Alba 1-26-2025
THE MESSAGE OF THE CROSS
I Corinthians 1:18-25
Recently we witnessed the inauguration of the 47th President of the United States of America. Every four years it happens. March 4, 1881 was a beautiful spring day in Washington D.C. James Garfield stood on the Capitol steps, placed a hand on the Bible, another on his heart, faced a crowd of thousands, and was sworn in as the 20th President of the United States. Like every Inauguration, it was a day ripe with patriotism, pride, and power. After the ceremony was over, a curious listener came up to James Garfield and asked, "Mr. President, what does it feel like to have the most honorable job in the world?" Garfield shook his head and said, "Sir, to be honest with you, I feel like I've been demoted."
The man was confused and asked, "But Mr. President, what do you mean? You're the most powerful man on the face of the earth. You're the commander-in-chief of the United States of America. How in the world have you been demoted?"
Garfield responded, "Sir, before I became the President, I was a gospel preacher, and there is nothing more honorable than that." When the 20th President of the United States grabbed the presidential anvil, he felt like he had stepped down.
[Whitworth, Michael. Fit for the Pulpit: The Preacher & His Challenges (pp. 43-44). Start2Finish Books. Kindle Edition.]
Why would he feel that way? It is because of the great message God has given us of salvation through the cross, and he felt privileged to share it. The cross is the central fact of the Gospel. But not all people are aware or accept that fact. And this has been true from the beginning.
Our text in I Corinthians 1:18-25 describes the message of the cross, and two words stand out: Foolishness and Power. I Corinthians 1:21 says, “It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” And verse 18 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” So, to many, the message of the cross is...
1. FOOLISHNESS
You see, dying on the cross doesn’t look like success or power. It doesn’t look like victory. It looks like weakness. It looks like failure. It looks like defeat. So to the Jews it was a stumbling block and to the Greeks it was foolishness.
Crosses were everywhere during the time of Jesus, but they were not used for jewelry. They were tools made to humiliate and bring death. Crucifixion was a method of capital punishment in which the victim was tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam, or stake and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion or asphyxiation. Being crucified in the first century was most certainly considered to be a sign of evil deeds either by yourself or someone in your family.
It seemed as foolishness to the Jews that the supposed Messiah would allow Himself to suffer and die at the hands of sinners. It seemed as foolishness to the Gentiles that God would exhibit such love for the likes of mortal man.
Verse 23 says the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews. The term: “stumbling block” comes from the Greek word “skandalon.” We get our word “scandal” from this. The Jews considered the cross a “scandal” because of Deuteronomy 21:22. It says, and I quote, “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree.” And then in the next verse it says that anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. To them, it was a scandal, totally foolish, that their Messiah would have to suffer on a cross.
But verse 25 tells that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men”. God often does things that seem foolish. He often uses things that seem weak. For example: David and His sling. Here was a shepherd boy who trusted in God, fighting a mighty warrior, and yet the boy wins. Or consider Naaman having to dip in the dirty water of the Jordan River seven times to be healed of his leprosy. And then there was Jesus healing the blind man with mud and spit. Things that seem foolish to mankind are often exactly what God chooses to confound the so-called scholars. And the cross is one of them.
The Jews stumbled over the message of the cross because Jesus wasn’t the kind of Messiah they wanted. That’s strange, because the Jews had been carefully picked by God. He had watched over and protected them down through the generations, and had prepared them to be the nation through whom the Messiah would come.
But when He came, they crucified Him. John 1:11 says that Jesus "…came to His own, and His own did not receive Him." They were expecting a Messiah who would perform miracles on their behalf. Now the amazing thing is that Jesus was doing exactly that. He was performing miracles - giving sight to the blind, straightening the legs of the lame, cleansing the lepers. He was ministering to them, reaching out to meet their needs.
But those weren’t the kinds of miracles they wanted. They wanted signs of power and success. They wanted a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and re-establish the Kingdom of David. Jesus performed many signs and miracles to prove He was the Messiah. But while signs and miracles confirmed the message of God, they did not save people from their sins. Only the cross, and Jesus' substitutionary death on that cross made the difference. The Messiah would conquer the world, not through force, but through suffering.
Even the Gentiles thought the message of the cross was foolishness. Verse 22 says that the “Greeks seek after wisdom." They were the intelligentsia of the day. They had produced men like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Great thinkers. Many of them we read even today. Socrates said, "The secret to a successful society is education. If we can just give everybody a good education, then it must follow that the world will get better and better." But their wisdom did not lead them to God.
Then one day the apostle Paul went up on Mar’s Hill and started telling them about a God who was unknown to them. This God came to earth, walked among men, died on the cross, and rose again. But it was all foolishness to them. What the world calls wisdom is foolishness to God. And what God calls wisdom is foolishness to people of the world. That is why our current society is so messed up.
