WWUTT 1428 But We Preach Christ Crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23)

The gospel is not really an easy thing to believe. In fact, it's impossible.

It is impossible for a man to come to God. But with God, all things are possible.

When we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand the

Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, reading the section in verses 18 through 25, and I'm in the

Legacy Standard Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, For the word 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, and the cleverness of the clever

I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater 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 come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach

Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.

But to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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

We looked yesterday at verse 22, Indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom.

The Jews wanted to see a sign from Jesus that he was the Messiah. The Greeks are always looking for new wisdom, that they might be intellectually stimulated, or have something that they could debate with somebody over.

It's like they were clamoring for quarrels. Can I have some new wisdom out there, so that I have something over my neighbor.

And we see that was going on in the church in Corinth, that there was quarreling over the respective teachers, that different Christians there in that church wanted to follow.

Back in verse 12, each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ.

And this is not like, I remember listening to Robert Godfrey a number of years ago.

It was in his series that he did on church history, which is a fantastic series by the way. That DVD set that you can get from Ligonier, I highly encourage you to pick that up, and go through that.

It's a great primer on church history. More than a primer, I mean it's incredibly in depth.

But check that out from Dr. Robert Godfrey. Anyway, I remember him saying that, his preference would be to tell you to read

Calvin over Edwards. R .C. Sproul was more apt to say, read

Jonathan Edwards. But Godfrey said, I would rather you read Calvin than Edwards. He believed that Calvin was a little easier to understand than Edwards was.

That's a difference of opinion there. That is a teacher's preference. Here, read Calvin.

If you're going to pick between the two, pick Calvin rather than Edwards. That doesn't cause division between anyone.

There wasn't a major split in Ligonier, or in St. Andrew's Chapel in Samford, Florida, because Godfrey said, if I had my preference,

I would tell you to pick Calvin over Edwards. This is a group of people that were, they were causing divisions in the church over this, saying

Paul was the better teacher. If you really want to know the doctrines of God the best, then you got to read

Paul's letters. But you had others that were saying, Apollos is the better speaker. So if you want to have a firmer grasp, you want to hear the best teacher that's out there, you need to go listen to Apollos.

And others are saying, well, Cephas was right there with Jesus. Peter, he was one of those main apostles.

He actually bummed around with Jesus for three years before his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.

And he saw all of that. So you really need to follow Peter. That's where you get the best teaching.

That's the true Christian orthodoxy, is what Peter taught. And then there were others that are going, well,

I follow Christ. Like he's the guy, right? This is what Christianity is named after.

So I'm going straight to the source, and I'm better than all you guys because I follow Jesus. Almost like you had denominations that were already forming right there in this church there in Corinth, because of their loyalty to different preachers.

So this was in real time, observing that the Greeks search for wisdom.

And they were even doing this among the Christian teachers. They weren't thinking of them as preaching the gospel.

And so it's the gospel that transforms us. It's the gospel that unites us. It's the gospel that shows us

Christ, who shows us the father, uniting us to God, adopting us into this family of God.

That's not the way that they were looking at it. They were looking at it as, this teacher makes me smarter than those other guys.

And so divisions were forming. It was Gentiles or Greeks, rather, searching for wisdom.

Jews ask for signs. Greeks search for wisdom. We looked at the various examples of this from scripture, where we saw such a thing.

The Jews demanding of Jesus for a sign. The Greeks that were just searching for new wisdom, as was talked about in Acts chapter 17.

But listen to what Paul says in response to that. Verse 23. We preach Christ crucified to Jews, a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.

Follow the example of Paul and the other apostles and the other teachers of this time who preached

Christ, a stumbling block and foolishness to those who were worldly minded.

The Jews who were not actually heavenly minded because they were not worshipers of Christ.

They followed the law, believing that they could attain salvation by their own works, within their own flesh.

So they weren't really heavenly minded. If you're not seeking Christ, if you don't see Jesus as the son of God, then you're earthly minded and not heavenly minded.

And so that was the Jews. They were demanding signs of Jesus to show, to prove that he was the son of God.

Well, Jesus said, look at the works themselves and see what it is that I'm doing that has come from the

Father, that is being done in submission to the will of the Father. But that wasn't enough for them.

They wanted a sign from heaven, something other than had already been performed before them. And so Jesus said, no sign is going to be given to you except the sign of Jonah.

Talking about his own burial in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights before rising again from the grave on Sunday morning.

