We are turning this evening in the word of God to 1st Corinthians to the portion that we read earlier. 1st Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 18 through to chapter 2 verse 5. When I was with you last year, we looked at the opening section of 1st Corinthians. I have been preaching through the book. You'll be pleased to know that I, in a year, have got beyond chapter two and verse five. But I wanted to dip back into it this evening with you and look at an area that we'd looked at earlier in Carnic Fergus. The big theme that we are taking in our own worship services from this book is the theme, be transformed. Be transformed. when I was with you a year ago we looked at chapter 1 verse 1 to verse 17 and we saw on that occasion how the Corinthians are called and equipped and united in Christ. They're called, they're equipped, they're united in Christ. How did that come about? And Paul's answer is It's not through the example of Christ. It's not even through the teaching of Christ. It is through the cross of Christ. It is through Christ crucified. Or as he puts it in chapter two, verse two, Jesus Christ crucified. And this evening, we want to look at this section from chapter one, verse 18, to chapter two, verse five. And our theme tonight is be transformed through the cross of Christ. It's the only way by which we are not only saved, but also sanctified. It's the only way by which we will be glorified in the future on the basis of the cross of Jesus Christ. And this is what Paul preached to the Corinthians, a society that was very decadent, not unlike our own day increasingly, and a church that was being contaminated by the world. And that too is happening in many ways and in many places in the church of Christ today. As Paul preaches the cross of Christ to them, and you think of us hearers five years before this letter was written, this whole emphasis, Christ crucified, Jesus Christ crucified, would have filled these people initially with distaste as they listened. For crucifixion was horrific. The victim was left to hang until they died from exhaustion and suffocation. exhaustion because of all that the body had been put through and the heat of the sun beating down upon them, the loss of moisture and then suffocation because increasingly the pressure of breathing became difficult and ultimately it became impossible when the legs of the victim were broken. The Romans reserved this most gruesome form of death for barbarians, terrorists, slaves and hardened criminals. Crucifixion was not something you talked about at the meal table. or in plight company, or in front of children. Yet the cross of Christ, Jesus Christ crucified, is the dynamic, it is the dynamite of the gospel. Without it, Paul, and we, have no good news to believe. or to share. We want to look at this theme then, be transformed through the cross of Christ under three headings. First of all, the cross of Christ defended. The cross of Christ defended. And that's what Paul is doing here in verses 18 to 25. Because as Paul preached the message of the cross, there were Jews and there were Gentiles who said, we do not want that message. We are looking for a different message. And as Paul preaches the cross of Christ across Asia and Europe in his missionary journeys, the typical response of Gentiles is, Verse 18, the word of the cross foolishness is. It's foolishness. Verse 24, and to Greeks, foolishness. They deemed it folly. They deemed it absurd. The word literally is the word from which we get moron. It's moronic. In other words, they were saying this is not even intellectually respectable or acceptable. We should hear them saying to Paul, this man is not right in the head. How can someone crucified either be from God? Or how can someone crucified reconcile us to God? That was the response of the Gentiles. And then the response of the Jews was equally dismissive and hostile. The standard response of the Jews to the cross was, it was a cause of offense, verse 24. It was a stumbling block, a scandal. The cross of Christ offends Jews. Why? Because they are looking for a powerful deliverer. They're looking for a mighty victor. They're looking for someone who will drive out the Romans. And their scriptures, the Old Testament, declare that anyone hung on a tree is cursed of God. So how could Jesus Christ who hung on the tree be Messiah. A crucified Messiah is utterly alien to the Jews of the first century. It contradicted everything they believed and expected. They wrongly believed and wrongly expected. Verse 22, Jews ask for a sign. and you read the gospel of John. And isn't that what they keep asking Jesus? What sign will you give us? What sign will you do for us? They await a savior who epitomizes power, not weakness. So the Greeks seek wisdom. A man who epitomizes wisdom, not foolishness. They're looking for a man who will captivate the world with his charisma and his words and his ideas. And the Jews are looking for someone powerful. They're looking for a sign. So how does Paul answer these objections? Well, Paul asserts that the cross of Christ is the very things they are looking for. The cross of Christ is God's power. The cross of Christ is God's wisdom. Verse 24, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, that's a reference back to the Jews, And the wisdom of God, that's a reference back to Gentiles who are called. The cross of Christ is the power of God. How? Because by it, God accomplishes salvation. By it, God deals with human sin. By it, God is going to reverse all the damage that has come into the universe through the fall of Adam. Verse 18, the message of the cross to us who are being saved is the power of God. It is the power of God because it can do what the law could not do. Make a