We've just heard a passage just now, a preaching passage, and I've got a question that I've been rolling through all week and praying through as we look at this passage. And here it is, and we need to really reflect on this question. Why do these words need to be said to a church? You see this, look at those words there that Chris just read. These are words not primarily written to the world. Of course, if you wanted, there are passages of scripture that are written primarily to the nations, to the peoples, to the world. You could look Old Testament, New Testament, you can see that, but that's not here. There are times and seasons for speaking into the culture of our world, convicting the world of sin, of our need for Jesus to change everything, but that's not this passage. Not this time. So you can see what these words are for. You can see why these words are written. The Apostle Paul writes this letter to correct dysfunctional church culture. And he does so every paragraph, every page with the power of the gospel. He writes to a church that needs to hear these words. This is not just for them out there, this is for us in here. God is speaking to us who need his word. Now we're in a series of first Corinthians that preaches the gospel to where it's most needed. Where is the gospel most needed? It's human hearts. And where is the gospel most needed in a church? It's our hearts. Last week, we finished with those words penned by Paul. Have a look in verse 17, 1 Corinthians 1 verse 17. Paul says this, "...for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of eloquent wisdom." Why? "...lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." I actually reckon that verse 17 there is an excellent biblical guardrail, a type of a vision statement you could have as your church. Often we have vision statements for church, don't we? We do this. We want this. We pray for this. All sorts of things we want to do as a church. Perhaps we could also have a couple, if we had a one pager that says, let's not do this. And this is one of those ones. Let's not do anything that would empty the cross of Christ of its power. Let's not attempt or try or do anything that would say we're going to take away from the power of the gospel here. That is in a church that is Corinth Church, which we've seen and we'll see again and again. It gets worse, by the way. You keep reading 1 Corinthians just when you think, well, pride and division's bad. Just when you think that one upmanship is bad. Then you start getting to things that are really bad. You go to chapter 5. It should have a rating. But this is a church of division, first of all. It's a church of dysfunction. It's a church where there's factionalism. It's a church that has people that have self-importance. This kind of church, the solution, Paul says, is not man-made. It's only found in the power of God. That forms a great motto for ministry, I think, for us as a church, for our leadership, for you and I, that we would do anything through the gospel of Christ. We wouldn't do anything that would take away from the power of that gospel. Here's my second question, which is more of a diagnostic question now. Where do you believe the power is? To affect change in our society, to affect change in anyone's life, especially my life, where do you think the power is? Where do you believe the power for change in our lives is? That's the question of our hearts. Just diagnostically, if you believe the power is in community, then you'll work so hard to make community happen, but then you'll be frustrated, won't you? You know this, because you try and get community together, but you get community together. What are you really getting together when you get community together? You're getting sinners together. And getting sinners together is frustrating. Ask a politician, a community group leader, anyone. Getting community together is getting sinners together, and if you have no power to address that, it will crumble and you'll be frustrated. If you believe the power is in good deeds, then you'll strive so much for good deeds, but when it doesn't seem to do a dint in changing hearts, you'll again be frustrated. But here is where the power is. It's in these words. The cross of Christ is the power of God. Verse 18. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God." Have you ever had moments when you're speaking to someone about Jesus? You're speaking to someone about the gospel of Christ, about the cross, and you watch their reaction, you watch their face. Perhaps it's the first time they've heard it or it's the 71st time they've heard it, but you watch their face. And as you're explaining the gospel to them, the good news of Jesus, then you watch their face and start thinking in your own mind, yeah, it does sound a bit silly, doesn't it? Ever had one of those moments where it feels like this doesn't seem believable to the world? Because it isn't. Like if you are not born again, if you are not spirit changed in your heart, you won't believe this. It is disbelievable, if that's a word. I'm hoping it is. The word of the cross, the message of the saviour of the world, the rescuer of the world, the rescuer of all our problems, namely sin, judgment, and death forever, hell, the person that rescues us from the biggest problem humanity's faced, dies like a criminal on a cross. That's how he does it. Does that sound plausible to the world? Well, we know it doesn't. Because a lot of people think it's silly, it's folly, it's foolishness, it's foolish talk. But Paul writes to hearers who are being saved, it's amazing. And why would we expect anything else of those who don't believe? Of course, there are a variety of initial responses to the message of the cross. There are as many different responses to the message of the cross as there are soils that Jesus talks about, aren't there? We often call it the parable of the