So fulfilling what was prophetically done through Jonah, who was in the heart of a fish for three days and three nights, or the belly of a fish, but you know what

I mean. I also think that the whole argument between whether it was a fish or a whale is kind of frivolous.

It doesn't matter. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that a whale had swallowed Jonah and we would just call that a fish.

That aside, it doesn't matter. I'm just saying that argument doesn't matter. Don't cause a church split over it.

So we see that Christ is a stumbling block to Jews and he's foolishness to Gentiles.

And what do you see happening in modern American evangelicalism today, but this effort to try to soften the gospel, soften the message of scripture and make it more palatable to the unbelieving world.

This is Andy Stanley's whole shtick, right? I mean, he doesn't even apologize for it.

He just straight up says, so many people in my audience are unchurched or de -churched.

And so I need to present the Bible to them in this way to make it easier for them to believe.

So he comes up with things like unhitch from the Old Testament. You don't have to believe those stories from the

Old Testament. You just need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But Jesus said in Luke chapter 16, if they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they listen if somebody should rise from the dead.

So if somebody is not willing to believe that there was a global flood or the Tower of Babel or any of the other miracles that were performed, the parting of the

Red Sea or any of the other things that the prophets did, if they're not willing to believe that, then they're not going to believe that Christ rose from the dead.

You take all of the Bible or you take none of it. All of it is the word of Christ. All the Old Testament points to him.

All of the New Testament points to Christ. It's all about him. So everything, even in the

Old Testament, is done by the miraculous working of God. There is no softening this message to make it easier for somebody to believe.

We also refer to this as easy -believe -ism. But Peter confronted this very thing in 1

Peter chapter 2, verse 4. Let me start in verse 4. He says, As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

For it stands in Scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe.

If you listen to this, this is Peter quoting from the Old Testament, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a rock of stumbling,

I'm sorry, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

Why is it that someone finds it difficult to believe the Bible? Because they love their sin.

Because, as Peter said right here, they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do.

They go after the passions and the desires of their flesh instead of obeying the word of God.

This is a difficult thing to believe. I mentioned to you yesterday, in fact, the gospel of Jesus Christ is impossible to believe.

It is impossible for you to believe it if not for the miraculous working of God in your heart, transforming you from a person who is rebellious against God instead now to a person who loves

God and desires to obey his commandments. Consider what Jesus said to his disciples in Mark chapter 10.

You have the story of the rich young ruler who comes before Jesus and says,

Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good?

No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother.

So Jesus is confronting this rich young ruler first by saying to him, If you're going to call me good, you better be prepared to call me

God because no one is good except God alone. He's challenging this young man who doesn't actually believe

Jesus is God and then gives him the word of God, the commands of God according to the law.

Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. That's from the Ten Commandments. And the young man responds to him,

Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. And Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, confronted him with the truth.

You lack one thing. Go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

And come, follow me. Disheartened by the saying, this rich young ruler went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.

The desire of this young man's heart still was not for God. It was for the things that were in this world.

So externally he could say that he was keeping all the commandments, but in his heart, he really did not have a heart for God.

He had a heart for himself and the stuff that he possessed on this earth and was not willing to give them up.

Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter. And how easy would it have been for Jesus, for any of us, to have been put in this position?

If we were put in the same position as Jesus in this story, how would we have responded to this?

The young man would have said, I've done all these things, and we would have gone, well, good. Then it looks to me like you're a pretty good person.

Now great is your reward, right? We might have said something like that. Easy believism.

This guy has a lot of money. Hey, let's welcome him in to join our cause.

He can really help fund and support this missions work that we're doing. Look at the rich young ruler with all the funds that's going to help us out.

So let's not make it difficult for him to believe. Let's get him in here. I'm certain that's the way

American evangelicalism would have done it. We don't want to make it difficult for this guy to believe it. We want to make it easy so he'll come in and he'll bring our money and he'll fund our missions.

But that's not what Jesus did because Jesus loved him. Jesus, looking at him, loved him.

That's Mark 10, 21. And confronted him with the truth. You lack one thing. What is the one thing that the rich young ruler lacked?

God. The thing. The main thing. He did not believe.

He believed in himself. He didn't believe in God. Right? He's following the cultural whimsies.

Believe in yourself. You can be what you want to be. Trust yourself. The young man did.

And he walked away sorrowful, realizing that that wasn't enough. And all that he had and all that he possessed wasn't enough.

