The Wisdom and Power of God

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

And I want to begin this afternoon by sharing a story. Some of you might have heard it before,

I'm not sure. But in July of 2019, there was a very popular, prominent

Christian author, former pastor, who proclaimed to the world on his social media page that he was divorcing his wife and he was denouncing his faith in Christ.

And this came as a particular surprise. It actually stunned the evangelical world in many ways because this man was the author of a number of best -selling

Christian books on the topics of dating and marriage and was the former pastor of what

I would classify as quite an influential Bible -believing church in the

United States. But nevertheless, on this post that this man wrote, he said this.

He said, I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus.

The popular phrase for this, and you might recognize this word, is deconstruction. The biblical phrase is falling away.

By all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, he wrote, I am not a

Christian. And you might know who I'm talking about. Now, this man was at one time all about Jesus.

He was all about Christ in a very public way. And so it was big news that he had changed his mind, again, in a very public way.

And if you've been paying attention over the last number of years, you'll notice that this is neither new nor is it an isolated incident.

Over the past, I would say, three or four years, many other so -called Christian leaders, theologians, authors, musicians have engaged in very public deconstructions, if I can use that term, of their own.

And they've used their platforms to tell others that they should do it too. Some have even laid out what they call deconstruction pillars, milestones that help people to throw away scriptural ideas, scriptural ideas of gender, of heaven and hell, of the atonement, of morality, until the whole

Bible is cast away as foolish. And as a result, it's become all the rage.

I lament, we lament that we know people who have fallen into this trap, who've made shipwreck of their faith in this way in just the last couple of years.

But it's become all the rage for Christians, both young and old, to deconstruct their faith, to pick it apart one piece at a time, sometimes doing it together like a reverse

Bible study, only this time they're getting the Word of God out of them rather than into them.

And it's become a movement, I think, for what I call the sophisticated, the intellectual, the woke former

Christian to deconstruct their faith. And all of it has been promoted as authentic, as new, as modern, as a completely original movement.

But there's nothing new about it, maybe except for the name that it goes by. Over a century ago, the great

Welsh expositor and minister, Dr. Martyn Lloyd -Jones, you might know he ministered in London, England in the 1900s.

He confronted an earlier iteration of the modernist movement. Sorry, the deconstruction movement known as modernism.

And speaking at an event in London, England, he wrote this about the modernists. He said, the whole drift towards modernism, or you could replace that with deconstructionism, the whole drift toward modernism, he says, that has blighted the church of God, he doesn't hold back his words, and nearly destroyed its living gospel, may be traced to an hour, to a time when men began to turn from revelation, from what

God had said, to philosophy, to what man had thought. It all started in a moment in time when men turned from what

God had spoken in his word, in the Bible, to a time when clever men had, or sorry, to a place where clever men had thought up their own opinions, their own philosophy, their own wisdom, in their own depraved minds.

And today, as we continue our study in 1 Corinthians, what we're going to find is that the preference for human wisdom, the preference for man's opinion, for man's philosophy, has not only wreaked havoc in the 21st century in the form of deconstructionism, it's not just wreaked havoc in the 1800s and the 1900s, and Martin Lloyd -Jones day in the form of modernism, but it's been a blight upon the church for all of redemptive history.

And when we look here in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we're going to find that it was a blight on the church in 1st century

Corinth. So today we're going to find the church of Corinth turned upside down by this foolish preoccupation.

It's a preoccupation they have with human wisdom and philosophy.

Now last week you'll remember that Steve told us about the divisions that were beginning to fragment the

Corinthian church. The new believers in the city were starting to create factions as they aligned themselves behind different itinerant preachers that had come to Corinth to minister the gospel to them.

And so some people said, I'm of Paul, I'm of the original guy, the guy that came first. Other people said,

I'm of Apollos, this eloquent and knowledgeable teacher. Others said,

I'm of Cephas. Others said, I'm of Jesus Christ. Regardless of what school they claimed to belong to, though, they were all thinking in a worldly way.

