In our reading of 1 Corinthians Ch 1 we read of the Apostle Paul writing to the Church at Corinth, in difficult times and in difficult circumstances. The passage is about the divisions caused by certain individuals within the Church. So Paul again seeks to set forth the message of a Crucified and risen redeemer. He seeks to set forth a message of a need for unity, faith and trust in the Church. And he appeals to his people to place that trust and faith first and foremost in the person and purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Corinth was a place of great wealth. A city set at the heart of one of the most important trade routes of the ancient world. A thriving, busy and important city. My scripture tells me that it was also known or had a reputation for sexual immorality, religious diversity and corruption.
In Acts ch 18 we read of the very beginnings of the Church at Corinth, of that man Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue of whom it gives this wonderful testimony, “he believed in the Lord together with his entire household”. Interesting to read too earlier in that passage how we read of Paul testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus, and it says when they opposed and reviled him he shook out his garments and said to them “your blood be on your own heads I am innocent. From now on I will go to the gentiles”. Paul takes up here his calling and commission as Apostle to the gentiles, and how much the richer we are for it!
These were difficult times and circumstances, mixed cultures, immorality, wealth and discord. How like the country and circumstances in which we live today. Sadly how like the Church today. This was Paul’s Church; he had much to do with its beginnings. It could be said however that this church was pulling itself apart over disputes of leadership and following. Some said they followed Apollos maybe because of his wonderful gift of language and eloquent speech, some claimed Paul himself for his apparent spirituality, other Peter or Cephas maybe because of age or because of the maintained stance on circumcision and ritual. Others maintained no leadership short of Christ.
Many today are looking for that great preacher or leader to turn men and women to God in some great revival. Sometimes I feel like that! The folly is that so often it is belief in a man, or woman and not in the one who sends him! That is what sells Christians today short. At Corinth It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with any of these leaders; they were all great men of God, rather when we elevate mere men, however great they are, we can be distracted from following the Lord.
Paul addresses them firstly by setting his position forth as a man called by the will of God to be an apostle. So often we see Paul, perhaps because of his beginnings as a persecutor of the Christian church, having to re state his position.
In Romans “Paul a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an Apostle”. In Philippians “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus”. And that classic statement, perhaps the best of all from his letter to the Galatians “Paul an Apostle not from men nor through man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead”
Paul perhaps had this identity issue, or perhaps he heard those doubtful accusations that followed him, which meant he needed to state and re state both himself and his purpose. Not being one of the original twelve Apostles or disciples he feels a need to state his calling. Here was a man of great learning, an accomplished scholar as we have studied earlier; he had sat at the feet of the greatest spiritual leaders of the day. Of impeccable background, he didn’t come from any ordinary background; rather he was an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin. Deuteronomy ch 33 v 12 Moses states his final blessings on the tribes of Israel just before his death. Mathew Henry says Benjamin is here called beloved of the Lord the father of this tribe was Jacobs’s beloved son, the son of his right hand, and he calls us to note that those are blessed indeed who are called beloved of the Lord. This was the tribe that remained faithful with Judah in the revolt at the time of King Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. Read 2 Chronicles chapter 11. This was the tribe who could claim faithfulness to the Davidic line, the line from which was to come Messiah; they were faithful to God and his call.
Mount Mariah on which the temple was built was in Benjamin’s territory, so we have that statement Deuteronomy 33 v 12 “The beloved of the Lord dwells in safety. The high God surrounds him all day long and dwells between his shoulders.”
Paul was a great scholar, he came from a great tribe of Gods chosen people, he was faithful to God and according to Mosaic laws he was found spotless, guiltless among his people. Yet we find even he tirelessly needs to re state his position amongst Gods people. Do we consider ourselves greater than Paul? How necessary then should it be for us as professing Christians to state and re state our position as heirs of God and to witness day by day of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It was not pride in Paul rather it was his faithful nature in seeking first to promote the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that has him make these statements of authority. So should it be ours too!
He has a duty and a need to set these people once again on the right path, because this Church here at Corinth is literally tearing itself apart.
We have read earlier in our Call to Worship from Proverbs Ch 6 vs 16 to 19 of seven things that the Lord hates, seven things that can so often bring about heartache and sow those seeds of discord within the lives of Christian men and women today, seven things that break up lives, yes and places where people seek to worship God. Seven things it says that are an abomination to our Lord “Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breaths out lies, and one who sows discord among his brothers.”
Is not this just what was happening at Corinth? How like our Church today, it seems we haven’t learned a thing doesn’t it? Everyone has their favourite preachers, and people they won’t entertain listening too! Everyone has an axe to grind either with the minister or the stewards, or the organist, or the preacher. Folks within our organisation who simply don’t get on! Folk who have their own slants on what scripture says and means, and are prepared to twist it to their own ends. People seek popularity and do whatever it takes to make themselves more popular or likeable. Popular and soul warming parts of scripture are read and taught from our pulpits and other not so nice and friendly parts missed out for risk of causing offence. Our Methodist body we sometimes feel puts public popularity before Gods word. Gradually we can begin to depart from what we know to be right and worthy of our Lord. And when we do we fail to walk in his ways and the joy of communion with him and with his people leaves us and it all sows discord, dis unity among Gods people, because momentarily we all take our eyes off the Lord. And when our eyes loose sight of him, like Peter walking on the water to Jesus, down we go! In to sin. Trusting in the flesh and loosing sight of the saviour soon leaves us swallowed up by the world and the worldly!
This afternoon I would like you and I to search our selves to see if any of those things could be said about us.
Where then do our eyes need to be focussed? What is Paul; teaching us?
