God's Means for God's Glory

Osgood remained standing in honor of God's word as we read it together tonight if you would turn with me please to first Corinthians chapter 1 begin in verse 18 and read all the way down to chapter 2 verse five. As we consider tonight. God's appointed means of saving centers and God's motive for using those means. First Corinthians 1 the beginning of verse 18 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 eye will thwarts 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 in the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling brothers not many of you were wise according to worldly standards that 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 because of him. You are in Christ who became to us wisdom from God. Righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, but the one who boasts boast in the Lord and I when I came to you, brothers do not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom brought decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God, pray Lord we are backwards and upside down what you say is wise we call foolish you say is powerful. We call week. Thank you Lord in your wisdom you saw fit to rescue us from our own ignorance and pride you have made Christ to be to us righteousness and sanctification and wisdom was here we can read about these truths in Scripture. But apart from you a link to illuminating our minds we can't understand them, as we ought, so would you open your word to us tonight. We might know and believe and be changed by your wisdom pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Be seated. In some ways this passage of Scripture were looking at tonight is like a conversation. One might have with a two or three-year-old when they reach that stage of asking why. After every sentence. When my children would go through that phase. I would occasionally attempt to answer as many of their wives as I could, just to see how far it would go and how long I can last and I began to notice something very interesting. I noticed that no matter what the topic of of conversation began with that the answers would inevitably lead to God somehow these questions of purpose or cause couldn't help but leave the conversation to the ultimate purpose. The ultimate cause if you keep asking why. Eventually you get to God. So for example I would say it's time for lunch much. I was a Y because that's what you do every day in the middle of the day.

Why because we get hungry and need food.

Why, because our bodies are finite. Why because that's how God made us why so that we would need him and look to him sustenance and end this phenomenon held true regardless of how mundane or off-the-wall.

The, the starting point was please hand me the green crayon. Why because green is my favorite color. Why because it reminds me of grass and plants in summer leaves.

It reminds me of nature.

Why, because God put a lot of the color green in nature.

Why, because that's just what he wanted to do it pleased him in all leads back to God. It's almost as if there's a first cause, and unmoved mover built into their the very fabric of existence into which all things point and as Christians we say will die. Of course there is all things exist by God and for God. All things point to him from the most unassuming crayon to the most magnificent constellation God is behind and informed Robin above and below it at the center of everything Paul has just made the point to the Corinthians are enamored with all the wrong things there enamored with status and credibility and polished eloquence and name recognition, but in all of this there missing the main point there emptying the cross of its power by looking to things other than the cross for purpose and validation and hope. Paul then in our text tonight. Turns to the question of what makes the cross so powerful, why is it that the very thing you're overlooking Corinth is the only thing that can save what follows, then, is a series of assertions by Paul, followed by answers to the question why we don't actually read the why question in the text but it's it's implied every time Paul says the word for or sense or because or so that he's he's answering a Y question and notice how many of these verses that we just read begin with one of these were doubles every one of them is our text tonight is a whole series of why because why because exchanges Susan walked to the passage tonight week we get to be the three-year-old who is asking the why and Paul is our spiritual dad who is answering all her questions and what will come to see is in our quest for the ultimate cause of what makes the cross effective is spoiler alert God. The cross is effective because God has intentionally designed salvation to work in such a way as to make it impossible for man to take the credit deposit to make three central points in each point begins with an assertion followed by several of these. Why because exchanges Paul's first point then is this the cross is made efficacious use that word a few times tonight. It is means powerful or effective able to save the cross is efficacious by God's sovereign decree, Paul makes this point in verses 18, 19, so he begins with an assertion he asserts that the cross is foolishness to some and powerful to others. Verse 18 the word of the cross message of the gospel is folly to those who are perishing to us who are being saved it is the power of God. We will sing this play out in real life, someone here's the good news of Jesus Christ and they laugh it off as a is a myth, a fairytale at a pointless waste of time. Someone else hears the same story, and they bow the knee in faith and repentance to Christ. So our imaginary Johnny in Corinth then asks father Paul, why, why is the cross foolishness to one person and powerful to another. Paul's answer is because God made it that way. Verse 19 for it is written by this is God speaking will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. So how is it the same two people can hear the same gospel message and one of them rejects.