You see, the Corinthians were close to Athens, and they were used to itinerant philosophers, men that would come from Athens, from the

Areopagus that we talked about. I think Steve mentioned it last week. They would come from the

Areopagus in Athens. They would pass through Corinth. And as they passed through Corinth, they would spout their

Greek rhetoric with great eloquence. Often the most popular teachers were those who could hold an audience spellbound.

The Greeks called it magic, when the orators could hold their audience spellbound without a sound, only with their oratorical skill.

And it had nothing to do with the content of their message. The content of the message, they could be talking about Cheetos.

The content was immaterial. It was all about the delivery. And it was common practice for people, as these orators would come through town,

Noah would say, I'm of Stephanus. And Daryl would say,

I'm of Cleopas. And there would be all of these different factions that would align behind these

Greek orators, these rhetoricians. And this was creating real factions in the church, much like we see today with political parties, how people align themselves with different political figures, that one political figure.

I am of this person. I am of Hillary Clinton. I'm of Joe Biden. I'm of Donald Trump.

I'm of whoever. But it was tearing the church apart as they ordered themselves behind these ministers of the gospel.

It was creating divisions. Like the rest of their culture, they'd been sucked into all of this.

And then last week, if we look in our Bibles at verse 17, Steve ended with these words.

Paul says, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

He didn't send me to baptize, as important as baptism is. He didn't send me to collect people, followers of mine, based on who had baptized them.

No, he didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom.

God didn't send Paul to come into Corinth like all of these philosophers, these orators that they were used to hearing, not with eloquent wisdom.

Why? Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. He didn't come to compel people with his smooth speech, but he came to compel people with the power and the wisdom of God.

That was Paul's ministry. And the reason why I mention this text is because it has bearing on our text today.

So we're going to keep that in mind. But today what we're going to find in our verses, verses 18 to chapter 2 and verse 5, is

Paul is going to do a deconstruction of his own. He's going to come to these

Corinthians that love wisdom, that love to not only be wise, but to look wise.

He's going to come and he's going to do a deconstruction of his own, and he's going to dismantle the church's obsession with wisdom, with human knowledge, with human opinions.

And as you see it, if you understand the context, you see that Paul's deconstruction is actually very, very bold.

I think that if Paul were to come and preach a message like this in our context, it would be the kind of in -your -face message that some of us have seen over the years.

And so in our text, Paul is going to demonstrate that God has brought, these are the three points, if we're to neatly divide our text into three sections, he's going to demonstrate that God has brought a foolish and weak message to a foolish and weak people, the

Corinthians, and that he's done it by the means of a foolish and weak ministry, in order that God's people, that we would not boast in our wisdom, but that we would boast in the wisdom and in the power of God.

And so Paul's going to level the playing field. So that's what we're going to look at today. Like I said, it's broken up really neatly.

I didn't do this. This is just how the text is. It's broken up neatly into three sections. So if you're taking notes,

I think in the bulletins, you'll see there are headings. The first heading is verses 18 to 25.

The next heading is verse 26 to 31. And the last one is chapter 2, verses 1 to 5.

So the very first place that Paul is going to begin as he counters the Corinthians is this.

He's going to demonstrate that the gospel, the gospel message is foolish and weak in the eyes of a foolish world.

So the Corinthians need to understand this at the onset. Paul wants us in this room to understand this at the onset.

That the gospel is not some new philosophy that has come into town that you can subscribe to, and that as a result, you're going to look intelligent in the eyes of your neighbors.

It's not that kind of philosophy that the Corinthians were used to. In contrast, Paul says this.

He begins here, For the word of the cross, in verse 18, is folly to those who are perishing.

The word of the cross is the gospel message. That's Jesus Christ's life, his death, his burial, his resurrection.

He says it is folly to the unregenerate man. And this is why I love studying the original language.

When I look through these texts, that word folly comes from the Greek word moria.

Moria informs our English word moron. So when we use the term moron,

I hope we're not using that often, that comes from the Greek word moria. And so Paul is saying that to the perishing, not to the

Christian, but to the perishing, to those people that are on the broad road to destruction, the gospel is not interesting.

It's not impressive. It's moronic. We need to understand that as Christians.

