I Corinthians 1:24-29

Last week we were in 1 Corinthians and we were working through 20 down to 23. I'm going to read the verses that we'll cover today. Some of the stuff that we didn't finish up last week was starting in verse 22 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. For indeed Jews ask for a sign, Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. to the Jew a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness.

But to those who are the called, both Jew and Gentile, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are. So that no man may boast before God.

So that's the purpose. So last week, we were talking a little bit, we started to get into the issue of the cross of Christ. And what's interesting about it, depending on whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, you have a different relationship to the cross.

God's way of revealing himself and blessing man is equally offensive to both Jew and Gentile. And they look at it differently. The Jew looked at the Messiah to come, or anybody that came from God, had to show a sign. He had to have some sort of miraculous intervention of God that applied to the senses. God's way of revealing himself, like I said, was to blessing a man is equally offensive now. But instead of appealing to a sign, And instead of appealing to philosophy or reasoning to the Greek or the Gentile, God appeals to the conscience and he appeals to man's heart. And that's why Christ crucified is appealing to him. But for a Jew, it becomes a stumbling block, something to trip over. And to a Gentile, he kind of looks at this and says, well, I think it's just foolishness.

In terms of signs if you look at Matthew 12 28 The Lord Jesus said to those that were around him if I cast out demons by the spirit Which means he was doing it and they could see it Then the kingdom of God has come upon you and he's saying the kingdom of God is here and you can see it because of the one who is the king is passing is casting out demons and And as we talked about a couple of months ago in Galatians, in chapter 3, verse 1, Paul says to the Galatians, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? So he's telling the Gentiles he was publicly portrayed as crucified, but who's bewitched you about that? And then in chapter 5, verse 11, he says, but I, brethren, if I preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished.

You see, when Paul taught the cross, it was an offense against the Jew, and it didn't make any sense. It was foolishness. And what the Jews were accusing him of, who were following him around and trying to persuade people not to listen to the message, was that if he was not teaching the cross, they wouldn't hassle him. They wouldn't give him trouble. But because he was teaching the cross, he said, why am I still being persecuted? Because I'm teaching the cross. And he says, because it's a stumbling block of the cross. Did it get abolished? No. That's what I'm preaching.

In 1 Peter 2.8, Peter says, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. And they stumbled because they were disobedient to the word. In other words, they didn't believe it. And to this doom, they were all appointed.

The cross of Christ is always the subject of offense. And what I mean by that is that that's the one thing. People, you know, in contemporary Christianity, you know that the cross has been softened. It's been downplayed so that maybe it's acceptable to the world. Cross, because it represents a crucifixion. is an offense to everyone. Those regarding the cross, the Jew has found to be a stumbling block.

What was the Jew looking for? He was looking for a Messiah who would reign in power. He would be the head of the New World Order. He would revive the kingdom. He would put down all the Jewish enemies. And it would set Israel as the head of all nations. And you know what? They're still looking for that. They're still looking for that. So what happens?

The Messiah they saw was, when they saw the Messiah crucified on a cross, what was it? It was a death blow to their mindset. It said to them, oh, this isn't the Messiah we're looking for. What is this man? who claims to be the Messiah, the Son of God, what is he doing on a cross? That doesn't fit our example. But to the religious man, the cross is rejected. And it is seen that the man of the flesh is rejected by God in the cross.

The cross is the power of God to free us from everything Connected with myself naturally. Let me explain that or say it again. What does the cross do? It's a separator death is separation When you when I die, I'm gonna leave the planet. I'm gonna go somewhere else I'm gonna go to be with my lord. I've been separated That means that the cares and woes of the world will not be my concern anymore Well, from a positional standpoint, that's what the cross represents to us believers today.

We have already been separated in Christ. We're already seated in Him. So, if you're a Jew and you want the Messiah to be the way you think He should be, then what are you looking at? You're looking at Christ reigning on a throne. They could really understand that.