It is foolish.

The other stakes they are very eternity on it. Well it's because God for some reason has blinded certain people from seeing and discerning the true power of the cross are a natural question then would be why would God do that Paul doesn't answer that question explicitly in our text, but he does point us to the answer by quoting Isaiah verse 19 here is a quote from Isaiah 29. We would slip back into Isaiah 29 and read the context of Paul's quote we discover God's reason for blinding some people to the wisdom and power of the cross and what we discover is that God blinds people to the truth of the gospel because their hearts are wicked but they're wicked in a particular way. God says of these people you turn things upside down. So in what way do they turn things upside down.

They do by acting as if man is sovereign and God is not God says to them in Isaiah, shall the Potter be regarded as the clay that the thing made should save its maker. You do not make me or the thing formed say of him who formed it. He has no understanding and it's this wicked attitude of self worship that motivates God to remove whatever wisdom they may have had and confounds them with an inability to perceive the value in the power of the cross. They want to be God they want to save themselves and so the way of salvation that the only true God has provided them is made to appear foolish and dumb folks. God will not share his sovereignty and anyone who would try to take it from him cuts himself off from the only hope they have of salvation. The fact that the gospel save some and not others has nothing to do with intelligence or attractiveness or niceness or athleticism or wealth or fame of the center. It has everything to do with the sovereign decree of a sovereign God to the perishing.

He makes the cross foolish to those being saved.

He makes the cross powerful, why because the cross is made efficacious by, and only by God's sovereign decree.

Paul continues with the second point, then, and it's this. The cross is efficacious by God's gracious means by God's gracious means not only is God sovereign over who receives the saving grace.

He is off also sovereign over the means by which they receive it. See this in verses 20 through 23, and once again Paul begins with an assertion it's it's an assertion in the form of a question.

Verse 20 where is the one who is wise where's the scribe where is the debater of this age has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world. In other words, we know that God has done what he said he would do back in Isaiah because the movers and shakers of the world are noticeably underrepresented in the church once again Christian Corinthian Johnny asks why why are the movers and shakers of the world. Noticeably underrepresented within the church. Paul's answer is that it's because God made salvation accessible through means that the movers and shakers disregard verse 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 the means by which sinners hear the gospel and are saved is the preaching of the gospel and yet to these self-made world links who have succeeded in every imaginable way in the material world. The idea of devoting yourself to someone whose life ended in an ignoble execution and to cause you to give up every vestige of prestige and honor to follow him is is simply it contradicts every principle that they've adhered to in order to become the rock stars that they are Corinthian.

Johnny continues but why, why did the movie movers and shakers disregard God's means of salvation. Paul gives the answer.

Verse 22.

They disregard God's means of salvation because they love signs and wisdom instead. Signs and wisdom. I love either the supernatural, which assigns or the rational which is wisdom. They love the incredible or the credible that they love the inexplicable or the fully explainable but not Christ crucified. Not that a man dying on a cross is not sensational and God dying on the cross is irrational, so both Jews and Greeks stumble over this notion of Christ crucified thing about these two stumbling blocks last week.

In other very different from each other. Sensationalism on the one hand, rationalism on the other when it yet when it comes to objecting to God's appointed means of salvation. These two are the very very best of friends. I began analyzing my own tendencies. MI more prone to sensationalism or to rationalism. Am I missing God's ordinary means of working in my life because I'm too busy looking for miracles or perhaps because I'm too busy missing the miracles.

