Wisdom and foolishness

Good morning. We're going to be moving immediately into the passage that Randy read at least the first part of for us here. And so I just want to begin by asking a question. Are you ready to take on division? I don't mean this stuff here, you know, learned and maybe even forgotten. I don't mean dividing up the pies or anything of that sort.

I'm talking about the kind of division that Paul began to address in the passage we looked at last Sunday, starting with verse 10 in chapter 1. And so Paul, as he goes through this, is dealing with another leg here of the division stool, so to speak. What he addressed last time was people were following this person and that person and even claiming, I got baptized by this guy and he's better than the guy that baptized you over here and dividing up along those lines. He addresses the division that's plaguing the church at Corinth actually for the first few chapters. Not that the issue gets dropped at all, but he actually keeps working at different legs, so to speak, of the division stool. Even after that, he's still addressing several divisive issues. One of them that we'll dig into, a really heavy-duty one, was believers suing other believers.

That was one he addresses big time. Even a lot later in this letter, he's still going to bring it up again. We've mentioned one of them previously, 1 Corinthians 11, 17 through 19, and even in chapter 12, 25, he's going to bring it up again. He is still not done.

When he gets into the next letter at the end of the Next letter, 2nd Corinthians, he brings it up again by encouraging them in a positive way away from the division that was plaguing them. So this is a big theme and so he's just working away at another part of it here.

We showed you this slide three Sundays ago when we started. We presented then four keys to understanding the church, and the social ladder key is one that's a biggie for this part of the book of 1 Corinthians. And specifically, we include this little graphic here, and you might have noticed it's also on both sides of your handout along the side here. And that's how important it is.

The social ladder key is a biggie Those who are well-off were driven, there in the culture, to press for trying to climb the social ladder. And they did so in various ways, one of those being human wisdom. And that's what Paul is addressing here. Let's try to grab hold of some human wisdom and see if we can get some prestige in front of the people. Let's see if I can get a following to look at me well and to perceive me well. That was what these folks who were well-off were doing. They were willing to do it even at the expense of others, putting down the poor, ignoring the needs of the poor, lawsuits against others.

By flowery oratory. Now, the message of the cross. Here's where he steps into verse 18 there. The believers in Corinth who were busy climbing this social ladder We're using this human wisdom often as a tool in the church. In the church. Instead of coming into the church and saying, what does God say?

It's, what kind of cool words can I cook up that people will be impressed with? The message of Christ on the cross didn't relate to the social ladder. It didn't relate to human wisdom. What do you mean? Christ crucified? What does that have to do with anything?

No, it was the power of the cross impressive to the unsaved. They were unimpressed by it. So Paul makes the distinction right at the outset. There are those who are saved and those who are perishing, and each have a different view of things. For believers, we are to be cross-eyed. That's why the picture there. We are to be cross-eyed. We are to look at things from the Lord's viewpoint, from what the Lord has accomplished with the cross.

God has revealed His power and wisdom and the world continues to reveal its version of power and wisdom. And the world does. The world does even today reveal its source. God has already revealed His power and wisdom. Oh, God is making some revelations through nature, some revelations in people's hearts, but Christ has been revealed in His first coming. All of God's Word in the Bible has been revealed for 19 centuries.

All of it. The world continues even today to reveal its version of what they think power and what they think wisdom is. What Paul is telling us in this verse and in this passage is what the world says is wisdom and power and what God's Word says wisdom and power are, are not at all the same. Not even remotely. God has revealed many things in many ways. The ultimate revelation of God's power and wisdom is in what God accomplished through Jesus Christ. in who Jesus is. That is the ultimate revelation of God's wisdom and power.

I won't go through these charts. I'll make them available as, believe it or not, another supplement. We had four supplements last week. We ran out of them. We've replenished them, but also put a sign-up sheet in case we run out of any of them. So there's actually five supplements out there. One of them includes this chart and the next one, which deals with the Revelation. Obviously, our focal point today is the last one on the list there. Jesus Christ is God's ultimate revelation of wisdom and power.

In verse 19, Paul quotes the book of Isaiah 29.14.

You might wonder, why doesn't he say Isaiah 29.14? Well, it's because they didn't have chapters and verses in those days.