It was true of the people in the first century, and it's true of people today. In Paul's day, it was repugnant.

If you were in polite company, it was rude to even bring up something as grotesque as the crucifixion.

And so to say that your hero of the faith, your Messiah, your

Christ, your master, was a man that died on a Roman cross, was offensive.

When Paul writes later that the gospel is a stumbling block to the Jews, that comes from the word skandalon.

It's a scandal. It is offensive. It's like a snare or a trap. It's just not something that people want to even think about.

And so to say that Christ, the Corinthians' God and Savior, died on a cross would be complete nonsense.

And in our generation, we know this, too, that God, if you think about your friends, just think about the average person in your social circle.

The average person, to the average person, God and the gospel and the

Bible and Jesus Christ are the furthest possible thought from most people's minds.

And so for us to say that we believe in a man who lived and who died 2 ,000 years ago and that by doing so, we are made right with God, to say that is, again, it's complete nonsense.

It doesn't compute in the minds of the average person that is not right with God.

And the reason I say this, maybe you already know this, but the reason why I say all of this is because if you're going to persevere as a

Christian, if you're going to persevere as someone when the next deconstructionist movement comes along, when modernism that has become deconstructionism, that becomes whatever the next term is, and everyone is looking good in the eyes of the world, everyone is pursuing wisdom in the eyes of the world,

I want you to persevere in your faith. I want you to persevere in believing the

Bible and in believing in what Christ says. And generally speaking, the Bible and the gospel is not going to win us accolades.

If you want to be popular, if one of the kids here said, how can I be popular at school when

I start my school year next year? The first recommendation might not be to believe in Christ and to make him your all.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't. It just means that you're not going to be popular to be a

Christian. When a man or woman comes to Christ, they don't take another step up the hierarchical ladder of society, but you come off the ladder or you're kicked off the ladder.

There's another side to this gospel word, though. So Paul says, 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.

There's two different things, the gospel is, what

I'm trying to say, sorry, is two different things to two different kinds of people, to those whose hearts are hardened, to people whose hearts are hardened to the gospel, to those people who are on the broad road, who are dying in their sins.

The news about Jesus Christ, about who Jesus Christ is and about what he's done is of little to no importance to them.

It's of little to no importance, but to the saved, to those who are being saved, it is the most awesome display of God's love and God's power in all the universe.

Matthew Henry said this about this text. Matthew Henry was a Puritan that wrote a series of commentaries on the

Bible, and he said, this is the great touchstone, this text.

It is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. He says, this is the touchstone by which men may know which road they are traveling on.

Which road are you traveling on today? Is the gospel of no import to you?

Is it a complete foreign idea to you? Is it folly to you? Is it moronic to you?

Is it just not really necessary? Or is the news about Jesus, of who

Jesus is and of what he's done, is it absolutely everything to you? Is it your reason for being?

Which road are you traveling on? Which one does that describe? A feeling of indifference towards the gospel or the sense that if the gospel were not true,

I don't know how I could live another minute on this earth. I was recently reading a story about the eruption at Mount St.

Helens in Washington State in the 1980s. Does anyone here like volcanoes?

Got at least a couple of volcano -likers? Good, okay. In 1978, two years before the volcano erupted, scientists and authorities noticed that something was changing with the mountain, and they began warning residents that there was volcanic activity, that something was happening with this mountain.

Then in the months leading up to the eruption, if anyone was watching the mountain, and I'm not sure if you volcano -lovers know this story, but a bulge began to grow out of the north flank of Mount St.

Helens, not just like a boulder on the side of the mountain, but literally a bulge the size of a small town on the size of this 10 ,000 -foot mountain began to form on the north side.

And then in March of 1980, small eruptions began happening on the mountain, and authorities again warned people that there was going to be an eruption on a large scale.

An eruption was imminent. But despite this, people did not listen to the warnings.

Even though evacuations were urged, despite all of the evidence, these warnings were unheeded by the residents.

In fact, there was one man, his name was Harry R. Truman, not to be confused with Harry S.

