We Preach Christ Crucified (1 Cor 1:18-25) - Todd Burgett, Redeemer Bible Church, Gilbert, AZ

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Sundays at 10:15am - 434 Oak Street, Central Point, OR 97502 www.redeemermedford.org

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Greetings from Arizona. It's slightly warmer for now, just slightly.
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But in the summer, it gets a lot warmer, right? You've heard that, you know that, you can believe that. So great to be here in Medford.
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It's been a while since I've been here. I had cousins who lived in Medford many years ago. And I remember as a small boy coming and visiting.
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But then in high school, after I graduated, we did a missions trip in Vancouver, excuse me, in the middle of British Columbia, not far from Vancouver.
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And we came through here and this was our first stop. I grew up in the San Jose, California area. And that's why
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Medford was our first stop along the way. I pastored there for 26 years.
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And Pastor John Benzinger and I were buddies in seminary together. That's how we connected. And so he gave us a call two years ago to come and be a part of the team there.
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And it's been a privilege being one of the pastors there. I give oversight to men's and women's ministry, students' ministry, children's ministry.
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And then I'm specifically a part of the discipleship training of 18 men in our
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Redeemer Training Center. And this is the inaugural year for that. And it's been an absolute blast. But it is such an incredible privilege to be here with you and to be here for Pastor Kofi as he celebrates the birth of this sweet little one to their family.
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Would you join with me as we pray, as we open up God's word today? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word.
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You're a God who speaks. You're a God who made a book. And we're gonna open up this book and help understand a key aspect of this book and how it gets communicated to your people.
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And I pray your blessings on us, that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear your truth and your word today, and that you would receive much glory from the preaching of your word today as it falls in the hearts of your people.
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And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. We'll turn to 1 Corinthians 1, if you will.
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I'm gonna introduce to you maybe a term you've never heard before, or maybe you have. Have you heard the term moralistic therapeutic deism?
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That's a mouthful, isn't it? Yes, I'm gonna explain what that means, but it's a thing.
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Sadly, it's a thing. The origin of that term came from a book called
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Soul Searching that was published in 2005 from sociologists
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Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. They were a national research team, and they did some research on some teenagers about belief.
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It was a survey on what they believe from around the turn of the millennium, so about 24 years ago.
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Their conclusions led them to coin this term moralistic therapeutic deism, and this is a summary of what that term kind of incorporates.
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This is what these teenagers believed, and so the creed of this religion, so to speak, as codified from what emerged from the interviews sounds something like this.
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So this is what they believe, five things that they kind of amassed in this survey. Number one, that there's a
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God who exists, who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
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Number two, God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the
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Bible and by most world religions. Starting to get a little funny here. Number three, the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
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That's the therapeutic part. The other part was the moralistic part. Number four, God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when
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God is needed to resolve a problem. That's the deism part. And number five, good people go to heaven when they die.
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Quite a stunning conclusion of things. Very broad, very man -centered, if you will.
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In April of 2021, the Culture Research Center at Arizona Christian University, after surveying adults on religion, came to find out that moralistic therapeutic deism is now the most popular worldview in the
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United States. That's what most people believe. Well, it started when they were teenagers, now they've grown up, and here they are as adults.
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Four out of 10 adults embrace moralistic therapeutic deism over some others. Biblical theism, that's what we would be.
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Postmodernism, nihilism, Marxism and CRT, and Eastern mysticism, those are all pale in comparison to the belief of moralistic therapeutic deism.
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Now, here's the summary of that. Those fancy words all put together is basically we are to be good to feel good, so we be good to feel good, and we are helped by a distant
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God who helps us to do both of those things, to be good and to feel good. Now, how is this the prevailing mindset and worldview of American Christians?
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Well, it's propagated, it comes through the pulpits in America, to mass acceptance.
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These are sermons that tend to be pragmatic only in the sense, in one sense, but without gospel, without the good news of Jesus Christ.
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So you have the three steps to a happy marriage. A good sex life. Parenting.
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Three steps to be the best you that you can be. Three steps to find your dream job, and so on.
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Even Bible sermons, but where the message of the Bible is not, or the message of the sermon is not the message of the text.
