The Foolish Wisdom of the Cross | Sermon 09/08/2024

All right, what a great day, I love the

Lord's Day, can't live without it. If you would turn with me and your

Bibles to the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter one. We're going to be in verses 18 through 25 today, church.

First Corinthians 118 through 25. The title of the sermon today is

The Foolish Wisdom of the Cross. The Foolish Wisdom of the

Cross. So starting in verse 18 of the first letter to the

Corinthians chapter one, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God.

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 man and the weakness of God is stronger than man.

That sends the reading of God's magnificent and holy word. Let's go before him this moment.

One more time, Lord, we approach your throne as your people.

I know God at this moment, you hear us, you always hear us. And so God, we beseech you this morning through Christ, our mediator and by the spirit and by faith,

God, that you would show us today what this text means, God, that you would show us how you've taken us from worldly wisdom and cleverness and you've taken all that away and you've stripped it down and Lord, you have opened our eyes and given us true wisdom.

Lord, we saw in our Psalm today, Psalm 111, that true wisdom comes with reverence of the

Lord, who can be truly wise if they don't know you, Lord. And so that tells us,

God, that the only way to even gain more wisdom is to know you even more. And so today, dear

God, we come before you asking that you would cause us to know you more, that you would cause us to know how wonderful this foolish message is, as you say in your word, that it's the most amazing message that's ever been spoken on the face of the earth.

Humble us today, Lord. Let us see your greatness this morning. Let us see your face.

Please be with us. Let not the enemy snatch anything away from us this day. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Well, church, at some point in your life,

I wonder if you have ever felt like things have just turned upside down, that all of a sudden you were shocked by what you thought things would be or how they were going to go and all of a sudden they were different and it's like, oh, my world is going upside down.

Today, we plan in our text to go into an inverse world.

You'll see what I mean shortly by that, but let me recap real quick before we go into the text at hand.

Last week, the apostle Paul told the believers in Corinth to no longer have divisions among them.

He said, stop tearing Christ apart. You're not rivals. You are allies.

Then we got the idea that they were elevating specific men over others because of eloquence of speech, because of charisma, because of high status.

And Paul was thankful. What was he thankful for? He said, I thank God that I wasn't baptized for all of you.

I thank God for that. I didn't give you any more reason to elevate me. He said,

I only baptized a few of you. And in his trail in baptisms, this church planter revealed what must be destroyed and what must remain.

The cleverness of speech, the worldly wisdom, the eloquent rhetoric.

The Corinthians love those things, but those have to die. They must die.

The cross of Christ is the only thing that unifies them forever.

And correspondingly, the cross of Christ comes from the power of God.

It's not from the wisdom of man. So it goes to show us that if they're idolizing the wisdom of man, the cleverness of speech, they're idolizing these things, then they're not loving and searching for the power of God, which is

Christ. And Paul will show them right here that though the wisdom of the world appears alive, it is dead.

And likewise, though Christ appeared as if he was dead, he is alive and with power.

And that's where we left off. So go to verse 18 in your Bible or in your print out there, it says, 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.

First, we have to define what is the word of the cross.

There's been a lot of crosses out there in this world, but there's only one that deserves to be preached over and over and over again.

Every other cross that has ever been produced in mankind that any other man has ever been nailed upon has produced death.

There's only one cross that has ever produced life. Every other cross comes with bad news.

Only one contains good news. And so the word of the cross is another way to say the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is God's love that while we were still yet sinners, Christ died for us. John says in his letter, he is the propitiation for our sins.

Second Corinthians chapter five, verse 21 says, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Pastor Andrews said that. And we all know that the gospel isn't good just because Jesus died, but it's because he also lives.

It was reported in the gospels that on the first day of the week at the first morning light when the sun rose, the sun rose, the holy sun rose.

As that light came over Mount Zion and shined down, that dark tomb opened up and Jesus Christ the righteous stepped out with a bright glory that the world had never seen before.

The word of the cross also shows us that Jesus wasn't simply a Jewish man, but he is the son of God, kind of kind, type of type with no generation, no beginning.

In him, the fullness of deity dwells. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

So says scripture. When his mission was almost accomplished, the son prayed to the father, return me to the glory

I shared with you before the world was. Isaiah called the child that was born unto us, called him mighty

God, eternal father. That's Jesus. The word of the cross is that the eternal, unique, one and only son of God died for sinful creatures and applied his righteousness to their accounts.

And therefore, they are not simply acquitted from their crimes and given a fresh start only to fail again.

His work covers everything, everything. We are new creations, not to mention you have eternal life.

You have thrones, crowns, rewards, total enjoyment in the presence of God.

That's our inheritance and much, much more. A kingdom, he says, a world he is making new.

Our Lord will give us this. That's incredible. That's the word of the cross.

That message, that word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. It's foolish.

The Greek word is maras. It's where we get the word moron. What we believe appears by all accounts as moronic to the world.

