1 Corinthians 05-24-10

No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

Dr. Mike Ebendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

I think we're entering a crucial junction here at Bethlehem Bible Church, a critical junction.

We've experienced lots of growth, not just numbers of course, but maturation wise, discipleship, evangelistic opportunities, saints being more like Christ.

And then I'm wondering, we've got two different kinds of folks here at the church.

One, sold out, abandoned, follow Christ, going one -way

Christians, Tozer would call them. People who have recognized the folly of following self and the wonder and glory of following Christ Jesus.

It's kind of one group. Then we have another group at the church, sadly, I would consider them

Sunday -only Christians. I think we have more sold -out followers than we have Sunday -only

Christians, but we do have some who consider Christianity kind of a game. You do just enough on a

Sunday morning to make your conscience feel good throughout the week. And First Corinthians is going to do something to both different groups.

For those that are sold out, this book will encourage you. It will motivate you.

It will give you excitement. You'll realize the majesty of the King and the privilege it is to follow

Him. But for the Sunday -only kind, it's going to drive you either to the kind of biblical commitment that Christ calls for, or it will drive you away from that and maybe even away from this church.

I hope it drives you to a greater commitment. That's what we all want. Lord, we don't follow you like we should, increase our following.

Isn't the Lord Jesus worth your whole life? Isn't free grace and salvation worthy of your life's service?

Isn't life short enough and eternity long enough that today you should say, Lord, please forgive my passiveness when it comes to spiritual things.

Please restore me and give me a burning heart for you and your glory. Isn't today the day we should say to ourselves, as a mature

Christian or as a Sunday -only Christian, Lord, we want to follow you by your Spirit's power.

Equip us through your Word to live for your King. Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1 and have the

Word of God do that exact thing. This book, this text, this passage will either accelerate your growth as the

Spirit of God applies these texts and these thoughts to your mind, or it will make you want to run and go to another church where maybe a

Sunday -only Christianity will make you in the upper echelon of leadership. This text talks about the abandoned life for Christ Jesus.

The kind of Christian that has seen Christ's life, His death, that Christian has seen their own sin and what they deserve, hell eternal, and they realize that they have forgiveness, that they have mercy, that they have grace, and they'll say, at any cost,

I'll follow you. Sadly, too many people, when the pressure gets hot, they don't want to follow

Christ. Paul comes to the church of Corinth, he stays there for 18 months, and he pours out his life and his heart, and he opens up the

Scriptures and teaches the people at Corinth the truths of God about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 1, verse 2, Lord Jesus. Chapter 3, Lord Jesus. Not chapter 2, but verse 3,

Lord Jesus. Verse 7, Lord Jesus. Verse 8,

Lord Jesus. Verse 9, Lord Jesus. Verse 10, Lord Jesus. And he tells them, I've taught you about the

Lord, now live in light of your King. Here's who you are in Christ, Paul would say to the church at Ephesus, now live out who you are.

Here at Corinth, though, he says, I've taught you about the Lord, you say you follow Him, prove it.

There's all kinds of problems and issues going on in the church, and whether it's people suing one another, factiousness, and Paul wants to try to set their mind right.

He wants to kind of realign their mind. I don't know if you go to a chiropractor or not, but it took me a long time to go,

I thought they were probably going to do some kind of voodoo to me or something, and kind of crack my neck and insert

Hinduism into my brain at the same time, I didn't know what they were going to do. So you kind of get your back is not quite right, and you feel like you're kind of walking not quite right, and you just need to be readjusted, and all of a sudden, you lay there, and the chiropractor takes your head and just says, well, you know, how's everything going at work to try to detract your mind away from what's going to happen?

And you go, oh, it's doing fine. I think that was worth the co -pay, but you feel realigned, feel good.

Now, people talk about realignment in Scripture, but it's really the word repentance. We're thinking one way, but it's not

God's way, and so the word of God gives us this adjustment, so we begin to think the way

God wants us to think. Paul is dealing in chapter 1 of 1

Corinthians, chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians, chapter 4 of 1 Corinthians, to make sure that we think rightly about the body and how it should be united and not divided, how factiousness is so bad.

And we've been looking at chapter 1, verse 18 and following, and here's basically the general setting, and then we'll get into the specifics.

The general setting is this. If you think men and women come up with wisdom, and then you follow that wisdom, there's lots of men and women who purport this wisdom, and you're going to split up.

If you believe the apostles, on the other hand, have received the wisdom from God, there's only one kind of wisdom from God, and everybody will follow that one wisdom, even though it might come from different apostles.

