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Sep 18, 2011

Where's The Power?

Passage: 1 Corinthians 1:8-2:5

Series: Life Together--First Corinthians

Category: Christian Walk

Keywords: power, words, boasting, wisdom

Summary:

Our whole world runs on power. So does our faith and the Christian life. This message looks at what the power of God is in the Gospel and the life of the believer and how we can experience that power so that our faith is built on God, not simply words, words, words.

Detail:

Where’s The Power?

I Corinthians 1:18-2:5

September 18, 2011 

Intro:  Wiring the lake house this summer I found myself getting a real education on electrical panels, circuit breakers, amps, electrical codes , permits and, yes, even electrical inspectors.  J There were a number of strange and even dead circuits in our electrical box that was put in 45 years ago.  So we changed out the box and the breakers and added a bunch of new lines and breakers that run to a new bathroom and expanded bedroom.  To do that, I ran what felt like miles of new wiring…and seemingly spent most of my vacation hunched under the crawl space of the house stringing wires.

      On one particular morning I was trying to trace a few seemingly dead and useless lines back to the main electrical panel.  All of a sudden, I had a revelation:  that wire is HOT…and my arm is now tingling!  WOW!  It was better than a double shot coffee from Starbucks! 

We live in a culture dependent upon and sometimes addicted to various forms of power.

  • Shut off the electrical power to any of our homes or apartments and you’d have a crisis on your hands.  Not only would we stumble around in the dark after sundown.  Our food would rot in our refrigerators or freezers, our hot water might cease to flow, and, depending on the time of year, you might freeze to death.  Minor inconvenience! J
  • Lose the electricity to a whole city or business district and your cell phones don’t work, you can’t buy or sell at the grocery store, you can’t get gas at the service station so pretty soon your transportation evaporates, people can’t go to the office and work, students can’t go to school and study, your computers stop working, and, worst of all, you can’t play video games any more!
  • Then there is political power.  Do away with that and…well, we might all be better off!
  • How about physical power?  If your body loses the ability to exercise, your muscles atrophy, you lose mobility and you become an invalid.
  • Brain power?  Well, some of us have figured out how to get by on a minimal amount of that, right?
  • Economic or financial power?  That’s a big one in our country, right?  People with more money than us seem to have the power to make more choices, have more things, seem almost more important.  I’m glad Jesus debunked that myth 2000 years ago!
  • Even kids’ movies get into the “power trip.”  Remember Ariel?  It was all that power the evil Ursula got that brought terror to the seas and sent King Trident to the deep abyss.  Or take Aladdin.  That nasty Jafar used the genie’s power to try and take over the world and squash Aladdin and his true love.    

So along comes the Apostle Paul in I Cor. 1, talking about “power,” God’s power, spiritual power.  And we sort of scratch our heads and think, “Hmmmm.  I wonder if I really need this kind of power?”  You think?

Take in what Paul says to the church in I Cor. 1:18-2:5 and take note of how many times Paul talks about power, strength or even its opposite, weakness.  [Read]

2:5—How do you build a faith, a church, a people of God whose life in Christ is not built upon the fun or fancy-sounding words of people but upon the “power of God?”

  • We’re pretty good in America about building whole churches and denominations on organizational systems.   
  • We’re good at developing ministries programs and building a church on programs.  
  • There are plenty of churches built on the charisma of a leader. 
  • We’ve even lived to see the day when international ministries are even built on technology and media. 

Take the media away and what are you left with? 

Take the key leader away and what do you have?  Take the program or the denomination or even the building away and what’s left?  The “sheep-shuffle” starts all over again as people migrate to the next show, the next channel, the next program, the next beautiful building, the next amazing leader and the next happening church.

But “the power of God”???

  • When was the last time you were drawn to something in the church because you saw the power of God at work? 
  • When was the last time you would say you got to see the power of God work in someone you know or someone near you? 
  • Do we even know what Paul is talking about when he says he wants our faith to rest on or be in the power of God rather than some supposed wise move of man? 

That word “power” is used 119 times in the N.T. It’s from the Greek word dunamis from which we GET our English word “dynamite.”  (Don’t confuse the two by reading back into the Greek a meaning it didn’t have when this was written.)

Power here means just that:  the ability or means by which something requiring effort or strength gets done. 

In the space of 2 chapters here, Paul uses the term 4 times. (It looks like 5 in your English Bible but the Greek term doesn’t occur in 1:17.  It’s added by the translators to give the sense or meaning of the passage.)  So let’s look and see what Paul has to say about this “power” he’s talking about.  Just what is it?