See, do your unbelieving family, do your friends, do your coworkers, do they think you're nuts?

Well, welcome to the club. To the world, morons.

To the heavenly kingdom, we are those who are actually sane and in possession of the truth.

Because in some ways, the message of the cross is unlike any hero story we've ever heard of.

This is what makes it foolish to the world. This is unbelievable. You have a savior who was born into a sinful world.

He was laid in a feeding trough that was for animals. He grew up in a small fishing village called

Nazareth, a place that people mocked. He was despised. He was rejected by the exact people he came to deliver.

And that's radical in and of itself. I've come here to save you. No, we don't want it. That's foolishness to the world.

His own disciples fled and abandoned him. One sold him to the authorities for 30 pieces of silver.

And he didn't even put up a single fight in the garden of Gethsemane. He didn't utter a word.

Nothing. And the one guy who pulled out a sword for him in the garden, he said, put it away. He freely gave himself over and in front of countless people on Golgotha, on that small mountain, he was mocked.

He was told to save himself if he really was the Messiah, but he stayed up there.

Save yourself. Show us you're the Messiah. But he stayed up there. He appeared powerless to do anything about his condition.

And that's the story. That's the message of the cross. A man who appeared powerless on a cross did something amazing.

And the world's like, that doesn't make sense to me. The son of God dies a shameful and gruesome death that was reserved for only the worst of criminals and rebels of the

Roman empire. And Paul says that he doesn't preach the message of the empty tomb, which he could.

He preaches the message of the cross, of Christ crucified, because this wasn't simply a part to gloss over.

The crucifixion, the cross wasn't something that you just gloss over and you go straight to the resurrection.

The triumph of the resurrection only comes after the dark day of a bloody cross.

And this is what they told the Jews especially. And it wasn't sadness.

The apostles went around telling other Jews the Messiah has come. It wasn't that they were saying, oh, we've killed the

Messiah, the Mashiach, it's over. We've lost our chance. No, it wasn't like that at all.

It was that the son of God freely gave himself up while all at the same time dying at the hands of godless men.

That's what they say. And this was on purpose. And the Jews say, what? The Mashiach, the one that's been talked about for centuries?

He died on a cross and that was on purpose? Can you imagine the outrage to a

Jew? And the apostle goes, yes, he was predestined to die.

Have you not read? Have you not heard? The Lord was pleased to crush him, causing the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

Have you not read? This was supposed to happen. No. The Messiah?

Dead? Can't believe it. It's foolishness to them. It's foolishness to the world.

It's foolishness to those who are perishing. You know why? It gives no man, it gives no man, no human, it gives no institution, any glory whatsoever.

The cross exalts God alone. It confounds the human experience.

No one else can take credit. It's honestly brilliant. It is brilliant. God does it all.

The creature's biggest issues have been idol making and self -glorification. So do you see why

Paul would bring this up after talking about factions that exalt men?

Manipulation of words can't convince someone of this message. You can't persuade someone with human reasoning to believe this.

Sophisticated speech is a weak way to cause a man to see this message as anything other than folly.

And so the apostle understands his role is to what? The apostle, the evangelist goes,

I'm just going to say what happened. That's it. He proclaims what

God has done in Christ and the gospel along with the spirit are enough. They are enough to change men and women.

Nothing can be added to it. Nothing. So when you faithfully proclaim the word of the cross, the person in front of you will either consider it foolishness or they'll consider it wisdom in the power of God.

There's nothing else. There's nothing in between. The prophet Jeremiah says in chapter 23 verse 29 is not my word like fire declares the

Lord is not my word like a hammer, which shatters a rock. God says my word's powerful.

It consumes. It breaks the hardest of surfaces. Psalm 107 verse 20 says the

Lord sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction. So the word also heals, it builds, it restores.

And so the word of the cross accomplishes all that God desires it to do.

And yet this is what's radical about the word of the cross. Most pagans in history, whether it be

Canaanite religions that built tall poles to false gods or the Egyptians who erected large pyramids or the

Aztecs who made jungle temples, these tall structures, they sought to put their deity, their

God as high as possible. Tall poles, tall pyramids, tall temples are gods at the top, they say.

This is what's crazy to the world. The word of the cross puts

Jesus at the lowest point, the lowest point. The most powerful

God appears to be the most powerless. And so triumph isn't achieved by taking life.

Triumph is achieved by giving up life. It flies in the face of all that we deem as humans to be powerful, does it not?

If you believe the word of the cross is the power of God, you believe something that doesn't make sense to the human experience.

You see that? If you believe the word of the cross is the power of God, you believe something that the human experience can't comprehend.

The gospel doesn't fit into any categories of man. And so one commentator states,

God offers a new paradigm that makes the experience of shame the highest path of glory and honor.

And so just like the Messiah, just like us, just like him, this becomes the way for all of us after the cross as well.

It's not just the foundation of our redemption, but the cross is what we live day in and day out.