sower. It's not really the parable of the sower. It's not actually about the sower. It's the parable of the soils, the four soils. Jesus tells us, heads up guys, I'm heading you out into the world to make disciples of the nations. But as you go, you're going to have a variety of responses to this message of the gospel. And Jesus gives us four soils. He disciples us for our evangelism because he says some of those responses will look initially interested, but by and large, the word of the cross is actually, in Paul's penned words, folly to those who are perishing. They think it's silly. They think it's foolishness. Amy and I once lived in another sort of Bendigo. We had a neighbor over our back fence and she was going through a very tough time. She was going through an incredibly tough time. And so we spent a lot of time on her back porch and she spent a lot of time on our back porch. Lots of cup of teas, lots of conversations. One of which we explained the gospel. He said, actually, yes, there's lots of things that would help you, obviously, and systems and structures and groups, but what you really need, and what your family really need, is the good news of Jesus. And when she first heard it, we explained it to her. We explained it at length and carefully, winsomely, compellingly. We prayed, help us, Lord. We did that. We took a sip of our tea, and her face lit up. She said, I've never heard anything like that. I've never heard. Now, this is an accomplished, professional woman who is very accomplished in the world. She'd never heard anything like that. And my initial thought was, wow, this is great. Except, that's all it was. Now, the Lord can change things to the last breath, but nothing has changed in her life. And by all worldly measures and standards, she lives like the gospel is just an amazing story. She doesn't believe it to base her life on it. It's just a wonderful story, like a marvel narrative. It's a fairy tale, it's not real. But to those who are being saved, to the church, it is the power of God. And that's why these penned words matter for us this morning. Because if we are members of the church, we're part of Christ's church, the gospel is the power of God, isn't it? Like that's what we actually base our life on, pivot our life on. Everything is about Christ. I want you to reflect on the first time you heard the gospel. So believers, you're a believer in Jesus. When was the first time you heard the gospel? Now reflect upon when was the first time you believed on the gospel? When you received and embraced it with your heart, you based your life upon it. You made decisions, therefore, around the gospel. Everything now changed. Your calendar changed. Your weekly rhythms changed. Your attitudes changed. Your ambitions changed. What you would want to see happen for your life and others lives all changed when you believe the gospel. Because you believe The biggest problems you face, sin, death and judgment, are solved by Christ dying through execution by humiliation on a cross. And when you believed that and you knew you were saved and safe in Christ, what did the word of the cross, what did that message become for you? Power. Actual power. Power to do what I could never do. Power to save. Power of God. This is what you know, isn't it? It's the way God works in the world, and it's the way God works in the world even to confound the world through the upside-down power of the cross. Of course, this is how God has always worked in the world, hasn't he? Against human expectations, against man-made design, against human pride and worldly wisdom. Isaiah, Jeremiah, cross-reference readings. God has always worked this way. This is what God says in Isaiah 29. It's quoted in scripture here in verse 19 of 1 Corinthians. You can see it there in your Bibles there. In verse 19 is a quote from Isaiah 29. We read that passage earlier. For it is written, God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Back in 8th century Judah, even God's people were planning and living as if God didn't need to be factored into their major decision making. As if you could kind of outsmart God. God hasn't thought of my better plan. God hasn't thought of my better way of doing life here. Do you think you can outplan God? We saw in our Genesis series, as soon as human hearts start to think we can save ourselves, we do things like Abraham in Egypt. I need to work my plan and work my way out of this. Or we do Tower of Babel stuff. We build towers and human wisdom is elevated. But human wisdom is woefully inadequate for real change in the world, let alone in the church. Because we know this, verses 20 to 25, the foolishness of God is wise in the world. Now keep in mind, we need to keep in mind, this is written for the church. For Corinth Church, for every local church, it's for a reforming church. So look at this, verse 20, where is the one who was 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. Friends, there is no possible way of knowing the real, true living God through the wisdom of the world. This actually shapes everything how we understand how do people come to know God. It shapes biblical apologetics, giving a defense of the faith. Ultimately, people don't get convinced about God by human reason alone. And if we think they do, well, we've got a problem. Why? Because if someone becomes a believer in God through human reason alone, it only takes the next human reasoning, the next human argument, to argue them out of it. But has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? It pleased God to save people. How? Through human reasoning? No. Through preaching and believing in Christ. And we do this in a world, more sadly, sometimes in the wider church, we'd rather find what the Corinthians are wanting to find, just a more palatable way. Just an easier way that the world accepts. Verse 22, here's the challenge for the Corinth