The Cross-Centered Life // 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

The letter of 1 Corinthians is a treasure. It contains more teaching on the resurrection, spiritual gifts, marriage, and the virtue of love than any other book in the Bible.

! But it is not cold theology. 1 Corinthians is an urgent call for us to remember the gospel. And as a result, it's a call for us to be a cross-centered, holy, and united people until he returns.

Listen in to what God has to say to us through this inspired letter. Well, please remain standing. If you would, turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Begin reading in verse 18 of the Word of God.

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 preached 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 man, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

This is the Word of the Lord. Thank you, God. Please be seated. Every religion or ideology has a symbol, or often has a symbol, that depicts its history and beliefs.

The lotus flower has come to be associated with Buddhism. The star of David with Judaism. The crescent with Islam.

The hammer and sickle with communism. The swastika with Nazism. Christianity has a symbol as well, the cross.

But it was not the cross at first. On the walls and ceilings of ancient burial sites of Christians, they were paintings of a peacock. Aren't you glad that one didn't hang around?

Symbolizing immortality. Or a dove. Not very surprising. Or an athlete's foot. Not athlete's foot like the affliction, but a runner or something like that.

Most commonly, the fish, which does still adorn some bumper stickers. The fish. Really, why was the fish there? Well, it was an acronym. The ichthus is the Greek word for fish.

And so it stood for Iesus Christus, Theo, Huios, Soter. Jesus Christ, our Son, Son of God, our Savior. But it didn't remain the symbol of Christianity.

As early as the second century, Christians began to etch out another symbol in these burial sites. The symbol of the cross.

Now, in many ways, it's not surprising. The cross is the most suitable symbol for Christianity because it's not the birth or the youth of Jesus Christ.

Not the teaching or the serving of Jesus Christ. Not the resurrection or the reign of Jesus Christ that is central to Christianity. It is the cross. It is the cross. And now, crosses are literally everywhere.

Atop our steeples, adorning our sanctuaries, lining our cemeteries, shining from our lapels, tattooed on our arms, alongside the highway of I-75 and on our bumpers, hanging from our necks, hanging from our necks and dangling from our ears, whether in Korea or Tierra del Fuego, Alaska or New Zealand or everywhere in between, including McMinn County.

The cross is the most globally recognized symbol of a religion or a God that has ever been. Yet no one is shocked.

Long before the cross was a symbol, it was a method of execution. No death was more excruciating.

That word contains the crux, the cross word, than the crucifixion. To be hung naked hour after hour in agony, swelling in the shoulders and chest, unable to fight away the gathering birds, was the worst death imaginable.

And it was designed to be so, a gruesome public spectacle that made you turn your head and made you think long and hard before you broke the laws of land.

It was so disgusting, so repulsive that history records very few descriptions of crucifixion. Why? Who would want to look at a crucifixion?

Who would want to take in the details of a crucifixion? Surely nowhere, no one. Yet there are four detailed accounts of crucifixion.

The most detailed accounts of crucifixion. Preserved in our Bibles, the arrest, condemnation, flogging, and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed, they're recorded because the cross of Christ is the place where God secured our salvation.

The cross, that repulsive symbol of pain and agony, agonizing form of execution and nauseating spectacle, has come to symbolize salvation for those who rest in Christ.

So it's fitting that crosses are now everywhere. The cross is at the core of the Christian message. There is no salvation except through the cross, where he canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demand, nailing it to the cross.

But the cross is not meant to just alter our destiny, but to alter everything. Everything. The cross is to be always at hand for the believer.

Martin Luther used to say, I feel as if I carry his nails in my pocket. What was he saying? The cross is to be always at hand.

The cross is not just the measure of our message, but how we measure our identity, our purpose, our parenting, our pastoring, our serving, our professions, our giving, our joy.

Indeed, the cross is to be the factor that factors in to measure out everything about what we call life. Where we're going in a word is, we must never move on from the cross of Christ.

The content of our message and the meaning of our lives. We must never move on from the cross. As the content of our message and the meaning of our lives, we're going to study these verses to see that we need a cross-centered worldview, a cross-centered message, and a cross-centered life.

A cross-centered worldview. That's where Paul turns, firstly in these verses, to a cross-centered worldview. The cross is not meant to merely forever alter. It's meant to alter forever the way we look at the world.

The world, in our assessment of it, is to change. It's to be cross-centered now. Now, the ancient world divided humanity into many different groups.

Romans and barbarians. You know, you'll see that in Galatians 3 and other places in the New Testament. Romans 1, I think. Romans and barbarians. That's just what Romans referred to everybody else.