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The text is just used to support some type of idea that falls into a pragmatic category.
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Expository preaching, which is what Pastor Kofi does, which is what we do and many others do, is preaching the text and understanding the message of the text.
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Not, this text is here to support me, I'm here to support the text. I'm here to proclaim the text of God's word.
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And so then, Bible sermons where the message of the sermon is not the message of the text, so you get the five stones to help you slay the
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Goliaths in your life. These are real titles, they're real sermons. Jesus and socialism, as in Jesus for socialism.
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The Good Samaritan, how to be a good Samaritan to the homeless. All of those, taking scriptural context and turning them into a different context that's not the point of the message.
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Are these well -meaning, but misguided? Maybe. At worst, it may reflect what
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Jesus rebuked in the Pharisees when he told the people, let them, the Pharisees, alone.
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They are blind guides, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. That's a stern warning.
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Today's Western church then is content to embrace a Christianity that settles for selective morality, felt needs, all from a
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God who is nothing more than a divine butler. And this is fortified from the pulpits across the country.
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So what's the remedy? Well, Paul addressed a similar issue. This is not a new issue. It's not a modern issue.
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It's an issue of the church from day one. And so you have the first Corinthians, the Corinthian church, and his first letter to it, right out of the get -go.
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Paul helps us understand and address the similar issues that the church in Corinth was dealing with.
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And if you ever wanna feel good about your church, read the book of Corinthians, first and second.
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You go, you know what, we're not doing so bad. They had some crazy things going on, and so here we have these beautiful texts to help remind us what is most important.
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So Paul rebuked the Corinthian church for its embracing of Sophia. That's not a woman.
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It's a common name for many women. But Sophia is a Greek term, the logo.
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Words with eloquent wisdom. The Greek rhetorical brilliance of the day.
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They had popular speakers outside of the church. They were, in fact, the rock stars of Greek culture.
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And that's what Paul was warning them again. So what does that have to do with moralistic therapeutic deism have in common with these honey -tongued orators?
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Well, as one commentator says, what Paul criticizes here is a focus on style instead of substance.
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Such that the hearers are swayed by the artistry of the speaker rather than by the message specifically of the cross.
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Importance of the gospel. So the substance of moralistic therapeutic deism is similar to the substance of these
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Greek rock stars, these Greek orators. And it's this, worldly wisdom.
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Wisdom that disregards God. Preaching in this manner is meant to tickle the ears.
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Maybe trying to be helpful, but in a way that you just simply like it better.
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Maybe just reaffirming, in fact. Now, the remedy we find here in verse 17.
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We're not covering that verse today, but it launches the passage that we're looking at today. As Paul culminates what he's talking about here, and we'll talk about some of the other verses, but here's where we rest in verse 17 right here as we get going.
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For Christ did not send me, Paul, to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
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The point is to preach Christ crucified. Jesus sent me to preach the gospel. Verse 23, he says it again.
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But we preach Christ crucified. Second Timothy 4 .2,
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Paul says this to young Timothy the preacher. Preach the gospel in season and out of season.
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So here's the point. Preaching Christ crucified is a remedy not to fall into moralistic therapeutic deism or any other counterfeit in preaching.
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Christ crucified, why that? Because it's the summary of the gospel. It's the summary word picture for this gospel of grace that God has given us through Jesus.
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So as we look at Paul's remedy in this passage, this is what we're gonna see in summary.
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The main point is this. Preaching Christ crucified demonstrates the power of God and stands in contrast to the foolishness of worldly wisdom.
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But that's set in in a moment. If you wonder sometimes why, why does Pastor Kofi preach the way that he does?
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This is why. Why do we at Redeemer Bible Church preach this way? Because the scripture calls us to it.
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This is the kind of preaching that changes lives truly and ultimately is practical because the gospel transforms our hearts and causes us to be who
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God has called us to be. And he's there with us every step of the way because it's impossible to live for him apart from him.
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Now you're thinking, but I'm not a preacher. No, but you listen to preaching, right? That's the book that you guys have this month.
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It's a great book. I gave it out to my church all the time. Expository listening. Goes right along with this.
