1 Corinthians
The Power of the Cross
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
January 19, 2003
Intro:
A. The Bible refers to the power of Jesus when it says that He is seated at God’s right hand.
1. [The Left Hand of God.]
The story is told of a little girl and her mom discussing the morning Sunday school class.
The child told her mom that they talked about Jesus going up to heaven and that He is now sitting beside God.
As they continued to look at the Sunday School paper, the mother noticed a picture of a rainbow. She said, “Look at that beautiful rainbow that God painted for us!”
The little girl replied, “And just think, Mommy, God did it all with His left hand.”
The mother replied, “What do you mean?
Can’t God use both His hands?”
The girl stated, “Of course not, Mom, my Sunday School Teacher said that Jesus is sitting on His right hand.”
2. Unfortunately the little girl, and many folks today, are a little confused about the power of God.
3. Today I want to consider the Power of the Cross.
B. As we continue our series in 1 Corinthians, in chapter 1 verse 18, Paul says God has given us a message of salvation through the cross.
C. The cross is the central fact of the Gospel.
1. Paul wants the Corinthians to focus on the cross.
2. And we should do the same.
D. This morning I want to consider three different perspectives of the cross.
1. The Jew and the cross.
2. The Gentile and the cross.
3. And the Christian and the cross.
4. Let’s read our text, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.
5. Now let’s first consider...
I. THE JEW AND THE CROSS
A. Verse 22 says the Jews looked for signs.
1. It was a time of false messiahs.
2. And so the Jewish leaders asked Jesus to show them signs (Matthew 12:38).
3. Signs and miracles confirmed the message of God but did not save people from their sins.
4. But Jesus did perform many signs and miracles to prove He was the Messiah.
B. Verse 23 says the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews.
1. The term: “stumbling block”—from the Greek word “skandalon.”
a. We get our word “scandal” from this.
b. We may not get what stumbling block means, but we certainly understand what scandals are, don’t we?
c. We understand Watergate, Iran-Contra Scandal, Whitewater, Fund Raising scandals, and Corporate Accounting scandals.
d. Now just think about something like that, even on a smaller scale, happening in the church.
e. Something like that could cause people to have problems with Christianity.
f. And indeed, during the 80’s there were plenty of scandals in the church; there were several well-known preachers involved in scandals.
g. Those things caused people to stumble over Christianity.
h. Today we have the sex scandals in the Catholic Church and those things get in the way of people’s understanding of Christianity.
2. Now, whether or not you believe their point of view, you must know this fact: Jews see the cross as a stumbling block.
a. The Jew considered the cross a “scandal” because of Deuteronomy 21:23.
b. It says, quote, “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.”
c. It may be difficult from your Christian point-of-view to understand this Jewish point-of-view, but you need to accept it as a fact.
d. If you had only been taught the OT scriptures, you too would see the cross as a stumbling block to receiving Christ as your Lord and Savior.
3. The Jews did indeed look for signs.
a. And the cross was a bad sign to them.
b. I suppose you could say that Jesus was indeed under a curse when He hung upon the cross, because He was bearing the sins of the entire world upon Him.
c. And those sins needed to be crucified.
d. They needed to be nailed on a cross and be under God’s curse.
e. But once those sins were put to death and Jesus rose from the dead, He is no longer under a curse.
f. He’s alive and at God’s right hand--just the opposite of being under a curse.
h. But to the Jews, the cross was a bad sign.
i. The cross was a scandal. The cross was a stumbling block.
C. Is the cross a stumbling block for you?
1. You may wonder how the cross could be a stumbling block to people today.
2. But I can tell you that there are a lot of non-Jewish, Gentile people today who have a problem with the cross because it is not the way of salvation that we would prefer.
3. We would prefer to get to heaven by our good deeds.
4. We would prefer to earn our way into heaven by being a good person.
5. It is very difficult for many people to accept the fact that they aren’t good enough.
6. It is very difficult for many people to accept the fact that someone had to die on the cross because of how bad a person they are.
