1 Cor No.3 The Adequacy of the Cross

1 Corinthians chapter 1, beginning to read at the 17th verse. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 17. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

Not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 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.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent, I will frustrate. Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 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.

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified. A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you are wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

When I came to you brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom, as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. Praise be to God for that reading from his holy word. This song is called the seed song, and as we celebrate harvest, so abundant in this country, in comparison with many other countries abroad, we just want to thank God for it.

We'll sing the song through once, and then we'll ask you to join in the chorus. One must water, one must weed, one must sow the precious seed. We'll all work in unity to turn the garden of love.

You take a little seed, and you put it in the ground. Spread a little love and cheer around. Plant a little thyme this farm above, and you'll have a garden of love.

One must water, one must weed, one must sow the precious seed. We'll all work in unity to turn the garden of love. Tend it patiently in prayer, pull out the weeds of garden care.

Trust God's Spirit from above to nourish the seed of love. One must water, one must weed, one must sow the precious seed. We'll all work in unity to turn the garden of love.

One must water, one must weed, one must sow the precious seed. We'll all work in unity to turn the garden of love. Now you'll find it helpful, I believe, to have your Bibles open at the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.

And as we make our way through this very practical letter that the greatest missionary the Church has ever known wrote to this Greek seaport community, I trust that it will be increasingly a blessing to you. Last week you will recall I endeavored to bring you a message which I humbly believe was from God. A message I entitled, The Gift of Invisible Mending.

Or I gave that the second title that I would have selected to describe the heart of my burden. And you recall how that was really based around the tenth verse of the opening letter. I appeal to you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree with one another.

So that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. It came to me in the earlier hours of this morning that very often the Church of Jesus Christ is like that multi-colored garment that Joseph was so pleased to receive from Jacob. Do you remember how his brothers on one occasion in their envy pounced on the youngest son? And they tore the garment and they sprinkled it with blood as Joseph was sold into slavery.

And they brought that torn piece of cloth back to the old man and suggested that his son had been killed by a wild animal. How often I put it to you with tears in my eyes, my dear brothers and sisters. The Church of Jesus is like the torn garment that once was proudly round the shoulders of Joseph.

You see it's the idea of tearing that's implicit in that tenth verse. I appeal to you in the name of our Lord Jesus that all of you agree with one another. So that there may be no divisions.

The word is schism in the Greek. It means tearing. If you like medically it means fracturing.

But rather says Paul, I want you all to be perfectly united in mind and thought. And again I went back to the original to bring out the meaning of that idea of perfectly united or the AV, perfectly joined together. And the concept is of invisible mending like you get from some dry cleaners here in Worthing.

God's will for his church is not for it to be like the torn garment that once was Joseph's. But rather to be like that white garment that our Savior wore throughout his public ministry. And even the soldiers on guard duty at the foot of the cross were not full enough to rend it into several shreds.

They preserved its wholeness. Now I say that not as a matter of debate. But as a matter that I believe God has impressed upon my heart.

An increasing burden for the wholeness of the Church of Christ throughout the United Kingdom. There's hardly anything that I think has priority over that. In my own estimation with one exception.

And it's the exception that I now take you into because this is what Paul does in his argument. You say what do you mean? Well the most important thing in the world second on the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ is to recognize the primacy of the proclamation of the gospel and the supremacy of the cross. The message of the cross.

You see this is the burden that Paul has as he unfolds it in these following verses from the 13th and onwards of this opening chapter. He himself is not going to align his name with any party group at Corinth. He's not even getting involved in issues which have an importance such as baptism.

He singles out that which is of prior importance the supremacy of the cross. And he glories in this that he Apostle Paul pioneer extraordinary of Jesus Christ around the Roman Empire is able to tell men and women that Jesus bled and died to save them. I want to say that I have a feeling there's a danger in the evangelical church in this country.

If I've got my finger on its pulse and if I haven't then forget what I'm saying. There's a danger to shift the focal point from the cross to lesser issues. But I tell you that when the Apostle went to Corinth he gloried in the fact that he preached nothing else save Christ and him crucified.

Twice in the first chapter and then again perhaps the most open declaration in the second chapter. He tells us there in the second verse I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's the kernel of the Christian message.