Truman, the former president, but Harry R. Truman, an old man that lived at the base of the mountain on Spirit Lake, and he became a bit of a folk hero amongst some.

People cheered him on because he said, I refuse to leave my lodge here at the foot of Mount St.

Helens. And so people celebrated him. He became a hero to some. And then we know how the story goes.

At 8 .32 a .m. on May 18, 1980, Mount St.

Helens erupted with such violent force that it was actually 8 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The largest landslide in recorded human history happened on Mount St. Helens as it came down the mountain.

And I believe it was how many? 57 people were killed, not just some scientists, but a lot of residents, hikers, people that refused to heed the warnings that Mount St.

Helens was going to erupt. And Harry R. Truman's house was buried, both him and his house were buried in 150 feet of volcanic debris.

Now why do I tell this story? What does it have to do with this text? Proverbs 14 .12

says, There is a way that seems right to a man that leads to death.

There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Here we find the story of two different types of people.

One group of people who heard the warning and were saved, and then those who were committed to their way of thinking and perished.

Let me ask you, what group do you belong to? Is the gospel the power of God for salvation to you?

Or is it just, if the gospel is not the saving power of God in your life, if you don't repent, if you don't come to God, then like Christ said in the gospels, you too will likewise perish.

Okay, if we look at verse 19, Paul says this, It is folly to the perishing.

It is the power of God to those who are saved, being saved. But verse 19, he says,

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning

I will thwart. Paul there, what he's doing is he's quoting the prophet

Isaiah who in chapter 29, Isaiah 29 verse 14, pronounced an oracle of judgment against the people in Jerusalem.

And in that chapter, Isaiah 29 verse 14, he says this, The Lord said, this is

Isaiah's words, these are Isaiah's words, he said, Because this people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.

And their fear of me is a commandment taught by men. Therefore, behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people with wonder upon wonder and the wisdom of their wise shall perish.

Sorry, technical difficulty, my whole screen closed.

This is the first time I've ever tried to speak from my iPad. The wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the discernment of the discerning shall be hidden.

What Paul says here is this, Because the people in Jerusalem, their mouths were near, they pretended to be close to God and yet their hearts were far, because they thought they were wiser than God, teaching man's words rather than God's words,

God was going to judge them. And how was God going to judge them? He was going to lay waste to their wisdom.

He was going to do away with their wisdom. And we see the practical outworkings of this beginning in verse 20.

So God says he's going to destroy the wisdom of the wise and we see their wisdom thwarted. In verse 20, where is the wise man?

Paul asks rhetorically. Where is the scribe? Paul asks, where is the debater of this age?

He's picking out the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jewish scribes, the

Greek philosophers, those are the debaters of this age. He says, Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom. I'm just going to pause this there for a second, partway through the sentence.

What Paul's doing here, he's not asking in a real sense, where are the wise people, where are the scribes, as if he needs their help, but it's a taunt.

He's saying, these men that are apparently so studied, so smart, so intellectual, they could not find

God by their wisdom. They could not find him, both

Jews and Greeks. In verse 20 he says this, Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

That word wisdom comes from the Greek word Sophia.

Paul uses that word Sophia 15 times in 1 Corinthians. He uses it 14 times in the first three chapters.

These people loved their wisdom. We see that word Sophia used in our

English language still today, like the word sophistication or philosophy.

I'm losing my water. Sophistication or philosophy.

That word philosophy is actually made up of two Greek words, philo, which is love, and Sophia, which is wisdom.

So philosophy was the love of wisdom. These people loved their wisdom.

But for the Jews, when the Messiah came, when Christ came, performing signs, performing wonders, they did not recognize him.

What did they do? Kids, do you remember what they asked Jesus for? They said, we'll believe in you if you show us a miracle, a sign.

If you show us a sign, we will believe you. Well, what had Christ been doing that whole time?

Giving them signs. And so Christ had to tell them this four times, at least that it's recorded in the gospel that I saw, in Mark, where was it, in Matthew 12, in Mark 8, in Luke 11, in John 2.

But the Jews were so absorbed with their own wisdom that they missed the giver of wisdom.