7. Most of us like to think that we are pretty good people, but the truth of the cross is that we are all bad people.
8. There are lots of people who stumble over that fact.
9. They would a lot rather think of themselves as a good person than a bad person.
10. The truth of the cross is that there was only one good person who ever lived—and you’re not Him!
11. The truth of the cross is that the only way you’re ever going to be good is by admitting that you are a bad, sinful person and then accept His goodness.
12. Accepting His goodness is the only way you are ever going to be a good person.
13. The cross is indeed a stumbling block for many people today.
a. It was certainly a stumbling block for the Jews.
b. Is it a stumbling block for you?
II. THE GENTILE AND THE CROSS
A. The Gentiles are those who are not Jewish.
B. Verse 22 tells us that the Gentiles (also known as Greeks in those days) looked for wisdom.
1. They loved oratory and they loved to argue.
a. The dogmatic message of salvation through the death of a Savior seemed too simple to them.
b. They loved the skills of debate.
c. They worshipped logic.
d. You’ve heard of many of their philosophers: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates....
e. They were very intelligent people, by worldly standards.
f. When they were told that the wages of sin was death, but they could be saved from that death by believing in the cross, they thought that was too simple.
g. In their search for what they called wisdom, they thought the cross was too simple.
2. Verse 20 seems to indicate that they did not come to know God by studies in man’s wisdom.
a. Verse 21 shows us that worldly wisdom can keep people from knowing God through the message of the cross.
b. What the world calls wisdom is foolishness to God.
c. And what God calls wisdom is foolishness to men.
3. That is why our current society is so messed up.
a. Our current American society thinks they have been enlightened beyond Christianity.
b. They think they know more than what the God of the Bible seems to know.
c. They think they now know that there really isn’t anything wrong with homosexuality.
d. They think they now have wisdom beyond what the Bible says about marriage; they think they now know that we really don’t need marriage anymore.
e. They think sex outside of marriage really isn’t wrong.
f. They think disciplining kids or criminals really isn’t necessary.
g. The wisdom of God is foolishness in our society.
h. But I’m here to tell you that this so-called wisdom is foolishness to God.
i. Psalm 111:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;”
j. Until a person begins to recognize and respect that there is a God out there that is infinitely more intelligent and more powerful than they, they have not even come to the beginning of wisdom.”
k. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
B. And Paul said in verse 23 that the cross was “foolishness” to the Gentiles.
1. God wouldn’t act that way, in their opinion.
2. They tried to make God fit into their framework of logic.
a. The cross wouldn’t fit, so it was viewed as foolishness.
1) The Greeks had a view of what they thought a God ought to be like and the cross didn’t fit into that picture.
2) They thought that a god should do this, this, and this—but never be hung on a cross.
3) And sadly today there millions who try to make God fit into their little box.
4) The problem that many have today is that they don’t understand why God does what He does and so they think there must not be a god.
5) For example, many think that if there is a god, why does he allow starvation?
6) They think that a god would not allow little children to starve.
7) And since they can’t imagine a god allowing that to happen, they choose not to believe that there is a god.
8) There are many like the Greeks who cannot make God fit into their framework of logic and so they miss the saving power of the cross.
b. However, many of the mighty acts of God are not logical.
1) To mere humans the ways of God are not understandable.
2) It is not logical for God to be born in a stable.
3) It is not logical to heal blindness with spit and mud.
4) It is not logical for a little shepherd boy to be able to kill a giant.
3. Listen for a few moments to what God says to those who think they know more than He...(read Job 38:2 - 39:30; 40:2)
4. It’s amazing, that the Greeks—or anyone else—could think that the wisdom of God is foolishness.
5. It is amazing that when man cannot answer any of the questions that God asked—that anyone would question His ways of doing things.