So, Romans and barbarians, Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised, slaves and freedmen. Those titles run through 1 Corinthians. That's the way the world divided up humanity.

We divide folks up as well, between rich and poor, black and white, male and female, and so on and so on. But the message of the cross divides humanity into two groups.

Those who are perishing, and those who are being saved. It is a cross-centered worldview that the apostle wants to alert us to.

We see that immediately in verse 18, for the word of the cross is, follow to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. The idea is this cross-centered worldview, I mean, all other measures must fall away.

The ultimate dividing line, the fundamental distinction, the fundamental measurement for all humanity, how we measure people in the world, is to be how they respond to the cross.

Now, this is not the way the people in Corinth thought about the world. Of course, they thought in the ancient divisions, but they also thought about who had status and wealth and honor. We talked about that last week.

I follow Paul. I follow Paulus. I follow Cephas. Why? Because they were caught up in this world, chasing status and honor, being with the who's who, and hanging out with those people, the influential, and the wise, and all these things.

But that is not to be the measure, the apostle Paul is saying. They were chasing after wisdom. We see this immediately, you know, and this is one of these moments where the verse divisions and subsections were not in the original text, and we can miss what the apostle is trying to say.

Or maybe we can miss how punchy it is. Look in verse 17. You might have flipped the page like my Bible. You look, he says, and you remember this provocatively, last week, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but those who are being saved, it is the power of God. So he says, I come not with the wisdom of words, but with the word of the cross.

Not with the wisdom of words, not trying to be up and hang out with eloquent like the people of this world, but I come with the wisdom, with the word of the cross.

And whereas the people of Corinth were drawn to the wealthy, the influential, the wise, those who could turn afraid, the apostle Paul says, I came to preach the word of the cross.

Not merely because it's wiser, but because it's the power of God and because it puts the world in proper perspective. Now he continues and explains this further and quotes Isaiah 29.

You see that, for it is written. So he's citing Old Testament scripture, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart.

What he's saying is what God has done in the cross is the same thing he has done all throughout time. It's a theme that runs through the text of scripture.

God's thoughts are not our thoughts. God's ways are not our ways. God's plans are not our plans. God's purposes have always confounded the wise of this world. It's the story of Moses and Daniel and Esther, Job and Elijah and so many others.

So then the apostle Paul begins with these four rhetorical questions immediately after that. Where is the one who's wise? Where's the scribe, the debater? Has not God made them foolish? Now these questions are not invitations for the smart guys to come on out and present their case.

They are questioned because the smart guys are nowhere to be found. Their victory cries, all the smart guys have slunk away in defeat, but how does the cross defy all the wise, the wisdom of the world?

Paul references first the wise. Now it's clear that the people in Corinth were enamored with wisdom, with knowledge. You see this word knowledge just runs through 1 Corinthians.

They're enamored with the people that are in the know, the people that are woke in that sense, the people that know what they're supposed to know about what's going on with the world. So it could be a stoicism or sophists or some other wise men, but these people in their wisdom were telling, they were pontificating about the way the world works and the people of Corinth were enamored with them, but their wisdom did not lead them to the cross.

Now the wise continue to speak up in every generation. Of the making of books, there is no end. But where does the cross factor?

Where does the cross factor into communism or any form of socialism? Does it have a place in critical theory or intersectionality, which is what the wise are explaining the way the world works right now?

Does it have a place in capitalism? What about the modern you-do-you-don't-stand-in-my-way individualism? Perhaps we'd be better off if we followed Ferris Bueller, who said, isms are not, in my opinion, good.

A person should not believe in an ism. That was supposed to be a joke, but I thought it was okay. The delivery wasn't great.

No, I'm just kidding. But we could go on. You know, we could talk about therapeutic literature that fills the shelves. What about cognitive behavioral theory brought to your shelf by books like Atomic Habits?

Is that wise? According to 1 Corinthians 1. What about the vast amount of literature on victimhood or trauma right now?

One friend taught me a good test to see whether a system is biblical is to ask, what does it say is wrong with us? What does it tell us to do with guilt?

Is there a place for guilt? There's not a place for guilt. There's not a place for the cross. So it's not an answer. So they may talk.

They may have their degrees. They may have letters before and after their name. But if their wisdom has no place for the cross, then biblically it is not wisdom. Paul turns next to the scribe.

So where is the scribe? You know, this is the religious scholar. So whereas the wise is the secular scholar, the worldly elite, this is the religious elite.

It's the group of people that gave themselves to studying, memorizing, and copying the law of the Lord. But they fared no better. Christ is the end of the law. And yet, they did not receive him.