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So you understand what you're listening to in expository sermons. So let this be a guide to what to look for in a church for the rest of your life that you may not fall into ear -tickling preferences.
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You see this, a Christ -centered pulpit is essential to a Christ -honoring life.
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Let me say that again. A Christ -centered pulpit is essential to a Christ -honoring life.
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And that's what you have here. That's what we have there. That's what we have across the country, but sadly in too few churches.
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So 1 Corinthians, these first four chapters read like a masterclass on preaching and pastoring.
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Paul laid a foundation for a church teetering on implosion. Chapters two through four speaks much of wisdom.
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He contrasts worldly wisdom as completely foolish and must be avoided.
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Let me read to you today's text. Here we go, starting in verse 18.
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For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning,
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I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?
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Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know
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God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
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For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both
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Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
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God bless his heart to our words today. And we're gonna look, see here, five implications of preaching centered on the word of the cross.
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Five implications of preaching centered on the word of the cross. That term word of the cross is
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Christ crucified. He calls it the word of the cross in verse 23. He says
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Christ crucified in verse 23. They're synonymous, verse 18, the word of the cross,
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Christ crucified. It's all word pictures, summary statements of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And this is not the wisdom of man. There's no way that man could have imagined it.
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That's why it's called the foolishness of the cross. Because man in all his wisdom couldn't come up with this.
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Number one, verse 18, the word of the cross divides humanity. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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The word of the cross divides humanity. Verse 17, Paul is not attacking rhetoric in and of itself.
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He's not making a mandate that every good preaching should be boring, should be stiff and cold.
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Don't be exciting. No, but what he's talking about is the rhetoric of that day, which was cleverly built on worldly devices and manipulation.
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Look at chapter two, verses one through five, kind of a fast forward a little bit.
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He says, and I, when I came to your brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
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Speech that was just meant to kind of be impressive. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
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And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith may not rest in the wisdom of men, but the power of God.
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That's what's taking place here. Paul turns the discussion here towards true power in preaching, which is the cross, the gospel, what
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Christ has done. That's the power of the message. One commentator says it this way, to preach the gospel, intending to charm and captivate the crowd with clever words smithery in order to enhance one's own prestige only empties the cross of its power, its effect.
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Preaching the cross invites derision, not applause. So you have verse 18, the word of the cross is proclaimed and its effect is this, it's a sharp scalpel that divides humans into two species, two sides.
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One, those who think the cross is an absurd folly, foolishness, and two, those who see the cross as that which it is, power of God.
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What about you? Where do you fall? And so then in verses 10 through 17, prior to that, there was a division of quarreling over their favorite pastor.
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Good thing we don't do that in this day and age, but back then that's what they did. No, we do this today.
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There's a quarrel over our favorite pastor. You have Paul and Apollos, Cephas, all of them, different styles, but Paul's saying they're all pointing to Christ.
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There's no need to divide into camps based on your favorite guy. Yes, we can have favorites, not saying that, but when it becomes a dividing line, no, here's what
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Paul is saying. Here's the real dividing line between the foolish, those who preach foolishly, and those who preach the power of the cross.
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Worldly wisdom contrasts with godly wisdom. Paul will get to that, but Paul raises the ante here.
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This is about life and death. Seeing the cross as folly means you'll perish.
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But if you see the cross for what it is, it is the power to save. And that word save there is a
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Greek word, sozo. I can pronounce that one. It's to rescue from harm, to rescue from death, to rescue from end time wrath.
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You see, worldly wisdom produces death. Godly wisdom produces life. And that's
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Paul's point here. Leon Moore says in his commentary, it is not simply good advice telling us what we should do, nor is it information about God's power.
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It is God's power. Moralistic therapeutic deism gives us imperatives without indicatives.
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Again, fancy words. Imperatives are what you should do but they don't give you any help to do them.
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It's just a burden laid onto you and it may not even be godly wisdom, most likely worldly wisdom.
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Indicative is what God has done. What has God done? Christ is crucified.
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He is the one who has done it and that's how we're able to do it. A Christless sermon keeps a burden on a spouse, on a parent, on a child, or worse, it makes people self -righteous.
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Look what I did. I followed all three steps on how to be a good husband. Look at me. Aren't I great?