There are far too many who want a God who doesn’t require any changes in us, and who places His stamp of approval on whatever way we want to live. But sooner or later, we bump into an old rugged cross. There we meet a God who says, "I don’t like your sin. It is so horrible that it requires me to go to the cross and suffer and die to free you from the punishment you deserve."
Jesus endured the torture and died in the most humiliating way. Why? To show us how terrible our sin is and how great His love is for us. The cross was cruel punishment, and Jesus took on this punishment so we would not have to.
Verse 25 speaks of the weakness of God. We could call God's weakness His love for us. His love allowed the sacrifice of His Son for us. By the weakness of God, we exist, we live, we are saved to live with Him forever. Through the cross we have been delivered, we have been healed, and we have been given the power to become the sons of God. Because, while “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.. to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
Yes, the message of the cross is...
2. POWER
The word “power” is from the Greek word “dunamis”. From that word we get the word “dynamite.” The cross is the dynamite of God! He has the power. The power is in God and God alone. The power is not in the pretty words of any preacher. The power is not in the wisdom of any Bible scholar. The dynamite is in God alone.
There is no other way of salvation except through the cross of Jesus. It is God’s way of salvation and life. That is power. The so-called wisdom of men will not save people from eternal death. The so-called good deeds of people will not save them from an eternity in hell. The cross is God’s chosen method of salvation. The cross is the “power of God” to the Christian. Think what the cross of Jesus means to us.
There is forgiveness by the power of the cross. God accomplished that which was impossible when He went to the cross and died for our sins. He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. We are given an invitation to come to the cross, to see the One who suffered and died there. And to submit to the One who says, "I don’t like your sin, but I stand ready to forgive you. And to prove that I’m sincere, I’ll pay the price. If you’ll accept it, I’ll grant you my pardon. I’ll forgive you and love you for all eternity."
We must be careful that we present the reality of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross defines the total wickedness and evil of sin. Do you think that being a sinner is not so bad?... LOOK AT THE CROSS! Do you think that you are OK?... that all this talk about sin and salvation is just so much religious hype?... LOOK AT THE CROSS!
We must make sure we do not misrepresent the Cross, and thus offer a “Cheap Grace,” to those who are looking for a supernatural change in their lives. Cheap Grace means sugar coating the truth of what the cross is all about. In some ways we like to pad the cross so that people aren’t accidental hurt by its sharp edges. Dyson Hague said: “No minister of Christ has any right to smooth off the corners of the cross.” We might afford to have padded pews in the church, but we cannot afford to have a padded cross.
The message of the cross is needed because the good news of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us is the only thing that can take away our sin and bring us into the presence of God. There is forgiveness by the power of the cross.
And there is peace through the power of the cross. The world seeks peace. In Colossians 1:19-20 we are told, “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” The power of the cross is peace.
So what God did on Calvary's hill was saying, “See how much I love you. I love you so much that I give my only begotten Son.” And the greatest demonstration of God's power is the fact that He didn't take Jesus down from the cross, but He let Him die there for your sins and mine.
Satan tries to convince us we are living people headed to the land of the dying. Jesus knew we are dying people, and through His cross and the empty tomb, we become people headed to the land of the living. It took a cross to save us. And it took dying to sin, being buried in Christ, and rising to walk in new life through the Holy Spirit. We have to come to that cross and surrender it all. Every one of us is dead spiritually before salvation. Jesus didn’t sacrifice Himself and rise again so good people could become better. He did this so dead people could have life.
We sing the hymn "Power in the Blood". Many times we have added extra "powers" as we sing the chorus. But no matter how many "powers" we may add, we still haven't exhausted the power that is there. There is power in the blood of the cross!
Make no mistake about it. The Christ who miraculously confronted Saul, the persecutor of Christians, on the road to Damascus, is the same Christ who confronts us today with the unchanging message of the cross. Acts 4:12 proclaims, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (NIV)
Many people see the message of the cross as losing control of their lives. They think it is all about what they won’t be able to do anymore. They look at the Christian life and think they would have to give up whatever they were doing before. And it seems foolish to them to give up the things they see as fun.
We need to help these people see that with every choice there is something gained and something lost. What will they be losing if they choose Christ? What will they be gaining? And how does this compare to what they will gain and lose if they reject Christ? The price for sin has been paid and in it’s place is offered to us holiness, love, peace, righteousness, and eternal life. Perhaps the preaching of the cross is foolishness to some. But it is foolishness to turn down such a priceless and loving gift.
The saving power of the cross gives forgiveness, and gives peace that passes understanding, and brings the presence of God into our lives. When we come to know that power, then we will “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
So we need to keep, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)
Hold on to the message of the cross!
CLOSE:
There is a story about a little girl who proudly wore a shiny cross on a chain around her neck.
One day she was approached by a man who said to her, “Little girl, don’t you know that the cross Jesus died on wasn’t beautiful like the one you’re wearing? It was an ugly, wooden thing.”
To which the girl replied, “Yes, I know. But they told me in Sunday School that whatever Jesus touches, He changes.”
The question is, has He touched you?