Perhaps we find ourselves more prone to the Greek error of rationalism. Maybe we find ourselves given more to the Jewish error of sensationalism. Either way, it is an obscuring of God's exclusive and gracious means of salvation which is simply this, the preaching of Christ crucified, so the cross contradicts our lust for sovereign control since its efficacy depends on the sovereign decree of God. The cross contradicts our prized sources of truth, the lies describe the debater of this age, the miraculous, because its efficacy comes from God's appointed means of grace. The preaching of Christ crucified, with the notice. Thirdly, the cross is efficacious for God's supreme glory. We see this in verses 24 through 31. Paul says in verse 24. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Paul's assertion here is that the cross is the deployment as a display of supernatural power to the miracle loving Jew and a demonstration of deep abiding wisdom to the knowledge loving Greek it's supernatural and rational, but only Paul says to those whom God has called Corinthian Johnny again why why is God's means of salvation only effective for those whom God has chosen Paul's answer is because God wants to expose the foolishness and weakness of sinful man by choosing to save the unlikely look at verse 26 for consider your calling brothers that 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 just look around this room tonight. Not many of us are amazingly famous or well-known or wealthy or powerful were pretty much just a bunch of ordinary folks yet with a very sort of folk that God delights to save just plain ordinary people is doesn't mean God never saves people who are humanly speaking great he does. He absolutely does in fact that's Paul's point over in first Timothy to where he tells us to pray for kings and all those who are in high positions because God desires all types of people from all social strata to be saved, if you were to chart the different types of people to God saves you find a whole lot more people in the ordinary column. Then in the powerful and rich and famous column. Our pride is so sneaky that it's possible for us to hear this truth that God likes to save the unlikely and perverted and turning into grounds for pride of a different sort.

That's what we do.

There are some who turned this truth into a reason to despise people of greatness to look down their noses at folks who are rich or talented or well-known. One preacher said let's bear in mind that it was said to the Corinthians who were puffed up with pride, even though they had no great distinction and no reason to be puffed up guy wasn't telling them these things to puff them up. He was telling these things not so that the illiterate man would gloat over the literate man.

He was reminding them that outside of Christ, both the illiterate and the literate, the weak and the great are on equal footing before God. Therefore, both ought to walk humbly before God. Folks the church is not overwhelmed with an abundance of noble and powerful and scholarly people.

On the contrary, we are quite ordinary by the world standards. This brings us to the last why the ultimate reason behind all the other reasons why does God want to save the unlikely.

Here it is. Verse 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. God chooses who he will save God chooses how he will save and he does it all so that he alone gets the glory.

The question often gets asked. Here is does this make God an egomaniac is you really so obsessed with his own greatness at work consumed with self doubt that he needs affirmation from us. Absolutely not. The fact that we have a difficult time not seeing it that way says more about us and our insecurities and imperfections and it is about God's.

The fact is God is perfect within himself and needs nothing from any of acts 17 says God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by hands made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything for in him we live and move and have our being that we we can't comprehend that degree of perfection and self-sufficiency.

We can't, we can only accept it is true because God says it's true and if it's true then it means God's motive and demanding all the glory and salvation has nothing to do with an inferiority complex on his part or self-pity or unwarranted self-centeredness.

It has everything to do with its effect on those outside of himself, its effect on us folks. God doesn't need our praise in order to be great or feel great about himself. We need to praise him in order to feel the greatest joy and know the deepest love and experience the fullest life is demand that he get glory and salvation is not because he lacks any glory is because we lack in awareness of his greatness, and therefore we lack the unspeakable joy that only comes when creatures are fully given to the worship of their perfect and all glorious creator when I was in second grade. My sisters and I along with a couple of other families rode to school in a carpool, and one particular morning, our parents had to be somewhere early lately had left the home really leaving my older sister in charge until the carpal parent arrived well. She never came. And so my sister decided that she would take control of the situation and marched all of her siblings back into the house to do school and then she appointed herself as the teacher.

Well, I was not too keen on that idea. So I let my displeasure be known I was, I guess. How does a second-grader eight and so she was probably like 11 and note not old enough to be in charge yet so I made it my goal to make Heather's teaching experience. As miserable as possible. I cut up I had an attitude I disrupted her attempts to redeem the day.