So he'd say, it is written, right? It is what we call a chiasm. A number of you may recognize that term. And basically, it's a pattern of writing that is like a mirror image. So this is written as a chiasm. It's like a mirror image in writing. And much of the Bible actually from Genesis to Revelation is written either at a small scale like this or at a large scale in a mirror image that is a chiasm form like this. And here we have this brief quote out of Isaiah that's a chiasm.

And ultimately what it says is, what this world counts as the ultimate wisdom and cleverness will be shown to be of no substance or significance at all by the Lord. The power of God and the wisdom of God will appear to be less than refuse to this world. And I think that's something that Christians need to get settled in their mind, that the world is very unlikely to be impressed. And it is important, ultimately valuable.

That's what he starts off with in this first chapter. It is of great importance that we understand that the world's perception of wisdom and power will be very different from our own. I would even suggest to you, if you are involved in raising kids, if you are involved with your grandkids, if you have any influence on kids in any way, One of the things that you can get across to those kids, especially if they're saved, is the difference between God's view of power and wisdom and the world's. That there is a distinction and they need to learn that distinction early. The younger the better.

Now, let's entertain four questions. I put entertain in quotes. Paul first asks three where is questions. And those questions are about where is the wise man, where is the scribe, where is the debater? The wise man of this world expounds wisdom. He comes up with the clever sayings. He comes up with the piercing and dazzling insights. The scribe reads and writes it, very learned. He absorbs all that is written and he puts it down on paper again.

The debater argues, point and counterpoint, all three of them. espousing in one way or another the world's wisdom. Paul asks with a resounding yes implied, if God has made foolish the wisdom of this world. Hasn't God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Yes, in Christ. They don't realize it yet, but he has.

Paul's going to ask lots of questions, and that's one of the things I want to bring up. As we go through these two books, 1 and 2 Corinthians, he's going to ask question and question and question. And one of the reasons, and you need to get this in your head because you're going to run into him again and again, one of the reasons he does so is not because he doesn't know the answer, but because he wants his readers, that includes us, to think his thoughts after him.

Think with him. So the Bible is not for people who don't think. It is intended for people, in fact, who do think. And he wants us to think his thoughts after him. That's why he has those questions there. Something very important. Why would Paul make a statement like, hasn't God made clear that the world's wisdom is foolishness? That the world's sense of power is actually weakness?

Something that he has in view, and it's important for us to look at, we'll be looking at it in the Revelation elective and some months ahead of us here, is there will come a time when the dead of all time will appear before the Lord. That's called the White Throne Judgment. But these will be the unsaved dead. They will not be there to determine are you going to heaven or hell. If you show up, I don't mean you. If a person shows up at this white throne judgment, they're not going to heaven. Why? Because the book of life will be unfurled and shown, your name's not here. That's why you're here. The book of works will be brought out.

There's nothing saving in them on the one hand, and plenty condemning on the other. The white throne judgment will be a time when people who said throughout life, I don't believe in God, will have to stand before God and say, I don't believe in you. How's that going to look? There will be people who said, wait a minute, I thought I was going to reincarnate a whole bunch of times. Well, you're done. You're here. Whoops. Wait a minute. I thought that when life is over, that's it. We just go back into the earth and we're through. Nope. You're here.

People will make amazing discoveries and things that they thought were otherwise the case. A god that they may have denied existed or maybe even said objectively, I don't know if he exists. They'll have to stand before him and they will know. It will be undeniable. And they will be judged on that day.

It will be a time when this world's clever words, this world's supposed exhibits and expressions of power won't mean much at all. Because the bottom line is, your name is not in the book of life. You didn't believe. There's only one thing for us to do with you. And you've chosen it already. That's what he's talking about here. But the other side of that is how does salvation happen?

Is it by working really, really hard? Is it by endless reincarnations? birthing and growing and then growing old and dying and then birthing and growing and growing old and dying and endless reincarnations one after another, only to be ended when you finally reach moksha or nirvana.

Is that how it happens? Does it happen because your good is better than the bad? You kind of go around life lopsided. Because your good outweighs the bad, right? Is that how it happens? Or does salvation happen because God grazed on the curve? Is that how it happens?