1:18—“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  So, in this verse, the “message of the cross” = “the power of God.” 

How does a message have power?  We might say it this way:  “The pen is mightier than the sword.”  Ideas, truths, words can have great power depending on what they are and what they do to people. 

It’s at this point that Paul divides the human race into two groups of people:

1.) one that doesn’t understand why the cross is needed, who Jesus really is and what he accomplished through his death on the cross and

2.) the other part of humanity who is being saved through what Jesus accomplished on the cross. 

For the first group, the cross doesn’t just not make sense; it’s “foolishness”—absurd, nonsense and pointless.  For 1st century people living in the Roman Empire, Christians always talking about the cross might be akin to Americans choosing the hangman’s noose as the symbol of their most cherished national event.  Except a hangman’s noose is a lot less horrific and torturous than a cross. 

To the 19th century politician and agnostic, Robert G. Ingersoll, this is how utterly foolish the cross looked:

[God’s mercy] comes in what is called “the plan of salvation.”  What is that plan?  According to this great plan, the innocent suffer for the guilty to satisfy a law.  What sort of a law must it be that would be satisfied with the suffering of innocence?...It strikes me that what [Christians] call the atonement is a kind of moral bankruptcy.

Our own 9-11 battle in America over whether or not the I-beam cross that rose out of the rubble of the Twin Towers should be even a part of a memorial at the site or not further highlights how the cross is seen as “foolishness” in our world.  Dave Silverman, president of the American Atheists who are filing suit in Federal court commented, “It’s a reminder that [your] god, who couldn’t be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name, cared only enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross.  It’s a truly ridiculous assertion,” he says. 

What he and so many other non-Christians fail to understand is that it is the very cross of Christ which gives an event such as 9-11 any kind of meaning or sense at all. It is at the places of the most horrific human sinfulness that God shows up to experience more pain than we ever will and to give human suffering any kind of temporal and eternal significance.  It is at the horizontal beam of the cross that the loving arms of God are spread wide open for the horrific sinners we all are while the vertical blade of God’s judgment against our sin impaled his own and Only Begotten Son on this earth.     

Well, with vvs. 19-21, Paul informs us that while the world may look at the cross as foolishness, it is the cross that takes the “wisest” people of this world and, in the spiritual and eternal realm, shows them to be the real fools.  How does God do this?  He takes the most simple human abilities like BELIEF and FAITH that even a child or mentally challenged person can exercise and makes that the means of solving THE MOST TROUBLING problem of humanity—how to be reconciled to God himself.

20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Paul is reminding us that the world’s greatest thinkers and philosophical systems unable to get us to the point of knowing God personally and eternally as our Father through their reasoning. The other side of the coin is that God made acquiring that salvation and reconciliation to God something unbelievably simple from the human side of the equation.   So on the one side the problem of sinful people being reconciled to a holy God was never solved by the intellectuals of the best human universities in history.  And on the other, God’s solution is something that can be grasped by a child and simpletons. 

Then Paul divides the large group of this world’s people who don’t understand the cross of Christ into two further groups based on WHY the cross is foolishness to them.

22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1.)    Jews—they were always wanting Jesus to prove his messiahship by doing miracles, didn’t they?  Here is a nation of people that truly did believe in the miraculous. Their whole history had been one long line of miracles from God.  So they expected a Messiah who would miraculously defeat Rom, miraculously show his power and miraculously set up his new kingdom.  And along comes Jesus who does many miracles, just not the ones they wanted. 

  1. They wanted more power over people, not God’s power over sick people.
  2. They wanted miracles that involved them and made them look good, not miracles that involved fish and bread and common.
  3. They wanted a resurrected nation, not a resurrected Lord, especially one they despised.

      God had given them miracles, the biggest one even attached to the cross.  But in all their scholarly theological discussions and debates, they had never once stumbled upon the truth that God would humble himself to die for them. 

2.)    Greeks—they prided themselves on speculative philosophy.  Acts 17 tells us of Paul’s visit to Athens, the capital of the Greek world.  It gives this commentary about the Greeks who seemed to love learning, philosophy, knowledge and sitting around debating ideas that didn’t really matter or work in the every-day world.  (Sounds like the typical American college campus, right?)

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

The message of the cross and faith in Christ is too simple for people who like complicated mind-games.  It doesn’t require enough human effort nor enough mental prowess. 