That's what he says, pick up your cross daily. Enduring the mocking, enduring the slander, enduring the trials of this world as we seek to die to ourselves and give to others what's been given to us because no servant is above his master.

What you do as a Christian will also make you look like a fool.

What you do as a Christian, you even being here today will make the world think you're foolish.

There are some people in your life right now, if they knew you were sitting in a church, they think, gosh, what a fool.

What a fool. And so stop trying to hide that. Be a fool.

Would you be a fool with me? We'll be fools. So as a result of this word of the cross entering the world, it will produce one of two things for every single person.

It condemns the perishing and it saves, it rescues the saved, excuse me.

Because the word of the cross is not the message that you heard in Sunday school where they showed you a picture of the globe and they said, see this, everyone from the beginning of time on this globe until the end of time, every single person is saved.

Every single person is going to heaven. Every single person on this globe, Jesus died for.

That's not what the word of the cross is. It says right here in our texts that it saves those who believe and it condemns those who are already perishing, who deem it foolish.

Person will either choose their own wisdom and their own works. And then in turn, they'll see themselves as their own savior, their own

God. And Paul says they'll perish for it or the person will believe on the wisdom and works of the only savior and he will save them.

And you see this in the book of Acts play out, okay, when Paul is in trouble and he says,

I know that chains await me in Jerusalem. And they were, he was bound. And you remember he appealed to Caesar and he was going to Caesar.

But along the way, Paul went in front of several governors and Kings before he got to Caesar.

And so Galileo was one that heard him out. Galileo heard the gospel in Acts chapter 18 and he said,

Paul, those are your words. Those words belong to the Hebrews. They're the

Jews words. That man, Galileo determined that the word of the cross was a foreign matter.

It doesn't have anything to do with me. It's not about me. He thought it didn't involve him.

When Felix heard that following Christ comes with the discussion of righteousness and self -control and the judgment to come, because Felix was listening, okay, keep going,

Paul. Oh, wow. Okay. Jesus. Oh, this, this man, Jesus died for sinners. Great.

Keep going. And at the end, Paul says, and now he's given us the ability to be righteous and practice self -control because one day he's coming to judge the world again.

And Felix goes like this, could you go away for the present? And when I find the right time,

I'll summon you again. You know how many times I've heard that in evangelism? Hey, now's not the right time.

Come back to me. Maybe we'll talk about this again. But the time is now, Felix.

Today is the day of salvation. And finally, before Paul goes to Caesar, he gives one of the largest discourses on the word of the cross of Christ to Agrippa.

The king said, after Paul finishes everything, read it. It's really one of the most beautiful discourses of the cross of Jesus.

And Agrippa says, Paul, you almost made me a Christian. You almost made me a

Christian. But don't be mistaken. An almost Christian is no

Christian at all. I'm not saying that it's possible that maybe he was dealing with it and God was working on Agrippa.

I don't know. But an almost Christian is no Christian. And so when faced with the word of the cross, these three men found it too foolish to follow right then and there.

Come back again. No, you almost made me a Christian. Oh, righteousness and all that. No, no, not for me.

Oh, those are your words. Those belong to the Jews. There's always some excuse that men and women will have to not follow it.

But Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first and also to the Greek. He says it's power. The word is dunamis.

It's where we get the word dynamite. The word of the cross is the power of God is dynamite because with man, it is impossible.

With God, all things are possible. This is the most elaborate plan humanity has ever seen.

And here's what it did. Here's what happened. It didn't just start on the earth. God didn't have a plan

B. God wasn't reactive and waiting to see, well, will Adam live for me? Will the

Hebrews live for me in Israel? God planned this intricately from eternity past.

There is no other way to be saved. It is this intricate and yet simple way.

It had to be the cross. It had to be the cross. It had to be Jesus's death.

It had to be God. It had to be the God man. And the way Paul states it is that we, not that we will be saved, but it is in the present tense in the original language, we are being saved.

Other places in the Bible, it's in the past tense, we have been saved. And so the word saved, by the way, removes all pretenses that the

Corinthians have done something great or that you've done something great.

They needed rescuing. You needed rescuing. And that alone can humble us from a place of pride.

If you want wisdom and power for yourself, the word of the cross isn't for you.

People who want wisdom and power in themselves, inherently in them, not from God, if they want that, if you want all power, the word of the cross isn't for you.

And so Paul backs all of this up by showing that this has been

God's plan from the beginning. He cites Isaiah 29, 14. Look at that. Look at the next verse.

And so to give you a little context in Isaiah 29, first, Isaiah warns

Jerusalem that judgment's coming. And the people thought that they could live this life without God, and even the prophets of Israel at this time had their own words in themselves.

They didn't have words from God. So look at in your printout or Isaiah 29 verses 13 and 14, look at this.

Then the Lord said, because this people draw near with their words and honor me with their lips, but they remove their hearts far from me and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.

Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous.

And the wisdom of their wise men will perish and the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed or hidden.