I aim to make what I feel to be the two most important observations from this passage. Perhaps two of the most important observations from scripture for any who seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians Ch 1 v18 “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”
From this verse I want to tell you there is no Christianity without the Cross. There is no Christianity without the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Brothers and sisters! In the world of these people of Corinth Crucifixion meant total shame. Christians all over the world today wear crosses and crucifixes as a badge of honour, but in the first century it was a hateful thing, a punishment reserved for the lowest of crimes and the most hated vicious criminals.
Do we stop to think what the Lord Jesus endured on our behalf?
Deuteronomy Ch 21 v 22 And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.” A hanged man, hanged on a tree. Crucifixion!
At the moment of his death we hear Jesus cry “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” The cross meant shame; God turned his face away from his only son as Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world. God could not look upon him who had been made sin in your place and mine on that cross at Calvary. He took upon himself your punishment and mine. The most cruel and hideous of tortures and the most wretched of deaths are some of the descriptions that Jewish historians and Roman scholars give regarding the death that was metered out to our Lord. That of Crucifixion.
I read in my studies that there was no Christian Art depicting crucifixion of this time because no one who ever witnessed such a death ever thought about making jewellery or art out of it. The images evoked were too horrible to contemplate. It was not a death for Roman citizens rather a death reserved for subjects! Not something to be talked about so terrible was it, something shunned.
No wonder scholars talk about the offence of the cross and in some circles preachers avoid risking the offence caused by the subject. To make Christianity more socially acceptable the modernists would have us simply avoid the cross! It is unpleasant and in a polite politically correct and civilised society the cross must be overlooked!
However as Christians we have a dire need of the cross! We need to know and to heed well that without the cross of Christ there is no blood, without the shed blood of Christ there is no worthy sacrifice, without the worthy sacrifice Jesus made there is no remission of sin, without remission of our sins there is no reconciliation with God. Without reconciliation with God comes eternal separation from God and just condemnation to Hell for all sinful mankind.
For the Bible teaches that God shall not tolerate sin of any kind in Glory! Psalm Ch 1 v 5 “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous”
That is the offence of the cross in all its fullness. All it’s apparent worldly foolishness! Christians! I want to tell you that we should be offended not to hear of the cross from our pulpits often. The preacher need have no other boast save Christ crucified for me!
Paul defined his ministry as a proclamation of the cross itself, his existence as having the crucified Jesus indwelling in him.
I want to tell you here and now Eloquent speech will not save you, baptism will not save you, speaking in tongues will not save you, outward appearance or apparent displays of manifested spiritual power will not save you, adherence to the words of a minister, this preacher or that preacher can not save you, membership of any church or organisation is by itself powerless to save souls. Only the shed blood of a crucified and risen Christ is able to save the souls of men and women!
1 Corinthians Ch 1 v 22 “For Jews demanded signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
It has been said that the Cross divides mankind and in truth it does, just like that illustration of the cross roads I was taught about in my youth in Sunday school at Banks. The cross separates and divides those believing in the value of the sacrifice of Jesus, putting Faith and trust in him and living as he teaches us. From those trusting in self and worldly things. The cross separates and it represents the separation of sin from God; the cross separates the lost from the saved. It represents worldly Foolishness, offence if you like, something so powerfully repulsive and emotive in its day, and by contrast beautiful carved neatly sanded and decorative in our churches and in the form of Jewellery today, all foolishness you might say. But to those in Christ it represents all that Jesus achieved, the culmination of his outstanding success and all that is the essence of our Salvation. It demands our reverence our shame and our guilt. Yes our joy too!
Lastly and briefly then 1 Corinthians Ch 1 v 26 to 31. A verse passed to me by a rather more learned local preacher than me some years ago. It may well have been done so tongue in cheek, you can decide for yourself, im not sure, but it is a verse that has stuck with me all these years, so whatever the motives, bless the brother for that.
“For consider your calling brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But 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 might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and our sanctification and redemption. Therefore as it is written let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
I don’t seek to explain all that that small verse or two of scripture seeks to point us out to, I think even if I were capable, we might see in a morning or two, save to say this. Paul points these Corinthian Christians and us, away from quarrelling, away from foolish side issues and back to the plan and purpose of God fulfilled, as I have said for us through the sacrifice and completed work of Jesus. Paul carves out his ministry not a ministry of baptism but rather that of Preaching the Word of God.
Ministers and preachers, members of the congregation! We need today to be about preaching teaching and witnessing to the awesome power, the faultless sacrifice and the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul states Preach the gospel! Paul seeks to unite Christian hearts and minds everywhere in Christ! Reconciliation to God made freely available through that cleansing flood at Calvary. The mediatory work of a crucified redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ. The foundation of the Joy of the Christian church world wide. Jesus! That by his death we might find life.
Jesus said “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John ch 10 v 10.
Our time is over. Paul asks “do you see your calling Brethren?” Is it all a little clearer? To the world the cross of Christ is foolishness shame weakness and sorrow. To the Christian Joy unspeakable.
Paul addresses us too in 1 Corinthians Ch 1 v 2 as the Church of God we who seek are “Sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”
Let us set aside all foolishness. Let us set aside all ambition of worldly popularity. For Is Christ divided, no! Who is it that was crucified for us? Whose blood covers all our sins and sets the Christian free? Who intercedes for sinners like you and me that we mind stand spotless before almighty God?
Let us resolve to worship the Lord freely and fully, let us fix our eyes upon him that one day we too shall stand amongst those saints in glory. Redeemed and restored justly claiming our position as heirs of salvation, children of God! Let us then at least be united in that!
“So you see your calling Brethren?”
The Lord bless you as you think about these things.
Amen.
