What the Cross meant to the World

How many here have a mobile phone?

How many of you use it to send and receive text messages? Do you ever get texts at the most inopportune times? For example, you’re at dinner with your family and someone texts you with bad news. You were having a great time at dinner and now it’s been railroaded? Or you might be watching the news on TV and the story is so disturbing that you can’t go to sleep at night. Or maybe your son or daughter comes home from school and tells you they are no longer allowed to use the restrooms whenever they want because of a Ticktok story encouraging kids to vandalize restrooms.

What I’m getting at is we all get messages from a variety of sources about all kinds of things. Some are good and some are bad. But even more importantly, some messages are truthful, and others are downright deceitful. How can we tell which ones are truthful and good?

Well, I want to tell you about one message that is both good and truthful. It’s the message of the cross of Christ. Let’s read from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. I’m going to read it from the New Living Translation.

1 Corinthians 1:18–25 (NLT)

18 The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction!

But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. 19 As the Scriptures say,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”

20 So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. 21 Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. 22 It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. 23 So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

24 But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

So, what are we learning here?

For those who are being saved, who believe in Christ, the message of the cross is the very power of God. Look at what Paul says in Romans 1:16 NKJV

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”

But for the unsaved Jesus dying on the cross is stupid and meaningless. Paul goes on in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians verse 14 (NET) to say,

“The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understandthem, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Not only that, God uses ordinary people like you and me to proclaim the gospel of Christ. In verse 21 it says, God uses our “foolish preaching to save those who believe.” But in contrast the world will never know Him through human wisdom, by figuring it out on their own.

God gets all the credit. Amen?

The world doesn’t understand the cross, and not only that it hates the cross. It says in Philippians 3:18-20 (ESV).

18For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

19Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

20But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

There’s a verse in the hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” that you might recall.

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,

has a wondrous attraction for me;

for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above

to bear it to dark Calvary.

So, where are you at with regards to the cross? Whose messages do you read and accept and believe, or reject and delete? I pray you can see that the message of the cross is really the safe option. It’s the only way to eternal life, whereas the message of the world can only lead to sadness and destruction.

With all that’s been said about the cross, how are you feeling about it? With what Jesus had to go through on the cross to pay for our sins how should you respond? Do you even believe in this message? I pray you do, and if you have doubts or questions please talk to me or one of the other elders or pastors. Let’s pray.