It's the focal point of every spiritual eye. Remove that, dislodge that, be cloud that. And the Christian church has lost its reason for being.

The most imperative thing in the world today my dear brothers and sisters is to proclaim the efficiency of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And it seems to me that unless or rather until every intelligent being has received the information of the cross we have no right to give a great deal of time to other secondary issues. It was Nero the infamous emperor of Rome who according to the story spent time with his violin fiddling while Rome burnt instead of dealing with the frightful fire that he possibly was responsible for instigating that was devouring the citizens of Rome.

And some of us fiddle with secondaries when the world is crying out to hear of Jesus. I can hardly find words to tell you. I mentioned this in passing the other Sunday.

What grips my heart sometimes when I come back here to the UK having spent time in third world countries. When I think of millions of people north of Ahmedabad in India who still have not yet heard of Jesus. When I think of tens of thousands of villagers throughout the whole of that subcontinent who yet have not had a tract nor a radio broadcast telling them of the good news of why Jesus died.

And I find myself in the UK trying to pacify folks who are concerned about this aspect and that aspect of secondary doctrine and practices of worship and the way that we relate together and we have our conferences and we have our books and we have our conventions and we all get together in a sort of holy club trying to sort out these secondary things. While India starves spiritually as well as physically may God forgive the church of the 20th century if she refuses to take the lesson from the inspired Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 thrice repeated I bless God when I look back on my ministry in Corinth it was sufficient enough to preach Jesus, the supremacy of the cross. Paul will deal with it in three ways conveniently for our study this morning.

He will first touch on the supremacy of the cross in a general fashion and he'll do that from the 18th verse right through to the 25th verse. He will then deal with it in a particular way when from the 26th verse to the end of the chapter he speaks specifically to the congregation of Christians in Corinth and then he'll deal with the supremacy of the cross personally as in the opening verses 1 to 5 of the second chapter he applies it to himself. We'll probably not have time to work that all through in any sort of fashion but there is the main thrust of the thinking of the apostle Paul he has made the declaration, he's glad that he's preached Christ and him crucified and then he'll apply this generally to a relatively unbelieving world in those verses I indicated.

