Title: Nothing to Add
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Truth: You can’t add anything to the cross that would improve your relationship with God.
Aim: to pursue Christ alone in order to know God.
INTRODUCTION
I asked last week if there was something our church could learn from the Democrats as they met for their convention to elect Senator Barack Obama. The Republicans have met and I ask you if there was anything from their convention that we could benefit from as a church? I suggest we can learn something from John McCain’s personal testimony segment of his speech.
The Republican nominee said:
Long ago, something unusual happened to me that taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. I was blessed by misfortune. I mean that sincerely. I was blessed because I served in the company of heroes, and I witnessed a thousand acts of courage, compassion and love.
On an October morning, in the Gulf of Tonkin, I prepared for my 23rd mission over North Vietnam. I hadn't any worry I wouldn't come back safe and sound. I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent then, too. I liked to bend a few rules, and pick a few fights for the fun of it. But I did it for my own pleasure; my own pride. I didn't think there was a cause more important than me.
Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and an angry crowd waiting to greet me. I was dumped in a dark cell, and left to die. I didn't feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn't set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. When I didn't get better, and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life.
I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners. Our Code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn't in great shape, and I missed everything about America. But I turned it down.
A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.
When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn't know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me. Through taps on a wall he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for our country and for the men I had the honor to serve with. Because every day they fought for me.
I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.
Our church would profit from that kind of humility and dependence on the Lord God. I wonder if this kind of humility would result in us falling more in love with Christ like this man came to love his country when he was humbled?
Paul is addressing a church that is strutting. They became self-important and boastful. The result was trouble in the fellowship. He reminded them in 1:10-17 that the central purpose of the church was to serve Christ and the message of the cross. Next he shows them that when we understand the cross, it humbles us. We’re humbled because there is nothing we can add to God’s salvation to improve our relationship with God.
I’m going to explain the text and then I’m going to show how this applies to the three most fundamental questions everyone is seeking to answer. The text has three main thoughts. We are going to deal with the first two in this message.
You Can’t Improve the Message of the Cross (1:18-25).
Mankind has always thought it had a better idea than the cross as the way to improve our relationship with God. The message of the cross is sheer stupidity to the world’s way of thinking. But you can’t improve the message of the cross.
You Can’t Improve the Members of the Cross (1:26-31).
We tend to think if we can get the high and mighty like politicians, athletes, and the rich to be visible, vocal Christians, then Christianity will be acceptable and appealing to this world. Strangely, God doesn’t seem to hold that opinion.
You Can’t Improve the Means of Declaring the Cross (2:1-5).
This will be another message. The world is attracted to a performance and an appealing messenger like Sarah Palin. God, surprisingly, seems to bless a message that shocks and humbles the listener.
Running through all this text is the message, “No self-sufficiency.” Paul says the cross teaches us that we have no possibility of contributing anything to our acceptance or reconciliation with God. By our own efforts we can’t improve our relationship with God. The only reason we have a relationship with God is because of our trust and dependence on God.
I. YOU CAN’T IMPROVE THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS (I COR. 1:18-25)
In verse 17 Paul said that his assignment was to preach the gospel. The gospel message is about the salvation God provides through the cross of Christ (v. 18). When some people hear about God’s Son coming to earth and intentionally making himself a peasant, living a sinless life, dying a torturous criminal’s death in order to remove the sin of sinners so they can be restored to God, it is sheer insanity. They think this way of salvation is absolute nonsense. You have to be some kind of stupid to believe this.
Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who inspired Adolph Hitler, said: Look at whom they worship. Look at this God whom they worship. How foolish and imbecilic to follow one who died, and then to claim that that death is victory! There is foolishness and there is foolishness. There is madness and there is madness, but to call death victory is the ultimate madness of all. This is a pathetic deity and he is followed by a pathetic people.
Paul says those people who believe like Nietzsche are “perishing.” The word is written in a tense that means continual action. This perishing has already begun and will continue unbroken unless there is repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
The word “perish” means to loose from something. These folks are continually drifting away from a relationship with God. Because they are not properly related to God they miss out on the blessings He wants to pour out on them in this life. If this continues into the future, it will culminate in eternal damnation in hell.
But there are others who are being saved by this message. It’s written in a passive mood that means it is God that is acting to save them through his power.
Paul’s scriptural support that God would set aside and destroy human wisdom’s plans for salvation is in Isaiah 29:14, which he quotes in v. 19. The original context is Isaiah warning Israel not to match wits with God. Part of our human foolishness is to think we know better than God. This is most clearly illustrated in man’s idea of how to be saved. But the cross will completely expose the sheer folly of man’s wisdom of salvation.