Now it's so important to remember that Christ was not crucified by the worst of men. He was not crucified by the murderers, the adulterers, and the string of criminals that filled that empire in the first century.

Christ was crucified by the best of men. The religious leaders, the scribes, the straight-laced, rule-followers, Bible-thumperers typically have no room for the cross.

There's a more subtle way in which the cross is removed from Christianity in our world in what some people have called a therapeutic gospel. Therapeutic gospel in many ways just kind of reduces down what's wrong with us into therapeutic language, which, you know, I need to be filled.

I need to be affirmed. I need to find purpose. I need to find meaning. It's so subtle.

It feels so right. There's lots of songs that are played on the radio that are pumping out little more than a therapeutic gospel. But it's exchanged what's wrong with us for felt needs.

It's so critical. Christ did not come to die so that you would feel affirmed. He does wonderfully affirm you. He died to save you from the wrath of God.

He died to save me from the wrath of God. After all, he didn't affirm Jim Elliot in the way Jim Elliot thought he would be affirmed. So it's so critical that we kind of keep that lens on because where is the scribe?

The scribe among religious people, the cross and the gospels ultimately lost. Paul turns next to the debater of this age. The wise man represents the Greek.

The scribe represents the Jew. But who is the debater? I think he's saying just any of the cultural elite. Any of the ones who are the who's who. The ones who know it all. The philosophers. The lawyers.

The wealthy. They failed to reckon with the cross. And there's no room for the cross in their thinking. And so God has made it so that they would never find the cross.

Now the final question is written in such a way that you would know that the answer is yes. Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Yes.

If we didn't know it in the question it says it in the next verse. It says in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom. It was all part of a plan. It means what's all this mean?

It means we're all on the same ground. Counselor David Pallison taught me years ago that we're all different from one another. There's a horizontal range of differences in the world.

Rich and poor. Tall and short. Strong and weak. Beautiful and plain. Able. Disabled. Master's servants. Old. Young. Differences are a reality. Sameness is loved in a different way in our culture but differences are a reality.

They're part of God's good design. They're part of the hand we've been dealt in this life. But horizontal differences become a problem when we turn them into ladders and false value systems.

We chase after wisdom. That's what the apostle Paul is saying. It's not merely that he's condemning the wisdom of this age that seeks to answer all the questions but this pursuit of wisdom in which we think we know what the way the world works and we feel better than other people.

We look down on other people. We think we're more valuable to other people and the apostle Paul is saying if it doesn't have the cross factored in it's a ladder to nowhere. And if you don't like the ladder of wisdom there's so many ladders to climb all throughout this culture.

Riches, beauty, obedience, philosophy, power, success but the apostle Paul is saying all those ladders are ladders to nowhere. they're all dead ends.

They lead nowhere without the cross and so it leaves us all on solid ground or on the same ground as they say the ground is level at the foot of the cross.

T.K. Chesterton said Carlisle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity with its sure and more relevant realism says that they are all fools.

this doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin it may also be called the doctrine of the equality of man. That's what the apostle Paul is saying he's clearing the ground he's pushing over all the ladders.

What do you think makes you know more than anyone else or better than anyone else that ladder is now out from under your feet. And so it's a cross centered world view.

The only thing that matters is how we respond to the cross. Next the apostle Paul calls us to a cross centered gospel. A cross centered gospel the cross is not just meant to alter forever the way we look at the world it's meant to alter what we offer to the world.

The message of the cross divides humanity into two groups of people those who are perishing and those who are being saved. and now in the next couple verses Paul divides that group into two groups the Jews and Gentiles.

You see that in verse 22. Why were the Jews perishing? Why did they reject the cross? Why did they consider the cross to be foolish?

Paul says Jews demand signs. Now all who waited on the Messiah expected the Messiah to come with signs and wonders just like Elijah that he would have signs to bring about and to alert everyone of the coming of the new covenant and the coming of a prophet.

And so Jesus performed many signs turning water into wine feeding the 5,000 calming the ways and many more but there were some people for whom Jesus refused to sign. Some of the Pharisees scribes came up to him and said teacher we wish a sign from you and he answered an evil adulterous generation seeks for a sign.

Now we may say hold on Jesus you've been performing miracles wherever you've gone. Why did you suddenly turn stiff?

He's alerting us and the original there's a big difference between humbly and prayerfully asking God to move and asking God to agree to your terms.

There's a bit one ask God to be God the other ask God to report to you. That's what he was saying. He said somewhere you're like kids sitting in the marketplace saying dance for us dance for us perform for us and so agree to our terms and so Jesus says no an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign but sometimes we can have the same attitude.