I did think that I wouldn't think of doing. Had I been in my real class with my real teacher. No, I'm not trying to justify my behavior at all, it was wrong but the reason I would obey and respect my real teacher when I wouldn't obey and respect my sister other than the fact that I was just be a knucklehead was that my sister was my sister, my perception of the situation is a wise second-grader was that she was on a power trip and just like being in charge.

I realize looking back she really did love her younger siblings and that my parents really had left her in charge so shame on me, but my real teacher. From my perspective wasn't motivated by a need to be in charge.

She actually was in charge sheet she came by her authority honestly and so her motive in requiring obedience and respect was, not so that she could wallow in her power so that she could help her students learn. She didn't need us to be in her class.

In fact, she would often kick us out of her class.

We were being disrupted to make us go stand in the hallway.

We wanted to be in her class because she made it clear that her rules and her instruction in her standards of behavior had our best interests in mind and role for our good. Take that analogy and increase my second grade teachers motives and character to perfection. Multiply her love for her students by infinity, you begin to see that God's demand for praise and glory for obedience and devotion for repentance and contrite nests of heart are not coming from the heart of the prophetic God who feels dejected and overlooked. They come from a God who is perfectly content and sufficient within himself and yet graciously desires to share the exquisite delights that can only be found in his presence. God makes the cross efficacious in such a way as to bring supreme glory to himself and the beauty of of it all is that as we learn to live and yearn for God to have that glory, we become more and more gratified in him. This brings us finally to chapter 2 in which Paul spells out the implications of these principles that is just articulated in chapter 1, and he applies them specifically to the task of evangelism.

If the cross is made efficacious by God's sovereign degree and by God's gracious means and for God supreme glory, then how should we. For example, evangelize balls and answers this question first five verses of chapter 2 and his answer is that we should faithfully insist upon using God's means for God's glory, or put it in the negative, we should avoid using the world's means for our own glory. First, we should avoid using the world's means verse one says and I when I came to you, brothers did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

Fry decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified and are evangelism in our bearing witness to the gospel and are seeking to bring glory to God through faithfully living exemplary Christian lives before a watching world. We need to intentionally avoid the temptation to address the gospel in the world's clothes and we are addressing the gospel in the world close whenever we cater to the world's tastes and values in order to make the message of the cross, less offensive and more attractive.

We fail when the world's way of doing things becomes our standard of effectiveness. For example, the world loves saying we prize the world prizes fame and so when famous people are converted to Christ. We perhaps get a little overly excited for all the wrong reasons. As if there fame and notoriety adds credibility.

The gospel we ought to rejoice over their conversion but not over the prestige of their social status as if that status makes their their testimony of their witness more effective.

We need to remember that it's the message of the cross that converts not high profile conversions that convert it's good when Christian athletes who win the Super Bowl or break the world record of the Olympics.

Give glory to Jesus. But it's good because Jesus Christ deserves the glory not because there fame or their success or their public platform somehow adds credibility or effectiveness to the gospel. Paul tells us that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, it's foolishness to them when they read in the Bible.

It's foolishness to them when they hear it from the rich and famous. Jesus said in Luke 16 that it would be foolishness to them. Even if someone rose from the dead and bore witness to the gospel so the gospel witness of a famous person on TV is no more credible or effective than the gospel witness of an obscure Christian next door will never be interviewed by good morning America. Why because the effectiveness of it. The power of it comes from the message itself, not the person proclaiming the message or the platform from which it is proclaimed if it's effectiveness lies in the message itself in our goal in public witness ought to be clarity of that message.

First and foremost not attraction, not bigness, not impressiveness. Not credibility, not pizzazz but clarity were not called to pedal the gospel were called to proclaim the gospel were not called to embellish the cross recalled to take up the cross and follow Christ.

Whether or not the world is impressed so we should use God's means, not the world's means we should also do it for God's glory, not for our own glory. Now we know this, of course, we shouldn't evangelize for our own glory. But how how we detect and avoid that selfish motive in our proclaiming of the gospel will think we do. By admitting first that it's not the courageous nests of my witness that saves Paul says in verse three I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling.