      Now, in vss. 23-24 of I Cor. 1, Paul holds to the simple power of the cross.

“…but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Here is the miracle of the Gospel.  To people like the Jews who see the notion that God would hang on a cross and die as nothing but weakness, when the Gospel penetrates their hearts and bears fruit in new spiritual light, they see how utterly powerful that death was.  They begin to see how powerful over sin it is, how powerful over principalities and demons it is, how powerful over the most hated and powerful of human experiences—death itself—it is.  The cross becomes more powerful than the miraculous birth of Isaac…or the plagues of Egypt…or the parting of the Red Sea…or the conquest of Canaan…or the defeat of the Assyrians.  The defeat of all death and sin at the cross has resulted in more power of God being demonstrated in millions of people now reborn and remade in the image of Jesus Christ than any “power-demonstrations” they may have dreamed of in their small political minds. 

      To the Greeks who had their eyes opened to the infinite wisdom of God in the death of Christ, going from Greek philosophy to Christian theology must have been like going from the lazy river at the kiddy water park to the Velocity Peak at Silverwood’s Boulder Beach!  If you thought philosophy gave you a headache, try the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection!  J

      It’s like people today who have no problem being wowed and left with more questions than answers by physics or astronomy or biology yet they think they should be able to understand everything there is about God who made it all in a 60-minute discussion.

Then in vs. 26 Paul issues a challenge to all of US who are Christ-followers.

26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

ASSIGN:  Turn to the person next to you and tell them how old you were and how brilliant, famous, important and powerful you were when you came into God’s family by faith in Jesus Christ. 

Q:  How many of us here were under the age of 15 when we came to faith in Jesus Christ?  Think of how brilliant, wise, philosophical, powerful and influential you were at that age!  Isn’t that just like the wisdom of God to call us to the most amazing, astounding and powerful life-changing experience at an age when we are most simple, least-wise, least powerful and least influential? 

      Not everybody comes to faith in Christ at that time in life or without human wisdom.  My own father was one who was one of those exceptions.  He’d majored in philosophy at Amherst College in Massachusetts, studied business at Harvard and got his doctorate of law from Yale Law School. 

      But by his own admission, he couldn’t for the life of him make any sense out of reading the New Testament before he came to the cross of Christ in simple faith and humbled himself before Jesus as a sinner in need of a Savior.  THEN the light came on and the blinders came off.  THEN he began to understand what before was nonsensical to him.

How “influential” were you when God called you into His family?  Was anybody here a politician?  A corporate CEO?  Any international leaders? 

How many of us were born into nobility?  Nobody related to any of the thousands of royal families in the world?

It’s not because Christianity is a stupid-man’s religion.  Some of the world’s brightest people have been followers of Jesus.

It’s not because Christianity is only a commoners religion.  Some of the world’s most powerful and wealthy people have been followers of Jesus.

But part of the wonder of the Gospel of Christ is that God has designed His deepest wisdom to draw this world’s least likely candidates into his family. 

APP:  Do you ever get to thinking, “I will never amount to anything in God’s family.  I’m not anywhere near as talented as that musician in the church over there.  I’m nowhere close to that church leader’s leadership capacity.  I will never be as sharp looking or entertaining or funny or witty or charismatic or intelligent or liked or gifted or influential or….or…or…. as so-and-so in the church!” 

Can we agree that even American Christianity rewards and honors and fawns over that kind of person?

      How unlike God.  It will take eternity to show the wisdom of God through the simple, plain, average, unnoticed people He has called into his family. 

1:27-28 (Read) 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,

This IS who WE are.  This IS who the CHURCH is.  This is not our culture.  This is not the world’s system.  This is not what we are told every day of our life in the media, among our peers, by our own souls.  But this IS what God has chosen. 

      This is what we must hold onto when we are tempted to be overwhelmed by our own inadequacies.  God chose you in your weakness because that’s how he can best make known His glory.

Vs. 29—“…so that no one may boast before him.”

When you and I get to heaven, no one is going to be looking or feeling more important, more productive, more or anything but perhaps grateful.  There will be NO BOASTING when we all stand before Christ.  That’s the reality we should be living in right now too but unfortunately we don’t really get it yet about what the Gospel is all about—Jesus, not us. 