But a Christ who was crucified on a cross was a total offense to them because they didn't want to be separated. They didn't understand. To the Jew, in their unbelief, it became a stumbling block. So they wouldn't accept the Messiah because he was crucified. So the cross is the offending thing. They don't have any sense of need as sinners. They could see no meaning in the cross. To them, in their unbelief, it was a stumbling block. It got in the way of what they thought was right.

To the Gentile, on the other hand, and your Bible may say Greek, but refers to Gentiles, what are they looking for? They're looking for something that appeals to reason, someone who appeals to reason, who's clever, some new clever thing. some scheme of philosophy that would fix it. Like right now, in the pandemic that we're involved in, what's the world pinning their hopes on? Science. Some clever scientist is going to come up with something that's going to fix all of this.

They don't ever go to the Lord and His cross to ask about the problem. They want some scheme. If you go to a Gentile and you say to him, salvation is through a crucified man, life is through a dying man, power is through one who was crucified in weakness, what's their response? The Gentile's response is, that's foolish, that can't possibly be. The most serious effort to explain it because of spiritual blindness is so far short of the glory of the cross that it is comparatively foolish.

It is nevertheless the perfect display of the wisdom of God and God's power. Perfect display of that. So in verse 24 he says, but to those who are the called, both Jew and Greek, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, The called Christ is power. In the outworking of the plan of redemption, God has fashioned an infinite plan and has disclosed the unsearchable depths of his wisdom and prudence.

If you look at Ephesians 1.8, he says, which he made to abound towards us in all wisdom and all prudence. The preaching of the cross is God's appointed way of reaching the lost with the very message of infinite grace.

If you could put all the wisdom, let's say we could gather up all the wisdom in the world and put it in one person. Pick one, I don't care who it is. It wouldn't help him one iota to become a believer or to live as a Christian. The wisdom of the world is incapable of doing that. God has set all aside in the cross and the wisdom of the world and the religion of the world. Man's wisdom and man's religion have been set aside in the cross.

It's part of his definitive plan. Back in chapter 1, verse 19, Paul quotes an Old Testament verse that says, God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. I find it interesting that I've had this thought lately that why would I go get educated? Why would I get advanced degrees? Yeah, maybe they'll help with my prospects for a job. But what does it make me? It makes me clever. I can give off an aura now of cleverness.

And what you see in the world today with the overly educated is that's the whole focus. They try to be clever. Lewis Barry Chafer said, the great transaction of the sacrifice of Christ is declared to be the manifestation of divine power and wisdom. The cross is the manifestation of power and wisdom. And if you want to use the word cleverness, that's the manifestation of it.

As revealed in the scriptures, the greatest problem that ever confronted God was not creation. It was the redemption of the lost soul. That was the number one problem. Wisdom, His wisdom, is seen in the solving of the problem of how God can do two things.

He can remain just while at the same time in his heart he's justifying a sinner. God's righteousness, if standing towards one of his creatures, what does he have to do? Because he sins, he has to condemn them. Well, if he loves them, and he wants to justify him, he's got to come up with a plan where he can do both of those things. That his righteousness is satisfied and his love is satisfied.

Where did that come from? The cross of Christ. Without that cross, he can certainly condemn, but he can't justify until the cross. The wisdom of the cross is seen in the solving of the problem, how God can remain a just being while being according to the compassion of His heart, the justifier. His power is set free to act on behalf of all those who believe in Christ as their Savior. And when therefore set free, He will not stop short of the satisfaction of His measureless love.

We've got two things going here. The power, like we've talked about, the power of the resurrection, it took more power to raise Christ from the dead than it took for God to create the universe. That being put into play, what do you see? God's power for the believer, or on behalf of the believer, to the one who believes, is limitless. There's no limit to the power that God will shed on a believer.

And he won't stop short of what? The satisfaction of his own measureless love. Now think about this. What is the satisfaction of God's love to you and me? He's got a goal in mind. He's got a measure in mind. But the Word says it's measureless. What God has in store for those who love Him is measureless.