man righteous. It is the power of God because it can do what the sacrifices could not accomplish. The forgiveness of sins. It is the power of God because it could do what a political messiah could not do. Free men and women from the bondage that is adherent to whom we are in Adam. The cross of Christ is the wisdom of God because bad God reveals to humanity, verse 21, sorry, reveals himself to humanity, verse 21, for since the world through wisdom did not know God, that please God through the finish of the message preached to save those who believe. What's Paul saying? He's saying the Greek orators can't do it. The Greek philosophers can't do it. The Greek scholars cannot do it. What they cannot achieve by the pursuit of wisdom No matter how hard they try, God has done by the cross of Christ. And what the great literature of our society, past and present, could not achieve, what science and technology cannot achieve, what philosophy has not achieved, God has achieved in the cross the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation to himself, his justice and that sin is punished for what it is and his mercy that the sinner is forgiven meet together in the cross, the cross of Christ defended. Today people laugh at the cross. They mock the simple mindedness of us who believe and teach the cross of Christ as God's way of salvation, as the only way salvation. They accuse us of living in the Dark Ages. You Bible-believing Christians, you evangelicals, you're out of touch with reality and we need to realize nothing has changed. That was what was being said to Paul and we need to realize Nothing has changed in God's sight or in God's way of salvation. The cross of Christ demonstrates God's power to a world that is powerless to overcome sin. And the gospel reveals God's wisdom to a world that does not have the answers to the great moral and social evils of humanity. Over 2,000 years has any discovery man has made or any ideology that man has devised unleashed the power of God and the wisdom of God in the lives of people throughout the earth Has the Enlightenment? Has humanism of the 20th century? Has science and technology of the 21st century? Has democracy or socialism or communism or evolution? No, they haven't. Yet in 2,000 years, God has unleashed his power and his wisdom across the six continents of the earth. How? By the cross of Christ. By the proclamation of Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God to those who are called, to those who believe, to those who are being saved. And how true is verse 25. The foolishness of God, as people would say, is wiser than men. And the weakness of God, as the world would say, is stronger than men. The cross of Christ defended. Let us not be ashamed of the cross. Let us not be ashamed in our families, amongst our neighbours, in the workplace, to say we are men and women and you young people in school, we are people of the cross. Why? Because only the cross brings the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation in our lives. And let's not be ashamed to tell them or afraid to tell them that they too need the cross. Education, psychology, counseling, nothing else that our world tries to substitute for the cross of Christ can bring them peace with God. or the forgiveness of God, or to experience the power of God, or the wisdom of God. So be transformed in your own life, day by day, by holding before your eyes the cross of Christ, by which you will know power wisdom to become like Jesus and to go ultimately when you die to be with Jesus. Let's notice then secondly this evening the cross of Christ experienced. We're looking now at verses 26 to 31. The cross of Christ experienced. Yes, Paul defended the cross. And why did he do that? Because he wanted men and women, he wanted these people in Corinth to experience the cross in their own lives. And that's why we must defend the cross today. If we don't defend the cross of Christ in our generation, it will not be preached in the next generation or to the next generation for them to experience it. And so Paul turns now to the Corinthians and he says, in this immoral city in which you live, you yourselves are already a living, powerful, albeit very imperfect illustration of the cross of Christ which he preached as the power of God and the wisdom of God. It set them free from their idolatry and from all the things that were associated with the temple worship of the false gods and the bondage that they had been in. It gave them peace with God. Look at what Paul says in verse 26. For behold, your calling, brethren. Well, what about their calling? What about the people that in Corinth who are living day by day under the cross of Christ? Well, brethren, There were not many wise according to the flesh. There were not many mighty called in your city and now found in your congregation. Not many noble. Paul mentions three groups that would have been looked up to in Corinthian society. We would call them today the movers and the shakers of society. The wise, they're the people with the sharp minds. And they're able to communicate, and they're able to think and shape public opinion. Today, they're the newspaper columnists, the tweeters, and the bloggers, and the top back host, and the Nolan Show. The authors and the producers, of radio and TV programs, so-called wise, the thinkers, the debaters. Then the mighty, they are those who are highly talented in business and politics and sport, who rise to positions of power and influence, the business magnet, the sports celebrity of today. And then the noble, well, they're the privileged by birth. We would say born with a silver spoon in their mouths. And Paul says, look at your little congregation. Not many church members came from those