And so what God is saying here is that all human schemes that fail to recognize that the

Lord is God will be rendered powerless. According to Proverbs, true knowledge and wisdom come from a proper fear of the

Lord. And so what happened in Isaiah is that Israel's own cleverness, you know what they did?

Israel was looking at their own words of their own prophet. The king was looking at his own reason.

You know what happened? They didn't turn to God and they turned to their own cleverness. And Israel at this time was worried that Assyria was going to come and invade them and kill them all.

So you know what they did? Instead of listening and petitioning to God, they did exactly the opposite.

Israel made an alliance with Egypt. They contacted Pharaoh. Pharaoh said, yeah, we'll be your allies.

And as soon as the king of Assyria found out that Israel lined themselves up with Egypt, they considered them a threat.

And that alone was the catalyst that brought Assyria to invade and kill them.

The very thing that they thought was wise, the very thing that they thought would save them was the very thing that was their own undoing because they didn't seek

God. But after this moment, it says that the people cried out,

God, you turned things upside down. We did what the world thought was wise.

And it says in Isaiah 29 that the people cried out, you turned things upside down.

And he said, well, the piece of clay say to the potter, why did you make me like this?

Why did you do this? And he talks to him, but then he gives a moment of hope in Isaiah 29.

After Israel is to be besieged, the rest of the chapter shows that the Lord promises after some discipline, the people will turn to him again and their sorrow will be turned to gladness.

And that's the apostles aim with this letter. He is trying to destroy the

Corinthians pride so that they regain their true identity in the cross of Christ.

He must destroy their wisdom just like God destroyed the Israelites wisdom with the

Assyrian invasion. Go to verse 20. So Paul says, where is the wise man?

It's almost as if he's looking around, where's the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? It's like as if he's challenging anyone, come forth.

Where's the debater who can go against this? Who wants to go toe to toe with the almighty and it can't be done.

It simply can't be done. And so you have three categories represented here.

They could represent human institutions or different types of educated men in the

Pharisee school. These men could represent learned men in the

Greek scholarship or philosophy schools. And so you have the, where's the wise man?

Where's the guru? Where's the scribe? Where's the teacher? Basically, where's the one who knows rhetoric?

Oh, maybe he's even challenging them. Which one of you has that great rhetoric, that eloquent speech?

Yeah, come forward. Try to work this out from a human perspective. And he goes, where's the one who seeks out knowledge by arguing?

Where's the debater? Despite what differences these groups may possess, they all have one thing in common.

Paul says these titles because they were all considered experts in their particular field of knowledge.

These are the type of men and women who are skeptical about anything that doesn't fit into their presupposition or their intellect already.

You see, you meet people like that, don't you? Oh, you know what? Because what you're saying doesn't fit with what

I know the world to be, I reject it. I'm skeptical of that. Because the truth of God and his redemption in the cross throws these individuals off balance.

This doesn't make sense in the material world perspective, they say.

The word of the cross doesn't touch their elite intellects. Remember when

Jesus actually praised the Father for doing that? In Matthew 11, verse 25, it says, at that time

Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to babes.

You have taken these glorious truths and you've hidden them from people who said they're the wisest on the earth.

You've given them to basically infants. People who are unlearned.

People who have no experience. People who have nothing. You've given it to those type of people.

It's incredible. You know, I really used to love drawing and sketching.

And my mother would sign me up in the local community classes to do drawing.

And then I would even find my way, in every school I went, I would try to find a drawing or sketching class.

I really, really enjoyed doing it. And taking all those classes, I would notice something.

That the students who felt like they had already arrived, they came to the class because a parent made them or because it was just their interest.

When they came and this student thought, well, I already have learned all that I need to learn. They were stagnant.

I always saw that. They always stayed where they were. Their pieces at the beginning were the same, the pieces at the end and vice versa.

But the students who actually thought that the teacher had something to give them would improve their drawing and sketching capability.

You see, those type of people in their stagnation can even be deluded to think that they're improving.

And this continues to be what I see in the world and in the church. It is not until God smashes the lens by which you view the world and the church and the

Him and yourself and all these things, and only then, and only then when your lens and your filter is crushed, you will finally see a need for Jesus Christ.

The self -professing shrewd atheist thinks he is above what he calls fables.

Oh, I'm so above these things. These are nursery rhymes to me, he says. Therefore, regeneration comes with something unique.

Regeneration comes with finally real reasoning, true reasoning, that you will be able to see that your wisdom that you possessed before regeneration was always folly.

But now, now you'll see the foolishness of the cross as true wisdom, true wisdom.

Now, how I see this working out in the church is often with people who think they've already arrived with sanctification.

And I've met even men who are semi -Pelagian, they're Pelagian, and that's a heresy.

They think they're sinless. They think after they've been baptized, they've not committed a single sin.

And in fact, they would say, if you've committed a single sin after your baptism, you're no longer saved. And there's men who literally believe this trash when the

Word of God says, and Pastor Andrew quoted it during his prayer, those who say they are without sin, they are liars and the truth is not in them.

