1 Corinthians 1. Verse 22, Paul
says, the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. but we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews, a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks, foolishness,
but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Paul says there in verse
23, we preach Christ crucified. This is the message that God
sends his messengers to preach, Christ crucified. Paul said over
in another place here in 2 Corinthians, he said, we preach not ourselves,
but Jesus Christ our Lord. He said, I determine not to know
anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. This
is not the message the world is preaching. The world is not
preaching Christ and Him crucified. This is not the message that's
being proclaimed this morning in most pulpits. It's not the
message of Christ and Him crucified. It's a rare thing where God sets
up the gospel and goes forth preaching and glorifying Christ
and Him crucified. Now this gospel, this message
comes to three kinds of people, and it has three kinds of effects
in those that hear it. And everybody fits into one of
these classifications right here. He says of the Jew, in verse
22, the Jews require a sign. And therefore, verse 23, unto
the Jews Christ crucified is a stumbling block. He says the
Greek, verse 22, the Greeks seek after wisdom. And therefore the
preaching of Christ crucified, verse 23, is unto the Greeks
foolishness. But unto them which are called,
verse 24, unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Now who is
the Jew? He says the Jews require a sign,
and therefore unto the Jews, Christ crucified is a stumbling
block. In the context here, the Jew
is a self-made religious man. That's who the Jew is. Any sinner
that's attempting to come to God in any way trusting in his
works is the Jew that Paul speaks of in this context. He seeks
a sign. He seeks an outward work he can
see. Our Lord told the Pharisees that
you seek honor from men. You're looking for honor from
men. So everything you do, you do to be seen of men. And you
don't seek the honor that comes from God. That's what he told
them. And so, doing so, they not only
are trying to make, show forth a sign in themselves, they want
to see a sign in others. A sign in others. It's a carnal
mind focusing on carnal, fleshly things. Touch not, taste not,
handle not. Things you can see. And so the
preaching of Christ crucified's a stumbling block. It's a stumbling
block. It trips up the self-made religious
man because the gospel declares that Christ and him crucified
is the salvation of his people. And this is a stumbling block.
The Jew here, the self-made religious man, he thinks he's righteous
by his own will. Paul called it will-worship.
It's actually the worship of a man's will. And this is what
you hear so much of in the world today. Paul called it will-worship. He's thinking a man's saved by
his own will. That it was by his will that
he came to Christ or that he whatever his form of religion
is, it is by his will. And so it's a stumbling block
to hear that sinners are saved by the will of God. To hear that
it's God who chooses whom he will and has mercy on whom he
will. That is a stumbling block. To hear that it takes Christ
coming in the power of the Holy Spirit to create a new heart
in a sinner and make you willing in the day of his power, by his
power. They must be taught of God. This
is offensive to a naturally religious man. The truth is, man's will
is not free. You hear this a lot. You're going
to hear people talk about, well, we have a free will. Our will
is always bound to our nature. It's always under the power of
our nature, whatever our nature is. And we come into this world
with a nature that is nothing but sin. And we're not willing
to believe God. We're not willing to give up
anything of ourselves and totally renounce ourselves and trust
Christ only. That takes the Lord coming and
giving you a new heart. That's why the Lord Jesus told
Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. It always
will be. Even in the believer, that which
is born of the flesh is still just flesh. That which is born
of the spirit is spirit. We have to be born of God and
given a new spirit. And the scripture says, he said
to Christ, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. When he gives you a new heart
and he gives you a new will, you're willing, but he has to
make us willing by his power so he gets the glory. The Jew's
a self-righteous man. It means he thinks he's making
himself righteous by something of himself. He doesn't truly believe that
he and all sinners are truly, totally, thoroughly depraved.
He really does not believe that. If we believe in total depravity,
we realize we cannot make ourselves righteous in any shape, form,
or fashion. We can't contribute to it in
any way. You and I have to be saved by
the righteousness of another, and that's Christ. He may have
a zeal for God, but it's not according to knowledge. He doesn't
believe Christ because those that believe Christ submit to
Christ as our only righteousness. Paul said, Paul said, Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. To
everyone that believeth. The man that's still going about
trying to make himself righteous has not submitted to the righteousness
of God, which is Christ our righteousness. He really doesn't believe that
by one man sin entered the world and death by sin and death passed
upon all men. He really doesn't believe that.