6. Man in all his so-called wisdom can not answer those questions and dares to call himself wise.
7. Man still cannot answer God’s questions and thinks that He has gained wisdom beyond the Bible?
8. Man still cannot answer God’s questions and doesn’t think he needs the cross?
9. Man still cannot answer God’s questions and thinks he’s a good person?
10. He thinks he’s grown beyond God’s wisdom?
C. Because of the so-called wisdom of man, many will miss the truth of the cross.
1. The Greeks certainly missed it.
2. Will you follow the so-called wisdom of man and miss the truth of the cross?
3. Now consider...
III. THE CHRISTIAN AND THE CROSS
A. God often does things that seem foolish.
1. He often uses things that seem weak.
2. David and His sling.
3. Naaman and the Jordan River.
4. Jesus healing the blind man with mud and spit.
5. Things that seem foolish to man are often exactly what God chooses to confound the so-called scholars.
6. And the cross is one of them.
7. There are many that think the idea of a supreme being, being crucified on cross by mere mortals is foolishness.
B. But the cross is the “power of God” to the Christian, as Paul said in verse 18.
1. It is God’s way of salvation and life.
a. There is no other way of salvation except through the cross of Jesus.
b. The so-called wisdom of men will not save people from eternal death.
c. The so-called good deeds of men will not save people from an eternity in hell.
d. The cross is God’s chosen method of salvation.
1) That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do good deeds after we are saved.
2) Now the Bible does greatly stress the importance of doing good deeds after we are saved.
3) But good deeds won’t save us.
4) The cross is God’s chosen method of salvation.
e. And it is the only method.
1) In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
2) In Acts 4:12 Peter said, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
3) And Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “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.”
4) The cross is the only method of salvation that there is.
f. And make no mistake about it, there is power in the cross!
1) We studied last week about the power of the cross to unify ununifiable humans.
a) Jesus prayed in John 17 in preparing Himself for the cross: “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.”
b) Through the power of the cross, the ununifiable are unified!
2) The cross brings reconciliation.
a) The cross destroys barriers between human beings.
b) In Ephesians 2:16 Paul says that God makes two people with different opinions one body so that, “in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility.”
c) Only through the cross can hostility be put to death between individuals.
d) The power of the cross is reconciliation.
3) And the cross brings peace.
a) In Colossians 1:19 & 20 Paul writes, “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.”
b) The power of the cross is peace.
c) There is peace through the power of the cross.
4) The power of the cross is unity, reconciliation, and peace, as well as salvation.
2. And I must say that human nature often tries to devise its own ways of salvation.
a. Romans 10:1-4 says, “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
b. The Israelites tried to devise their own salvation.
c. The Greeks tried to devise their own salvation.
d. The Buddhists tried to devise their own salvation.
e. The Islamics tried to devise their own salvation.
f. The Hindus tried to devise their own salvation.
g. The New Agers have tried to devise their own salvation.
h. The Heaven’s Gate cult tried to devise their own salvation.
i. And I am sure that they were all as sincere in their beliefs as the people Paul wrote about.
j. But sincerity cannot save you.
k. The cross is the only way of salvation.
l. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
m. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
3. Power is from the word “dunamis” is the for “dynamite.”
a. The power is in God and God alone.
b. The power is not in the pretty words of any preacher.
c. The power is not in the wisdom of any Bible scholar.
d. The dynamite is in God alone.
e. The cross is the dynamite of God!
Conclusion:
In the 13th & 15th chapters of the OT book of 1 Chronicles there is a story about David’s failed attempt to bring the ark of God into Jerusalem.
First trip: new cart; Uzzah; “How can I ever bring the Ark of God to me?”; fear; house of Obed-Edom.
Second trip: “in the prescribed way”; “with poles on their shoulders, as Moses had commanded in accordance with the Word of the Lord.”
Point out the fact that David admitted the reason for the failure in 1 Chronicles 15:11-15.
When they acted in the “prescribed way,” they were successful.
1. Our logical plans for God and salvation fail.
2. God has a “prescribed way” in the cross and the plan of salvation.
3. What response do you need to make today in regards to God’s prescribed way—The Power of the Cross?