I don't know what they do with that verse. But there are people who are probably not as that intense, but they thought that they've already arrived.

Oh, I'm holy, I'm already sanctified. When I go to church, it's just because it's what

I'm supposed to do. It's for the other people. No. No. We come in here, and I come in here, and I do my study every week.

I go into it going, God, teach me today. God, show me what you want me to know.

God, cut away what needs to be cut away. God, add what needs to be added. And that's what we go into this with, not,

I've already arrived. Because that's, once again, going back to the worldly wisdom.

Oh, I've got it already. I don't need the pastor to tell me what to do. And you know what? More times than not, the people who have said they're already done with sanctification are the ones who are the most riddled with sin.

It is almost every time. Oh, I don't need the church, I'll stay home. Yeah, well, you look at pornography and you fornicate while you do that.

You think you're holy. You don't even know the first level of holiness of the

Christian life, if that's what you do. Right? And so that's how it works out in the church.

This wisdom, this wisdom that even in ourselves we have to cut away and go,

God, what's your wisdom? Lord, I want your wisdom only. Not the wisdom of the world. Not the wisdom of my flesh.

Spirit, give me your wisdom. And this might be why if you just read

Matthew 5, you read the Beatitudes, what will you see? This is it.

Listen. Jesus says, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle, the hungry, the thirsty, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the insulted, in other words, the meek and humble, they will get the kingdom, they'll get the comfort, they'll get the inheritance of the earth, satisfaction, mercy, they shall see

God, they shall be called children of God, they get heaven and many rewards, and the world thinks this is foolish, that the less powerful and the less wise you are, the more powerful and more wise you are in Christ, and the more you receive.

And so the apostle says, God has taken what the wise man, the scribe, and the debater think is wisdom, and he's made it foolish.

What they hold to is worthy of mocking. They cling to folly all the while laughing at us, and like the proverb says, they will be caught in their own device.

Where will you go? Well, I'm excited for the blackness that awaits. Well, then

I'd be interested to find out from God, I wonder if they will get blackness for all of eternity.

Blackness is your hope, blackness you will get. You will get nothing and no one. You won't even see another person tormented next to you.

You'll get blackness and torment. It's what God reverses these things, changes these things, turns the world upside down.

Go to verse 21. This is the reality concerning worldly wisdom and its relationship to God, right here.

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.

Now, that's kind of worded a little odd in the English. Let me reword it from a transliteration from the

Greek. Due to God's own wisdom, due to His plan, the world would never come to believe or know

Him by the wisdom of the world. That was God's plan, that no one could ever come to know

Him by the wisdom in the world. Even so, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the proclamation of the cross to save those who believe.

And so here's what He's saying. The Lord would not let human wisdom be the key in which men open the door to God.

Human wisdom will not be the entryway to God. It is one thing to knock on God's door after a long journey in getting there.

It's another thing for God to knock on your door when you never even looked for Him. The former doesn't even happen according to Scripture.

The latter is the only way we'd find God. God comes to you. God opens the door to you.

When you weren't seeking Him, He found you. And I talk about often that sometimes,

I know in my life it felt like I was seeking Him, but I know that that was His drawing me to Him. God draws us, and He makes

Himself irresistible to us. We love Him, we search for Him. But don't be deceived,

He finds us. God cancels all forms of human enlightenment at the cross.

You see, the untrained and the trained, the learned and the unlearned, all are nothing compared to Him and His wisdom.

In fact, James, the brother of our Lord, says this concerning the wisdom of the world.

Look at James 3 .15 -17. It's on your printout or go in your

Bible. James 3 .15 -17. This is what he says of worldly wisdom. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but it is earthly, natural, and demonic.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.

So do you see it again? Worldly wisdom, the thing that the

Corinthian believers sought out in elevating certain men, is not from above.

It is earthly, it is natural, it is demonic, and it leads to, as we see, jealousy, selfish ambition, where you want what you want above others, and disorder of every kind.

The exact things that are plaguing the Corinthian church. Wisdom from above, though, is pure, it is gentle, yet it is unwavering.

Wisdom from above is full of mercy, but it's without hypocrisy. At the same time, the wisdom of God flips the world on its head.

Even the proclaimers of the message confound people. You ever thought about this? You ever thought about the fact that unlearned people can proclaim the gospel?

You don't need a degree to proclaim the gospel. You don't need schooling to proclaim the gospel.

Even in the ancient world, the titles they had chosen reveal something.

Let me tell you. Euangelistes, that is evangelists.

Literally, that means bringers of good news. Apostolos, apostles.

Literally means messengers from someone else. Martus, witnesses.

Literally, one who has seen another commit an act or say a word. And so in each situation, you have messengers, apostolos, you have evangelists, you have witnesses.

What they're taking to other people is from someone else. It didn't start with them.