Because if he ever sees Christ and knows Christ, he's gonna
understand that we're made righteous by one man's obedience. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jew is a self-sanctifying
man. He's a self-sanctifying man.
The word Pharisee means separate ones. That's what it means. But
the problem with the Pharisees was they separated themselves. They did the separating. That's
the problem. And so they made themselves holy,
they thought, and the scripture says, they say of others, stand
by thyself, come not near me, for I'm holier than that. And
the Lord says, that heart, that spirit is a stench in my nose.
It's a fire that burns all the day. It's a picture of a garbage
dump set on fire and just burning and stinking. That's what the
Lord said of it. He doesn't hear the law. The
man who thinks he can sanctify himself by his obedience, he
does not hear what the law says. He does not hear it. The law
says we are sin. The law says we are sin. We are
sin. We have to be sanctified by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, men who say this usually
don't say they're keeping the law for for righteousness. They won't say they're keeping
the law for righteousness. They say they're keeping the
law to be holy and to become more holy and make themselves
more holy. We don't believe that. I've never
preached that message. That's a false gospel. That's
a false gospel. Christ makes his people holy
when he enters in the heart and he grows us in that state of
holiness, but we don't get more holy. We don't get more holy. Paul said, this only would I
learn of you. Received you the spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish
having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? It's exactly what he's saying.
Do we now, that we've begun in the spirit, do we go back now
and start trying to perfect ourselves by our fleshly doing? This thing
is of Christ. A Jew's a self-redeemed man.
He believes he set himself free. By his will, by whatever he's
done, he set himself free. And so he stumbles when he hears
that Christ is the Redeemer. Christ is the Redeemer. A sinner
that trusts his own power, trusts his own wisdom, his own righteousness,
his own holiness, is not free at all. He's not free at all. He's miserably in bondage and
will bring others into that same bondage. that he stumbles at
the gospel of Christ and him crucified, and here's the offense. When you hear Christ and him
crucified, and Christ is made all to his people, that means
that you and I as sinners don't have any room to glory. All the
glory goes to Christ, and that offends the natural man. That's
the offense. Look over at Romans 9 with me,
Romans chapter 9. This was the problem when Christ
came, this was the problem in Israel. Romans 9, 31. Let's begin in verse 30. What
shall we say then? The Gentiles, which followed
not after righteousness, they didn't have the law, they weren't
following after right, they weren't trying to make themselves righteous
before God, and yet they have attained to righteousness. like
Abraham that didn't even have the law. How could he be righteous
before God? Even the righteousness, which
is a faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness,
they were whitewashed outwardly and looked like they were righteous
outwardly and looked like they were holy outwardly and were
very appealing to men. They did not attain they did not attain to the law
of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not by
faith, but as it were, by the works of the law, because they
stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it's written, behold, I lay
in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense, and whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed. So that's the Jew. We're talking about the Jew trusting
his own works, his own doing. What's the Greek? Who's the Greek? It says, verse 22, the Greeks
seek after wisdom. And so, therefore, verse 23,
unto the Greeks, the preaching of Christ is foolishness. The
Greek represents all sinners who have their hearts set on
the world. They are interested in the world's
wisdom, in the world's riches, in the world's promotion, in
the world's applause, in philosophy, in arts and sciences, in history,
in politics, in sports, in recreation, whatever, whatever, but they
consider what we're doing right here to be utter foolishness. to tell them there is a God in
heaven that made everything, that spoke it into existence,
who's been ruling everything since the beginning, and will
continue to rule it until the end, until he's called each and
every one of his people to himself, they consider that's utter foolishness.
That's just bizarre. And that's, they're like the,
like those that Paul went to at Athens. And they said then
certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered
the Apostle Paul and they said, what will this babbler say? Others
some said he seems to be a setter forth of strange gods because
he preached unto them Jesus. He preached the resurrection.