This leads Paul to ask some penetrating questions (v. 20). Where are the anti-God philosophers? Where are the Bible-destroying theologians? Where are the debaters against God? All of them have been defeated by what God did on the cross.
Now that is not self-evident so Paul sets out to explain (v. 21-25). Mankind could not know God unless he revealed himself to them. What God revealed through the preaching of the cross was man’s lost condition and the need to trust in the crucified Savior.
(v. 22) Humanity thought God should reveal his salvation in one of two ways. The Messiah should come in power. The Jew wanted the Messiah to repeat the Exodus. Throw down the mighty Roman Empire like God did the Egyptians. Do powerful acts like dividing the Red Sea. That’s how God should show his salvation.
On the other hand, the Greeks thought God ought to be reasonable and understandable to the human mind. Richard Neibuhr expressed well what this view thinks is a reasonable God: “We want a God without wrath who took man without sin into a kingdom without justice through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”
Oprah Winfrey had a program with women who were having affairs with married men. When the women were challenged on the morality of their adultery, one woman said, “Wait a minute. I’m a Christian, but I want everyone to know that my personal life and my religion don’t interfere with one another. I believe in a God who wants me to be happy. And if this man makes me happy, then God approves of the relationship.” To the human mind it is reasonable that the most important concern of God is for you to be happy.
In contrast to these views is the preaching of the cross (v. 23). The Jews did not kill people by crucifixion. They stoned them to death, but afterwards they would hang them from a tree. Deuteronomy 21:23 said anyone hung from a tree was a curse. Paul, before his conversion, was infuriated that people would say the Messiah was crucified, which is similar to being hung on a tree. This was gross blaspheme. The Jews of that day had no context to even consider such a possibility. This preaching of the cross turned everything they believed upside down. It was a miracle of God for a Jew to be converted to Christ. The Greek thought the idea was sheer insanity. But according to v. 24 God caused some Jews and some Greeks to see the power and wisdom of God in the cross. The conclusion is inescapable. God at his dumbest (pardon the word) and at his weakest is smarter and more powerful than man at his best. The cross accomplishes what man at his very best can never accomplish. So are you going to trust God and be saved his way or follow some man made plan of salvation and perish?
The Very Reverend Dr. Jeffrey Philip Hywel John believes that the church’s traditional understanding of the cross of Christ is both “repulsive” and “insane.” His comments in the spring of 2007 about the cross ignited a firestorm in Great Britain that eventually spread to the United States.
This is what The Telegraph [London] said about the controversy before his message was broadcast on the BBC:
The Very Rev. Jeffrey John, who had to withdraw before taking up an appointment as bishop of Reading in 2003 after it emerged he was in a long-term homosexual relationship, is set to ignite a row over one of the most fundamental tenets of Christian belief.
Clergy who preach this Easter that Christ was sent to earth to die in atonement for the sins of mankind are “making God sound like a psychopath,” he will say.
Very Reverend Dr. Jeffrey John is not being misquoted. He describes what he was taught as a child:
The explanation I was given went something like this. God was very angry with us for our sins, and because he is a just God, our sin had to be punished. But instead of punishing us he sent his Son, Jesus, as a substitute to suffer and die in our place. The blood of Jesus paid the price of our sins, and because of him God stopped being angry with us. In other words, Jesus took the rap, and we got forgiven, provided we said we believed in him.
In other words, he was taught a biblical understanding of the cross and its significance. He calls that understanding of the cross “insane.” He said:
Well, I don’t know about you, but even at the age of ten I thought this explanation was pretty repulsive as well as nonsensical. What sort of God was this, getting so angry with the world and the people he created, and then, to calm himself down, demanding the blood of his own Son? And anyway, why should God forgive us through punishing somebody else? It was worse than illogical, it was insane. It made God sound like a psychopath. If any human being behaved like this we’d say they were a monster. (AlbertMohler.com)
What this man does is reject the idea Jesus died on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice, and he invents a meaning for the cross that is more in line with his prejudices. Paul taught in Romans 3 that holy God has every right to demand an acceptable sacrifice in order to satisfy His justifiable wrath against sin, but as a demonstration of love He also provided that same sacrifice.
This preacher not only disagrees with Paul, he disagrees with Jesus. This is the understanding he gave to his disciples before he died for sinners. This is what Peter preached at Pentecost. It is the entire message of Hebrews.
The cross is what separates Christianity from Judaism and Islam. It’s not surprising that it has become the symbol of our faith. The hymns and choruses we sing betray that this is the central message of our faith. In our 1991 Baptist hymnal under the topical index Jesus Christ—Cross (and it references other topics too) are listed 61 hymns.