Even the apostle Paul had moments of inadequacy and and even terror as he sought to fulfill his calling.

Yet he faithfully and simply proclaim the cross. It wasn't his poise or confidence that persuaded the Corinthians.

Likewise, it isn't my sense of self assurance or courage in following Christ.

It saves people. It's the message of the cross. For the more it's not the skill fullness of my witness that saves verse four my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom. In other words, God doesn't need our skill set.

He gives us with particular abilities and he uses those abilities, not because he needs them were dispensable. Our family spent three years when I was in elementary school in a in a rural town that had an annual parade every October, but the town was so small that they are really just want enough entries for the parade.

So the city manager scrambled to find as many entries as they could to fill out that the parade in one of those parade entries was the city trash truck.

They were so proud of that trash truck member. The first time we we watch the parade in disbelief.

Is there came the trash truck drivers waving big smiles on their faces. It wasn't even a new trash truck.

It was well used broken in folks we are the trash truck and got parade God welcomes us to be a part of it, but not because were something special. We are here to flaunt ourselves here to flock the cross and the Christ of the cross and the moment we begin to believe that it's our skills are our courage or our charisma that makes the gospel effective.

We've just rendered our witness ineffective. Why because we are called to rely solely on God's means for God's glory. Paul concludes with the admission that his preaching was in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

If if his preaching and rested exclusively on the power of eloquence than it could have been overthrown by a superior eloquence, whatever it takes to get someone saved is what it will take to keep them saved so in proclaiming the cross and receiving the proclamation of the cross we rely on God's message delivered by God's means and all for his glory.

We wrap this up.

Sometimes we we see a principal in Scripture we we can accept it, but we aren't sure how it specifically applies in real-life situations. How do these principles in this text play out in real life, just very briefly the it means that using God's means for God's glory doesn't imply that we have to preach and overly simplistic gospel there's a street preacher in Charlotte that Steve Macola has has told me about who's gospel presentation is nothing more than just repeating Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you over and over and over and over again. You certainly can accuse him of relying on plausible words of wisdom, Morris obscuring the gospel behind polished eloquence, but neither can you say that his repeating of this slogan is an adequate acclamation of the gospel. It isn't the great commission in Matthew 28 gives us the scope of the message that we are to proclaim you notice as it says go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them all that I have commanded you, that means in a nutshell, that the proclamation of the gospel to which we are called includes anything and everything the Bible addresses so avoiding the pitfalls of empty rhetoric doesn't mean that you must convey some sort of minimalistic gospel know the gospel.

We believe in the gospel we proclaim is as deep and as wide as Scripture itself, nor do these principles imply that all use of rhetorical excellence or style is of no concern. I made the point last week that eloquence is not bad. Misusing eloquence is bad. There is a right in the proper use of oral communication. What Paul's warning of his warning us off in these verses is that the aim of our speech ought to be to clarify the gospel not to dress it up as if it needs her help becoming all things to all people means speaking in terms they can understand not speaking in terms they want to hear is a radical difference. Finally, I think most importantly, these principles mean that we need to learn to delight in and rest in the very ordinary ways in which God works in. This may be the most difficult of all that the temptation which was so prevalent at Corinth in which we face today is to be so concerned with our reputation and the impression were making that sometimes we begin to measure our faithfulness in terms of other people's reception of us.

The church were not called to preach ourselves. I've never commissioned us to meet a quota. We are called to rest in the sovereign purposes of God by using the gracious means that God has given us and also that God's power and God's mercy and God's greatness is put on display God's means for God's glory so the kingdom is built with prayer. But we have no doubt that you are omnipotent, but were so often tempted to act like you need our assistance.

We confess that those attitudes are wrong betray a spirit of self-sufficiency in us Lord you are the Potter to help us to act like the clay that we are and as we do. May we find immeasurable joy and confidence and purpose in you in order that we, who boast my boasting you pray in Jesus name, amen