And He wants us to be with Him personally, face-to-face, and be like Him enough so that we can appreciate Him for who He is. And that we can receive His love and we can reciprocate. And for all eternity, that's what we get to do. Ephesians 1 says that we are to be with Him in love all the time. It never ends. So what's he going to do? He's going to present the Saved One in glory. What?

Conform to the image of Christ. Why conform to the image of Christ? Because Christ is the Beloved. He's the one that the Father finds all of His satisfaction in. So you and I are in Christ. What does He find about us? All of His satisfaction is in us. It's limitless what He is doing.

Only only by calling of God that we come into, not because of any good character on our part. This is only by God's calling. Without God's calling, we would have no appreciation of Christ or an understanding of what the cross was all about. The cross is God's estimate of man in the flesh. He had no other alternative.

He had to crucify Christ. to get, not to punish him, but to get rid of those that are in the flesh. God had called the Corinthians himself, personally called each one of them, and the result was that Christ was precious to them as the wisdom and the power of God. Paul was encouraged to labor at Corinth because what did the Lord tell him? The Lord said, I want you to labor in Corinth for a long time. Why? Because I have many people in that city. They're my people and I want you there to minister them.

So the simple gospel which is true, the simple gospel that's presented to us which is true, you know that angels for 2,000 years have been wondering what it's all about because they don't understand God's love. They learn from watching what God does with us. A friend of mine used to say, or the guy that led me to Christ used to say, humanity is a virus and we can appreciate today what a virus is on a planet. And God loves the virus so much so that he gave his son for the virus.

Because we all shake our fist at God in the flesh. So the man Adam with whom I used to be linked and you used to be linked has been publicly judged. in the cross of Christ so that I may be linked up in grace with the glorified man, Jesus Christ. By the power of God, we saved ones and called ones, believers, are taken out of Adam and replaced in Christ. And that transaction happens through our identification in the cross.

There is nothing left but the glory of God, and that's liberty, for the service of God is in view. Being in Christ is the way to serve God. Being in Christ is where the freedom is. You often think, well, I have to be free from something to be free to something. I'm free from all that displeases God, and I'm free to everything that pleases Him because I'm in Christ. Okay. Now, the verses that we want to focus on today.

Paul says, Take a look, looking at the kinds of people found in the Church of Corinthians directory. If we had the directory from the Church of Corinthians and it listed all their names and what they did for a living, that's what Paul is saying. Take a look at who they are.

He says in 26, For consider your calling, brethren, there aren't many wise according to the flesh, there aren't many mighty, and there aren't many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong. So what are we talking about?

Paul turned from the content of the gospel and the cross, and to persuade these Corinthians, he says, I just want you to look at who's in your church. Just take a look at who the people are and what they are. And he's strengthening his argument that the gospel he preached contradicted human expectations.

God had chosen nobodies rather than the beautiful people of Corinth. Chester McAuley says the Corinthians who were not weaned from their old admiration of man's wisdom, their believers who really admired man's wisdom and power and rank, the apostle says to them, Consider the makeup of the called ones in your church. Let's just see who they are So he says Here's a group that didn't Did not make up the Corinthian church directory for consider your calling and he he repeats that verse.

They're not many wise and not many Mighty and they're not many noble within the church there aren't not many people that are like this. It doesn't mean that they're excluded. It doesn't mean there aren't any. It just says there aren't many, which means they're not a majority. They're a real minority.

The verse reflects that there are a few in the Christian church who came from a higher intellectual or influential levels of the society. But sitting before all of these Corinthians in their church is the clearest evidence that not many wise according to the flesh.

