GOD IS GREAT!
I Corinthians 1:18-25
S: Cross
Th: Live the Difference
Pr: GOD IS GREAT.
?: What? What makes God great?
KW: Descriptions
TS: We will find in our study of I Corinthians 18-25, five descriptions that explain the greatness of God to us.
The _____ description is that…
I. GOD IS NOT OUTWITTED (19)
II. GOD IS WITHOUT COMPARISON (20)
III. GOD IS UNKNOWN BY MAN’S ATTEMPTS (21)
IV. GOD WORKS HIS OWN PLAN (22-23)
V. GOD SAVES THE BELIEVER (24)
Version: ESV
RMBC 18 January 04 AM
INTRODUCTION:
Have you ever observed that some people aren’t so smart?
ILL Notebook: Stupid (more evidence)
Listen to these examples…
When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.
Well, individuals can demonstrate their lack of smarts, but it is not limited to individuals.
It can happen to businesses as well.
For example…
A company was trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record by showing its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to the Industrial Machinery News, the film’s depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, one man required seven stitches after he cut his chin falling off a chair while watching the film.
But there is more.
For only government leaders could come up with the next example…
The Chico City Council, in California, enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within the city limits.
Well, some people are just not as smart as they think they are.
But actually, in today’s text, this is not just a problem for others.
It is a problem that we all have.
TRANSITION:
A few weeks ago, we began our study of I Corinthians.
And…
1. As we study the first letter to the Corinthians, we are being challenged to “Live the Difference.”
We are being challenged to live differently than the rest of the world.
To be more specific, we are being challenged to live lives that are characterized by holiness.
God calls on us to live righteously.
And He calls on us to live righteously in the context of the church.
2. Last week, we noted that the oneness of the church was essential.
We, as Christians, are different because of our oneness.
And this was a specific problem that Paul was speaking to.
There were factions in the church, each one setting themselves up as superior to the others.
But Paul points to the solution.
It is unity.
And it is at the cross that we find this unity.
He said in the closing verse of our text last week…
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
For Paul, what was needed for unity to happen was nothing fancy.
It was simple.
It was an essential understanding of the cross.
And this is exactly what had fallen apart.
Theologically, that is, their beliefs and studies about God, had become inaccurate.
So…
3. In today’s passage, we discover that cross is the powerful dividing line of belief (18).
Paul writes…
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.
Paul discovered that the Corinthians, sensing the shame and humiliation that accompanies the cross, had decided to move beyond it.
In their typical Greek way of thinking, which was very intellectual and dependent on human wisdom, they reasoned that it was now time to leave the cross behind and move on to higher things.
But Paul will have none of this.
For to abandon the cross is to abandon Christ.
The cross is absolutely fundamental to one’s understanding of God and His work of salvation.
And what the Corinthians show is that the church is persistently in danger of diluting the truth about the cross in order to make the message sound more palatable to the general public.
So we must understand this…
The cross is the dividing line in history.
The word of the cross, that is, the message of God’s plan and provision for man’s deliverance, speaks to the historic turning point of the ages.
For the cross defines that there are only two kinds of people in the word.
There are those that are being saved.
And there are those that are perishing.
There is no neutral ground.
Now to those that are perishing, the cross seems foolish.
The Greek word is “moria” (which should have some meaning to the Lord of the Rings fan [let’s talk about it afterwards], from which we get our English word, moron.
To these intellectual Greeks, the cross was illogical and irrational.
It was absolute nonsense.
But to those that are being saved, the word of the cross is God’s profound, but simple truth.
It is God at work with power.
It is God at work in such an unexpected way that there is only one way to react.
There is only one conclusion we can make.
It is…
4. GOD IS GREAT.
And it is my hope and prayer today, that as we study this text, that you will come to this very same conclusion.
God is great!
But what makes God great?
Well…
5. We will find in our study of I Corinthians 19-24, five descriptions that explain the greatness of God to us.
Let us now hear the rest of this text…
(19) For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." (20) 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? (21) 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. (22) For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, (23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, (24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first description is that GOD IS NOT OUTWITTED (19).
Paul quotes Isaiah 29:14 to demonstrate that…
When man plans against God, it is destined to fail.
The background of the Isaiah text comes from II Kings 18-19.
Judah was surrounded by the Assyrian armies under the ruthless dictator, Sennacherib.
