God’s Foolish Plan of Salvation
Andy Griffith - cow thief episode
Have you ever met people who were geniuses? They are members of Mensa. They seem to know everything. If they were on Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, they’d walk away winners. They’re the ones who, after you’ve finished a conversation with them, you walk away wondering just what they said. They’re talking up here. But have you ever noticed that many geniuses, while having an abundance of intelligence or what we might call wisdom, don’t seem to know how to boil water or make a piece of toast, although they could tell you all the properties of boiling water and how a toaster works? I am so glad I’m not a genius! In fact, I’m just the opposite. I couldn’t care less how a toaster (or computer for that matter) works. I’m just glad that they do and I know how to use them.
Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being smart or having wisdom. The trouble is, too often, this “wisdom” gets in the way of day-to-day living. And it affects people on all levels.
This is another one of those “A-HA!” moments when I realized yet another reason why God gave us kids. Sometimes Cody rejects our attempts to help him because, “I know how to do it, Daddy!” Often, he finds out that he didn’t know how to do it. Then he realizes that maybe ol’ dad can help him out. All of you with kids know exactly what I’m talking about. But I’m positive that’s just how God feels when we say, in effect, “It’s okay, God. I got this all under control. I know how to do it.” And, of course, we find out we don’t.
We’ve all “been there” and “done that”. We get a little big for our britches, a little cocky. We think that we’re wise and know exactly how to live our lives. We’re going to live our lives just as we see fit and we come up with all kinds of euphemisms to make it sound all right.
So what used to be called "living in sin" is now called "a meaningful relationship." What used to be called "self-indulgence" is now called "self-fulfillment." And what used to be called "killing the unborn" is now called "the right to choose."
The result is, eventually, we bump into an old rugged cross. There we meet a God who says, "I don’t approve of the way you are living. I don’t like your sin. Your sin is so terrible, so bad, that I have to go to the cross to suffer & die for it."
We haven’t learned anything new. We’re still sinning the same sins, still stumbling over the same cross. We’re still laughing at the wisdom of God, & treating it as foolishness.
You see, God has a special program. It’s called “God’s Foolish Plan of Salvation”. It goes like this:
Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 5:8, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
Romans 10:13, For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Yes, this simple message seems foolish to those who refuse to believe it.
To the Greeks it was foolishness, because of its simplicity. How could the death of a Jew on a cross bring salvation? They just couldn’t accept it.
The Apostle Paul was one of those “know-it-alls” who finally saw the light, you might say. Paul was also known as Saul, a man who had long persecuted Christians. But God got his attention with a “light from Heaven” and made him realize that he didn’t “know how to do it”. Saul became the Apostle Paul - a “man with one message”. That message was “Christ crucified”.
Opinions of Paul varied. Some said that he was rather plain looking. Some said that he couldn’t speak well, that his speech was contemptible. Some even insisted that Paul had no right to be an Apostle, because he had not been one of the original twelve Apostles of Jesus. None of this mattered to Paul. He kept right on faithfully proclaiming God’s truth. He was a simple preacher, with a simple message. And, that message would revolutionize his world, because there was power in the preaching of the simple message of the cross. He stuck to preaching the message of “Christ crucified”.
But “Christ crucified” was a stumbling block to the Jews. For them, Messiah meant power, splendor, triumph; crucifixion meant weakness, defeat, humiliation; those 2 ideas didn’t go together. They couldn’t get over it. The Jews looked at the cross & stumbled over it because they didn’t see the kind of Messiah they expected or wanted. This is too bad, because the Jews were the chosen ones. God had watched over them & protected them down through the generations, & had prepared them to be the nation through whom the Messiah would come. But when they saw the Messiah, they rejected Him & crucified Him. The Bible says, "Jesus came unto His own, & His own received Him not."
Paul tells us that the Jews stumbled over the cross because "the Jews demanded miraculous signs." They wanted a Messiah who would perform miracles on their behalf.
Now hold on here. Isn’t that just what Jesus was doing? He was performing miraculous signs. He was giving sight to the blind. He was making the lame walk. He was cleansing the lepers. But that went right over their heads because those weren’t the kinds of miracles that they wanted. They wanted signs of secular power. They wanted a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans & re-establish the Kingdom of David.
