The Wisdom of the Cross?

1 Cor 1:18-2:5

Leith Anderson tells about the time he was in Niamey, Niger, and bought a brass souvenir called a Taureg cross. He writes, "The flat cross is diamond-shaped in the middle with four projections coming from each point. The trinket is not shaped like a typical cross, but it is a cross nonetheless.

"Amazingly, this cross is the symbol of the nomadic Taureg people of the Sahara Desert. It is amazing because the Taureg are not Christian, but Muslim. Historians and anthropologists are not sure where the Taureg cross came from or why it is so important to these people. The meaning has been lost."

"Is it possible for Christians to forget the meaning of the cross? Could the cross ever become merely a part of our culture?"

I think we are already heading down that path. Not long ago two teen girls walked passed me in town. They were both smoking. One was using words that shouldn’t be used anywhere let alone in public. Yet, hanging down her neck was a necklace with a cross on it. For her it was merely decoration. Too many in our culture see the cross only as decoration. They have forgotten what it symbolizes.

PRAYER

I. Stumbling Block and Foolishness

A. The Cross in the time of Jesus

1. Because we have grown up with the image of the cross as a revered symbol of Christianity, it has a deep meaning for us.

2. However, When Jesus was crucified, the cross was anything but revered.

3. It was a symbol of a common criminal not a savior of the world.

a) Crucifixion in the 1^st century was the execution of choice of the Romans for people who didn’t matter.

b) It was against the law to crucify a Roman citizen, no matter how low their rank because they were Romans.

c) It was an execution meant to instill fear and control over the barbarian nations the Romans ruled.

B. Jewish view

1. The Jews were looking for a Savior from the Romans

2. They didn’t want some guy who failed and was executed as a common criminal.

3. The gospel was also hard for them to swallow because they were no longer God’s chosen few.

a) Anyone could be a Christian.

b) They didn’t have to practice or understand Judaism.

c) They didn’t have the history of obedience to the Law as the Jews did.

d) They didn’t have to be circumcised.

e) All this came as a direct insult to the Jewish People.

C. Gentile View

1. The Gentiles were a whole other breed

2. They reverenced knowledge and worldly wisdom.

3. Greek was in during this time.

a) Rome was the superpower, but Greece was the superpower of intellectual thought

b) Corinth longed to be thought of as a second Athens.

c) It wanted to be the center of thought and leaning.

d) But they were too Roman to really be Greek.

e) They loved the ostentation of Rome

f) They loved the carnal lifestyle of Rome

g) In fact in those days to describe a truly sexually open lifestyle you would call someone “Corinthian.”

4. All great thought would come from Greece or Rome, not some wandering Hebrew fanatic.

5. Jesus was rejected without thought by the highbrow Gentiles.

II. God’s Wisdom Over Man’s Wisdom

A. Most people couldn’t see any wisdom in a God dying as a common criminal for mankind.

1. That just didn’t fit with their thinking.

B. Grace is a wisdom that only God understands

1. Luckily, God’s wisdom is far different than ours.

2. He changed the cross from a degrading symbol of failure to a symbol of man’s redemption through his grace.

C. The Cross - The power of God

1. READ vs 18

2. In his book The Great Boer War, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle recounts the story of a small detachment of British troops who were surprised by an overwhelming enemy force. The British fell back under heavy fire. Their wounded lay in a perilous position where they faced certain death. One of them, a corporal in the Ceylon Mounted Infantry, later told that they all realized they had to come immediately under the protection of a Red Cross flag it they wanted to survive. All they had was a piece of white cloth, but no red paint. So they used the blood from their wounds to make a large cross on that white cloth. Their attackers respected that grim flag as it was held aloft, and the British wounded were brought to safety.

3. The cross of Jesus does much more than save our physical lives.

a) His blood on that cross saved our spiritual lives.

b) It’s the only way we could be saved.

D. It’s the gospel stupid

1. During the ’92 election, President Clinton was able to win because they stayed focus on a very specific message that resonated with people’s pocket book. “It’s the economy, Stupid” was their motto of the campaign and staying focused on that message helped them beat an incumbent president.

2. Paul says the same thing about the gospel.

a) Don’t get sidetracked by human wisdom.

b) God didn’t use the powerful, the intellectual, the noble birthed people to be his champions.

c) He used the lowly who understood what God had done for them rather than what they were did for God.

d) READ vs 26-31

3. Too often we get caught up in worshipping the presenter of the gospel rather than the one who gave us the gospel.

a) Lyman Beecher Stowe, in his book Saints, Sinners, and Beechers told that on one occasion Thomas K. Beecher substituted for his famous brother Henry Ward Beecher at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Many curiosity seekers had come to hear the renowned Henry Beecher speak. Therefore when Thomas Beecher appeared in the pulpit instead, some of the people got up and started for the doors. Sensing that they were disappointed because he was substituting for his brother, Thomas Beecher raised his hand for silence and announced, "All those who came here this morning to worship Henry Ward Beecher may withdraw from the church; all who came to worship God may remain."

b) While it is nice to have someone who can eloquently proclaim the gospel, it’s the message not the messenger that saves.

c) Someone once asked Francis of Assisi how he was able to accomplish so much. He replied, "This may be why: The Lord looked down from Heaven and said, 'Where can I find the weakest, littlest man on earth?' Then He saw me and said, 'I've found him. I will work through him, and he won't be proud of it. He'll see that I am only using him because of his insignificance.'"

d) He understood what Paul was say in 2:1-5

e) When we realize that, then each and every one of us can begin to share the gospel to others because we know it is God’s power not our ability that does the work.

f) We are his willing servants.

III. The Power of the Cross

A. What is the power of the cross?

1. Two goats without blemish stood before the high priest in the bright Middle Eastern sun. Lots were cast, and the priest slowly led one to the altar to be killed as a sin offering for the people. Its blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. That goat was a sacrifice.

2. The other goat, known as the scapegoat, portrays another truth. The priest placed both hands on its forehead and confessed the sins of Israel. Then the goat was led out into the desert and turned loose. As it wandered away, never to be seen again, it symbolically took Israel's sins along with it. They were gone. The people were reconciled to God. That goat was a substitute.

3. Both of these goats were pictures of what Christ would do for us. The cross became an upright altar, where the Lamb of God gave His life as a sacrifice for sin.

4. And what the scapegoat symbolically portrayed for Israel--the removal of their sins--Jesus fulfilled in reality.

5. He became our substitute. Because of our identification with Him as believers, our sins have been taken away completely.

6. Two goats representing two truths: sacrifice and substitution. Both were fulfilled in Christ when He died on the cross and made full atonement for our sins.

B. What is our reaction to the cross?

1. "Dr. Tom Dooley wrote of building a cage for a small Himalayan moon bear someone had given him. An old Chinese man came by and saw the cage and began to cry. When Tom Dooley asked the old man why he was weeping, he told him a dark story. He and his son had been harvesting rice on a commune in Red China. They were not allowed to keep any rice for personal use. The son had hidden a small bit of rice in his clothes to take to his mother who was suffering from beriberi. The rice was discovered, and the soldiers put the boy in a cage in the middle of the town. The cage was so small his son could not sit up or even move. The father and mother watched their son slowly die in that cage under the hot sun, starving, with insects crawling over his body. Many years had passed, but he still cried every time he saw a cage. The man could not see a cage without becoming passionate.

2. Can you look at a cross without being shaken?

3. The truth is that if the cross is all we say it is, then it should evoke a response from us like the cage did from the old Chinese father.

4. How will you react to the wisdom of the cross this morning?