“Who You Gonna Call”
1 Corinthians 1: 24-31
Intro: As I am walking onto the stage, play a clip from Ghost Busters.
. How many remember those movies. Ghost Busters. You see what we want to do as humans is when we have a problem or an emergency, we want an expert don’t we.
.When the world is in trouble, we want a super hero don’t we.
. Superman, the man of steel. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet more powerful than a locomotive.
. Batman can be called with a signal in the air over Gotham.
.How many of you remember atom ant? He starred on the same show as secret squirrel. He would be down in the ground in his secret hideout and would get the call. You would see him fly out into the air and his battle cry was “up and attem atom ant” and he would go and save the day.
. Another one of my favorites was underdog. A Beagle with super powers who could save the world. The show would come on with a theme song and all I remember of the song is “speed of Lightening, roar of thunder, underdog.
. That’s what we want though when we need saving, a superhero.
. Someone who is larger than life.
. When we think of superheroes though, words like gentle humble and loving don’t come to mind.
. We want someone who is powerful and dynamic to save the world don’t we.?
. Folks, make no mistake the world is certainly in need of saving. The world that was created by God was beautiful. It was a perfect paradise. But God, in his infinite wisdom and incredible love for us gave us the gift of free will. Man could chose to obey God and live in paradise, or he could chose to rebel against God, rejecting him and cursing the world God had lovingly created for him. And man, through Adam and Eve, chose to rebel. The result is that the world we live in is cursed. Sin dominates our world and with it come disease, hatred, war, pain, suffering and selfishness. The world is broken and is need of a savior.
.If we were putting together the plan to save the world we would call in the powerful, the charismatic the special people in the world wouldn’t we?
. Those that could get things done. That’s what we look for in our leaders.
. God doesn’t work that way.
. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah about the salvation of the world, God says this in Isaiah 55: 8-9
8“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
9For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
. God is forewarning us that my way to salvation is going to be a little different than the way you would do it.
. Rather than send a powerful hero into the world, rather than call for Atom Ant or Superman, or place a sign in the sky for Batman he sent a defenseless baby.
God always has done things differently than the way we would do them.
. Paul addresses this in our scripture this morning.
. 1 Corinthians 1: 24-31
. 24But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.
26Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.
27Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
28God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
29As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
30God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.
31Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”
. Paul is reminding the Corinthian Christians That even though God’s plan may seem foolish on its face, it is actually brilliant.
. It’s strength is stronger than any human strength and yes even stronger than any super hero.
. Then he reviews God’s plan to use weakness and humility as strength.
. Look at verse 26 again;
26Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you.
. Paul is reminding them of where they come from.
. He says look when God chose to use you to grow his church, when He chose you to spread His gospel, there wasn’t much to you.
. You know what he was talking about. People you could dress up but not take anywhere. People say that about me a lot.
. Pam and I were going into Belk’s on Friday afternoon and we both had a cup of coffee in the truck. Well she left hers in the truck because you are not supposed to bring drinks into the store. In my wisdom, I thought it would be ok so I took mine in with me. It was a large cup also. It was very large covering the floor of the men’s dept. You can dress me up but you can’t take me anywhere.
. God didn’t choose you because you were wise or wealthy or powerful.
. That’s the mistake our politicians fall into all the time. They want to tell us how wise and powerful they are. They want to play down their wealth.
. God doesn’t need know it all’s. He needs regular folks.
. He wants to use regular folks so that when they do things that are out of character, out of the norm that people would think about them, then He would be glorified.
. Our application here is that God can use anybody.
. Christian, don’t sit here this morning and think that God can’t use you. God chooses to use those that the world would not use.
. There is nothing special about me I know. I struggle to be competent but you would be amazed at the people who see me now that knew me way back when that are just amazed at what God has done.
. Believe me folks, if God can use this old country boy, He can use anybody.
. We are the people He wants to use. Those that are not the people of stature, the ones voted least likely to succeed in High School.
. I’m not putting down success, we just need to understand that God can and will use anybody if they will allow Him to.