Vs. 30-31—“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

Paul throws in specifically what Christ is for us when it comes to 3 areas where we so frequently want to “prove” ourselves. They are three things we too often feel down about or discouraged about when all along, God is telling us, “That’s why you must stand, walk, fall, rest and simply abide IN CHRIST.  If you think this Christian life is about your accomplishments and spirituality, you’re wrong.”  Then Paul lists 3 ways Christ IS God’s wisdom for us:

--He is our Righteousness:  Righteousness is doing right.  It is being the right person from which right actions flow.   Every feel like you aren’t doing the right things?  That’s when Jesus IS our righteousness.  Ever feel like you’re not doing enough of the right things?  He’s your righteousness then too.  Ever feel like you’re underperforming, not achieving enough good, not being enough to those around us?  I feel that constantly.  That’s why I need and must depend upon the One who is God’s righteousness for me. 

--He is our Holiness:  when we’re not measuring up to the moral standard we know we can and should, Jesus is for us.  When my thoughts are not pure and do not reflect the moral purity and excellence of God, Jesus is my holiness.  When I lack spiritual passion and drive, when I don’t have a zeal for the purity of God, Jesus does.  He is all the moral excellence, zeal, purity and passion I need but am not. 

--Redemption:  When I feel beaten down by sin, overcome with my smallness, when I’m feeling worthless and empty, Jesus is the sales receipt…the price God paid to buy me out of sin.  If the love and affirmation of a single human being can cause us to feel that we are not totally worthless but are actually valuable (at least to someone), how much more when we look at the cross and see the price God paid for me, for you, for each one of us?  Christ’s price paid for me, a sinner, should be more than each of us needs now and through all eternity to be convinced we are valuable beyond belief to the One Being who matters in this universe. 

So once we’ve got that clearly fixed in our thinking, Paul lets us into his own inner life of personal inadequacy in the one area most people see him as the Christian world’s most massive giant.

2:1-5—“1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

I don’t think Paul’s just being modest here.  I think something had really rattled his confidence.  The book of Acts leading up to Paul’s first visit to Corinth is one of him be driven out of city after city where he went to preach—Thessalonica, Philippi, Berea, and Athens.  Wherever he preached, either riots broke out or he was arrested.  He was mocked, ridiculed and physically assaulted.  When he comes to Corinth, he’s alone and possibly beat down.  He stays in Corinth for longer than any other place.  He takes to tent-making again.  Maybe he’s questioning his effectiveness.  Maybe he’s beginning to wonder if it’s worth it.  Maybe he’s reevaluating his whole methodology.  Maybe God is just calling him back to simply preach the cross—no bells and whistles, no amazing apologetic arguments—just Christ crucified. 

How do you feel about sharing Christ with others? Anybody feel really on top of the world when it comes to sharing Christ with others?  I have to confess, I think this is the one area I consistently feel more failure, more defeat, more timidity, more angst. 

Maybe that’s the way we are supposed to feel, so that when we speak about Christ, about the cross, about what the Son of God has done for us and this world, we’re supposed to feel completely incompetent.  Because if new birth is to happen in people, it must be “by the power of the Spirit.” 

People are born again by the wind of the Spirit, not the words of people.

People find Christ because the Spirit of God opens their eyes, not because we open our mouths. 

Sure, God’s wisdom has called for us to be part of the equation.  That looks like foolishness to me, but thank God I’m not calling the shots. 

When it comes to the gospel, what are the truest manifestations of God’s power in the Gospel?  Isn’t it the power of changed lives?  I’m pretty sure Paul isn’t talking about flashy miracles when he says, “My message and my preaching were…with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power….” 

      I am pretty sure he’s talking about the miraculous convicting work the Holy Spirit does to convince any sinner they are really in need of God’s forgiveness that can only be found in Jesus Christ.  That’s a miracle to turn proud, rebellious, self-centered people into humble, God-seeking, God-centered people.

      I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the miracle of people delivered from the enslavement to their sins who find life as it was meant to be lived in relationship with God—free of addictions to every form of sin imaginable, free to enjoy life as fully loved and cherished by our Maker. 

I’d like us to end this time in the word by giving personal testimony to this reality that our faith is built on the power of God, not the persuasiveness of man.  Let’s take a few minutes and hear what you have seen God’s power do in your life. 

      What has God’s power saved you from in life?

      What has God’s power made you into that you would not have been without the Holy Spirit at work in you? 

      We need to be telling not only people without Christ about the power of God; we need to be reminding ourselves and hearing from each other about how that power has been seen over the years.

      In what ways have you seen God build your faith upon His power, not just words and ideas?  To change you?

[congregational sharing]

I like being part of a church that is built upon GOD’S power to do things, not our ability to make them happen. 

QUESTIONS?