These are the words they chose. These are the titles they chose. Why? Because they knew it didn't come from them.

They knew it came from God. And these type of titles, we've

Christianized them. Evangelists, apostles, witnesses. But in those days, those terms were for the average, basic person.

Often servants have those names. The servant was the evangelist. Go bring good news to the master.

These were average titles. But now here, God flips it. These mean something incredible now.

They didn't get the names master. They didn't get the name professor. They didn't get the name philosopher.

They didn't get the name orator. They got evangelists, apostles, and witnesses.

And so when God flips things, the gospel can be equally or more powerfully proclaimed by a child than even a seminary professor.

You know that? There are... I've met them. There are old ladies who love

Jesus Christ and they have the gospel. And they're a more powerful witness for the truth than the most learned seminary student.

I know. I went to seminary. I was there four years. And I earned a master's degree in theology.

And it doesn't mean squat if you don't know Jesus and love Him and can share the word of the cross rightly from a place of conviction and love and truth.

It doesn't mean anything. Those people are more powerful than the most learned people.

God flips it. When someone tells me, Pastor Wade, I don't know if I can go out with you and share the gospel.

I don't know if I can do this or teach that or... Well, it doesn't matter.

You're the exact kind of person God can use for that. You don't need the degree. That's how

God flips it. And so we look at all of this and we go, why? Why would

God make the process appear so foolish? You have the most foolish men and women. You have the most foolish message of the

God -man who died. Why would God make it so foolish to the world and to our reasoning?

Why would God choose a cross of all things? Why would He send His Son, His glorious and righteous

Son, to hang on a criminal's cross for sinners because, He says here, it pleased

Him? That's what it says here in this verse. It was well -pleasing to God and it showed

His glory in a maximal way. God is after His own pleasure,

His own glory. Psalm 115 .3 says, but our God is in the heavens and He does whatever

He pleases. Psalm 135 .6, whatever pleases the Lord He does in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in the deeps.

And in this, the Almighty was so very pleased to save those who believe.

He was pleased to save people through the cross. He was pleased to save you, brothers and sisters.

This is wisdom that we can't comprehend. Go to verses 22 and 23.

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.

As one commentator states, what the world finds impressive and irresistible are sensory spectacles or demonstration of irrefutable proof.

You know, I've been participating in on -the -street evangelism for 11 -plus years and do you know how often

I've heard people say, like an unbelieving person's cry out, yeah,

I'll believe in your God if He tells me who He is right now. I had that happen actually a couple weeks ago in Provo.

They put the Lord God to the test and they say, yeah, okay,

I'd believe in this Jesus right now if lightning struck right here. Yeah, I'd believe in this

Lord Jesus if He spoke to me right now and said He was this Messiah you're talking about.

But God won't satisfy their worldly wisdom. God won't satisfy the way they want it presented.

He's well pleased that it would come by the foolishness of the message preached of the cross.

And what is ever so ironic is that typically we're outside during these conversations and what does

Psalm 19 say? What does Romans 1 say? That the heavens are telling of the glory of God and we're typically outside when they're like, yeah, if God would only show me that He exists and we're looking around, right?

And then they're like, yeah, if only God would say a word to me and I'm holding a Bible in my hand and I'm like, you know, look at this, look at this, and it's like, man,

God is speaking to you. Come on. But it's foolishness to them.

It's foolishness. It's general revelation, special revelation, but what is revelation?

It's God's revealing of Himself in a specific mode. If He'd only reveal

Himself to me. But it's foolishness to them. The way He's revealed

Himself, they don't want. It was foolishness to me too. I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

I had my own lens by which I tested it and that lens blinded me. The Jews have a lens to determine truth and that's by signs and miracles.

That's what he says. We will know things are true as Jews by if there's a sign or an attesting miracle along with it.

Greeks though, Greeks have a lens to determine truth by how wise or how logical something sounds.

And so the Jews have needed signs from the very beginning. They've needed signs the whole way to follow

God. The Hebrews in Egypt wouldn't even believe Moses and Aaron until they performed a sign.

Okay, God is calling you. The people wouldn't continue on to the promised land without continued signs from God.

And the Jews of Jesus' day, everywhere He went, they wanted signs and miracles and wonders and He performed many of them.

He performed them but they were never satisfied. The signs were never enough. And Christ even said

Himself, an evil and adulterous generation seeks, continually seeks after a sign.

You know, it's like a husband continually, consistently showing his wife he loves her, but she says, you don't love me.

You don't show me enough, right? And maybe that might be true a little bit. I see that in my marital counseling.

Guys, love your wives better, give more affection, right? But it's like a guy who's really doing well and showing his wife he loves her and she's like, you don't really love me.

You don't. Because in that sense, the sign of the cross doesn't comport with them.

They want to see more, more signs, more wisdom. Not enough. What you've given in this world is not enough,

God. I won't believe until you do what I want. And you know what? They wanted a warrior king.