So if you believe in godly wisdom revealed from God, by God, through the apostles, you'll all be in line.

If you believe everybody's kind of got their own truth, then you might line up under the wrong people, and so Paul is going to say, let's line up under the wisdom of God and from God, because wisdom from man is always tainted and fallen.

And so in chapter 1, verse 18 through 25, this morning, let me give you several motivations for you to preach the cross of Christ Jesus so that worldly wisdom just dissipates.

Let me give you several motivations if you're taking notes this morning, several motivations so that you will preach the cross, avoid worldly wisdom, and as you preach the cross, you'll make the idea of worldly wisdom disappear.

Motivation number one. If you don't have your Bibles, by the way, you'll need your Bible, or you're going to be not seeing for yourselves this text.

I guess I could say it now before I get into motivation number one. We don't need

PowerPoint. We don't need big computer screens. We don't need to show you the

Bible verses up here. There's a reason why I have you bring your own Bibles, because I want you to see in your own

Bible, look at the text, look at the context, look what comes before, look what comes after.

I don't just say, well, let me pick the kind of nice, fuzziest verse I can in verse 18 and put it up here in kind of the message version or the new, whatever kind of latest money -making gimmick version is up here so you kind of feel good about it.

This is going to be kind of hard to give you one of those good -feeling sermons today. Why? Because I'm to reflect what the text says, and the text is saying, for the sake of the

Lord Jesus Christ, think biblically, get your mind adjusted biblically, and make sure that the cross is front and center in your life and evangelism and everything else.

Motivation number one, preach the cross because it powerfully saves. Don't get caught up in all this kind of wisdom of the world.

Preach the cross because it is what powerfully saves. In review, take a look at verse 18. For the word of the cross, this simple proclamation about the doctrine of the cross, this doesn't mean one single word, cross.

This means the word of the cross, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the doctrine of sacrificial lamb

Christ dying in the stead of sinners that he is slain on our behalf.

This is the doctrine of the cross. This is the word of the cross. This word of the cross is to those who are perishing, worthy of a standing ovation.

Perish. To the perishing, it's foolishness. This whole idea about Jesus dying for someone else, the father judging the son, it's foolishness.

But to us who are being saved, it is what? It's worthy of a standing ovation. It is the power of God.

Remember, think like the Bible people did back in those days. The Greeks and the Roman culture, those at Corinth would say, we don't care what you say.

We want you to say it well. So say it well, and we don't care what you say.

It's kind of the art of speaking. And Paul says, forget how you say it. It's the substance.

It's the doctrine. This is the doctrine that has saved you. Remember Corinth? How do you explain the church of Corinth?

Smooth speaking? Wonderful kind of oratory? How do you take these sinful people that used to go down to the temple and engage in sexual intercourse with people for worship, and now they're here worshiping the triune

God? How do you explain that? Smooth words? The word of the cross.

Not some kind of rolling, beautiful language. It's the word of the cross.

But he says, do you see it? The word of the cross to the foolish, to the perishing. It's foolishness.

It's moronic. It's stupid. It's nonsense. Here's God's wisdom hanging on a tree.

That's sure unpleasant at best, stupid at worst. How can

I be saved, the world says, by the work of another? Shouldn't I have to save myself?

Don't I have to do something myself that someone else would die in my place? I contribute nothing. I want to do something.

I want to contribute. I want to participate. Human wisdom wants to help.

And human wisdom says that cross that is barbaric, that cross that is shameful, that's not part of salvation, but it changes lives.

Motivation number two, you should preach the cross because man's concoctions of salvation are never right.

You should preach the cross, number two, because man's concoctions of salvation are never right.

You can ask people today, by the way, well, how do you get to heaven? And they have some kind of little concoction, and they put a little water here, and they add a little soda water here, and they put some sugar in, and some sweetener, and some food coloring.

They have their own little spiritual concoction. This is how I get to heaven. I had my concoction growing up. Didn't you have yours?

For me, it was, yeah, I say I believe in Jesus, but I kind of live whatever way I want.

My concoction is this. I take Jesus as my savior, but I won't have him as my

Lord. Oh, I got baptized as an infant. I've got my original sin taken away. I have communion.

I have the sacraments. I'm better than other people. But it goes way back, all the way back to the

Old Testament, that the way man does things, it just gets in the way because by nature, man is sinful, so he thinks sinful thoughts.