. Why does He do this? Why just ordinary people?
. Look at verse 27 & 28 again:
27Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
28God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
. In his commentary on this passage, John Macarthur writes.
. “The world measures greatness by many tandards. At the top are intelligence, wealth, prestige and position- things which God has determined to put at the bottom.
.God reveals the greatness of His power by demonstrating that it is the world’s nobodies that are His somebody’s.”
. The worlds nobodies are his somebody’s.
. God can use anybody.
. All the religious leaders of Jesus’ day thought they were somebody. God says it not about who you are, your position in life, your stature. The religious leaders of the time proved that.
. Perhaps some of our religious leaders of today should take note of this piece of scripture.
. Look at who God calls the greatest man who ever lived apart from Jesus.
. John the Baptist had no formal education, didn’t have a trade or any profession that we know of. No pedigree from his family, no prestige at all. He walked around in the desert eating locust and wild honey scripture tells us.
. He walked around preaching on street corners and called the religious leaders names and accused them of gross sin.
. Today, we would send him to a insane asylum.
. Look at what God has to say about him as recorded in Matthew 11:11
. 11“I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist…”
. John didn’t fit the mold as a person you would go out and recruit does he?
. He doesn’t fit the role of a superhero needed to save the world.
. God uses ordinary people, just like you and me to bring about His plan here on Earth.
. We are what God uses as superheroes.
. Why does He do this? Why not just use the gifted orators, the charismatic leaders, the scientists and philosophers?
. Look at verse 29 here.
. 29As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
. Because God uses regular everyday people, they cannot boast and say look what I have done, look at me, I am great.
. No when God uses everyday people, they and the world realize that their wisdom, their accomplishments, their wisdom about the Lord come from Him.
. You see, God uses that to glorify himself.
. We can’t boast because of this.
30God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.
31Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”
. God has a purpose for those that He calls and uses when He unites them with Christ.
. First God imparts wisdom. Not the wisdom of the world but the wisdom of God through Christ Jesus and what He di and who He was.
. That wisdom says that before we came to Christ, we thought that we could earn a way into eternity if we believed in an eternity at all.
. We were not philosophers or great people of stature but now we have the wisdom of God to show the world that their wisdom does not come close to matching the wisdom of God.
. Our union with Christ also gives us a righteousness that people seek. People are always trying to please a deity of some kind.
. With our union with Christ comes a righteousness that is imputed (theologically to give the person Christ’s righteousness through belief in Him) to us.
. We who were nothing are now everything to God. We are righteous through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
. Not through who we are or our status in life but through Jesus Christ.
. We are also sanctified, our scripture tells us that through our belief in Jesus,
. “…; he made us pure and holy…”
.That’s what being sanctified means, to be made pure and holy.
. This on one definition:
. “sanctification is a state of separation unto God; all believers enter into this state when they are born of God”
. We are set apart, special unto God. What a glorious feeling to know that we are special to God. Not in arrogance for who we are because God brought us to Him out of nothingness and has saved us and set us apart.
. Lastly we are redeemed
. “and he freed us from sin”
. He did that by paying the price for our sin.
. To redeem means to buy something back.
. We have been bought back from the power and punishment of our sin.
.We are redeemed, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ which takes the place of all other sacrifices.
.There is a song out there by Big Daddy Weave called redeemed.
The chorus reads, I am redeemed, You set me free , so I’ll shake of theses heavy chains.
. He is talking about the chains of sin that we have been set free from.
. We are redeemed.
.Then Paul writes that if we want to boast about all of this, remember who the originator of all of this.
. Remember that you are not all of that and a bag of peanuts as a friend of mine says
. “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”
So we need to boast about our freedom, our wisdom our righteousness and our wisdom. But we boast about how God did this. How He took regular people and saved them and is using them to bring salvation to the world.
Not superheroes, just regular folks like you and me.
Who you gonna call God, all who will answer.
Invitation
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
John MacArthur, New Testament Commentary, 1 Corinthians