There's nothing wrong with wisdom, so long as it's God's wisdom, but they missed the giver of that wisdom.

And the Greeks, with all of their oratorical brilliance, all of their eloquent speech at the

Areopagus, if you remember reading through Acts in chapter 17, Paul goes into Athens, he speaks at the

Areopagus in Athens, the epicenter of Greek philosophy. And what does he see there?

An altar to who? An altar to the unknown God. In all of their thinking, in all of their philosophizing, they could not find

God. They couldn't know who he was. He was unknown to them. The world calls the gospel folly.

As a Christian, you're going to be ridiculed for your faith, but it turns out that the world has nothing to show for all of their learning, for all of their opinions.

You can listen to talk radio for hours and find nothing true about it.

I remember when we had a student actually in our student ministry, our campus ministry, and he said he was taking philosophy, and we thought, oh boy, he needs to be careful.

The world has nothing to show for all of their reasoning, all of their thinking, all of their studying, whether it's the

Corinthians in the first century, whether it's the modernists, whether it's the deconstructionists, whether it's the scholars of modern academia, the wisdom of the world has come up short on the most fundamental question of human existence, namely, who is

God? They do not know who God is through their wisdom. I like to summarize something that John MacArthur said.

He said, philosophy is useless. Most of the time, it's completely wrong about God, and the odd time that it is, the

Bible says it better. Just spoken like John MacArthur. So, Paul makes the point here that the gospel is counted folly.

The message that you believed in, this gospel message, is foolish, but it's foolish to a foolish world.

In fact, God has made it that way. God has, as it says in verse 20, he has made foolish the wisdom of the world.

So, I'm going to ask you a question. I want you to think about this. If the gospel is foolishness to the world, if it's complete folly to the world, and yet we cannot find

God through wisdom, if we cannot find God simply by studying, by thinking, how can anyone be saved?

How can the Corinthians be saved if the gospel is characteristically foolish to the unregenerate man, and people cannot find

God on their own? How is anyone made right with him? Verse 23 gives us that answer.

Paul writes this. He says this. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block, scandal on a scandal, to the

Jews, and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called.

I want you to notice three groups of people here. Stumbling block to the Jews, folly to the

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

Paul tells the Corinthians, you did not come to Christ because you were wise, but because God is wise, because God is powerful, because God called you to himself through the gospel.

He says you don't get credit for coming to him. You don't get credit for the wisdom of the gospel.

It turns out the gospel is wise. You still don't get credit for it. God gets the credit.

I can think of you, Jason. I thought about this question. I'll just put you on the spot. Some people, including

Jason, might say, Shane, you're just trying to force your theology into this passage, right? You're just trying to get this election, this calling into the text.

But that's not the case. It objectively teaches this. Like I said, there are three groups.

There are Jews. There are Gentiles. The Jews are those who believe in the old covenant, the nation of Israel.

The Gentiles are non -Jews. So when you have the Jews and the Gentiles, you have all of humanity.

And within all of humanity, you have those who are, Paul uses the term, called.

It doesn't say the Jews, the Gentiles, and the repentant. Or even the

Jews, the Gentiles, and those who have believed. But the Jews, the Gentiles, and the called.

Those who have been effectually called by God. God has both invited them, as he invites everyone to come to him, and then he has effected the response in them.

So God compels them with the irresistible wisdom and power of his gospel.

That's how people are saved. Not because they're wise. Not because the gospel is especially wise to the world.

But because God calls people through the power of his gospel. That's why

Paul can say in Romans 1 .16, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel. Even though the world thinks it's silly.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, the

Jew first, and also the Greek. You see the parallels there, between that passage in here and 1

Corinthians. So Paul lets the, I picture Paul in the parking lot, letting the air out of the

Corinthians' tires. He says, the message that you believed is folly.

It wasn't wise. The culture that seeks wisdom that you so aspire to is empty and useless.

But, and it's a big but, but the God who saved you, who called you to himself by his own grace, he is awesome beyond all human imagination.

Even the smallest thought, think about this brothers and sisters, even the smallest thought in the mind of God is greater than any idea ever conceived by man.