They wanted a warrior king messiah to come down from heaven and then everyone would see, all of a sudden, boom, you'd hear a trumpet, you'd hear a lightning strike, and all of a sudden, every eye comes out, every person comes out of the village, everyone looks up, and what they wanted was to see the messiah come down floating on a white stallion with golden armor on, shining in brightness, and that's what they wanted, and they said,

I'd follow that savior. That's the messiah I'd follow. Well, yeah, you can't follow that one until first he's come on a bloody cross.

You can't follow the shining, bright savior until first he's died for you and been buried in the earth and rises again.

They will not humble themselves to follow a crucified Christ. For the

Greeks, finding God was alone insufficient. They always needed to know more, maybe even more wisdom than God.

Therefore, seeking wisdom for the Corinthians was less about acquiring knowledge and more about gaining status.

Gaining wisdom for the Corinthians was about gaining status, so in the end, whether it be signs or miracles or wisdom or knowledge, humans want to be the ones who are pleased.

Please me, God. Do what I want. Show me what I want, God, then I'll follow you, and that robs

God of his pleasure. That robs him of his glory, and he won't let it happen.

So thankfully, God will carry out all that he pleases regardless of man's understanding.

It doesn't matter. Jews ask for signs. Greeks search for wisdom, but Paul preaches that something far more shocking has occurred.

We preach Christ crucified to Jews a stumbling block and to Greeks or Gentiles foolishness, and that word here in the ancient language is skandalon.

It is a scandal. The word of the cross, Christ crucified, is a scandal to the world.

The definition is that Christ crucified doesn't cause great joy or delight or gratitude.

To the natural man, Christ crucified causes offense. It arouses the opposition of someone rather than their affection towards it.

That's the natural man. You've got to understand, Deuteronomy says that he who hangs on a tree is accursed of God.

It insults them, and it did. It insulted the Jews to think that God could send a

Messiah so weak and so frail that he would die on a cross meant for criminals.

Cursed is the man who hangs on a tree. They have no category for this.

In Justin Martyr's dialogue with a Jewish rabbi, Trifo, the

Jewish rabbi, looking at Daniel chapter 7, one like a son of man comes up to the ancient of days and to him was given a kingdom, an everlasting kingdom that will never fade away.

We're like, whoa, that's Jesus. He gets it all. He gets everything. And when this Jewish rabbi read

Daniel 7 with Justin Martyr, he said this, Sir, these and passages like these in Scripture compel us to await one who is greater and more glorious and takes the everlasting kingdom from the ancient of days as son of man, but this, your so -called

Christ, is without any honor. He is without glory, so that he has even fallen into the uttermost curse that is in the law of God, for your

Christ was crucified. That's what this Jewish rabbi said. It's a scandal, church.

It's a scandalon. Natural man can't think this way. In fact, the

Gentiles think it's moria, foolish, stupid, moronic. I mean, think about it.

The message of the gospel is that the Son of God died and rose again, and the one who did this bids all of us to come and die to ourselves and rise again.

He says, come die. Come die with me. Come live a life of servanthood. Come live a life that will resemble the suffering of the one who suffered the most.

And who naturally wants that? Come suffer. Come die. Come take up your cross.

To see God's wisdom as wisdom and not foolishness is only possible with not a lens of signs or a lens of worldly wisdom or intellect, but the only way you can see

God's wisdom as wise is through the lens of faith. You will see

God's message of the cross with delight only by faith. So coming to our final verses for this morning, we now see that there is a group of people who will not see

Christ crucified as a stumbling block or as foolishness. In our text today, Paul has called these people those who are being saved, those who believe, and now those who are the called.

Go to verses 24 and 25. Final verses. 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 are saved, church, because we believe. And we believe because we were called by God.

This is a summoning that is irresistible. And when Paul says both

Jews and Greeks, he's seeking to capture every type of person there is in the world.

Whatever lens you had, whatever you had before coming to Christ, if it was signs for you, if it was wisdom for you, whatever it was, you can be saved.

And you see, this is key. This is what's unbelievable. It's not that we are strong and wise and capable.

It's that Christ, the Son of God, who possesses all strength and wisdom and ability, would become like we are.

He would become weak and foolish and powerless on a cross so that we would no longer be.

His death sentence absolved you of your death sentence. Just think about that.

He died, right? Unbelievable. That's the foolishness of it.

That's what flips it upside down. You're telling me that the

Son of God died for you and for me? He died.

The Son of God died. He died on that cross. It's all too perfect.

It is the greatest display of God's power and wisdom. And somehow, a beaten -down

Jewish man named Paul is going to go to the world's epicenter for wisdom and knowledge and tell them

God died on a cross and they'll believe it? That's radical.

You're going to go to the place where there's philosophers and learned men and scholars, and you're going to go, hey, there is a man, the

God -man, who is Jewish, and he died on a cross for sinners, and you can be reconciled to God, and you can go to heaven and have your sins forgiven, and he's going to go to these places, and people will actually believe it?