God indeed has His own wisdom and the world has its wisdom. Each calls the other's wisdom foolishness. But in the end, the world's best shot at wisdom doesn't save anyone. So how is a person saved? If it's not the curve, if it's not the scale, if it's not the endless reincarnations, finally achieving moksha or nirvana, if it's not a great deal of determination and self-effort. This is God's wisdom which is simply foolishness to the world.

You believe in God's provision through Christ, and in that, God is pleased. It's as simple as that. We said in the class here before, if you want life, that's free. Absolutely free. And you can't even pay for it, and you can't pay it back. All you have to do is believe. Now, if you want death, you're going to have to work for that. The wages of sin is death, right? Faith in Christ, dying for your sins, buried because He did indeed die, and raised. That's the Gospel.

He goes in verses 22-24 addressing Jewish and Greek, and they're kind of the symbolic Gentile, because they were the Gentile people and culture around the Jews, especially in the eastern Mediterranean. The Jews were in search of signs. They had the true Missouri mentality and the Nike slogan, okay? Show me. Just do it, right? That's the Jewish idea of power. That's how the Jews were. And matter of fact, you have to say, well, there's something to it. After all, it is rather impressive to see somebody part a sea or something, right? And so that's what the Jews wanted. They said, impress me.

Show me something powerful. Just do it. Now, the Greek obsession. The Greeks weren't looking for some display of power. No, for them, they wanted some dazzling logic, mind-bogglingly clever use of words. To them, that's exactly what they wanted. There's nothing better than some deep human insight to the Greek mind.

But by the wisdom of God and the power of God expressed in Christ, those who believe in him who died for our sins, was buried and rose again are saved. That simple. Faith in Christ, death for our sins, his burial, his resurrection. It's that easy. Some may even say it's too easy. That's salvation. That's. what Paul's talking about.

That is how one becomes Christ's possession. So we have a choice, just like the people of Corinth did. We either place our trust in one of this world's obsessions, or pick a Jewish one, pick a Greek one, or pick another one. Or by faith, we are Christ's own possession.

You have been bought with a price. The church where Nancy and I were married Heaven sakes, it'll be 36 years in November, 36 years ago, has in the front of it, or at least it sure did, you are not your own. You are bought with a price. Okay? You're not your own. You're bought with a price.

And we'll see that in Chapter 6, and we'll see it in Chapter 7. Both chapters have essentially that same message. Something I want to bring out here. And this is key, and I want to do it carefully because there's a chance that I might offend somebody here, maybe even several, and that's not my intent. But if believers do not intentionally take hold of God's wisdom that comes by His grace, the world has some wisdom to sell you, but it's a bit pricey. Now, why would I give you the caution that someone might be offended? I want to dig into some kind of meaty subjects here. But at the same time, I have made no secrets to this group here that I have learned things sometimes later in life.

I've told you we've been married almost 36 years, the first 15 of those years. I was not the right kind of husband and father to Nancy and the kids. Matter of fact, it was 20 years ago this month that I sat each one of them down and said, I have not been the kind of father and husband, obviously, to the appropriate one. that I ought to have been. And I can't make promises about how it will be different, but I want you to know that I understand things differently now and that I intend to learn. So as I say some of these things I'm about to say, I don't say them with any intent to cause offense or guilt, nor do I say it pridefully. I know I have my own failings.

The world has ways of selling us and, you know, I've got a television myself and I watch it, you know, some as does Nancy, but it has a lot of messages. It's got a lot of this world's messages. It's got messages about money, does it not? But doesn't God's Word have messages about money?

We had a class that we held not long after I came here. I actually had one on Sunday and one on Wednesday. And so we had it twice a week so as many people as possible could be involved about money. And what does the Bible say about it? And if you don't intentionally take hold of what God's Word says about that, the world has a bunch of things to sell you about what's wise.

And matter of fact, about how much the things money will buy will satisfy you. And I say this not as a matter of pride because I did it at the expense of my wife and kids. I got an MBA and I took a class in advertising. And I will tell you from a master's degree in business and having a class in advertising, advertising is designed to make you dissatisfied, okay? Yeah, that's what it's designed to do.