Take a look at chapter 1, verse 19. For it is written, Paul, just like Jesus says, it is written, and he's going to talk about how human wisdom is bound to fail when it comes to saving yourself.

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever. I will set aside.

Right from Isaiah chapter 29, verse 14. Just like in those days,

Hezekiah's advisor said, if you want to be saved temporally, have an alliance with Egypt.

That's what we'll do. We won't cry out to the Lord, oh, God, help us. We trust in you and your covenant promises.

We can't do that, so we'll have a political alliance. The same thing holds true today. This is a biblical principle.

As people don't want to trust fully in the Lord for temporal things in the Old Testament, neither today do they want to trust fully in the

Lord for spiritual salvation. Thinking that doesn't come from God is going to fall short in the

Old Testament, in the New, at Corinth, and here today. Because wisdom has to come from God, because it has to be external, because anything that we come up with is tainted by the fall.

But sadly, men have always thought their way is the right way. Pretty much nothing new under the sun is what

Paul is saying here in verse 19. How can men concoct something to say, let's deliver us from God's wrath and deliver us unto

God's good pleasure? Motivation number three, you should preach the cross because professionals can't help you, and they can't even help themselves.

You should preach the cross because professionals can't help you or anyone else, including themselves. When it comes to sin, sanctification, salvation, the professionals can't even help you.

I mean, if I need help, I want to go to the pros. I want to go to the professionals. I want to go to those who can help me. Oh, you've got some plumbing problem, then go to the pro.

You've got some computer problem, then go to the pro. Let's go to the pros to try to figure out how we can save ourselves.

Let's look at secular. Let's look at sacred. Let's look at the scientists. What can they do? You've got to have it from God.

Take a look at the verse. It's this kind of staccato, one breath, he says, all four of these questions.

And it's kind of like, come one, come all, I dare you. My father used to take me to the Golden Gloves boxing match.

And kids don't know about boxing today because it's mixed martial arts and everything else. He used to take me to these

Golden Glove boxing matches. And it was basically, if a guy won at 7 o 'clock, he would fight again at 9 o 'clock.

And he kind of like, I'll just challenge anybody, like Mike Tyson back in the 80s. You just think, who's the next fool to fight this guy because this guy's going to go down.

And this kind of language has this victorious ring to it. Machine gun kind of rhetorical questions.

Look at verse 20. Where's the wise man? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not

God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Does human wisdom even last?

This is kind of machine gun, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Kind of sarcastic,

I think, of Paul. And look what he says, number one.

Question number one to the first professional. Where is the wise? I grew up playing the trumpet, but I don't play like Brian Casey.

But if I could play that trumpet right now and I wanted to put my mouth on his mouthpiece, I would have this little trumpet, this kind of victorious trumpet blast.

Where's the wise? The answer is, they're not to be found. Where's the wise man?

The person who says, let me try to figure out through my own wisdom how to save myself and have the cross of Christ Jesus put over here, kind of way over here.

We don't want to have it involved because we can't think about the cross. So forget Jesus, forget the cross, forget

God. Let's have our own kind of concoction. And here, Paul says, where's the wise?

They're nowhere to be found. They're nowhere to be found. These lovers of wisdom, phila, love, sophistry, lovers of wisdom, they can't come up with it.

You go back to the wise men of the day, philosophers of the day, they can't come up with, these

Greek philosophers can't say, how do I get my sins forgiven, how can I be right with God, how can

I worship the God of the universe, and how can I know that I can get to heaven when I die? What do they do? They don't do anything because they can't figure those things out.

These are the same Gentile philosophers that sneer when Paul says in Acts 17, the resurrection of Christ Jesus.

D .A. Carson said, what place does the cross have in communism?

What place does the cross have in capitalism? Does systematic hedonism lead anyone to the cross?

How about dogmatic pluralism? Will secular humanism lead anyone to the most astonishing act of self -disclosure that has ever occurred, the cross of Christ?

Does the elevation of virtues of democracy lead men and women to Christ? Does democracy itself lead anyone to the cross?

Back in those days, what about the Stoics? Could they come up with things? The Epicureans, could they come up with things?

Those who followed Plato, could they come up with salvation? What about today?

You say, who would be some of these people? Well, what about the secular professionals at Harvard, Yale?

There are certainly some Christians in these institutions, but this is the kind of wisdom that Paul says, they don't want to talk about the cross, they don't want to talk about Christianity, they don't want to talk about substitutionary atonement, literal resurrection, the word of God.