influential, powerful groups, popular groups, in society. Some do. Some do. Think of Crispus, the former chief ruler of the synagogue in Corinth. Gaius, the owner of a house big enough for the church to meet in. And then there's Erastus, the city treasurer. Yes, there were a few. Mighty and noble and wise. But most Corinthians nobodies in the eyes of society. They're considered, verse 27, the foolish, the weak, verse 28, the lowborn, the despised, those that are not. And Paul says it was to such. It was to you with no influence that Christ, verse 30, became wisdom from God, became righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He's saying, look at what you were not, and look at what you've become. It far surpasses anything you could have been in this society and class. The cross of Christ is wisdom in that through it God enlightens sinners to the knowledge of himself and the knowledge of how to live for him. The cross of Christ is righteousness in that God gives us a righteousness through the cross that enables us to accept us to himself and adopt us into his family. The cross of Christ is sanctification in that God works holiness in you who were born in sin and shaped by iniquity. The cross of Christ works redemption in that God has freed you already from slavery to One day, God will redeem you completely and entirely. The cross of Christ experienced. And these men and women, they've been taken from the gutter, as it were. And they've been raised to the highest heights in Jesus Christ, crucified. And look at the grounds in which these weak, foolish, despised Corinthians experienced the cross of Christ. Three times in verse 27, God has chosen. God has chosen. It's all of God. It's all of his sovereign will. It's all of His own independent purpose and mind. It's independent of who or what they were. There was nothing they could do. It was God's sovereign choice in eternity, revealed in time through the preaching of the cross and applied by the Spirit. And so the cross of Christ experienced. Have you experienced the cross of Christ? I imagine that probably every adult here this evening can say yes and amen to that. But young people, boys and girls, you've heard of the cross of Christ. that it is the way in which God powerfully and forever deals with our sin. It's the way by which God brings us to heaven. But young people, it's one thing to hear that. It's another thing to believe that. Saving faith is not hearing about Christ, young people. It's about receiving Christ and it's about resting on Christ alone for salvation. Have you done that? Are you day by day living by faith, living in repentance towards God and his salvation in Christ. And then for all of us, Should we not be wanting to experience the cross of Christ in these ways that Paul enumerates in verse 30? Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Not just that these are great doctrines, great truths, but these are great realities in your life. and my life, that they are, as it were, the characteristics of our lives. Why was it that God emphasized in three times in verse 27 that God has chosen the foolish and then the weak and the despised of Carthage? and of Loughbritannia, and of Carrick Fergus, verse 29, that all flesh should not glory in his presence. Verse 31, that he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. One of our biggest dangers as Christians is actually what is part of the first sin, that is pride. Pride. Were we getting lifted up in ourselves and we think we are better than others or we have some confidence in ourselves in how long we've been a Christian and some confidence in influence that we have in our family, in the church, God forbid that we would glory in his presence. Verse 31, that he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. As Paul said elsewhere in Corinthians, what do you have that you have not received? the cross of Christ experienced. Let's come then thirdly and finally this evening to the cross of Christ preached. The cross of Christ defended, the cross of Christ experienced, the cross of Christ preached. Chapter two verses one to five. Now Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians of his initial time among them, probably about five years before this letter. How did he seek to win the Greeks to Christ, who wanted wisdom, and the Jews to Christ, who wanted a sign? Did he seek to win the Greeks by flowery language or impressive oratory? Did he say, when he came to Corinth now, I'm going to this city and I need to I need to go to refresh a class in oratory. I need to polish my skills. Now look at what he says in verse one. Not with excellence of speech or of wisdom. He's not talking there about God's wisdom, but he's talking about the wisdom of the world. Verse four, my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, And when it came to the Jews, did he attempt to woo them and to wall them by some display of power, as some in the church of Christ and parts of our world try to do today? No, his preaching was simple. It was unpretentious. There was nothing in his manner to bowl them over. Indeed, in coming to Corinth, Paul made a conscious decision to avoid the style and the sound bites of the Greek orders. Look at verse two. I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ crucified. That's what changes people's lives. Jesus Christ crucified, paraded before them. Yes, in preaching, if that's what a man's calling is. But in your lives, it's praying Jesus Christ, living Jesus Christ before your children, before family members who don't yet believe, before neighbors and work colleagues. It is determining not to know anything except Jesus Christ amongst such and Christ crucified that will impact people most powerfully. And it's the