And even the tiniest atom, does anyone here know what an atom is? Have you studied science?

Even the tiniest atom in all of God's creation, when it's manipulated, can level an entire city.

God's weakness is stronger than our greatest strength. His wisdom, or maybe his foolishness, is greater than our greatest wisdom.

The gospel is not a message that glorifies the Corinthians. They thought it was. It's not a message that glorifies the

Corinthians. It's not a message that glorifies us. The gospel is a message that glorifies

God. That's who's meant to get the glory. But Paul's not done. He says next in verse 26, this is a case he's making.

Number two, God has chosen a foolish and a weak people. He doesn't say, not just the gospel that you believed, but you yourselves.

God has chosen a foolish and a weak people to shame this foolish world.

He says this in verse 26. So he's reminding them of who they are. He says in verse 26,

For consider your calling, brothers. Consider who you were when you came to Christ, when

God called you to himself. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.

Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. Verse 27, but God chose.

Notice that word chose. God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

So that no human being, this is the end that God had in mind. He chose the foolish.

He chose the weak. He chose the low and despised. Verse 29, so that no, not a one, no human being might boast in the presence of God.

This is really a double -edged sword that Paul is wielding here against the

Corinthians. So we're going to look at one edge at a time. So picture this with me.

The first edge is this. Paul breaks it to the Corinthians. These men and women that probably came from the lower classes of society and yet wanted to belong to the aristocracy, that wanted to be wise, that wanted to climb the social ladder.

Again, he lets the air out of their tires. He says, you were never impressive by the world's standards.

Consider when God called you. You were never what you were trying to be now in the eyes of the world.

When God called you, you were not wise. You weren't smart. People didn't look at you and say, wow, that guy is a bright person.

That's the guy I want to copy off of when test time comes. You were not powerful.

You were not of noble birth. You weren't royalty. You weren't of the lineage of the aristocrats.

Instead, no, you were the weak. You were the low and the despised. You were not the beautiful people of Corinth.

Believers. Well, certainly there were people from that upper echelon, maybe the

Crispuses or the Sosthenes, the former leaders of the synagogue. Most likely, these

Corinthians were the have -nots of society. They were not educated.

They were the common folk. They were the craftsmen. They were even the slaves. Paul is going to write in chapter 7 instructions to slaves.

So we know that a large group of this contingent were slaves. But Paul says this in verse 27 and 28,

God chose you. He chose you, the foolish. He chose you, the weak.

He chose the lowly. God elected, before the foundations of the earth, to this end, to shame.

The reason why God chose you is to shame the wise.

It's to shame the strong. It's to bring to nothing the things that are.

Just like in Isaiah's day, in Isaiah chapter 29 and verse 14, God has chosen the lowly as an act of judgment against the high and the mighty.

You guys probably know by now that I love church history because I always tell stories from church history.

And I hope I don't bore you with them. But there was a Greek philosopher in the second century.

I think it was about the 150s A .D. named Celsus. And he sneered at the

Christian church. Again, in his great wisdom, with his high mind, his high thinking.

And he said this about the Christian church. And just listen to how cruel, if nothing else, listen to how cruel these words are from Celsus.

He said, their decree, those are the Christians, is this. And he speaks for the church.

He's speaking on behalf of the church. Let no one educated, let no one wise, no one sensible draw near.

For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone who's ignorant, if there's anyone who's stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, then let him come to the church boldly.

He says, by the fact that the Christians admit that these people are worthy of their

God. You see the way he thinks. The Christians admit that these people are worthy of their God. By this fact, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid, and only slaves, women, and children.

Celsus is saying, the church is made up of the lowest of the low in our society.

And I think Celsus, the philosopher, is onto something here.

But I think that Scripture says it better. In Matthew 11, 25,

Jesus says, I thank you, Father. We see why this is. He says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise.

You've hidden the truth of the word from the wise in understanding and what revealed them to little children.

This should have a humbling effect on us. That we in the church are not members of some high society.

I remember being, when I worked in my former, former employment, a number of people in that profession were big into the, oh, now it's escaping me.

This is what happens when I ad -lib. They're that secret society. Somebody help me out.