This characteristic has marked most churches throughout 2,000 years of history. Look at our church. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't churches that are overly populated with wise, mighty, and noble people. As a young believer, I've watched a church be formed And the people that formed it and supported it were all people of the class of the wise, the mighty, and the noble. And so everybody went there. And it was a huge show every Sunday. Lots of people, and everybody, you could look down the aisles, and everybody used to say, oh, I know him, and I see him in the paper, and he's just, they were noble people.

But Scripture says, wait a minute, that's not who, This verse says that's not who God has called. Not that he didn't call some. If you look in Acts 1734, there's a guy named Dionysios who wasn't what they call an abrogate. He was a member of the body of like the Congress and he was an Athenian by birth and he was educated in all the useful and ornamental literature of Greece. And he was a really important guy in the government of Athens. Everybody knew who he was. He happened to be a believer. In Romans 16, 23, there's this man, Erastus, who was the city treasurer.

So there are some. Nevertheless, these people are really in the minority. There aren't very many of them. Now, notice the words, according to. It's a Greek word. preposition kata which means used to introduce the norm or a standard according to the human standard the church did not have many people of human wise reputation Matthew 11 25 says in that same time Jesus answered and said I thank you father Lord of heaven and earth that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and have revealed them to babes so The people of the ruling class, when he talks about the mighty, he's talking about people in the ruling class, the powerful people, people that had some great influence, usually politicians or military people.

When he's talking about the noble, he's talking about people of money and privilege. The word noble means high-born. And it's a compound Greek word that means good or well born, well born. If we lived in England and you happened to be born in the line of the Queen, well, you're noble. You're an aristocrat.

So one familiar with Scripture says that God has just never been impressed with human greatness. You know, we're impressed, but he's not. As seen in these verses, it could well be viewed as a spiritual disadvantage to be one of these people. And the Corinthians knew by report that the other churches within Galatia and the Mediterranean Basin had the same features about them, that there weren't very many noble, mighty, or wise that were involved with the church. So that's a point that he's making. Now, he says the flesh must glory in something, so either birth or riches or intellect, but in the presence of God, neither believer nor unbeliever can glory in these things. You can't go to God and say, boy, I've done a lot for you. Unfortunately, in the presence of one another, We may seek to promote ourselves by birth, or riches, or wisdom, or accomplishment. We talked about it in Sunday school a little bit.

With men, when someone introduces you to a man, and you're a man, and what's your name, what's the next question you ask him? What do you do? In other words, are you wise? Are you well-known? Are you rich? In other words, I'm trying to gauge how I'm going to deal with you based on where you rank in the world. Are you rich? Do you have a lot of wisdom? What are your accomplishments? And if they're good, I'm going to do this. If they're not so good, I'm going to put you down here.

So, to glory in those kind of things only shows how little time we spend with the Lord Jesus in His presence. If those things are important to us, then we're spending way too much time away from Him. This is all basic to God's manner of dealing with man on a grace basis, without regard to man's merit or failings.

We all live under grace, and it doesn't matter where you came from. It matters who you are now in Christ. No matter how hard we try to impress God, and make him shower more favors towards us because of our works. He only deals with us on the unlimited and unmerited basis of grace. To go to God and say, look what I've done or I want to do something special for you so that you will honor me more is a total fleshly enterprise. We live under grace.

That means we receive only. So watch what he does now. Paul even goes further and he says, not only a fact among men, but this is the purpose of God. Not only do we learn here that what made up the church, but we also find out that it's God's plan and purpose for these things to be this way, that not many wise, not many powerful.

God decided, in verse 27 he says, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world For what reason? To shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world. Why did He do that? To shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world and the despise God has chosen, the things that are not, so that they may nullify the things that are. The things that are are the things that are important in the world. The foolishness of the world put to shame the wise men. The cross is the best example of that. He chose the weak things of the world to put to shame the strong things of the world.

In James 2.5, James says, listen, my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith? and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? Yeah, he had. So clear is his judgment pronounced on what is ever apt to captivate the heart of Christians.