God's Word says things about men, women, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, families, family relationships. God's Word says things about that, and we can either take what God's Word says intentionally, and it's going to have to be intentional, we can just let the world feed us what it's going to tell us. God's Word even says things about those who are single and gives direction to those who are single if that's the place where you're at and possibly even you may be gifted to be single by God. Or you take what the world says about being single.

The world has some wisdom to sell you. And boy, is there a difference. The Bible even says things about work and has direction about work. You can either take what the Bible says or you can take what the world says. But if you don't intentionally take what the Bible says, you'll get what the world says. and it'll feed it to you big time. Let's take a look at a couple of things that come out of that television. Fairly major messages.

You might have noticed looking at various TV shows, movies, that a great many of the people on these shows these days are single, unmarried. and maybe they were married and they're divorced, or they're single and that's the way they've always been, but a great many of them are single, with rare exception on the various shows and movies, with rare exception, if they are married, they're having a tough time of it, and the marriage is not going so good. Did you notice that? Just notice that the prime time shows, you'll kind of clock, that one's single, that one's single, that one's single. oh yeah, that one was married but four times, right? Or yeah, that guy's married but they'll show right on the screen the tough time he's having and it's coming apart at the seams. One of the things that is put together very commonly on the TV shows and in the movies is casual sex and living together and Just that's fine.

And it's regular all the time. Even to the point where in a recent survey of young people, 60% of them said it was wise to do the first move-in-together thing as the best way to go. Okay? 60%. So that's almost two-thirds. But that's not the way it works out in real life.

In spite of the message of the wisdom that the TV is communicating, here's an instance for a woman who has had sex and cohabited with a husband and at least one other, the rate of divorce because of that is increased by 166%. Once they get married, after that, is that guaranteed? No, it's not a guarantee. but it just brings greater risk.

A study by Dr. Joyce Brothers, and you've probably heard that name, showed that cohabitation has a negative effect on the quality of a subsequent marriage. Cohabitors without plans to marry, we're just going to live together, no plans to marry, were found to be more inclined to argue, hit, shout, and have unfair division of labor than married couples. A survey by the U.S. Justice Department over a period of eight years showed that for those who were intimate unmarried males versus a married husband, The unmarried male was more than seven times more likely to be involved in domestic violence.

Seven times. Is it a guarantee? No, it's not. But that's a pretty significant statistic. Compared with peers who had not cohabited prior to marriage, individuals who had cohabited reported higher levels of depression, and the level of depression also rose with the length of cohabitation. Sexually active unmarried women are almost four times more likely to be under psychiatric care. Is it a guarantee? No, it's not. But it's a risk. And cohabiting women have rates for depression three times higher than married women. Three times. The world doesn't tell you that. That's not what gets shown on the TV.

As a matter of fact, the people who are played to portray these different parts, I mean, they get paid a lot of money to look real happy after, right? Even if they have to take it on the third, fourth, fifth take and all the rest are outtakes. They'll make it work out whatever way the script says to go. Here's another.

One of the things you may have noticed, there's a trend in advertising, probably in the last decade, particularly I've noticed with food. I'm not sure why the food thing, but men are frequently shown to be either stupid or dishonest or both. in advertisements for food.

They have some husband and he's snuck off outside with the Hot Pockets. He's taken the briars and he's opened it up and he's eating straight out of the container and the wife catches him. That kind of thing. He goes and takes the pizza for himself, has it delivered and then starts eating it before anybody else gets a chance.

Now, after you've seen those commercials hundreds of times a year that say that the man is stupid and dishonest, after a while you might get to believe it. That's why a week ago yesterday when we had the workshop for husbands, we looked at what does God's Word say? Because what God's Word says is radically different from what the food commercial messages say. Radical different. Now I'm not saying get rid of your television. We haven't gotten rid of ours. But I am saying you need to intentionally pursue what does God's Word say about these things. Lots of things. Lots of things.

Then Paul goes on, we preach Christ crucified. Preaching Christ crucified had no earthly appeal to either the Jews. They said, I want to see something that looks like something. Show me some power. That's not impressive. Or to the Romans. The Jews would look there in Deuteronomy 21, 22 and 23. He was hung in a tree. He must be cursed by God. Well, in fact, he was. All the sins of every single one of us here in this room and everyone outside was placed upon him. God's wrath, God's curse was upon him as he was on the cross.