The Freemasons. Part of the Freemasons Lodge. It was the secret society and it was in some ways a high society among many of the people in the upper echelons of law enforcement.

A lot of them, you couldn't belong to certain things. You couldn't get maybe advancements even if you didn't belong to their

Freemasons Lodge. We in the Christian church are not members of some high society.

God has chosen the things that are not to shame the things that are, to bring to nothing the things that are.

Just like a craftsman. I remember when my uncle got into woodworking. He would make these beautiful wooden objects.

These cutting boards and all kinds of things out of wood. Handcrafted. His hands, maybe some power tools and a chisel.

And as he got more and more orders and more and more demand for his business, he had to buy robots and lasers and engravers and everything else.

And his woodworking is still beautiful, but he gets far less credit for that woodwork than when it was just him and his primitive tool.

Just as the craftsman who uses a primitive tool gets more glory, gets more recognition.

God has chosen to magnify himself by using us, primitive tools for his glory.

James says this. He says, James 2, verse 5. Listen, my beloved brothers.

Has not God chosen, see that word again. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?

God has chosen the poor and the insignificant but with a purpose.

So this is the other edge of the sword. It's going to be really depressing if we think all of us in the room, not all of us, but many of us perhaps, are the knots of society and yet God says this.

He says that he has chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.

Look at verse 30 and 31. He says, and because of him you are in Christ.

So you are none of these things. Now you are in Christ who has become to us what?

Wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the

Lord. We were nothing in the world. Christian, if you're a

Christian in this room, we were nothing in the world. God saved us by a message that is considered nothing by the world and yet in Christ we have absolutely everything.

Again, I'm going to ask you, do you believe it? Do you believe that you have everything in Christ, that you are rich in Christ, that you are an heir in Christ?

Paul's going to tell the Corinthians in his second letter to them. In 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 9, he said, for you know the grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, Christ was rich in eternal communion with the

Father and with the Spirit. Though he was rich, yet for your sake,

Christian, for your sake, he became poor so that by his poverty you might become rich.

So because Christ Jesus humbled himself, because he came to this world, because he died on the cross, because he rose from the grave, we now have, if we look in verse 30,

Christ has become, became to us wisdom from God.

Christ has become our wisdom. More than that, our wretchedness has been turned to righteousness.

Our defilement has been turned to sanctification. Our damnation has been turned to redemption.

All of this is a gift from God. Look at verse 31, let the one who boasts, boast in the

Lord. It's all a gift from God, lest any of us should boast.

We have been redeemed. All by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the scriptures alone, to what?

To the glory of God alone. God has taken all that we were not, and he's given us more than we can ever fathom.

Believer, in a hundred billion years, you will be in the presence of God, dumbfounded, marveling at all that God has done for you in Christ, still learning the benefits of Christ, a hundred billion years from today.

We were not wise. I went through the Bible and thought about some of these things.

We were not wise when we were called. He has made us wise for salvation. We were powerless.

Now Ephesians 1 says, the power that raised Christ from the dead is at work within us.

We were not of noble birth. Now Revelation tells us that we are a kingdom and priest to our

God, and we shall reign on the earth. We were low and despised. Now Christ has,

Ephesians 2 tells us, raised us up. We were low and despised, in Christ he has raised us up, and it says actually, in a spiritual sense, we are seated with him in the heavenly places, that he might show, in the coming ages, that he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

We need to recognize this, Christians, beloved brothers and sisters. We need to recognize that apart from Christ, we are, if you're apart from Christ, in terms of your cosmic significance, you are essentially nothing.

Even the best and the brightest in all the world are but a drop in the bucket.

But in Christ, we've received more than we can ever imagine, more than we could ever fathom.

And how do we boast, how do we respond in this? We don't boast in ourselves, but we boast in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Like we were singing, I will not boast in anything, no gifts, no power, no wisdom, but I will boast in who?

In Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. The last thing that Paul's going to tell us is this.

He says, I've been hard on you, Corinthians. Not only was the gospel folly, not only were you yourselves foolish.