Hezekiah, the king of Judah, was apparently depending on his mutual defense treaty with Egypt to get him out of this mess.
But it is then God sends His Word through the prophet of Isaiah.
It is “no.”
The people of Judah did not need human help.
They only needed God’s.
He asks them to set aside the cleverness of the wise, and watch God at work.
Judah would be saved solely by God’s power.
And that night, God destroyed 185,000 men of the Assyrian army with one angel.
It is a lesson to us that men are always trying to fight battles according to their own power and ingenuity.
This is a point that Paul doesn’t want us to miss.
God is great and God will not be outwitted.
We can’t match wits with Him.
And the cross is proof.
For with the cross, God has pulled the great reversal, played out right in front of human eyes, so that no one can claim that their ability or their resourcefulness caused it to happen.
II. The second description is that GOD IS WITHOUT COMPARISON (20).
Now, Paul pulls this illustration of the past into his time in history.
He basically asks, “Where are all the smart people?”
And he shows us that…
Throughout history, human wisdom has failed to solve the problems of the world.
He asks about the wise men of his day.
They were the Greek thinkers and philosophers.
He asks about the scribes.
They were the teachers of the law and the rabbis.
He asks about the debaters of that day.
They were those that enjoyed the pondering and discussion of the great questions.
It is Paul’s basic challenge that these have already failed.
So why we would we go back to them?
If they have proved anything, it is that they don’t have the answers.
We don’t move beyond the cross and get them.
It’s a step backwards, not forward.
You see, knowledge isn’t everything…
ILL Notebook: Knowledge (the questions)
Bored during a long flight, an eminent scholar leaned over and woke up the sleeping man next to him to ask if he would like to play a game. "I’ll ask you a question," the scholar explained, "and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you $50."
When the man agreed to play, the scholar asked, “What’s the distance from the earth to the moon?” Flummoxed, the man handed him $5. “Ha!” said the scholar. “It’s 238,857 miles. Now it’s your turn.”
The man was silent for a few moments. Then he asked, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?"
Puzzled, the scholar racked his brains for an hour - but to no avail. Finally he took out his wallet and handed over $50. "Okay, what is the answer?" the scholar asked.
The man said, "I don’t know," pulled out a $5 bill, handed it to the scholar and went back to sleep.
(Kris Ueberrhein)
In the same way, Paul says, that these purveyors of knowledge not only appear foolish, God has made them foolish.
And the question is still appropriate today.
For, have the philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, economists, scientists, statesmen, scholars, and commentators improved things for us?
No, of course not.
For the wisdom of the world is ultimately degenerative, destructive and disappointing.
It cannot do what it promises.
But God can.
For God is so great that He is without comparison.
III. The third description is that GOD IS UNKNOWN BY MAN’S ATTEMPTS (21-22).
Paul points us this direction, that…
1. Human wisdom is confused and corrupt.
There seems to be a belief in the human race that we can be neutral in our thinking.
We seem to think that we can succeed in absolute rationality.
We believe that we can truly be objective.
And because of this, there are those that believe we can figure God out.
But it is not true.
For instead of understanding God, our lack of wisdom causes us to create gods according to our own likeness.
We have God looking like us.
We have God thinking like us.
And, in so doing, we prove that we are hardly neutral.
Instead, we have a confused concept of God because of our corrupted nature.
But for those will take the risk and trust God for who He is, these are the ones that find success.
Those that are willing to accept God and believe, it is these that receive God’s grace through the work of Jesus on the cross.
You see, it is to believed more than it is to be understood.
It is to be received more than it is to be proved.
For…
2. Our attempt to figure out and prove God is ineffective.
We cannot find God in a test tube.
We cannot develop some formula and be led to God.
We cannot come up with some experiment, and discover something new about God’s existence.
We cannot find God through pure human reason.
Don’t misunderstand…knowledge is good.
God invites us to reason and think.
But we must accept its limits because of our nature.
From time to time, I hear these bizarre statements…
“That’s not the kind of God I believe in…”
And…
“My God wouldn’t act that way…”
Somehow, people have the impression that if they believe God ought to work in a certain way, then this must be the way God acts.
But this is truly making God in our own image.
And that God doesn’t exist.
For God to have to work in the way we want, or in the way we think makes sense, demonstrates our own pride and foolishness.
God is unknown by man’s attempts.