church. Their cultural challenge, their moment is this. There are people around their church, their neighbors, their friends, their families, perhaps even in the church where, well, verse 22, Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and follow the Gentiles. See, Jews demand signs. In those, you can see this in the gospel, right? We've been in John's gospel earlier this year. And what do we see in John's gospel? You can see it in all the other gospel accounts too. In John's Gospels alone, after Jesus does signs, how do the Jews reply? Like in John's Gospel, you think of this, you saw this, when Jesus does some significant signs. So for example, Jesus feeds 5,000 people. You can go and look this up. Jesus feeds 5,000 people. How do the Jews respond? They go, that is amazing. Is that what they do? Wow. We've seen a sign, now we'll believe. Is that what they do? No, here's what they say. He's just fed 5,000 people. And so the Jews said to him, then what sign will you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Get this, he's just given 5,000 people bread to eat. And they say, you know, God, if he wanted to give us a sign, he'd give us bread to eat. So, just let me clear my throat because I'm eating this bread you just feed us with. What sign will you show us? See, Jews demand signs. If Jesus is supposed to be the Christ, the Messiah, for Jews that connotates strength, victory, success, getting the Romans off our back, getting the job done. So a crucified Messiah is a bit unbelievable. It's not a very good sign for a Jew. And the word that Paul uses, look at verse 23, the word he uses here really describes the issue for the Jews in a nutshell. See verse 23, we read, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews. The word stumbling block there in the original, skandalon, where we get the word scandalous comes from. You can read this, but we preach Christ crucified, which is scandalous to Jews. See, the Messiah, the Christ, the rescuer of the world, by all worldly measures, all worldly measures, Jesus fails at the cross. And it's scandalous. Not even because he's shot down in a blaze of glory. Like, it's not Jesus there, kind of giving it to the man and then getting shot down in a blaze of glory and going, wow, yeah, he was... He willingly goes to be executed by humiliation. He's crucified. It's just scandalous. For the Jews of Paul's day, the seeking of signs is supposed to prove how authentic and powerful your message is. And sadly, that kind of thinking has crept into our churches. And so we see churches with attitudes like, what kind of work will you perform? What signs and wonders will you do? There's been such an interest in seeking, even demanding of miracles and special so-called signs of God's working, that God's Word just takes a back seat. We're not really interested in God's Word, the Bible, you know, you reformed people, you believe in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. That's a kind of common old chestnut joke about us, folks that just love God's Word. No, God's Word, yeah, it's great, it's great, but we're really interested in some signs here. I don't know, maybe it's just because you stopped reading God's word you haven't seen how weird and wrong that attitude is. And that's when churches stop relying upon the power of God that is the message of the cross. Of course also back in Paul's day there's the Greco-Roman philosophy. Wisdom, the power of the information age for them. If you sought to be informed in Paul's day, if you sought for influence, power, if you wanted your children to have an excellent education, you paid through the nose to go and meet with a high-profile philosopher, do the walking thing, the Socratic kind of thing, the walking, talking, learning, questioning. That's how you had real wisdom in the world. If you wanted influence, power for change of people, well Greeks, Gentiles seek wisdom. so that when you present the message of the gospel to Gentiles, to Greeks, it just doesn't make sense. One writer put it this way, for the Greeks, a crucified Messiah is an oxymoron. It's like a civil war or an open secret. And this too can creep into the way churches think, even unawares. For we start to believe this. We start to believe in my wisdom, in my power, in my belief. We say things like this, I looked for God and I found him. Well, actually, that's not true. God wasn't lost. You were. He found you. Lost and wandering and rebelling. We say things like, I reached up to God and I hold on to him. No, actually, your grip is as good as dead in your sins, Ephesians 2. We're not just sick, we're dead in our sins. We think that with my skepticism and my reasoning and my incredible insight, I found God. So are you saying people that have intellectual inability to find God, they're going to miss out? Because you're smart enough to work out God. It's not how God saves people at all. We could not reason ourselves out of our current problems, let alone save ourselves by our reason. God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. Both approaches, Jewish and Greek, at their very heart are actually rebellion. Rebellion against God's ways. No thanks, we want some signs. No thanks, I'll reason myself out of this. It's a rebellion against God. It's actually making God fit into your own little box of thinking this is how God should work and I'll let him out of the box and I want him to be out of the box. And both are actually saying at their heart, I don't care to listen to God. But here's the good news, the gospel. Verse 24, to those who have been called, both Jews and Greeks, get this, it's not like the Jews and Greeks are like, yeah, they're no good anymore. Look, Jews and Greeks, we're done with them. Who can we go to next? We need to find some Australians. Look at verse 24, but to Jews and Greeks, to those who have been called, how does a Jew become a true Jew? Becoming a Christian. to Jews and Greeks. How does a Greek get real wisdom? Colossians! By trusting in Christ, the personification of God's wisdom himself. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, verse 24. Verse 24, in the church there are Jews and Greeks who have become believers, and they're now saying, what I once was power is just foolishness. This is power! The gospel is power! The sadness of the church in Paul's day was that preaching the gospel was sadly for a church that's not many years old, Preaching Christ wasn't all that popular anymore. We know they had Apollos, Peter and Paul, so it wasn't for a lack of good preachers. Apollos, we hear, is one of the best. If you wanted someone who was really going to be like Christos, and they said of him, a churly church father, that he was the silver-tongued preacher. You wanted someone who really weaved their words. and had you mesmerized by their eloquence. Well, Apollos was it, but this is a church that just doesn't seem that interested in preaching the gospel anymore. Preaching was not popular because people started relying upon other things where the power is at. Eloquence, philosophy, rhetoric, impressive personalities. As you look around, sadly, not much has changed. There's nothing inherently wrong with the many mediums available to us, but here's what we can be tempted to think. If we just had a jazzier Instagram account, if it was just a bit better, or maybe we need an Instagram account, then people would take notice of Jesus. Then they would. Or we wonder that if we had perhaps less time for preaching, We don't want church where we've got an hour and a half service, less time for preaching, less time for gathered worship, let's just hang out as friends. That's what we really need. That's where the power is at. Meanwhile, how was the church planted? How was the church even grown? Just hanging out together and being groovy? No. It's the gospel that's preached. The power of Christ that so fills our lives. And friends, Paul writes, that's how we were called. If you're genuinely born again, you genuinely believe in the Lord Jesus, consider your calling reforming. The calling language throughout the Bible speaks of God bringing us to believe and belong to Christ. And this one word captures the grand reality of what happens by the word of the gospel when it's heard, is that He calls us. He calls us. Not the other way around. He calls us. So that when you were called, you were saved. Now, did God do that? Here's another question for you, reflect on your life. Did God call you when you had measured up enough for Him? Did He call you when you were wise enough? God's like, just waiting for you to get your life together, wise up a bit, measure up. Did God call you when you were lovely enough? Verse 26. Consider your calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you are wise according to worldly standards. Not many of you are powerful. Not many of you are noble birth. To borrow a line from a song, this is me. This is me. There is nothing about me that is impressive. I have never been a high-powered mover and shaker. I am never going to be an influencer. And if we're honest, many of us are in the same group. But by the grace of God, He ignores worldly measures. He ignores worldly standards. Verse 27. 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 chooses the weak, the ashamed, the vulnerable, the poor. God chooses the ones who are the butt of other people's jokes. And he says, you're the butt of other people's jokes. I know what they say about you. I choose you. God chooses the ones who others laugh at and snigger about. God says, I'm going to choose those ones to shame the sniggerers. Another made up word. This is the way God works to save and gather his people, the church. God works the opposite the way that we would do things. So in this way, even the towers of power that we build and the pride that we build in our lives is leveled by the grace of God. Verse 28, 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. God brings things that are not. You can think of your life before you came to know Him. Perhaps you were one that was like, I've got Not in my life. There's nothing in my life that is impressive. Nothing that seems valuable or worthy. That's the point. That's the gospel of grace. That's the point of grace. God brings the nots and makes them everything by the gospel. And therefore he brings everything by worldly measures to nothing. And what's the end result of this? It's verse 30. And because of him, you who are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, and here's the last quote, that the one who boasts, boasts in the Lord. That's a quote from our second cross-reference reading in Jeremiah 9. That the one who boasts, boasts in the Lord. What is boasting? Like I know that, you know, when you see it, you can tell what it is, right? When you see boasting, you can kind of tell what boasting is. But I want to ask a heart question. What is at the heart of boasting? What is at the heart of boasting? Why do we boast? Boasting about ourselves is really insecurity dressed up in pride. Insecurity and pride in the heart of a person that overflows into our mouths when we attempt to show greatness. Now for churches and for church leaders like myself, like our elders here, our board of management, our group leaders, isn't the temptation for us even as a whole membership of this church, the temptation is to boast about things about us, isn't it? So, for churches, the temptation is to boast about numbers. That could be people or finances. See, you number it in the church and we'll boast about it. That's how we work. You go to conferences. Look, when I was in a very small time frame involved in agriculture, I used to not like going to conferences and seeing all the tire kicking going on and the boasting in circles, how much you