Now he's going to join them and he's going to say in chapter 2, verses 1 to 5, that I, that my ministry to you is foolish also.

God has chosen a foolish ministry also. He says, When I came to you, brothers,

I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or with wisdom.

I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.

My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power.

Why? So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Paul did not come with great oratorical skill. He did not come to impress the Corinthians with his brilliance.

He left all of that at the city gates and he came with one message. One message that was

Christ and him crucified. A message that he knew was going to be considered folly by many.

As Christians, we shouldn't be surprised when people think that what we believe is silly. It is folly to those who are perishing.

But Christ was not embarrassed. He was not ashamed of the gospel.

He trusted that those who were being saved, who God would call, would respond with repentance and faith, that that gospel word, the word of the cross, would be the very power of God for salvation.

Christ was dependent on the Holy Spirit. He knew that the

Holy Spirit would convict the people that the Spirit wanted to convict regarding sin and righteousness and the judgment and the truth of the gospel.

Unlike the traveling circus that was Greek philosophers coming from Athens through Corinth with their followers,

Paul didn't concern himself with his own glory, but with Christ's glory. Perhaps even at times,

Paul was discouraged during his ministry in Corinth. If we look in Acts chapter 17, in Acts 17,

God even told Paul at one point, He said, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you.

No one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city. God was going to call many from that city, and he stayed a year and six months teaching the word of God among them.

And so, Paul was all about Jesus Christ. When he went to Corinth, he wasn't about looking cool.

He wasn't about looking smart. He wasn't about collecting a following. He was all about, as we read in Acts 17, and we read here, he was all about Christ and Him crucified.

And this needs to be our ministry too. If we're going to be effective in the world, if we're going to share the gospel with people on the street, if we're going to have any fruit, bear any fruit in our ministry,

Jesus Christ and Him crucified must be our only message. Our world is perishing without the gospel.

And our world is not going to be one to Christ with a great show.

Our world is not going to be one to Christ with a light show and with great amenities in the church and an awesome coffee shop, you know, with our own in -house brew and not even an amazing communicator, not even by acts of kindness, gestures of kindness to random strangers.

Our world will only be one to Christ with the word about Christ.

Just like Paul, we cannot be ashamed of the gospel. If our friends and our co -workers think that we're fools, then let us be fools for Christ's sake.

Let us be fools for Him and let us love them even as they gossip about us by sharing the gospel with them.

It's a stumbling block to the Jews. It's folly to the Gentiles, but those who are called,

Paul says, it is the wisdom and the power of God. I'll finish with this brief illustration.

H .A. Ironside was a Canadian -American theologian and pastor that lived in the 1800s and the 1900s.

And he tells a story about a man that traveled from Chicago to London, England for business.

And this man went to London for business and one Sunday, this man ventured out and he had one mission in mind.

He was going to visit two churches, a morning service by a famous, that was, sorry, that a famous preacher would be preaching at and then an afternoon service where another famous English preacher was going to be preaching at.

The morning one, we don't know that man's name. The evening service was a service put on by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

So in the morning, he went out to hear this first famous preacher. He listened intently. In the evening, he went and listened to Charles Spurgeon preach intently.

And then when he got back home after his day, an acquaintance asked him what he thought of both services.

He said, well, I'll tell you the man I heard in the morning, that man is a great preacher.

Very eloquent, very good. He said, but the man I heard in the evening, that's

Charles Spurgeon, that man has a great savior. Brothers and sisters, that savior is our savior too.

We have a great God and savior in the Lord Jesus Christ. To those who are perishing, he is folly.

But to those who are called, to those who are being saved, he is the power of God.

And so, if we're to take what Paul writes to the Corinthians and apply it in our own lives, it would be this.

Let's not obsess about human wisdom. When our greatest interest or one of our greatest interests is being smart, is looking smart, is being wise, is being accepted by the world, when the next deconstructionist movement comes, you're going to be on that train.

But let us be consumed with the wisdom of God, with the power of God in Christ Jesus.

Let us not boast in ourselves, but boast in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. We have nothing to offer apart from him, apart from Christ, who has called us to himself and has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.