Jesus looked at his disciples after the young man walks away. He says to his disciples, how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God.

It's difficult. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7, following him was the hard way.

The easy way is to go the way of this world. Broad is the way that leads to destruction and many will find it because that's the easy way.

But long is the road and difficult is the way that leads to life and few will find it because that's the difficult path.

So Jesus says directly to his disciples, even here, it is difficult to enter the kingdom of God.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

And we even try to take that story and we try to whittle it down into easy believism. So we'll explain this.

Camel is like a really large rope. That's what it was back in those days. And the eye of a needle, it was just a small gate in the city gate.

There's the big door of the gate and then there's like a small door in the city gate. That was called the eye of a needle. Well, if you take that rope, you can get it through that gate door.

There's nothing difficult about that at all. In fact, it's easier than getting an actual camel through a door.

But Jesus is talking about the largest creature in Jerusalem at that time, which is a camel, and contrasting it with the smallest opening, the eye of a needle.

You cannot get a camel through the eye of a needle and expect it to survive the trip.

So likewise, a rich person cannot enter the kingdom of God and survive that trip without giving up all that he loves the most, that he may love the

Lord, his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the disciples, exceedingly astonished,

Mark 10, 26, they said to him, then who can be saved?

If the rich guy, with all the world's possessions, who obeyed all of God's commandments, if that guy can't get into heaven, then who can?

And Jesus looked at them and said, with man, it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.

It is impossible for man to believe the gospel. It is only possible by the miraculous working of the

Holy Spirit in your heart. When you hear the gospel and you repent of sin and you believe in Jesus, you put your faith and your trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins and life everlasting, resurrection from the grave.

When you come to that place, it's because God worked his power in you through the power of the gospel.

With man, it's impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. But here we have the church in America trying to dumb things down and make it easier for people to believe.

Even pulling all these worldly things in to entice worldly people. We're going to do a storm trooper dance.

We're going to sing Highway to Hell. We're going to get a big rock band and flashy lights. We're going to have the preacher zoom in on a zipline.

We're going to have motorcycle stunt bikes going on over his head. We're going to make a fire truck baptismal for kids.

We're going to make it fun and it's going to bring in the most people you've ever seen. Yeah, I bet it will.

I'm sure it will. Because you'll be appealing to carnal people with carnal means and it will require those carnal things in order to keep them there.

You have to do great spectacle in order to draw people in. That's what they'll continue to expect.

And you have to provide, continue to provide great spectacle in order to entertain the masses and keep them coming and paying for your giant buildings and monumental pastor salaries.

This stuff doesn't save anybody. It might look great from a worldly standpoint but it doesn't get anyone into the kingdom of God.

And then people soften the gospel. You know, it used to be that this easy believism or this seeker sensitive tactic, these tactics that churches would use to try to bring people in, it used to be that they would do like a bait and switch.

So they would promise you one thing or they would throw in the great spectacle and then you come in and then they would give you the gospel.

And it would be a hard hitting gospel. You're a sinner. You need a savior. You're guilty of this.

Only by faith in Christ can you be forgiven and have eternal life. So they would give you a hard hitting gospel but now it's not even that anymore because they know if they give you the thing that offends you that you won't come back.

So it's softened. And you even have many churches out there now, a lot of churches in America that are even accepting of homosexuality that will even marry a man to another man doing something that God calls an abomination because they just don't want to offend anybody.

I don't want to give you anything too hard that might cause you to walk away. Jesus loved everyone, right?

So everyone's welcome to come in here. I tell you it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a worldly person to truly be a part of the church of God in Jesus Christ.

The only way to be part of that church, the true church, the true followers of Jesus, the only way to be part of this thing is to repent of your sin, believe in Jesus, follow

Him, love the Lord your God, endure to the end and you will be saved.

Good news about this folks, that is all the powerful working of God. 1

Corinthians 1 .18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Heavenly Father, convict us of our sin. Let it not be about us and our prejudices, our ways, get all that stuff out of the way.

Help us to be convicted again by your word. Not being flattered by the numbers or the money or anything else that might look great in the eyes of the world.

We want to be faithful to God. We want to do what pleases you, what you have said in your word.

It's not by our power that the church is grown. It is by the power of the

Holy Spirit, both in number and in spiritual maturity. This is a growth that comes from God.

Keep us faithful to your word. And as Paul is going to say later on here in 1 Corinthians, it is

God who provides the growth. In Jesus' precious name we pray.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a

New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.