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And the wife's probably going, mm. You see, it's not only a law without no gospel, it's a man -made law without any gospel whatsoever.
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Charles Hodge, great theologian, says whatever obscures the cross deprives the gospel of its power.
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You see, the word of the cross is the defining message for those who hear it. If you hear it and think it's foolish, you're on a path that leads to death.
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If you hear it and believe it, the power of salvation births you to new life.
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Let me ask you, what do you hear? What do you hear? You sit under cross -centered preaching and wish your pastor was funnier or had shorter sermons or was less convicting or just told more stories.
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Where might that put you? You see, the word of the cross divides between the foolish and the saved.
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That's number one. The word of the cross divides humanity. Number two, the word of the cross demolishes human wisdom.
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See, verse 19, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning
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I will thwart. Is this only a New Testament issue, a Corinthian issue? No.
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Paul's quoting from the Old Testament here. Isaiah 29, 14, and really verse 19 is a summary of many
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Old Testament passages that Paul kind of put together in one bold move to illustrate this is not a new problem.
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It's not a new problem in 2024. It's not a new problem in the first century AD. It was a problem way back with Isaiah, and he was predicted that Jeremiah would be attacked but survived, but the false prophets rejected
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God's word. They relied on worldly wisdom. Their hearts were far from God.
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Thus, God frustrated their understanding, and the point is don't try to match wits with God, and we find that here, and that's what
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Paul is appealing to, telling them that it wasn't a first century problem. It's an old problem.
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Satan has always wanted to obscure and confuse God's truth. We go all the way back to the
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Garden of Eden. Did God really say? Yeah, he did really say that, but he believed him, and so then what he gives here in verse 20, then as he appeals to something they would have understood, remember
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Isaiah and Jeremiah and the fools they had to deal with? It's not a new problem, and then he looks to verse 20.
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Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? He gives really three categories there.
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The wise, that could be both Jews and Greeks, kind of a general summation, and then he talks about the scribe.
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That was specifically Jewish. They were the learned class among the Jews. They were experts in the
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Jewish law. They tried to trick Jesus several times, but they couldn't trick him. The debater, the philosopher, that's the sophist from that word
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Sophia, who speak in the public square and pressing the crowds. These wise, these scribes, these debaters of this age, contemporary pundits, if you will.
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There's an arrogance of the here and now. We have arrived. We have a higher understanding.
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We see that every generation think that they have arrived. Each generation thinks they're uniquely smart.
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The Enlightenment, modernism, post -modernism, the here and now. We have men like Nietzsche who declared 150 years ago that God is dead, and guess what?
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He's not, but Nietzsche is. Listen to this. I'll tell you his name after I read the quote to you, but this is a contemporary pastor of one of the biggest churches in America.
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Says this, and listen to the subtleties here. On the surface, you might go, yeah, that sounds kinda good, but listen closely.
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If you were raised on a version of Christianity that relied on the Bible as the foundation of faith, a version that was eventually dismantled by academia or the realities of life, maybe it's time for you to change your mind about Jesus.
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Maybe it's time for you to consider the version of Christianity that relies on the event of the resurrection of Jesus as its foundation.
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If you have given up your faith because of something about or in the Bible, maybe you gave up unnecessarily.
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That was Andy Stanley. What's he actually saying there? He's saying you don't need this book.
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He unhitched from the Old Testament several years ago. Now he's unhitched from the whole thing. How do you know about the resurrection?
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From the Bible. You can't unhitch from it if you're, he's talking about the resurrection as a historical fact.
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Yes, history validates because it actually happened, but how do we know and the significance of it from this book?
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So you can't unhitch from the Old Testament or the New Testament. We've arrived.
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We don't need this old book anymore. The word is not enough. Jesus is not enough.
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And the cross becomes powerless. This is not new. Paul appeals to the past.
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There's nothing new under the sun. These three categories of worldly wisdom, are these distinctions important?
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I think so. But possibly he's just using three typical terms representing man's best of that day.
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And what he's saying then, he's saying, where are they? There's a bit of derision there.
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God has made them foolish. And all their pomp and circumstance and all their high learning, they're fools.
