The Church Displayed - 6/15/08
Date: 6/14/08
Sermon Series: 1st Corinthians – The Church ___________.
Sermon Title: The Church – Displayed
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.””
Theme: this sermon will deal with the idea that God has displayed through the church His wisdom and power. This wisdom and power does not conform to the world’s standards, it is instead according to God’s paradigm. This wisdom and power is displayed through Christ whom we should proudly highlight as our righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
Introduction: Alabama in 1955 was a very different place. There existed a black world and a white world and the political authorities of the time were doing everything in their power to keep it that way. Almost every aspect of life was segregated from schools to restaurants. One of the few places where black and white folks shared the same space was on the public transportation of the time. There were, however, strict regulations to try and keep these areas as free from intermingling as possible. The Montgomery County bus transit authority had given their drivers permission to institute a seating program whereby white people who came onto the bus were to sit at the front and fill the seats toward the back, while the black people who came on were told to sit in the back and fill seats forward. Whenever the two groups came together the black passengers were expected to move back and allow the white passenger to have their seat. One day in December of 1955 a quiet, timid, small woman had had enough and refused to give up her seat to a white man.
Rosa had grown up in an era and place where white children were given bus rides to school while her and the rest of the black children had to walk to school. She had witnessed Ku Klux Klan parades from behind the locked shutters of her house and this day she had had enough. Because she refused the order of the bus driver she was arrested and fined 10$ with 4$ for court costs. She promptly refused to pay and appealed the ruling. After a year long legal battle and a complete boycott of the busses by the black community the Supreme Court finally ruled that it was unconstitutional for Montgomery County to have such regulations. This quiet little woman one day refused to move to the back of the bus and with this quiet act of civil disobedience began the Civil rights movement which swept the nation. I am sure that that bus driver or even Mrs. Parks herself had no idea that that day in December on a Montgomery County bus the world would be changed.
Transition: As we continue to study through the book of 1st Corinthians today we are looking at a passage in which the Apostle Paul demonstrates for the congregation living in Corinth the choice are confronted with. The culture around is hard at work trying to convince them that the message of the cross is sheer foolishness. Paul shows them that God is clearly displayed through this.
The incredible truth is that God displays himself in ways that the world will not get.
I. The Display of God’s Incredible Plan
a. This seems ridiculous to the world. Did you notice that Paul makes it clear that there are only two kinds of people in the world those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
i. Part of what Paul is addressing here is the incredible truth that God chose a person who was shamed in the basest manner possible to display His plan for mankind.
ii. The Christian message has a lot to overcome. There are a couple of things we need to remember about the time and place of this letter.
1. Corinth was in the heart of the ancient Greek world. This is the culture which produced Plato, and Aristotle – two thinkers who continue to have incredible influence on the world today. In many ways philosophy was at its zenith during this point in history and Corinth was riding high in the middle of this wave. All of the great thinkers of several centuries looked to these people and these times as the benchmark of philosophical and academic achievement. These folks would have prided themselves on the fact that this was the heart of their culture.
a. Wisdom (sophos) used twenty times in the NT 10 of those times in the first three chapters of 1 Cor.
2. But the Greeks were not the only ones in the Church in Corinth. – The Jews had a hard time resolving the idea of a suffering Messiah.
a. Greeks = Wisdom
b. Jews = Signs
c. In the ancient world it was generally thought that people got what they deserved. If a person became sick, or lost all of his possessions due to some natural catastrophe the culture of the time would have contributed this to a judgment placed upon him because of something evil which he, or his family, had done. Both Jews and Greeks would have found it hard to swallow that Yahweh would have proceeded with a plan that was highlighted by the death of a convicted criminal by the prevailing Roman Empire and at the hands of the religious leaders.
b. For Paul to claim that the very thing which would have been the most shameful was exactly the thing which God used to bring about the salvation of mankind would have simply seemed ludicrous. What an amazing God we serve!
c. Today we are faced with the same dilemma – a world which believes that the claims of Christianity are simply unbelievable.
i. The story of the Rabbi on the witness stand in the Law and Order episode.
ii. Even many of those who are supposed to know the truth have been inculcated into the idea that the claim that God inserts Himself supernaturally into human affairs is unbelievable.
d. We are faced with the same incredible display of God’s plan today.
i. Today there are many messages trying to convince us that believing in the good news of God’s grace for mankind is sheer foolishness.
1. Many in the scientific community have tried their best to convince us that believing in any thing other than a naturalistic explanation for the creation of the world is silly.
2. It seems that we are in the midst of a culture which is desperately trying to weed out any principle which might be attached to the concept of a sovereign power who has authority over mankind.
3. Socially we demand the “right” to participate in any kind of behavior imaginable and call it normal. We chafe at the idea that there might be patterns of behavior which are unacceptable to God.
4. Legally we demand the right to kill the unborn and claim our own sovereignty over any life which cannot speak for itself.
II. The Display Of God’s People
a. In the second paragraph of this section Paul goes on to say that if we believe what we say believe than it will mean that we are the billboards for this incredible message. The very fact that God has called together a diverse group of people into the Church is a billboard of God’s continuing work of grace in humankind.
b. Paul points out the fact that God does not intentionally seek out the kind of people which the world would see as necessarily impressive.
i. Not many powerful
ii. Not many of Noble birth
c. The Church itself is meant to be a canvas of the God’s powerful plan and its working within the community of mankind.
i. As He takes us ordinary people and calls us out of our culture and into His kingdom we are a given a purpose which is eternal in scope and magnificent in vision. What we have to be aware of is that to the culture we live in, among those “perishing,” our display will not make a lot of sense. But it is exactly through our foolish living and believing that He is calling the world into His kingdom.
III. The Marks of God’s display
a. God’s wisdom
i. Is a clear and open display of the gospel message and the bible as God’s special revelation give to man to follow.
b. Our righteousness
i. The idea here is that we show the marks of God’s principles in our lives.
1. The Corinthians were expected to be a different people, a peculiar people, in their culture. We should be the same thing in our culture.
2. Along with this is the idea that this righteousness is not a product of our own doing.
c. Our sanctification
i. This means we have show that our lives demonstrate a continuing move toward God. As Christians we are all on a road toward maturation that God has in mind for us this should be evident in our lives to those who are in our sphere of influence.
d. Our redemption
i. Finally our lives have to demonstrate the fact that this living is not something we have bought r manufactured. It is a product of the fact that God paid a ransom for our lives and we dwell in that knowledge.