I will devote myself to God if he gives me a husband. I will read my Bible and pray if he reconciles my family. I will obey his commands if he answers my prayer for a certain job or relationship or future.

I will follow him as my Lord if he performs a certain miracle to eliminate all doubt but that's just demanding a sign and asking God to report to you.

So that's what he's saying. That's what the Jewish people did. They demanded this sign in that respect and so they missed the Messiah. But why are Gentiles perishing?

For Jews demand signs. Greeks seek wisdom. Why did they reject the cross? Well they sought wisdom. The idea is they're not asking God to meet with them on their terms but what they do is no less problematic.

They're wise in their own eyes. They build their system apart from God and live as if they do not need God and have no room for God and so they too lose the cross but in the face of these in the face of Jews who demand signs.

Greek who seeks wisdom Paul says we preach Christ crucified. Now the shock is meant to be immediate. Christ crucified is a contradiction in terms like deafening silence working vacation original copy.

Christ is the title for the Messiah. This is the one who is coming the son of David who would reign who would gather God's people under God's rule once for all time and so if he is the Christ then he must not be crucified.

crucified. And yet Paul says Jesus is the Christ who was crucified. Now there's so many things going on here that it's hard to pick out what to say but notice he says we preach him.

Last week he used that word preach he used another word for preach. Preaching the good news. This word is keruso this is a word for what a herald would do so what he would announce it's very very pointed what he's saying the wise in Corinth gather a following through their eloquence but a herald gathers a following by proclaiming the message he has received whereas the wise gather a following by how they present the message Paul says the only job I have is to faithfully share what I received and so he's saying to them very clearly the cross is crucified it's the content of the message and it's the message that saves and so unsurprisingly he says it's a stumbling block to Jews this was prophesied in 1 Corinthians or I mean in Psalm 118 and other places the law says cursed is everyone who has hanged on a tree the cross is for the lawless and the lawbreaker but there's a deeper reason in which

Jews stumbled over the cross the cross says all your good works will get you no further than the worst sinner that's ultimately what the cross said all your good works gets you is the cross Donald Gray Barnhouse said the best that man can do can take him to hell but it can never take him to heaven heaven is too holy a place to be entered on any such basis of man's work and so what the cross says is all obedience to God apart from recognition of the cross is completely empty to gain acceptance before God Romans 10 ends so sadly because it underlines how so many turn away from the cross of salvation to a devotion of works and a destiny of eternal judgment it could not be more serious to understand the cross why it was so offensive so it's a stumbling block to

Jews it's folly to Gentiles and so the cross was not just kind of curses everyone is hanging on a tree that's what the old testament law said but it was folly to Gentiles as well it's folly to Romans could not be crucified on a cross it was reserved for barbarians for slaves criminals but a Roman citizen could not be one inscription from the second century captures this so well it's discovered on Palestine Hill in Rome it's the first surviving picture of a crucifixion and it's a mockery it depicts a man stretched out on the cross with the head of a donkey to the left stands another man with one arm outstretched in worship scribbled underneath those words is Alexander Minas worships God now it appears to be depicting some sort of donkey worship which was known among

Gentiles whatever the meaning the man is being ridiculed for worshiping a crucified man man okay and so it was folly it's utter foolishness think about how diametrically opposed it was to a system that says you know a corporate ladder type system of status and honor the cross is the opposite of everything honorable it's completely despicable it's completely shameful and so it's a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles but the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone look at the way Paul concludes this tight section filled with irony and cross meaning and things like that he says verse 24 but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks

Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God these words are filled with significance irony there's so much to say the cross is rejected as a weak pathetic dying man but it is the sign of the power of God it is the sign of Jonah it's the power of God reconciling man to himself to the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross and so this pathetic puny despicable act is the power of God the cross is ridiculed as foolishness but the apostle Paul says it is the wisdom of God the perfectly wise plan of God to save sinners and bring them to himself is made clear in the cross and it is done to display his joyful goodness in giving salvation to all who trust in him notice it says it pleased

God to save those who believe it is alerting us that while God did kind of make foolish the wisdom of the world while he did shut that door in so many ways bring judgment on those paths he's saying it pleased him to make clear the way of the cross in the same way it pleased God to predestine some before the foundation of the world in the same way he was pleased with his son at his baptism in the same way the fullness of God dwelt bodily in Jesus Christ in a way that was pleasing to God in the same way it pleases God to give away the kingdom to the fearful it pleased God to save those who believe the idea is God was he was he was closing down any path based on works any path based on what we do in and of our bodies what we look for in and of ourselves he opened up only one path the path of faith the path of trust the path that comes to those who believe and suddenly he says right there it's to all those who are called both Jews and Greeks while it did consign both