A natural man just can't, we can't believe naturally, believe
that a man, Christ Jesus the God man, we can't believe he
came down from heaven as God and took flesh, and a natural
man can't believe that he arose from the dead and ascended back
to glory. And this was strange to them. And they took him and they brought
him to Oropagus and they said, may we know what this new doctrine
whereof thou speakest is? For thou bringest certain strange
things to our ears. We would know thereof what these
things mean. Because all the Athenians and
strangers that were there spent their time in nothing else but
either to tell or to hear some new thing. That's the only reason
they wanted to hear Paul that day. It just was something new
to them. They weren't interested in it.
And when they heard it, it was foolishness to them. So everything
to the Greek, everything about All religion is foolishness to
the Greek, but especially the truth of Christ and declaring
the truth that gives him all the glory and sinners none, that's
foolishness to the wise and prudent man of the world. What's the
preaching of Christ crucified unto them that are called? Look
here in verse 24, 1 Corinthians 1.24. But unto them which are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and
the wisdom of God. The reason that God's messenger
preaches Christ crucified, the reason that we major, it's not
a Christ-centered gospel we preach. Christ is all we preach. And
the reason for that is because this is the power of God unto
salvation. Christ is the power and wisdom
of God unto salvation. And the church rejoices to hear
the gospel that glorifies the one who saved us. We rejoice
to hear Christ honored and glorified and preached and it never gets
old to us. It never gets old. Those God
calls are no different than the Jew and the Greek. We're no different
than the Jew and the Greek. We're looking to ourselves and
thought we were wise and thought all this was just foolishness
at one time. And we didn't make the difference. God made the
difference. He made the difference by his
grace. He affectionately called us. This is Christ speaking. This is Christ speaking through
this gospel, through this word, as it's going forth, a sinner
comes in, he sits down, he may be a Greek, he may be a Jew,
he's looking to himself, either way, and this gospel comes and
Christ speaks it into his heart in power, and when he does, he
calls him. He calls him out of his religion,
he calls him out of his vain worldly wisdom, he calls him
to himself. He calls his people out from
among the Jews and the Greeks, out of the religion and the worldly
philosophies. But to all who he calls, those
that he calls, Christ is made unto us to be the power and the
wisdom of God. When a sinner is made to behold
Christ and truly behold Christ, that's when God reveals his righteousness
to us. He reveals His righteousness
to us. This is where it all centers in, right here, is the righteousness
of God. That's the whole purpose for
Christ's coming. Look back at verse 19. This is when we find
out we have no power and wisdom in ourselves. We become ignorant. We shut our mouths because Christ
becomes power and wisdom. And this is on purpose, verse
19, for it's written, God said, I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world, the debater? Have not God made foolish
the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." God did this
all on purpose. From Adam all the way to Christ
came. Our God, he saved his people
along the way. But he proved that sinners by
our own wisdom cannot know God. We cannot know God. He said in
Romans 1, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
Neither were thankful but became vain in their imagination and
their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man and birds and
beasts and what have you. And God proved by that that after
man's wisdom, he can't find out God. but God purposed from eternity
to save by this foolish means that the world calls foolishness,
by the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, so that those
that He saves, they're going to cease glorying in themselves
and glory only in the Lord. Look at verse 21, 1 Corinthians
1, 21. For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. This right
here that we're doing today is so, I can't even express how
important it is. It is life. It is life. And the world goes around and
just shrugs it off, and don't tell me about that. I don't want
to go hear a message preached that gives God all the glory.
taking the things God gives every day, the sunlight, and the rain,
and the vegetables, and the food, and everything that God's given,
and at the same time saying, but I don't wanna hear God. This right here is how he's going
to give life. He's going to preach the gospel to us. It pleased
God to save through the fellowships of preaching. We need to be under
the preaching of the gospel of Christ every time the door opens.