If Jesus had gathered an army, led them into battle, & defeated the Romans, if He had led them to success and victory, they would have marched behind Him. But the cross got in the way.
You see, 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 they kept falling over it. It kept getting in the way.
God was at His most "foolish" and very "weakest" at the cross; but it was infinitely wiser and stronger than anything man could do.
More evidence of God’s "foolish wisdom" is found in noticing whom He has chosen. He hasn’t chosen the "cream of the crop" (in the world’s eyes).
Calvin states, "In putting the strong and wise and great to shame, God does not exalt the weak and uneducated and worthless, but brings all of them down to one common level." God called the shepherds and the wise men; fishermen and the educated (like Paul).
Some of us use the worldly "wisdom" and decide that we don’t have any talents or abilities that God can use in His service. Great! Then you are the perfect candidate to do something wonderful for God. You say, I don’t have an outgoing personality. Great! Moses didn’t have one either! This is just one example of God’s wise foolish choices in recruitment. There are many others.
It seemed foolish when David faced the giant Goliath with only a sling and 5 smooth stones, but he stood in front of that huge giant, Goliath, nine feet tall of just plain MEAN. The Bible says that Goliath disdained him. He looked at David with contempt. In the eyes of giant Goliath, David was someone to be despised. But you know the story. David, operating under the power of God, dropped a nine-foot, 500+ pound enemy of God, dead to the ground, and secured a victory for the nation of Israel that day. When he went in God’s name and power, the giant fell.
It seemed foolish to send Gideon, the youngest and weakest in his family, to take on the armies of Midian. The angel of the Lord calls him a Mighty Warrior. You gotta be kidding. This guy was terrified. He was no “Mighty Warrior”. Yet God used him to defeat the entire nation of Midian with just a handful of soldiers.... But, you see, he had the power of God working through him. God chooses the weak.
It seemed foolish when Joshua told the people of Israel to march around Jericho 7 times on the 7th day in obedience to God, but when they did, the walls of Jericho came falling down!
You see, God delights in using what the world despises, what the world considers weak, what the world considers foolish. But you might be thinking, “Those were great people in the Bible. I’m just a regular person. I’m nobody special. I’d need some kind of training or education to do something like that.
Did you know that most of the movers and shakers of the Christian faith down through the years had no formal training in theology or church administration, or Christian education? Most had never been to seminary. Men like Billy Sunday and Dwight Moody. These men were giants of the faith in the last 100 years, and none of them ever attended college or graduate school. Yet God used them in big ways.
I’ve heard the evangelist, Billy Sunday, was a real character. He was a man who wouldn’t measure up to any ministerial standards of any church that you or I know. He was a YMCA clerk and a mediocre semi-professional baseball player. Yet it is estimated that during his lifetime he was responsible for over 1 million people coming to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
Some people used to say of Billy Sunday, that he was God’s joke on the ministry. One writer described the way he preached as being hell hot; heaven sweet; sin black; judgment sure; and Jesus saves; and he preached it every time he got behind a pulpit. And that was all he preached.
Billy Sunday wouldn’t fit into any theological or cultural box–he wasn’t traditional, or progressive, or contemporary. He was just plain unique.
With God’s help, all of these people were able to do great things. They may have felt like nothings, nobodies, but our God is an awesome God and He can do anything. God created the world out of nothing; as long as we are nothing He can do something with us, too.
And I hope you see from the Word of God, that no excuses are allowed. You may never be elected to office, you might not win any awards in your lifetime, you might not break any records, and you might not play on a championship team. Don’t tell me you’re too old, or you’ve done your time, or you’re retired, or you’re too busy, or your family takes up all your time, or your work is too consuming, or you have such a long distance to commute, or you don’t have enough education, or you don’t have enough money, or you’re not healthy enough.
Because what you’re saying with any excuses like these, or any others you might come up with, is that you are one of the -the foolish, -the weak, -the lowly, -the despised, -or the nothings...
And that’s just where God wants you.