You put it over there and then somehow pretend you're wise, and Paul says, where are they? All the

Stoics, the Epicureans, everybody else, where are they? They're dead and gone. And the same thing with philosophy today.

You say, well, I don't go to those kind of people, I go to sacred religious professionals.

Oh, I have a question for them from Paul. Number two, do you see that in the same verse?

Second kind of machine gun question, where is the scribe? Now, if you're thinking, that's just somebody who writes a lot, he scribes, escribe, a scribe was an expert in the law, the law of God, the

Old Testament. Where is the religious Old Testament Jew who writes down things, who then became like a lawyer for the

Old Testament, who then became this law expert, where is the Jewish expert in the

Old Testament law that says, I can't believe in Jesus, Jesus can't be part of the equation, and so here's our religious experience and here's religious forgiveness based on everything except Jesus.

Where are those people today? That's what Paul says. Where are these experts in the

Old Testament who have no view of the cross? I can't remember the exact time, but I do think back to it when

I was first given binoculars, and I put binoculars up to my eyes and everybody's saying, oh,

Mike, look at that over there, I don't know where we were on the river, look at that duck, look at that orca, I don't know what we were looking at, you're looking, it just seems all fuzzy to me.

And then strangely, you take the little lens there, this little round thing, and you do what?

You turn it or you push the button and you go, wow, everything's in focus. And these religious professionals today,

I don't care where they're from, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, any other seminary friend, right down the street at other churches, it doesn't really matter where, if they have the cross put to the side, everything will be blurry forever.

Where is the religious professional, Paul says? Religious professionals can't be bothered with kind of the yucky cross, the blood of Christ.

What will wash us? The blood of Jesus. Say, well, you know what? I'm a scientist.

After all, I'm a student at WPI and I'm into biomedical stuff, so it's the scientist. Oh, I have a question for you.

Look at the next question. Where's the debater or disputer or the investigator of this world?

Where's the Greek academician who looks around and says, you know what, let's try to concoct by empirical formulas.

I'm kind of an empiricist and I have to go by fact and by scientists. And if you think that way and you're a

Christian and you say, there is the Lordship of Christ throughout science, well, this verse isn't talking to you.

But if you say, there's my faith, here's science. And if science trumps my faith, then

I'll push faith to the side or more specifically, forget any of this faith stuff. Jesus, the dead

Jesus, the one crucified on a cross, naked. I don't want that. So let's try to figure out how to live life just through empirical formulas.

Where are those people? I'll tell you where they are. They're dead and they're gonna die if they are alive now.

They cannot come up with a way that man could be saved from his sin.

And one man says, Paul fillets them with these questions. I have my own spiritual word for it.

Paul shish kebabs him. It's like this a long poked kind of shish kebab here and you go, where is the secular pro?

Where is the sacred professional? Where's the one who says I'm into empiricism? He skewers every one of them.

It's not that people are too smart for their own good. They're too sinfully smart for their own good.

The next time someone says to you, I'm a facts guy and I like to talk about facts and empiricism and I need the facts and here's what you tell them.

I have one thing for you and it's called the bloody death of Christ Jesus, your only hope for salvation.

Yeah, but you don't understand pie and significant figures and what I have for you is the cross.

You know that cross where the Persians said that criminal was so grotesque.

We don't want the criminal to touch the earth and somehow defame the earth because the earth is a mother goddess.

So we can't kill that criminal and let him touch the earth. We better raise his feet up off the ground so that when he dies, he doesn't pollute the earth.

Let me read you these verses from Jesus and tell me if you see a parallel. I praise you,

Father, Lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for this was well pleasing in your sight. The wise tend to trust in their wisdom.

The rich tend to trust in their riches. The scientists tend to trust in their analysis but children have nothing to bring to the table.

What do they contribute to the family? They contribute nothing. They are needy. They are dependent. They have to trust their father and mother for everything.

Show me a smart person and I'll show you someone liable to self -deception. You ever met somebody who's super smart and you go, their

IQ is like 250 and then they make stupid decisions because they know how to rationalize their bad decisions.

The smartest people make the stupidest decisions and some people are laughing. I guess they may think they're smart.

Maybe now they're prideful and dumb at the same time. It's this rationalization so you become so smart you go, yes, but I can rationalize it.

You know, I'll repent when I finally get older and my kids are into it or when the elevator's going down the shaft,

I'll repent at the last minute and I'll do this and I'll do that or I'll do something else instead and I'll be good and I'll do good deeds and I'll be a good deed -doer.

There are no resources for anyone when it comes to salvation or sanctification outside of the cross.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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