We need to be gathered together to hear the gospel preached every
time we can hear the gospel preached. It's life and death. I said when
the kids were younger, to all the young people, I said, whatever
you do, even if you don't believe what you're hearing preached,
whatever you do, as much as you can, just be under the preaching
of the gospel. Don't stop coming to hear the
gospel preached, because if God quickens you in the heart, this
is how he's gonna do it. Look here at verse 25. The foolishness
of God's wiser than men, the weakness of God's stronger than
men. If you see your calling, brethren, not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God
has chosen foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God's not doing it the way the
world thinks it ought to be done. He's not doing it the way false
religion's doing it. He's purposely staining the pride
of men. That's what he's doing. He's
purposely gonna send a messenger to his people that's gonna humble
his people just by who they are. And in the message they preach,
it's gonna humble his people. We're gonna have to be brought
to nothing. God has chosen foolish things of the world to confound
the wise. God's chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. Base things of the world, things
which are despised, hath God chosen. Yea, things which are
not, to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh should
glory in his presence. God makes his elect. Behold,
Christ is the power and wisdom of God unto salvation. That's
what he does when he calls us. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first and also to
the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. It's written that just, those
Christ justified, they shall live by faith, by his faithfulness,
giving us faith and making us walk by faith. This work of salvation
is all of God in Christ Jesus, every bit of it. Look here in
verse 30. But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is
made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. When God makes us know, that it's of God that we're
in Christ. When he makes you know you're
in Christ Jesus, and the only reason you're in Christ Jesus
is of God, because he called you into Christ. When he makes
us know that, brethren, we stop boasting in our will, and we
stop trying to take God's glory. When God makes Christ's wisdom
to us, that's when we have the mind of Christ. That's when the
light shines. That's when you start hearing
and understanding spiritual things. And when that happens, we become
a fool. And ourselves, we see ourselves
as being so ignorant and so foolish, and that we have no wisdom whatsoever. But Christ, we start leaning
to our own understanding. We start looking to Him. That's
when we truly are made wise. No man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him. In Christ are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. He said in Proverbs 2, 5, Then
shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge
of God, for the Lord giveth wisdom. It's out of His mouth that comes
knowledge and understanding. He has to be made wisdom to us.
And when Christ is made righteousness to us, that's when we're settled. That's when we're sure. That's
when we stop trying to work for salvation. That's when we rest
in Christ and cast it all into his hands. He stops being a stumbling block
to us, because when we see Christ, when you see that it took God
sending His own Son, the Son of God coming down in human flesh,
to put away the sin of His people, when we see that God incarnate
went to the cross and laid down His life for vile base sinners
like we are, to put away our sin, and that's what it took
to satisfy justice, that's what it took to honor God's law, it
took Christ coming in from an infant in a womb, sinless, to
live his entire life walking under the law in place of his
people, to make his people the righteousness of God, and then
he went to the cross and laid down his life bearing the sin
and guilt of his people. When you see that, I mean really
know this, You can't boast anymore in anything you've ever done
or will do that's gonna make you have any acceptance with
God. And we stop, we stop, when we behold Christ, we stop, we stop falling out and falling
aside and thinking that we're not his anymore by anything we
do or don't do. This thing works to make you
shut up to him to know he is my salvation, he's my righteousness. That's power and wisdom. He hath
made him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. That's what we gotta have. We
got, God's not, he's not pleased with just doing the best you
can. He's not pleased with just, you know, giving it the old college
try and having a sincere heart. We gotta be perfect to be accepted
of God. We gotta be as righteous as God
is righteous. And there's only one way that
is, that's Christ only, Christ only. Christ is the power and wisdom
of God in the heart. When of God, Christ has made
sanctification unto us. This is when we really understand
what true sanctification is. Until then, we've got the words
of men and we're following men, but we really don't know what
sanctification of the heart really is. Christ enters in. Wherever
Christ is, he sanctifies it. Wherever he is, he's the holiness
of it. When he entered into that tabernacle
and the Shekinah glory entered in, that's what made that place
holy. And when Christ enters in in
spirit into the heart of his child, there is a new man created
that's inseparably one with Christ, and that new man is absolutely,
perfectly holy because of Christ. Not because of us, because of
Christ. No sin, no guile, that's the only way God could let us
come into his holiest of holies, even in prayer right now, is
if we're perfectly holy in Christ. And the Paradox to this and the oxymoron
of this is, is that when he does this work, we stop looking at
ourselves and calling what we've done holiness, and we start looking
out of ourselves to him and knowing I am holy and perfect because
by one offering, Christ has perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Godliness, the word godliness, translated godliness, doesn't
even have the word God in it. You know what it means? devotedness. And it's the Lord doing what
he did to Abraham, coming to us over and over and over and
shining the light more and more and more so that we see he's
the almighty God, he's our holiness, he's our perfection, and the
more that light shines, the more you see you're living in a condemned,
fallen down, decrepit, ruined house. so that you find all your
confidence in him and none in yourself. More and more and more
and more. That's true growth in grace.
