Corinthians Series (Part Three): The folly of Mr. Worldly Wiseman
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16, Romans 5:6-8
OPEN WITH PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING
(Give background reading from Pilgrim's Progress)
We are continuing on with our study in 1st Corinthians this morning. And I hope the Lord is using this study to bless you and equip you, and strengthen your faith, and your convictions.
This morning, we’re in 1 Corinthians, and we’re going to back up a little bit and look at a part of what we looked at last week, and then go on into chapter two – all the way to verse 16. So 1 Corinthians 1:18 is where we’ll start, and again, we’ll be reading all the way to chapter two, verse 16. (READ 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:16).
So Paul starts off here by saying the “Word of the Cross, is folly to those who are perishing.” R.C. Sproul, - great theologian and man of God, who we lost in 2017, once said, “The culture in general has settled for what is quick and cheap; junk music, junk art, junk thinking. Our culture is far too easily satisfied and entertained. Excellence, truth, and real beauty are the great triad of virtues that are now replaced with ‘funny’, ‘cool’, and ‘cute’. We get mediocrity because we want it.”
C.S. Lewis, a terrific apologist and writer, who passed away in 1963 said it like this, “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with foolish things, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
And I myself, can’t help but look back at church history, especially since the Reformation, and see the great pastors and teachers of God. Men who would preach and lives would be changed, and souls saved, and entire cultures would be changed. I’m talking about men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, and you go down a bit further into history and see men like Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitefield and John Wesley… a bit further down and you’ll see Charles Spurgeon, and D.L. Moody. And you know what, none of those great pastors, and evangelists, and theologians, and revivalists – none of them relied upon gimmicks. None of them were into the latest “church growth” trends. They trusted that the Word of God was sufficient. That God’s Word was enough, and then they faithfully proclaimed it and preached it, and taught it.
Paul the Apostle starts off this passage that we just read by saying, “The Message of the Cross is foolish to those who are perishing.” What he doesn’t say, and what he never says is: “Make it seem not so foolish. Make it seem not so offensive. Make it acceptable to people who are enslaved by sin.” He never says, “Make it fit within the world’s paradigm.” No… Paul never says such things.
Instead he says, “We preach Christ crucified.”
It’s the same thing he says in Romans 5:6-8, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows His love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
And so; in this whole section of Scripture that we’ve just read here, Paul is contrasting wisdom with foolishness… specifically the wisdom of God, which seems foolish to the world, and worldly wisdom, which is actual foolishness when compared to the wisdom of God. What God’s Word says and teaches, seems foolish to the unbelieving world. What we as Christians do and say, and how we live our lives, seems foolish to the unbelieving world. And when I say foolish… what I mean is that the unbelieving world, thinks the demands of the Gospel are unreasonable… They think that living for Christ, rather than living for themselves is unreasonable…
Think about from their perspective for just a second. If there is no God, why not just satisfy all the desires and longings of your sinful heart? Why deny yourself anything? From their perspective, if there is no God, then Jesus was just a man, who died a criminal’s death, about 2000 years ago outside of the city of Jerusalem. And to devote your life to that man, would be foolish.
That’s the view of those who are perishing. But to us – Christ crucified, is the very wisdom and power of God. Christ crucified makes forgiveness of our sins possible. Christ crucified makes reconciliation with God possible. Christ crucified makes justification a reality. It makes redemption a reality. It makes eternal life a reality.
How does God save sinners? By His grace! How does His grace cause salvation to happen? In other words, what’s the process by which His grace effected salvation?
How is Christ crucified the power and wisdom of God?
Let’s look at it… God is holy. Completely, and utterly holy. He is without sin, without any evil, or malice, or wickedness. He is completely, totally moral and upright. God is completely and totally righteous, and His standards are completely holy, righteous, and upright. And if man hopes to be in God’s presence for all eternity, man also must be completely holy, and upright, and without sin. But that’s a problem isn’t it? We are sinners. For ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There are NONE who are righteous, no not one. So how can a holy, morally perfect, completely righteous, upright God bring man into His presence and give man eternal life with Him?
Now it’s also true that God is loving, and God is merciful and He desires to show mercy, but His love and mercy don’t trump His holiness and righteousness. So there’s the great dilemma – God longs to show mercy and kindness, and forgive transgression, but God’s justice has to be satisfied at the same time. It has to be propitiated – there’s a word you don’t hear much anymore… propitiation. God’s justice and wrath must be satisfied. In other words, Church, the penalty of sin has to be paid.
But how? How can a finite human being pay for sinning against an infinite God?
Turn with me to Psalm 49:7-8 says, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice.”
Now hold your place there in Psalm 49, because we’ll come right back to it…
I’ve said this to you before, but I’ll say it again. I cannot pay for your sins. I have my own sins to pay for. And if I chose to pay for my sins, I must do it for all eternity, because I’ve sinned against an infinite and eternal God.
So what’s the answer? Psalm 49:15, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me.”
That is why we need Emmanuel – God with us! There are only two options to pay for man’s sin against an infinite God. Either we as finite beings pay for our sin for an infinite amount of time, or an infinite Being (Jesus) pays for it once and for all, for all time!
And so this same Word that we read about in John’s Gospel… John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God…” This same Word who is God, that becomes flesh, that’s John 1:14… This same Word, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – that’s John 1:29.
This is why later on, in this very same book of 1 Corinthians 15:3 Paul writes, “For I delivered to you as of FIRST importance what I also received; that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”
This is why, from our text this morning, Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
An unconverted person can’t get this. Listen as I read 1 Corinthians 2:10-14 again, “These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
If something is spiritually discerned by the Spirit of God, and a person doesn’t have the Spirit of God, then they can’t discern the thing that can only be discerned BY the Spirit of God.
Now I’m not finished, but I’ll stop here today.
OFFER PRAYER AND CLOSING