Then he'll apply the message to this congregation in Corinth and say look what difference it's made to you my brothers and then personally he'll engage in testimony and he'll say look what the cross means to me. First of all then generally look at the 18th verse here he speaks of the double response to the message of Christ the message of the cross. You'll find that there's a twin response you'll find that he's got opposing thoughts in his mind because if you sift those verses the 18th to the 25th you'll come across the words wisdom and foolishness and it seems to me that they're pretty much an opposite what is at the other end of the scale of wisdom it's foolishness what's at the other end of the scale of foolishness it's wisdom and here is Paul and he's reviewing the situation in the world he's asking who is the wise man in verse 20 he's asking where is the scholar he's asking where is the philosopher of this age Paul with biting cynicism that increases as he develops his argument shows the absolute futility of man and his thinking over against the genius of God and the gospel of his Christ the apostle Paul will run this contrast throughout the whole of these verses he's got a concern for the Greeks and a concern for the Jews this comes about particularly in the 22nd verse when he declares Jews demand miraculous signs do you remember that was one of the things that stumbled them about Jesus often they would come to the Lord Jesus Christ those professional scribes and rabbis and they would ask him to perform a sign listen to their words in Matthew chapter 12 then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him teacher we want to see a miraculous sign from you he answered a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah when Jesus is brought before Herod he wants Jesus to perform tricks to conjure some sort of miracle in front of him and then perhaps Herod will believe and Jesus refuses to do such a thing he wants people to acknowledge what he is more than what he can do and here the apostle speaks of the great stumbling block of the Jews in terms of wanting signs and the Greeks what was their difficulty wherever Paul went around the Grecian world and spoke of the message of the cross they criticized him because it doesn't seem logical it seems the height of absurdity God creator of the universe inspirer of Greek poets of Greek philosophers coming into this world and dying and not an ordinary death a horrible death Paul said the philosophers in Athens prior to him reaching Corinth in his itinerary you must be mad God dying, God being resurrected and here Paul is dealing with the basic difficulty of the Jews and the Gentiles the one wants signs the other wants some eloquent flow some logical scheme and when they are brought face to face with the cross it stumbles them but we're not just concerned about yesteryear men and women of the first century what about you? when the cross is applied generally to you its message you say it's too crude for the sophisticated 20th century man alright where is your scientist? where is your politician? where is your educationalist who can deal with the problems that confront our world if they were acute in Paul's day they almost slide into insignificance compared with our day Paul as he speaks of the cross is generalizing in those opening verses and he's contrasting the attitude of the Jew and the Greek and he says ok, reject Jesus reject the message of the cross what's your solution? and what do you pin your hope? and he comes back to that tremendous declaration that Jesus Christ reckoned to be foolishness in the eyes of men as God's means of salvation his death on the cross and his mighty resurrection and the idea that that atones for sin far from foolishness says Paul it's wisdom it's distilled wisdom of the ages only God can allow his son to come into the world and die for humankind this great God of glory whose very weakness says the apostle in the 25th verse is better than your strength whose own foolishness if you could use that thought of God is wiser than the greatest wisdom of man there's only one gospel there's only one message that God has for this world and depending in which category of person you find yourself to be it's either wisdom because you're a Christian or like a neighbor I was speaking to yesterday for some length of time it's foolishness but he hasn't got anything to put in its place Paul applies the message of the cross in those opening verses the 18th and 20th to the 25th of our passage this morning he applies it generally I'd like to have dug into the verses a little more but time won't allow that let's move on to the 26th verse and onwards when he applies the message particularly you see now he's not thinking so much of the outside world his attention is on that congregation of Christians in Corinth brothers he says typically Paul using an endearing term think of what you were called think of what you were when you were called think of the situation in which you found yourself when first you heard the gospel of Christ do you remember I drew I drew an analogy last week between David's men who came to the cave of Adullam and all the membership role of the church at Corinth because later on in the chapter we've got some job description if that's the right term telling us what these men and women were like before the gospel was preached think what you were like says Paul before the supremacy of the gospel became so important in your lives there aren't many of you who were of noble birth many of you were slaves many of you have got sexual problems many of you were perverts many of you were out as the dung of this world and yet God came along and he chose you three times the elective choice of God is referred to in this passage Puritan theologians I and I think rightly would speak about the effectual calling of God he chose says Paul in the 28th verse he chose the lowly things of the world and the things and the despised things and the things that are not what a selection God has what a choice you would have thought that he would have gone for those who had prestige the Emperor the Prime Minister the Senate and so forth but he doesn't this is the incredible thing about God it's sustained down history start at the beginning of Genesis work your way through to the end book of the Bible Revelation and you'll discover that God's got a place in his heart for ordinary people humble people people who've made a mess of their lives I was grateful for some of our youngsters and they will recall how in our study in the address that I brought we were speaking about Job and where God found Job sitting on a rubbish tip incredible and it says of Jesus that he came not to call those who were healthy but those who were unhealthy not those who were righteous but those who were unrighteous and he told a parable somewhat humorously as to how the vagabonds came to a good party because the ones who might have been there were negligent Jesus chose us the effectual call of God the thing that blows my mind and that's not an exaggerated comment is that God in his grace could have looked