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Those are strong words. You see the cross eradicates worldly wisdom. Thus this age expires like spoiled milk.
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But the word of God remains. Moralistic, therapeutic deism and other worldly wisdom, whether it's critical race theory, whether it's liberalism, many of these isms of modern thought can give the illusion of meaning and purpose and understanding, but they are nothing but death inflicting folly.
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Paul says in Colossians, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.
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The word of Christ is a sifting criterion between deathly wisdom and saving wisdom.
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Worldly wisdom in all its pomp does not produce salvation. It might make you feel good.
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It might make you feel bad. But God tells us what gives us salvation and that's number three.
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The word of the cross determines belief. The word of the cross gives to us, divides humanity, it demolishes human wisdom, but most importantly, right here, central to this, the word of the cross determines belief, verse 21.
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For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased
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God through the folly of what we preach to do what? To save those who believe.
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That's good news. That's the good news of Christ crucified. That word determines there is to settle, to decide, as in disputes or questions, by an authoritative or conclusive decision.
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This is God's decision on who and how we are saved.
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Belief is admired in our culture, right? You can buy at your local Hobby Lobby.
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You have those here? You can buy a little thing that says believe. You can buy it at TJ Maxx or wherever, you'll find a plaque that says believe.
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And the question is, in what? We all believe. The atheist believes.
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He believes that God doesn't exist. Cults believe in things. So the end result isn't about just belief, some sort of sentimentalized, ambiguous, abstract deism or non -deism.
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Oh, you gotta believe. In what? Belief, like faith is only, they do that with faith too, gotta have faith.
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Faith in what? Everybody has faith. It's having faith in the right thing. It's believing the right thing.
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In and of itself, it's nothing. Paul gives precision to this in verse 21.
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For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through its wisdom. It pleased
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God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. What we preach is specific so that there's no question.
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And God is so kind to leave us no question about what saves so that we look and go, well,
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I hope I make it. No, you can know today whether you are saved or not because God's word is precise.
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Thankfully, we have that. It's not through, the world did not know God through its wisdom.
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It's ultimately and absolutely incapable of doing that. But preaching
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Christ crucified is the sum of the substance and the means. Man at his best can't do it.
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The world did not know God through worldly wisdom, ultimately and absolutely incapable of knowing him. It's not through the cleverness or intelligence or the depths of man's thinking.
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What does human wisdom create? It creates gods that look like us and act like us.
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When you look at the Greek gods and the Roman gods specifically, they're a mess. Who would wanna follow any one of those gods?
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That's what man invents. It's not only for the elite and the deserving.
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No, Romans three just devastates that field. There are none who seek after God. There are none who are righteous, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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So what saves us? The good pleasure of a gracious God. Salvation comes through believing what has been proclaimed, that word.
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The word of Christ is the kerygma, Greek word. It's not just the act of preaching, but the content of it.
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It's the declarative message of the herald for the king. The word of Christ, Jesus Christ is crucified.
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That's the shorthand of what he's saying here. Christ crucified, that's where he paid for sin and it's full, paid in full.
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It is finished. He set us free from sin at the cross. He ransomed us and redeemed us.
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He satisfied the father's wrathful justice. It's what we celebrate at the end of the month.
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We celebrate it every Sunday. We celebrate it every day. This is Christ crucified. Man can't dream that up and man can't offer a better alternative.
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It just can't. It is a humbling thing for a human to bring nothing to the table of salvation.
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Again, Charles Hodge, he says, this passage in its context clearly teaches two great truths.
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First, that the cross or the doctrine of Christ crucified is the substance of the gospel.
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That in which its vitality and power consist. And second, that it is the preaching of public proclamation of that doctrine that is the great means of salvation.
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C .S. Lewis says it this way in The Problem of Pain. The creature's illusion of self -sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered.
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Jesus Christ crucified does just that. It says that you can't do it.
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Jesus did it. And the Holy Spirit empowering you is the ability to obey and to follow him, not man's best.
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But then our goal when we preach, we want to leave people not with, boy, that was a great sermon, pastor.
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But whoa, what a great savior. What is it that you believe in? Is it hope in a better government?