To the Roman soldiers who were in Corinth nailing a man to a cross, showed to all that he was the lowest of the low. For the Romans, only the lowest of the low got crucified. The worst of the worst. If you got crucified, it proves you're scum. As a matter of fact, remember this was a Roman colony, so for all the Roman soldiers that were there, either in active duty or retired, they looked at a crucifixion, they just thought, a job well done. Three nails in, Up in the air, that's it. All we got to do is hang around until he takes his last breath. Make sure he's dead. The Greeks saw no value or power or wisdom in the crucifixion.

The world may find Christ somewhat intriguing. Oh yeah, you'll find something about that Jesus guy on the Discovery Channel maybe. You might find a book come out. But in the end, the world's going to be underwhelmed, not terribly impressed. They won't see Christ as God's ultimate expression of power and wisdom. The world, I remind you of verse 18, those who are perishing will always be seeing salvation as something that happens by human effort, human wisdom, human accomplishment, but certainly not by faith. Absolutely free, grace, salvation? It's got to be too easy. You can't believe it.

Then in verse 25, he talks about the foolishness and weakness of God. Well, at first you might say, what is he saying? How could he possibly say that there's a foolishness or a weakness of God? Well, he could say these because though God expressed through Christ, the ultimate in power and wisdom, the world simply does not and will not see it. That's how we can call Christ's accomplishment foolishness and weakness of God. That's the way the world sees it. That's the world's view. God's wisdom is just foolishness to the world.

Would human beings ever cook up the idea, hey, let's have God come down from heaven and be born of a woman. And let's have him come to earth and then die for the sins of all these people. Would human beings ever cook up that scheme? No. No, they wouldn't. They would look at that and they'd say, that's ridiculous. No way they'd come up with that. The way they might summarize it, what's a penniless, powerless man severely beaten and nailed to a cross going to do for me? That's how they'd look at it.

The more well-to-do among the believers there in Corinth are the ones who are leading the division of believers. Hey, you guys, you need to start following me because I've got clever things to say. Oh, I've got incredible insights for you. I've cooked these up and nobody else has them but me, so you need to follow me. That was their draw. They wanted different people to follow them and therefore they would climb this social ladder within the church, use the church as a part of its tool.

But remember the White Throne Judgment. All the social ladders Go nowhere. That's not going to count with the Lord. The Lord's going to say, is your name in the book of life? I don't care what social ladder you're in. None of the tactics that this world conjures up will ever get the job done. Only by faith in God's accomplishment through Christ will anyone ever be saved. Ever.

And key is we look at this, we too, we talked about the White Throne Judgment, we too will have a time when we stand before the Lord. But it won't be of the same character. The White Throne Judgment will only include those who are unsaved. We'll have a time before the Lord, it won't be at the same time and same place.

We'll stand before the Lord and the Lord is eager to reward us. Matter of fact, I keep bringing up Revelation because it's one of my favorite books. And we'll study it in our Revelation elective way towards the end of the year. But the very last chapter of the Bible, Jesus says, I am coming and my reward is with me. He is eager to reward us. Reward us as we respond to God's wisdom. reward us as we look upon Christ as God's ultimate expression of power, as we behold Him, as we trust in Him and walk with Him. He wants to reward us to the maximum.

That's a whole different scenario from this White Throne Judgment that we've talked about. And that happens as we walk with Him and express His life through us, His life through us, day to day. His life through us as we gather here this morning. His life through us as we go home. His life through us as we spend time with kids, grandkids, friends, relatives, people we work with, other people here. That's what the Lord longs to reward us for is His life through us as we trust Him, as we walk with Him, as we behold Him.

Isn't that great? It's all by grace. It's all free because we can never, ever pay it back. Let's pray. Lord, as we look here, we ask that you would show us what is wise. We ask that you would show us what is indeed powerful, ultimately expressed in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whom we have life, in whom we are, and who is in us. And Lord, we ask indeed that the Word of Christ may dwell in us richly as we take time together before we leave and as we leave from here. Draw our hearts to behold you. In Jesus' name, Amen.