down upon me in the north of England and when I was alive put it in my heart to respond to his gospel you see, God calls in a special way I don't want to get technical this morning but that, again, the Greek of that passage is exciting he chose and within the very verb there is a sort of inbuilt magnetism as though the people who were chosen could hardly have resisted you see, there's a general call of God for all men to repent but then there's a special Charles Spurgeon, as always manages to get these theological niceties in an illustration so we know what the Bible is speaking of he talks about Mother Hen I, he says, Spurgeon who seemed to be an expert on hens as well as other things she clocks away every hour it's the general clock but there are times when she has a special call and her chicks will come running to her the general, the specific choice of Mother Hen the chicks Paul on the Damascus Road heard the special call of God Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? In the resurrection garden the special call of Jesus came to the woman from Magdala Mary he says to her similarly, amongst these these wretched people in Corinth with all their immorality so few of them of noble birth so few of them with any influence at all the choice of God came and they responded to the call as Paul preached what? Baptism? No Second Coming? No How to worship the Lord? No When Paul preached Christ and Him crucified they recognized the call I speak reverently of Mother Hen the special call of God I heard the voices of Jesus say come unto me find rest and I'll bless God down the eons of eternity for that special call which introduced me to a Savior who had Himself according to Paul here in the 30th verse being made wisdom and righteousness and holiness and redemption for me every sublime characteristics that Jesus had in His personality are transferred to me this is the amazing thing of the Gospel this is what Paul is working out in these verses, you see the Jews, they ask for miracles but they want it at the at the level of the conjurer's trips the Greeks, they just wanted eloquence but again, it was the empty eloquence of the orator but in one sense people who respond to Jesus Christ in a mighty way find that He does perform signs He is the essence of wisdom and He transfers the very power of God the very wisdom of God the very purity of God to the account of the Christian that's why Paul can say in the opening verses and here in these verses that a Christian is a person in Christ Jesus look at verse 30 it is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus you're part of the body of Christ you are so aligned to Christ that no surgeon's scalpel be it ever so cutting ever so sharp could cause you to be an amputated limb away from Jesus He is my wisdom He is my righteousness He is my health when God looks down from His seat in the highest heaven on me He sees not the muck of my sin He sees the purity of the Christ and that to me is the greatest message that needs to be proclaimed around the world what Jesus has done for this soul of mine the half has never been told but let's at least tell 10% or 20% to as many people as possible and to put our priorities where they really belong in the declaration of the gospel of Christ so that when we stand before a holy God we shall not be guilty of having allowed time to pass through our fingers used only in relatively unimportant areas whilst the world crying for the message of the blood of Jesus went on its way to a lost eternity Paul deals with the supremacy of the Christ generally he deals with it specifically or particularly and then he deals with it personally and in the opening verses of the second chapter you find this he's now using the first person singular when I came to you brothers I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaim to you the testimony about God or the mystery of God what did you do then Paul ah says Paul well I was hot from having had experience with the Athenians and it didn't seem as though my ministry was as blessed there and when I came into Corinth I had this tremendous resolve to go and show where he was right and where he was wrong to dissect the philosophers for you Paul know more about Greek philosophy than the average person what did you do Paul I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Jesus Christ and him crucified and how did you tell it Paul with eloquence were you a sort of Billy Graham that every man has were you a sort of first century Malcolm Mugridge swallow the dictionary so that you always got out what you wanted to say no says Paul this is the amazing thing my speech was in weakness and fear my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words then Paul man how on earth did you get it through if you didn't use drama a stuttering stammering tongue that bedevils you in your speech how on earth man did there ever come about at the human level a Christian church in Corinth well says Paul I found that when I preached about Jesus there accompanied me a demonstration of the Spirit's power and that's the only way that I can explain the effectiveness of my ministry so that nobody could ever say the next verse was built on my personality built on my influence it wasn't it didn't rest on men's wisdom it rested solely and surely on the power of God what is the power of God he's told us before it's Jesus Christ it's the gospel the gospel is the power of God unto salvation I says Paul I contented myself in preaching just that how do you spend your time my friend my Christian friend some of us chasing maybe from one meeting to another one convention to another one church meeting here to another how much time do you give just for telling people about the supremacy of the cross and the precious blood of Jesus and any cynic any doubter here who ridicules what I've brought before you what's your alternative which politician are you depositing your faith your trust in what school of philosophy are you pinning your colors to its mast in what scientific theory are you building your hope of the future where is the scribe where is the wise man where is the disputer is there anything more glorious than this that almighty God one day sent into this world his own precious son he became the wisdom of God and the power of God and when he died on the cross he shed his precious blood so that those who are bathed in his blood does that term offend you what can wash me white as snow nothing but the blood of Jesus those who had the blood applied should be free from their sins fit vehicles in which the spirit of God could come and take up residence there's nothing to compare with that salvation now a hope in the future and a message to preach to the world the supremacy of the cross let it never be said that you were not reminded of your priority as an alleged disciple of Jesus Christ amen 299 again one of the great old hymns of scripture Horatius Bonner's I heard the voice of Jesus say come unto me and rest let's really lift that third verse in a in a piano of praise and an expression of confidence and discipleship 299 I heard the voice of Jesus say