got, what you're running and all that sort of stuff. And I thought, when I get into Christian ministry, that'll never happen. Do we recognize the Lord? And it also doesn't make sense, by the way, in a whole world of lost people, boasting that we've got a megachurch kind of looks a bit minuscule. Churches of all the people in the world ought to now not boast in ourselves, but boast in something, someone better. People boast about themselves because they're trying to seek approval from others. Trying to find significance in things that fail them. So if you try and find significance in yourself and boast about it, you'll actually see your insecurities so grow, you'll never be satisfied, will you? Because you've got to boast more to satisfy your insecurities. You've got to shut down the insecure screen going on. You've got to speak more about yourself until you just can't speak loud enough. But now we have all the opportunity and all the power of God in the world to say no. The cross shows your significance. And it's a sweet significance because it's found in Christ. Irrelevant of your measure of performance. Having a right view of yourself is actually a relief. Relief from the way the world works. Where your existence and importance is scaled upon you and your importance. To boast in the Lord is to have belief in Christ and relief by relating to God and Christ. And think about this, who actually has bragging rights? Who has bragging rights? It's God. But when you look at Him, when you look at God the Son, God in flesh, comes into the world as a human like us, who is truly God, truly human, here's the incredible thing, of all the people in the world that could boast, that could act with pride. How does Jesus act? With humility. It's astounding. Here is God, Jesus Christ, the wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And what does he do? He does the unexpected. By picking the most mocked way to suffer in the world, he picks the most mocked way to die for crimes. And he says, that, that thing, that cross, that thing, I'm picking that to save the world. That's how I'm going to show power. I'm going to pick a cross. To be crucified is to be shamed. It's to hang in shame in front of everyone. It's the ultimate failure of someone's life. It's weakness. It's loss. It's a scandal. And it's on the cross where God himself in Christ is mocked, he's joked about, he's jeered, he's sniggered about. Look at him! We got him now! All our plotting and working towards this event, we win they say, and they say of him as they wag their heads to one another, what foolishness, what a fool. It's on the cross that Jesus is mocked as king and yet he reigns as Christ. The power of God for people's lives to change is only through the gospel of Christ and reforming church, the power of a healthy church is only found in the gospel of Christ. This is the upside down cruciform church culture we need. Again that question. Why would these words need to be said to a church? Because the only way to address divisions in the church is by addressing human pride. Because human pride inflates us and in the end is empty hot air. It pretends to be powerful, it shows off how strong it is. But the word of the cross is powerfully weak. And if you believe the gospel, the word of the cross, you, I, a church, will never want to view ourselves with superiority. For the upside down word of the cross actually turns people's lives the right way up. Sin is what turns our hearts in towards ourselves, so we become this consuming void of selfishness. I want what I've done. Serve me. Do it for me. Make me important. It turns us inside out. But the gospel turns us the right way. Where sin dehumanizes us, the gospel makes us what we're meant to be again. Made in God's image, made in the image more like his son. It shapes what a church is about. It shapes how we see one another. It's a biblical vision for the ministry of the church. See, we live in a world that pretends it has the answers to all our problems. But then it just panics for the next news cycle. We live in a world that pretends to have power, whilst that pretence makes us actually more paranoid. And a real temptation for a church is to look impressive, or be successful, or at least be better than other churches. Or for us in the church to look around and go, at least I'm better than them. The temptation can even extend to we want to look more palatable to the world, a more believable message. We will not fall into that temptation. We don't have to, we don't need to. This letter to the 1st Corinthians, this book of the Bible, is an amazing book for many reasons, but here's one amazing part of the way it's written as a meta-narrative. I'm not sure if you've noticed this before, but the start of the letter starts with looking at the power of the cross. Do you know what the end of the letter finishes? The power of the resurrection. The whole letter is bookended by the gospel. So that when we start talking about really hard things in the church, really difficult things, things that we can't solve by human reason alone, the answer is found always in the power of the gospel. That's where the answer is. What saves us is what so shapes us. And we need the gospel. So let's pray for a gospel culture of Christ from 1 Corinthians for our church. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, oh, we pray for this. We're asking for this. We're asking that you would so shape us because of Jesus, because he is the wisdom from God, that you would so shape us to hold the gospel dear, to view ourselves not with a superiority, but humble us to be more like Jesus. We pray you would so shape our church culture that we would boast in the Lord, that we would find our joy in the Lord Jesus, that we'd find He's where the power is at, in Him alone. We ask for this as we thank you in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.