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A better 401k? What truly saves?
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Not the ingenuity, cleverness, wisdom of man, but quite simply, belief. Belief in the
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Christ crucified summation content, Romans 10, 17. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes through the word of Christ.
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That leads us to number four. The word of the cross discloses the nature of the unsaved.
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This is verses 22 and 23. It discloses the nature of the unsaved. Verse 23,
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Paul reiterates. The sum of the message, Christ crucified. But we preach
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Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. Christ crucified, this is not the vague deity of moralistic therapeutic deism.
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He's the historical sacrificial God -man who died for sinners like you and me.
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This message not only divides humanity, it reveals the lost and their nature. And so Paul gives us two illustrations here that reveals it.
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Did you guys do an ultrasound? Did you find out if you were having a boy or girl? Yeah, we did all three.
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We were gonna not find out our first one. And then we went to our first ultrasound and we caved in a half a second.
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You wanna know the baby's sex? Yes. And each time, even though our kids were really ultimately, their five -year span where we had
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Riley, then Noelle, then Trevor. And each time the ultrasound got better. Practically when Trevor was born, it told us what college he would go to.
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That's how precise it was, not really. And that was a long time ago. I can't even imagine what they're finding out now.
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I know you can find out even earlier because of just the technology. Each time gets better and it reveals what's going on there.
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That's in a sense what Paul is doing here in verse 23 and 22. This is the ultrasound to see exactly what these who reject
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Christ crucified are all about, Jews and Greeks. Christ crucified is scandalous to one and ludicrous to the other.
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For Jews, they demand signs, he says. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach
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Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. So the Jews, they demand signs.
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Messianic expectations. I want proof is what they say. Go to Matthew chapter 12 in this familiar passage,
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Matthew 12, verses 38 through 42. You see as Jesus is preaching to the crowd, these scribes and Pharisees answered him in verse 38.
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Says this, you see this. Paul's referencing this type of thinking that Jesus gave.
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Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. They'd already been giving them many signs. But he answered, they always want more, right?
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But he answered, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign. Those who are out there today who continue to seek for sign, beware.
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But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet
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Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
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Men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
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Who is it? Jesus. The queen of the south will rise up at judgment with this generation and condemn it for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
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Queen of Sheba, the people of Nineveh, they understood it, but the very own people of God did not.
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Ooh, what an indictment. And so here's what Paul is referencing here. They were wanting simply
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Exodus 2 .0. They wanted to be free from Rome. They wanted better miracles.
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And the truth is Jesus healed the blind and the crippled. He raised the dead. He turned water into wine.
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He walked on water. He turned loaves and fishes to feed thousands. But it's never enough.
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It's never enough. It's still not enough today. Here's your sign. We preach
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Christ crucified. That's your sign. That's the sign of Jonah. But Jonah was a shadow of the greater sign to come and that is
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Jesus. Died on a Friday, rose on a Sunday. It's a stumbling block, a scandal on in the
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Greek. It causes revulsion. The Messiah meant power, splendor, triumph.
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The cross meant weakness, humiliation, and defeat. It doesn't fit our preconceived notion.
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However, Isaiah 53 told them what it was gonna look like. The prophets told them what the
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Christ, the suffering servant would look like. And in their own words, they yelled crucify him.
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One commentator says, the cross does not part the sea for the people to cross into safety and then drown the pursuing enemy.
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Instead, it splits the temple veil. And only those who see with faith can see the defeat of the enemy.
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It's a greater exodus. It's a better exodus. He's not freeing you from Rome. He's freeing you from sin.
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He's freeing you from yourself, your flesh. He's freeing you from the devil. That's Christ crucified.
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The one greater than Abraham, the one greater than Moses, the one greater than David, Solomon, Jonah has come.
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He's Jesus Christ crucified. Moralistic therapeutic deism wants what is beneficial to me.
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What do I get out of it? Not a suffering Messiah who had to save me from myself by faith and grace only with no contribution from me other than the sin that I committed for the need of a savior.
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Then he calls me to take up his cross and follow him. I want prosperity. I want luck. I want comfort.