Take away the meaning of the cross and we lose the assurance of our salvation. Apart from the cross we have no certainty of our sins having been adequately dealt with. We still have guilt, shame, and condemnation. Without this cross and its meaning we do not see the depth of God’s love for us and the power of God to change us.
There are only two options available to explain what the Son of God was doing up on that cross. Paul, Jesus, Peter and the rest of the New Testament taught the first option. The other option is Reverend John who interprets the meaning of the cross to fit his own subjective reason. He does the same thing when it comes to the Bible’s teachings on sexual morals. I’m sure it doesn’t stop there.
You can’t improve the message of the cross.
Finally, …
II. YOU CAN’T IMPROVE THE MEMBERS OF THE CROSS (I COR. 1:26-31)
Not only the message stands in direct contradiction of human expectations of God, but also the social standing of the Corinthians themselves reveal what Paul calls “the foolishness of God.” If man were planning to save the world he would have had the Son of God come in power and display it with miracles. That’s the way the Jews and Greeks think. It appears to be sheer folly that God would come in weakness and then die a criminal’s death. That doesn’t make sense at all.
The other thing God would do, if men were planning salvation, is save the rich, the powerful, and the influential so they in turn could influence others to Christ. That’s not what God did. Instead, he saved slaves, peasants, and women. Not long after the apostle Paul, the Roman Celsus, an early enemy of the church said the church was not attracting the smartest people, nor the noble, nor the mighty. The best and brightest were not becoming Christians. He said that ought to tell us everything we need to know about this movement. Paul deflates the Corinthians arrogance by saying there aren’t many of the best and brightest among them!
He is not insulting them. He is saying that God has chosen to use those whom this world disregards in order to accomplish his purposes. They had people who had capabilities and intelligence but the world viewed them as unimportant.
Regardless of your political affiliation, can you remember a time when someone has been so questioned and dismissed as the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin? She is obviously a woman of gifts and experience but she is treated condescendingly. We could make a case for Barack Obama as well. Well, the Corinthians were viewed that way but God used these nobodies to change the face of that city. This gained the attention of the city. How is it possible for them, of all people, to do this?
What is accomplished is the removal of all human boasting. Man can’t claim to have contributed anything to his salvation. Also there was nothing about them that made them exceptionally attractive for God to save. The only way to be saved was to trust God alone. In fact, all that we can boast in is the salvation Jesus Christ has provided for us. It is only Christ that has provided us favor with God.
Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States during the Clinton administration, was interviewed on “60 Minutes” on June 26, 1999. She seems to hold this ancient opinion of Christians. Here is how she defined a cultist:
A cultist is one who has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ; who frequently attends Bible studies; who have a high level of financial giving to a Christian cause; who home schools their children; who has accumulated survival foods and has a strong belief in the Second Amendment; and who distrusts big government. Any of these may qualify a person as a cultist but certainly more than one of these would cause us to look at this person as a threat and his family as being in a risk that qualifies for government interference.
Let me put it another way, we are the last ones picked to be on the team on the school playground or we are still sitting on the sideline while everyone else has been picked to dance. Let me just take a chance, has anyone here received a personal call from one of the Presidential candidates inviting you to a fundraiser BBQ? Nobody here is on the A list?
When the world wants to make changes they go after the rich, the wise, and celebrities. The world goes after people with a following. But for all its wealth and intelligence and influence, the world doesn’t come near accomplishing the good that the nobodies of the church get done. This brings glory to God.
CONCLUSION
How does this apply to three fundamental questions every person asks? The three questions are: How can we be accepted by God? How can we live the best life? How can we escape the Day of Judgment?
How can we be accepted? How good is good enough? What’s the standard? There are always those better than us. What if they are the breakeven point? We’re lost forever. Look at the cross. At the cross God did what we could never do for ourselves. In His wisdom and power he made us acceptable to him.
How can we live the best life? To live the best life we need his blessing. We need his power to conquer our sinful nature. On the cross He defeated sin and rose to give us resurrection life. By His indwelling Spirit we have the power and the wisdom to make the best choices for our life.
How can we escape judgment? Because Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, when we trust Him our sins are forgiven and we are no longer guilty before God.
In the movie Castaway Tom Hanks’ character survives four years alone on an island. Finally, he is rescued and returned to the United States, but everything about his life has changed. The last scene of the movie has him standing at a crossroads in the middle of the Texas panhandle. He has a map unfolded and he is trying to decide which direction he wants to go with his life. He chooses to pursue a new relationship.
Put yourself in that scene. You can’t go back. There’s no life waiting for you there. What should you do? Then Jesus arrives. Will you receive his invitation to join Him? That’s the wise decision.
