right at home.

He used the occasion to declare that one’s faith should be a force for unity, not an excuse for prejudice and intolerance.

He went on to say:

"We have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another – as an excuse for prejudice and intolerance," the president said.

"Wars have been waged.

Innocents have been slaughtered.

For centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of perceived righteousness.

Of his faith-based program, Obama said, "Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times.

This is not only our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of America.

Now, let me just say up front that just about any politician from any party would have been comfortable making a statement such as that.

In fact, as Americans, we expect our presidents to be inclusive and tolerant in speaking of religion.

After all, he isn’t just the president of Christian Americans, he’s also the president of Muslim Americans and Atheistic Americans too.

But . . .

While our politicians may call for a uniting of faiths and while the politically correct might applaud the equating of one faith with another, they would, to the surprise of some, I’m sure, find themselves at odds with Jesus.

You see, Jesus didn’t say that He came to bring people together.

Quite the contrary.

Jesus said:

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.

I did not come to bring peace but a sword.

35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’

37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.

And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

You know, I just don’t know if Jesus would do very well at the National Prayer Breakfast.

I have the feeling they might not invite Him back!

And just what was He saying with all that?

Does Jesus really want us to be at war over religion?

Well, that’s a good question, but it really misses the point.

You see, Jesus isn’t compelling bloodshed in the name of faith.

He isn’t urging us to go to war with one another, He is telling us that we are already at war with God.

He is, in this passage, forshadowing the death that He is about to die when He speaks of us taking up the cross.

He is speaking, I believe, of the radical impact His awful death would have upon the world.

He was saying, “I’m going to a cross to die.

I’m going to give my life and when you see the power of that awful death I will die, it will so radically impact your life that your commitment to me will drive you from every other commitment in life.

You will find that my cross is a divisive thing!”

Paul echoes this sentiment in our text when he writes:

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.”

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.

NEED

Paul’s words are meant for us.

Some of us here today have never really put our faith in Christ.

I’m talking to some of you who are right there this morning.

If I could sit down and have a conversation with you, and I asked you why you have not committed yourself to the Lord, you would say something like this: “Well, I just haven’t seen enough evidence to really believe.” or “I’m still waiting for a feeling . .

.some experience I haven’t had.”

Jesus interests you, but He’s never invaded your life; Jesus intrigues you, but you’ve never invited Him into your heart.

You’re waiting for something that hasn’t come, and, at the risk of being contrary, I must tell you, it’s never coming.

What you’re looking for is found in the cross.

You’re asking God for this and that to prove Himself and He keeps pointing you back to that criss-crossed beam.

The cross of Christ divides believers from unbelievers.

But it also divides the followers from professors.

That may be you this morning.

You’ve been born again, but the helpless dependence on Christ which brought us to faith has been abandoned for self-dependence.

We used to trust God, but slowly we’ve begun to trust ourselves and go our own way.

I must tell yout that the cross of Christ is a divisive thing.

It divides the followers from the professors.

To both groups I stand before you today to say that the answer to every issue of your life is to be found in your embrace of that divisive cross.

You might say, “Why, Rusty?

Why must Christianity be so exclusive?

Why must the cross be so divisive?”

Well this passage gives us the answer.

The cross divides us because of

DIV 1: WHAT GOD INTENDS.

EXPLANATION

That “great divide” of the cross is clearly stated in v 18 of ch. 1.

It says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

The word “foolishness” comes from the Greek word moria and sounds like our word moron.

The mōoros would be a fool, an uncouth being, lacking education and culture, with no discernment, circumspection, or wisdom, committing countless blunders.

When I think of this word I think of the keystone cops expending great energy and accomplishing nothing.

Isn’t that the way the unbelieving world looks at the cross and hopelessly “deluded” Christians who really believe in all that “blood of Christ” stuff.

The preaching of the cross is viewed that way by the world; it is foolishness to them.

But that’s just what God intended!

The quote of v 19 proves it.

That quote comes from Isaiah 29:14.

In that passage Isaiah is mocking the efforts of the Jewish leaders who were scheming in their own energy to save Jerusalem from being taken captive by the Assyrians.

In their desperation these worldly-wise politicians seek safety in an alliance with Egypt.

Their move so alarms the Assyrians that it sparks the very invasion they were seeking to avoid.

God, who had ordained their capture in order to discipline them, destroys the wisdom of the wise and brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

And that is just what God had intended to do all along.

Paul takes that example and applies it to the cross.

He says that the cross is the instrument that God uses to confound the wisdom of this world and, in so doing, he shows 3 specific groups of people whom God’s wisdom confounds.

You see them in v 20 where Paul asks, “Where is the wise?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the disputer of this age?

Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this age?”

The first group he mentions is the “wise.”

The Greek culture valued “wisdom,” as they defined it at least, above all else.

They wanted to reason their way to truth.

God comes against their wisdom with the cross, the very antithesis of any thing they could conceive as being wise.

To the wise Paul says, in verse 25, that the wisdom of God is wiser than men.

The second group he mentions is the scribe.

That spoke to the Jewish culture.