For they love to be able to count up the wise and the world's grandeur in their own ranks as if it could in some sort of way add luster to Christ. No. You watch Christendom today, a lot of what's going on with Christendom is people who are trying to add luster to Christ. What do you think that working for the kingdom is all about? If I'm working for the kingdom, when I get before the Lord, I want Him to notice how much I did in the flesh.

So those who did make up the Corinthian church directory, He's chosen the foolish things. I read that verse. The Greek introduces, this is a purpose clause. Now what a purpose clause is, it starts out with the Greek word hina, H-I-N-A, and there are four of them through the rest of this chapter. In verse 27, notice the word to shame, purpose.

God chose the foolish things of the world for what purpose? To shame. In verse 28, he says, "...and the base things of the world, and the despised things God has chosen to things." The word that means, what did he do it for? I'm sorry, so that, what did he do it for? He did it that he may nullify the things that are of the world.

And in verse 31, the word that's used, and we'll use that in a minute. Now notice what's going on here. There are three things of who's and why's. Who has God chosen? Answer, the foolish things of the world. Why has he done this? He's done it for a purpose, to shame the wise. What else has God chosen? He chose the weak things of the world. Why? I'm sorry, the repeated expression of the world means that they are weak as the world views them. That's why he keeps using that term, weak as the world views them. Why has God done this? To shame the things which are strong. We have a purpose clause here, and it's the purpose of God for the way that He wants things to be. His purpose. At this point, we should ask, why is this God's purpose? Why would this be God's purpose? Why would He do it this way?

He's going to give us the answer twice before the end of the chapter. So hold on, I'll tell you in a minute. We who are included as the ones that God has called, we're the ones that are the base things and the despised. The word base should be compared to the word noble. In verse 26, it's a Greek play on words. Watch how this goes. Noble is the word eugenos, meaning highborn.

Base means no-born. You were born of nothing. You're a zero. You're a peon, as opposed to somebody who's high-born. The one that's born the peon is the one who lives under grace and gets the grace. The things that are not. We have the words, the things that are not, we've reached the bottom. We're zeros. The circle is rubbed out. I think that's wonderful because it puts us all on the level playing field. We're all the same.

If God called such to fellowship of His Son to be one with Him now and to reign with Him forever, whose grace is that? If the wise and powerful and noble were for the most part left in their possessions and pursuits of which blinded them to the glory of God on the one hand and to the judgment on the other, whose sin is that? It's theirs.

Lewis Perry Chaffer said, God is satisfied with the payment Christ has made, and it is in Him who alone is worthy that we have a perfect redemption, even the forgiveness of sins. Not indeed a partial forgiveness, which would be no manifestation of infinite grace, but that which being completed enough to last forever remains the abiding glory of God. The glory of God shed on us abides forever.

But how unworthy and how inconsistent that we as believers should yearn after the glory in the flesh and its advantages, if that's what we are under. We find ourselves evidence that God's foolishness did confound the wise. The Old Testament is full of illustrations of God choosing less promising people and material for his instruments. His methods don't change with the coming of Christ, nor has it changed ever since.

How do I say this? When he says that the things that are not, or the things that are nothing, he's talking about non-entities in the world. The things that are, are the things and individuals that the world values highly. Paul didn't mean that God cannot or will not save the affluent. But the glory of the gospel is that God's mercy extends to those who are affluent.

And when they does, they tend to write it off. God has chosen this method so that the glory might be his. Here's the reason why he did it. That the glory might be his. And his alone. How wrong then to glorify his messengers. Glorying here has the idea of putting one's full confidence in some inappropriate object or to secure for yourself. So his purpose in the Purpose Clause, the answer is, he did it for his own glory. And he did it right. And he did it correctly. And us are the focus and the receiver of all that he did.

So let's close. Father, how we thank you. How we thank you the way that you do things, not only what you do, but the way that you do things. And so we continue to ask to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus and to be like him who despised the shame of the cross. went to it and died so that he could satisfy you that we pray that we would have the same heart and we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.