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I want ease. I want that. Moralistic therapeutic deism provides a happy marriage, a good sex life, obedient children filled with self -esteem, a comfy portfolio, a good voter guideline, but all of that is crossless.
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There was a young man's kind of a funny little illustration of how we are with God. We did a banquet one time at a church where we invited those from the homeless shelter at Christmas time to come in and to receive presents.
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And this one kid had been with his family living on the streets. He got a very popular video game.
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One of those personal video games at that time. And he got it and he asked if he could get it in a different color.
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And it's funny how sometimes, and you know, I don't fall to what a kid would say. He doesn't get it, but that's us as beggars.
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I don't like this Messiah. I want a different one. That's what the Jews said. That's what we often say.
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I want, can I get this in a different color? Can I get this in a different flavor? Can I get this in a different smell?
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I don't like this one, but he's the one. He's the one that saves. It's a stumbling block to Jews and it's foolishness to Greeks.
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They seek wisdom. And so this is folly to Greeks. These Gentiles, they seek wisdom. They're seeking an unending search perhaps.
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Not the wisdom that comes from God and truth or the fear of God and truth, but the cleverness of man.
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Something that they can figure out on their own. The pontification that produces status. Folly is the intellectual defect or lack of wisdom.
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No, here folly is rejecting the crucified Messiah. That was madness.
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That's the folly that's talking about here. You guys are crazy. A crucified Messiah? The Greeks sought honor, esteem, and success.
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Not conviction, consecration, or a cross. The cross was for slaves and terrorists.
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You want no part of that. That's unrespectable. It's disgusting. It was brutal.
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Moralistic therapeutic deism. This God is a little too real. He's demanding. He's untameable.
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This doesn't bring about comfort. Not in preaching nor in real life. This is messy and hard.
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I don't want that. Moralistic therapeutic deism wants to be entertained. We want trampolines and pastors who ride on the stage and Harley Davidson's.
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We want a magic show. We want fire and lights and dancing bears and sparklers.
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Frothy songs. This raw picture of a crucified Christ, it's kind of gross.
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It's bloody. It's offensive. It's hard to look at. In many ways, what we want is to be spiritual vegetarians.
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Less gruesome, but a way to be sustained nonetheless. No offense to any vegetarians out there.
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The word of Christ divides the dying from the living. And among those two different types, the
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Jew says, I have kept the commandments since I was young. I don't need a crucified Christ.
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I've done it myself. I'm good enough for heaven. The Gentile says, what is truth?
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I don't need a savior. I haven't sinned. The fact that you would call it sin is hateful.
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It's narrow. The cross is yucky. It's offensive. Here's the point.
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The one doesn't want a savior and the other doesn't want a Lord. But Romans 1 16 reminds us this.
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Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. What does this disclose about you?
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Are you saved? Or you don't think you need a savior nor a Lord? And that leads to number five.
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The word of the cross demonstrates ultimate power and wisdom. Ultimate in two ways, verses 24 and 25.
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But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
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That's what the cross does. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
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It is the power and wisdom to those who are called. Verse nine of chapter one.
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God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son,
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Jesus Christ, our Lord. And verse 18, remember for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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How encouraging is this? It's not a stumbling block, nor is it madness to those who believe.
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It is life. He who has the son has life.
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First John 5, 12. You see, God has made it specific. There's no question to leave here today, who is your savior and who is your
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Lord? Not some deistic God who's out there just running to help you when you trip and fall to make your life better and good.
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He certainly does that, but it's through the cross and it's specific. I like how
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Leon Morris says this in his commentary. Had the way to God been through wisdom, Christianity would have opened the way to salvation only to the intellectually gifted.
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The power of the cross opens the way for the humblest to know God and to overcome evil.
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And that is a wisdom superior by far to anything that the philosophers could have produced.
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What is the power you seek? Power to save or the power to tickle? It is power and wisdom.
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It is superior to man's best. Verse 25, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
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It's superior to man's best. You may come to the same conclusion as unbelieving Jews and Greeks, but to know and believe
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Jesus Christ crucified is to be wiser and stronger than anything that worldly wisdom can produce.
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And crucified there is a present participle. We're gonna get kind of nerdy here on the language, which means he continues to be the crucified one.