only thing that will impact them savingly. Paul adds something else about his ministry in those initial, in that initial ministry in Corinth five years before verse three. I was with you in weakness, no display of power. Indeed, he was with them in fear and in much trembling. And we know from the book of Acts that as Paul arrived in Corinth, he was alone. He was at a low point in his missionary journey. He had been hunted and hounded. had experienced opposition from one place to another, he was discouraged and fearful and uncertain, and yet he was confident, not in himself, but in Christ. And as Paul gave himself to preaching the cross of Christ, simply and in felt weakness, something powerful happened. And something of wisdom was displayed, something Paul could neither command nor control. Verse 4, demonstration of the spirit and of power. And Paul's not suggesting here the kind of scene that we have in Acts chapter 2, at Pentecost, of a rushing mighty wind and four tongues of fire, not at all. Something much more akin to what happened among the 3,000 as Peter preached at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit convicted. The Holy Spirit humbled the Corinthians in their minds and in their pride and in themselves. He opened their hearts to receive the message Paul preached. That's the demonstration. It's of the Holy Spirit working, revealing Christ and him crucified, and enabling them to repent of their sin and believe in Christ as the one who died for the forgiveness of their sins, the one who rose again to declare them righteous before God. That your faith, why was that the case? In demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And when the preacher, not Christ, is center stage, when the preacher's eloquence or personality or charisma and popularity or what matter, then a faulty convert is often the outcome. The sowed is sown, and the ground is either stony ground or thorny ground. And the preacher has another fan. And Christ, often it's not another disciple or another believer added to the church. How the cross of Christ is preached is vitally important. not in human showmanship, but in simplicity, with clarity, and in felt weakness, so that the faith of men and women and boys and girls is in Christ, not the preacher. the cross of Christ preached. And it is our responsibility by way of application, let me say, that as we come to worship each Lord's day, we pray for the demonstration of the spirit and his power. Because if we're depending on anything else, it's not of God. It's of man. And can I make another application? And so the application of that is that we need to pray. You need to pray for the demonstration of the spirit of his power working quietly working powerfully, working effectively in hearts and lives, all of our hearts and lives. Those who don't yet believe and those who already believe. And then let me make one final application and I think this is huge encouragement to you. It's a secondary application, but I believe it stands from the passage and it is this. How do you feel when you've an opportunity to share the gospel. You're excited, I hope, but surely, if you're like me, you often feel inadequate. Utterly inadequate. And you have a sense of your weakness, and you stumble, perhaps, of your words, and then you think about it afterwards and say, why didn't I say that? Well, this passage, let me say to you, it's not with excellence of words or of human wisdom. Paul did not preach, and you do not need to witness. With excellence of speech or of wisdom, you can do so in weakness. And you pray that God will work. Is that not encouraging? That we just tell it as it is. Tell it as best we can because it doesn't depend upon us ultimately. The power and the demonstration of the Spirit is from God. So be transformed in your witness also through the cross. of Christ. Amen. Let's pray. We thank you almighty god for the cross of our lord Jesus Christ. and we remember with to go to the cross. What it cost him to leave the glory of heaven, to become a man, to take the form of a servant, to humble himself to the point of death and the most cruel and horrible death of the world of that day. and that Christ did it out of love for you, his father, and out of love for your people, the elect that you had given to him in eternity, that he did it for the love of us, who are weak and who have nothing to offer, who are not wise but fools in and of ourselves, who are nobody's in the eyes of the world. We thank you that Christ died for us and rose again for our justification. Help us Lord God always to defend the gospel of Christ. Against those in our world today who look for wisdom like the Gentiles, who look for signs like the Jews, enable us to say to them and to show them that Christ crucified is both wisdom and power to those who believe. And we pray, Lord God, that we would live in the experience of the cross each day until we draw our last breath and then we shall see Christ face to face. We pray for the young people growing up in our midst, that they would not only hear of the cross of Christ, but they would believe in Christ for themselves unto salvation, that they would receive him and rest on him alone. and help us in this world which is so hostile to the gospel and where we can feel our weakness and our inadequacy in our witness and in our testimony. Help us to do the best we can, knowing that it is not by our words or by our oratory or by our wisdom that anyone will be saved. but rather it is by the demonstration and the power of God, the Holy Spirit. And so encourage us and enable us not to be silent, but to speak forth to the glory of your name. Enable us then in all of these ways to be transformed through the cross of Christ. In Jesus' name, Amen.