For man cannot get past His own thoughts and ways.
He cannot get past His own supposed cleverness and ingenuity, and see, truly, how great God is.
IV. The fourth description is that GOD WORKS HIS OWN PLAN (23).
ILL Notebook: Cross (girl and cross)
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 at church that whatever Jesus touches, He changes.”
Paul shows us here that…
The simplicity of the cross stands in the way of belief.
Instead of using what makes sense to us, power and wisdom, God does His own thing.
He does what He desires.
He works His own plan, and pulls off the triumph of the ages by using weakness and foolishness.
He does it with an oxymoron.
You know what an oxymoron is, don’t you?
They are words that seem contradictory when they are used together.
Like…
ILL Notebook: Oxymoron (various)
A little big
Civil War
Honest crook
Rap music
Microsoft works
The one to note in the text is…
“Christ crucified.”
You see...
When the people of that day heard the word Messiah, to them it meant power, triumph, and splendor.
When they heard crucifixion, it meant weakness, humiliation, and defeat.
These were words that did not go together, for the Jew or the Greek.
Paul notes that for the Jews, the cross is a stumblingblock.
It is scandalous.
For the Jews demanded of Jesus that He authenticate Himself.
He was to validate His Messianic credentials with powerful displays, for they were looking for a repeat of the exodus.
Jesus was to raise an army, lead them into battle, and defeat the Romans.
And He did none of that.
Instead, He got Himself killed in the worst and most humiliating way.
And according to the Old Testament, his death on the cross was accursed and could never be celebrated.
For the Greek, the cross made no sense.
They were zealous for learning.
They loved to speculate about the mysterious.
They fancied themselves as the elite of all people.
So, as a result, the cross seemed so unreasonable.
The whole story of Jesus seemed unreasonable.
For reason tells you that babies aren’t born to virgins.
Reason tells you that God doesn’t come in the flesh.
Reason tells you that the Almighty God will not allow puny men to nail Him to a cross.
Reason tells you that when a man dies, he does not resurrect from the dead.
None of this makes sense.
Melvin Newland, “The Message of the Cross”
Nevertheless, thought it is scoffed at, the cross is simple.
The message of the cross calls on us to do nothing.
In fact, it tells us we can do nothing, for there is no place for man’s attainment, understanding or pride.
There is nothing we can bring to God that is of any worth.
Instead, we simply trust.
We recognize that God has come to earth in the form of Jesus.
That Jesus has taken our sin on Himself and died on the cross because sin demands death.
He pays our debt of death so that we can live eternally with Him.
It is that simple.
All that we do here today, during this time of worship, is a response to that.
For God is truly great.
V. The fifth description is that GOD SAVES THE BELIEVER (24).
Belief comes from a willing heart.
Man has always been good at giving God suggestions about how to do things.
But salvation comes, when we truly recognize that we don’t have the answers.
It comes when we realize that we don’t know the way.
It comes when we know that we can’t do it on my own.
Only when we realize our own foolishness do we become wise.
APPLICATION:
So Paul beautifully ends this portion of the text by saying…
(25) For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Note John MacArthur’s comment on this verse…
“Ironically, and tragically, the very part of God’s plan and work that seems most ridiculous and useless from man’s natural standpoint actually exhibits His greatest power and greatest wisdom.”
So…
Never forget how great God is!
You see…
God outsmarted his human creatures and nullified their wisdom.
God overpowered his human creatures with grace and forgiveness and nullified their power.
And He did it, not to be a show off…not to be silly…not to be ostentatious…
He did it because we needed Him.
He did it because of His great love for us.
How can we react in any other way today, but to say, “He is great!”
God’s wisdom is dazzling.
His power is awesome.
What a mighty and magnificent God!
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Now to him who is able to establish you by the gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
RESOURCES:
Blomberg, Craig, The NIV Application Commentary
Fee, Gordon, The New International Commentary on the New Testament
MacArthur, John, I Corinthians
Sermoncentral.com
Detours, John Beehler
The Message of the Cross, Melvin Newland
A Fool for Christ and an Idiot for Everybody, Michael Bird
The Foolishness of God, Louis Bartet
The Power of the Cross, A. Todd Coget
The Wisdom and Power of God, Kenneth Sauer
Who Would Have Thought?, Dan Erickson
A Crisis of Arrogance, Doug Goins
God’s Nonsense, Ray Stedman