That's true growth in grace. When of God Christ is made unto
us redemption, that's when we glory in the power and wisdom
of God who sent our kinsman redeemer. This one who was a near kinsman
from the foundation of the world, chosen of God, precious before
God, in whom all his brethren were his children. He's the elder brother. And our
near kinsman came down because he's the only one who had the
right to redeem his people from the curse of the law. And He
did it by going to the cross and being made a curse for us
in our room instead. What did He accomplish by that?
He satisfied the law perfectly so that the law looks at His
people now and says, they're perfect, they're righteous. And He comes to you in the power
when He enters into the heart and when He makes that new man
in us and He frees you from the dominion of your sin nature so
that you can actually believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The
only way we can. the only way we can. And He keeps
us knowing He's our redemption because just like He didn't destroy
all the enemies when He brought them into the land of Canaan,
He hadn't destroyed all the enemies in our flesh either. So that
ever so often when we start looking at ourselves and thinking we
can walk and thinking we're a little better and this and that and
the other, the Lord just lets us see what we are. And that
we can't deliver ourselves from ourselves. And He comes and set
you free, and shows you, I'm your redeemer. I'm your redeemer. And he shows you, he's redeemed
you, he's delivered you from the devil, from hell, and from
the grave. And I'm telling you this, brethren, We have no more ability. We cannot
in any way one day redeem our bodies from this vile body and
make it fashion like unto his glorious body, bring it out of
the grave and give it a new glorified body and be with Christ. We have
no ability to do that. No ability. And we don't have
any more ability to redeem ourselves from the curse of the law, redeem
ourselves from our sin nature, redeem ourselves from the power
of the devil, redeem ourselves from hell. Christ is the Redeemer. He's the Redeemer. And that's why we glory only
in the Lord. This is why we preach Christ
and Him crucified. We've experienced Christ's power
and wisdom so that Christ is all and in all unto us. I read
something about a church years ago. They had a sign archway
up as you entered into the courtyard and it said, we preach Christ
crucified. We preach Christ crucified. And
over the years, the ivy started to grow on that sign. And it
grew over, crucified. And you could just read, we preach
Christ. So they preached Christ as a
moral example and an example to follow, but they quit preaching
about the blood. They quit preaching about the
righteousness of God and him being the holiness and the redemption
and the wisdom of his people. And the ivy grew a little bit
more, and you couldn't even read the word Christ. All you could
read was, we preach. And they kept preaching. They
kept preaching. And the Ivy grew a little bit
more, and then all you could read is we. And it was just a
social club. Just a social club. like any
other in the world. God, give us the grace to keep
Christ preeminent in our hearts so that we say with Paul, God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and unto the world. Amen. Our Father, we thank you for
this word. Lord God, thank you for making Christ our wisdom
and our power Lord, we pray you keep him in our hearts. Ask you,
Lord, to keep us looking only to him. Lord, we ask you bless
this word today and call one of your lost sheep. Make them
hear and know Christ and see how vital it is to be found in
him alone. Make Christ everything to your
people, Lord. Forgive us our sins, Father.
Keep us looking to Him. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.