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He's not continually being crucified. That's why we don't have crosses with him still on it because he's not on it.
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He's risen. But he has a permanent efficacy to save.
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Unending salvation power comes through the crucified one. That's good news.
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It doesn't expire. It doesn't go out. Moralistic therapeutic deism appeals to the best of man.
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And across the best of man in the dictionary is stamped Jesus Christ crucified. It's an indictment on the best that man can do.
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Nope, we needed a crucified savior to save us. It's the cross is what
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God thinks of our best. And in God's grace, it is clear that man cannot achieve, but only the cross could achieve
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Christ crucified. Let me ask you, what kind of preaching do you desire?
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It may say a lot about you. Carl Truman in his book, Grace Alone says, for those who hold to the reformation understanding of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, the proclamation of the word of God is the principal means of grace.
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It is the thing that God uses to force people to reckon with their sin, to drive them to their knees in repentance and then to draw them to the resurrected
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Christ by faith. After all, what is faith? But God given trust in the promise of God's word as it is declared week by week through the congregation.
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Isn't God good to give such a good gift? What are the implications of the word of the cross?
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Christ crucified one, the word of the cross divides humanity between those perishing and those who are saved.
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The word of the cross demolishes human wisdom. Man's wisdom is not a vehicle that will get you to salvation.
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Only the cross can get you there. That's why we preach this. This isn't Todd's wisdom.
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I couldn't have come up with this. There's no way. I'm not clever enough, smart enough, good enough to come up with this. The word of the cross determines belief in an age of relativism, where your feelings can determine your gender, your morals, your
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God. It is God who determines salvation and does so by Christ crucified.
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There's no other name under heaven. There's only one mediator between God and man.
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Jesus himself said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but through me.
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There's no doubt left for you today as who the savior is. And if you get anything from this, it's
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Jesus. And if you haven't placed your faith in Jesus, he is the crucified one.
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And not only have I taught you through this passage of what it means to listen to preaching that is
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Christ crucified, but in doing so, I've done that. Preaching Christ crucified to you today, he is the one who saves.
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If you've not placed your faith in him, please do so before you leave here. It's the word of Christ.
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The word of the cross discloses the nature of the unsaved. The cross reveals the nature of unbelief.
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Some want a different Messiah. Others think they don't even need one. But this is where human wisdom fails, yet Christ does not.
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And lastly, the word of the cross demonstrates ultimate power and wisdom. The cross does what worldly wisdom cannot.
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It makes us wise unto salvation. Two concluding statements. Moralistic therapeutic deism, it leaves you with a religion that calls you to be good for goodness sake.
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By worldly wisdom and power, to seek happiness at the expense of the truth and the cost of your soul.
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And to pretend that God is just far enough away to not see your sin, but close enough to come running if you need to feel better.
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To coddle you with self -affirming sweet nothing. Christ crucified shows you that you cannot be good enough, but that Christ is good enough.
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That he does more than make you happy. He saves and secures you by his good pleasure in dying for your sins, and that he is never distant, but is sovereignly involved in your life in union with you and dwelt by the
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Holy Spirit. All because of God's grace alone to save. It's by story preaching,
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Christ -centered preaching is a primary means for that. God's people are saved and nourished till death.
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Embrace it, welcome it, settle for nothing less than preaching
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Christ crucified. You pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for the marvelous gift of preaching.
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Preaching that is preaching your word, not the ideas and creativity of man.
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We preach Christ crucified. We echo that from Paul.
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We echo that from Isaiah and Jeremiah. We echo it from you, Lord. I pray for Pastor Kofi as he in season and out of season preaches the gospel faithfully to these wonderful people here, these people that you have called out of darkness into light.
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You would continue to empower this pulpit to change lives till death do us part.
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And Lord, I pray for those who are here today, those who maybe are on the dividing line, Lord, that you would save them today by the power of your word, by the power of Christ crucified, that they would embrace all that Christ is and receive the gift of salvation through him today before they leave.
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And I pray for those who have done that, that they would be encouraged and empowered and reminded of this precious truth that we understand and believe that Jesus has truly saved them.
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We need that this week. We need this today. We need this this year. I pray for that reminder and that blessing.