We preach Christ crucified.

John Farley
Pastor-Teacher
Sunday,
March 31, 2019

Lord’s supper next Sunday (April 7)

Outreach Sunday April 14

Pastor Kingsley May 5

 

We preach Christ crucified

1CO 1:17-25

He is now going to puncture their illusions with the word of the cross.

Cleverness of speech is an enemy of the cross of Christ.

Don’t be clever or witty or intellectual when you preach the gospel.

When we preach the gospel, we should be heralds, not composers.

Verse 18 explains why appealing to the intellect of the natural-minded man is a big mistake.

  Our message - the word of the cross - is FOOLISHNESS to him.

There are two kinds of people: those who are perishing, and those who are being saved.

  Those who are perishing - the lost - see the word of the cross as foolishness.

Those who are being saved see the word of the cross as the power of God.

It is the WORD itself - the message of the cross - which is the power of God.

HEB 4:12

There is no more piercing word than the word of the cross.

The message of Christ crucified makes no sense to them.
Why?

Crucifixion was reserved for hardened criminals, wicked slaves, and rebels.

To the people of the world, the idea that a crucified man would be the Savior of the world was ridiculous.

Their gods were powerful.
Christ on the cross was powerless.

Our job is NOT to try to make sense of it for them.

The message of the cross is an affront to the world. It rejects everything they hold dear.

The message of the cross is not friendly.

The word of the cross is a scandal to the “civilized” world.

We want to ignore it, water it down, wear it as jewelry - ANYTHING but face the awful truth of it.

If God’s Son was really crucified for me, then everything I thought I knew about life is wrong.

The word of the cross takes action.

1CO 1:19-20

This is a quotation from Isaiah 29:14.

We can group them all together as “experts”.

The fatal flaw of the “experts” is that they tend to fall in love with their own minds and what they produce.

1CO 1:21

MAT 11:25-26

God was so wise in setting things up so that the wisdom of the world would not lead men to salvation.

God turned that upside down.

That pleased God, because it frustrated any human attempt to rely on human resources.

It is the very FOOLISHNESS of the message that saves!

We are stripped of our pride, our intellect, our demands for evidence, and must simply believe in God’s foolishness.

1CO 1:22-25

Christ crucified is God’s foolishness and God’s weakness.

Prove it to me, God.

You need to show me, God.

They try to put God on trial. But actually they are the ones on trial.

Jews ask for signs.

Christ has one sign for them - the word of the cross.

The Greek word means a scandal or a death trap.

To the Jew, a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms.

Greeks search for wisdom.

When you witness to the unbeliever, do not try to outsmart them.

This appeals to their intelligence - but human wisdom is the thing that makes it so hard for them to believe.

Don’t try to impress them with signs, or the “miraculous”, or testimonies.

Give me this, and maybe I will believe.

God’s way is to appoint a faithful herald who will simply proclaim the powerful word of the cross.

Little do they know that the cross of Christ revealed God’s wisdom and power to the utmost.