Yes, they will actually believe it, but not because of themselves. Because God came for them.

God showed them. God made them believe. And not only will they believe there in Corinth, and they'll believe that God died on a cross, but they'll spread it.

They'll take it throughout the Mediterranean, and not only that, this foolish message of the cross, the people of God will take it, they'll take it beyond Israel, they'll take it beyond Samaria, beyond the

Mediterranean, and they'll take it and they'll cross whole oceans to give it to people. They'll die on the way there.

This is unbelievable. This message. People will die for it, just like Christ died.

And it's foolishness to the world, but it also makes so much sense. It's only worth dying for if it's real.

Because it is real. And they brought it here to our country. We have it because it's true, because they believe.

And God made what was foolish to us appear wise.

It became wisdom to us. There's nothing else like this in all creation.

Every type of person will hear this message, and Paul tells us why this is so unique.

There's nothing else like it. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

And it's not that God has foolishness, or that he has weakness, this is a phrase meant to demonstrate the vast superiority of God's plan in the cross of Christ compared to all the ideas humanity has had for itself.

Had the way to God been through cleverness, only the intellectually wise would have been able to come to Christ.

Had the way to God been only for those who had power, then the weak would have never come to Christ.

Had the way to God been through any human effort, the staying with God would need to be by human effort.

Little did the world know that the greatest sign and most profound wisdom it has ever seen was in Christ crucified.

And so, I said at the beginning of the sermon, have you ever experienced something that turned your world upside down?

And that's what the Thessalonians said when people, both Jews and Gentiles, were turning to Christ at Paul's preaching of this foolish message.

They said, these men are turning the world upside down. And I pray today that this blows your mind in the best of ways, that something is kindled anew in you.

You know, this is all key. Me and Eric were talking today about not losing your first love.

Can you imagine being the Ephesian church where it's like, wow, the apostle John sent us a letter from the island of Patmos where he's exiled, and it says that he wrote for Jesus the

Christ, and they open it up, and they're about to read this letter from Jesus through John, and it says, hold fast.

You've lost your first love. Don't lose your first love. And that's what

I hope with all these sermons, every single time, I don't want to just tickle your intellect. I don't want us just to become learned.

I don't want us just to have more wisdom maybe in the world, but wisdom of God that transforms, that changes.

I pray that it blows your mind. It ruins everything that we thought was right in the most marvelous way.

You don't need to try to be the most amazing man or woman as defined by the world. Did you know that? You can stop trying.

Do you know who Jesus said was the greatest man to have ever walked this earth besides himself? Do you know?

Anyone? John the Baptist. John the Baptist. Man who lived out in the boonies, wore a tunic of camel's hair, and ate locusts and honey, but preached that the

Lord is coming, and repent today, and you can have forgiveness. He paved the way of the

Lord. He's the greatest man to walk the earth. Doesn't make sense to you, huh? Doesn't make sense to the world.

Best man to walk the earth. So let's stop trying to be the world standard of what we should be.

Also, stop trying to get the world to change their opinion of you. We're trying too hard here sometimes.

We see here today that they're going to think you're a fool. Right? Let them.

Let them think you're a fool and love them through it. Tell them the foolish message of the cross and temper your expectations.

In sharing the message, they will either think it's the power of God or a moronic message that needs to be discarded.

Don't worry so much about the outcome as much as being faithful to proclaim. And lastly,

I want you to remember what is incredibly upside down. The most upside down thing.

God gives you the opposite, the upside down of what you deserve.

God has given you what doesn't make sense. You and I deserve hell. We deserve wrath, not reward.

But he's given us not punishment, but preservation. Not extermination, but everlasting life.

Not abandonment, but adoption. Jesus did the opposite of what everyone would ever expect so that the most gracious opposite would happen to you and me.

And so when everyone else thinks that what you believe is upside down, remember that God lovingly made you right side up.

That's who you are. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we come before you.

We thank you for this message. This glorious message. Oh. We wouldn't have believed it without you.

It doesn't make sense to the human experience. This is a...

Gosh, this is an amazing love that you would die for us.

That you would come here in this sinful world and apply your righteousness to us.

God, we thank you that you do what doesn't make sense to us. We trust you. We have faith in you.

And we love you. God, I pray that we would take this with us.

Lord, that we would do these things that I admonished us, all of us. That we would stop trying to not look foolish.

That we would stop trying to meet the world's standards of wisdom and intellect.

Lord, please continue to show us this glorious message.

Let us never lose our first love. Let us never lose the wonder of the cross.

Let us never become jaded to what Jesus did. And let it always confront our wrong ideas and our sin.

May we always find grace and mercy at the cross. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I pray this in your name.

Amen. Table now.

We take of the Lord's Supper. Every Sunday here at Apology of Church.

This table is open to you today if you are a believer in Christ. It's open to you. Please partake.

Come in a way that honors him, the Bible says. It says to examine yourself.