Jews and Greeks to the condemnation they deserve for trying to live without God it opens wide the invitation of Jews and Greeks indeed to all who would come by faith and so we could include with the apostle we should include in verse 25 the foolishness of God is wiser than men what God has thought up man could never think up and the weakness of God which is meant to be incredibly provocative God is not weak and yet God's son incarnate offered up in the place of guilty sinners he was utterly weak and yet it's the wisdom of God perfect plan of God wiser because all people come in if it's just the wisdom of the world then it just goes to people who can climb the ranks right get in the right social clubs do the right things whatever get the right credentials check the right boxes the cross turns that over on its head and says this message is for all people for all who are far off it's stronger though too because it does not bring us to a self-made

God it delivers us to the living God rescues us from dead idols to worship him so we need a cross-centered worldview we need a cross-centered message and we need a cross-centered life this section we've titled this subsection you can see it on the slide the cross-centered life because in many ways this is what the apostle Paul is meditating on so we're going to kind of unpack this as much as we can until the end of chapter four the idea is we need to live a cross-centered life the cross is the center of Christianity without the cross there is no Christianity now obviously that means there is no Christianity without the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ for sinners we live a cross-centered life by continually reminding ourselves that the only thing that qualifies us before

God is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the finished work of Christ alone the only reason we've been saved the only reason we're being saved the only reason we will be saved is the work of the cross and so the effect is we should be the most humble people in McMinn County because what the cross says to you is you can do it on your own that's what it says to us what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ and him crucified so we need to live near the cross you have to live near the cross John Newton famous writer of Amazing Grace said I advise you to take a lodging as near as you can to Gethsemane and walk daily to

Golgotha take lodging as near as you can to Gethsemane and walk daily to Golgotha I want to urge you to this you know one of the things that has meant the most to me since becoming a Christian 24 years ago is preaching the gospel to myself every day I was doing it this morning on the front porch saying I have been crucified with Christ I no longer live this is my trip every morning trying to get over to Golgotha to remind myself that all my best works would lead only to the cross yet God has rescued me poured out his favor on me and so we need to hold on to the message of the cross but there's also no Christianity without walking in the way of the cross

Martin Luther once said the cross is alone our theology the cross alone is our theology he used these terms in his Heidelberg disputation 1518 this idea of the theology of glory and the theology of the cross this theology of glory the theology of the cross is constantly conflicting in our age the theology of glory calls works good and faith alone evil the theology of glory calls riches good and suffering evil the theology of glory calls honor good but unpopularity evil theology of glory chases affirmation admiration and applause but the theology of the cross is the opposite the idea that Christianity does not just bring you to God it turns your world upside down I began by saying the cross is not just to be the measure of our message but how we measure our identity our purpose our parenting our pastoring our serving our professions our giving our joy everything how can I say that well that would take longer to answer but

I want to just say two or I just going to say one the cross is to be the measure of our parenting we could say the identity but let's say the parenting the goal of parenting must not then if the cross of Christ if we preach Christ crucified the goal of parenting cannot be obedience it cannot be etiquette that little red book that you're supposed to pay attention to so you don't grab the wrong fork at your girlfriend's house or something like that it cannot be that it cannot be well roundedness you know piano sports everything it cannot be that it cannot be success our children could grow up to be obedient well mannered and well rounded and yet if they do not understand the cross they stumble in the most critical place so the wise parent will most consistently and most passionately teach about the cross what does that mean it means we're constantly drawing our kids attention to the reality of their sin the reality of their need for a savior you know our kids don't mainly learn what we teach them they mainly learn what we're passionate about they mainly learn what we get loud about what we sing about what we yell about and it better be the cross or else they'll stumble in the most critical way but we could go into our identity all these things the idea is we're to live a cross centered life in every respect and so the goal of our lives is the goal of the cross it's this upside down world where we're not chasing honor as the world defines it not chasing carefree easy life as the world defines it or riches or any of these things as the world defines it instead we're letting the cross define everything and live life accordingly and so we must never move on from the cross of

Jesus Christ the content of our message and the meaning of our lives let us pray father in heaven we humble ourselves before you we offer ourselves to you we pray that you would I pray that you would make us the most humble people in this county as we be people aware that all that we done demanded the death of your son but I pray that it would also create us and make us to be radical people that live unlike this world salt and light for your glory you've been listening to a message on first Corinthians during a Sunday service at Trinity Grace Church for more information please visit us at trinity grace

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