Is the Cross Still the Center of Your Faith? | 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

In 1 Corinthians, Paul is talking to a church that has all kinds of problems. Corinth had all kinds of problems with leadership, with discipline, with immorality. They were confused over doctrines especially. They were getting kind of mixed up. And something that I've been seeing recently is how in the church, not just our church, but around the church, there's often a lot of confusion, a lot of different doctrines. And people will tell you things about. About God that as a pastor, you're like, how do I even unteach some of this stuff? And Paul was facing the same problem, that there was a lot of confusion at Corinth. And so Paul's answer was to go back to the very heart and soul of the Gospel, to the root of it, and to examine the root. And that's what he does in chapter one of 1 Corinthians. And we can read about that in verse 23 where he says this. In fact, let's start in verse 22, shall we, of chapter one of 1 Corinthians, Paul says, jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles. And in verse 24, it says, but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, he takes them right to the very heart of the Gospel, right at the very heart of the Bible. Because at the center of the Bible is Jesus. And at the center of the Bible, there is a cross. And that cross challenges every false belief and every false doctrine and every selfish ambition that you'll find. It speaks powerfully into the heart of man and challenges our core beliefs. If you think about some of the things that are being taught, some of the things that are being perpetuated both in society and in the church, the cross has a word to say to every single one of them. The first thing is this. Jesus is at the center. Jesus is at the center. If you are going to have a right set of beliefs and a right understanding of what the Bible teaches, Jesus will be at the center. And one of the things I've said before, if you want to test some teaching, if you're listening to one of your favorite preachers and you want to ask yourself the question, should I be listening to this man? Should I be listening to this woman? Ask yourself the question, who are they putting at the. The center of the story today? If you listen to them and you find that they are putting you at the center, know that they are feeding the Wrong part of you know that they are feeding the wrong part of you. You see, Jesus, or rather John the Baptist, had this very clear. He said when, when his disciples came to him, the disciples of John the Baptist. And I don't know what they were trying to do. I think they were going to. They were trying to stir something up because they said to him that Jesus, who you promoted, that Jesus, whom you promoted, he's making and baptizing more disciples than you. Now, if you have discernment, when someone comes to you and they say something like that, you know, there's a reaction that they're looking for, you know. And so they said to Jesus, or rather they said to John the Baptist, he is making and baptizing more disciples than you. And they expected John the Baptist to go, right, okay, you know, we need to go down the printers, we need to do some more flyers, we need to increase our Facebook ads budget, and most of all, we need to discredit this upstart who has begun to usurp my ministry. But he didn't say that. He said, I must decrease, that he may increase. And so anytime someone is preaching and they are feeding you so that you might increase rather than decrease, know that they are feeding maybe your ego or your pride or your selfish ambition. Because the Holy Spirit, when he comes, Jesus said this. He said he comes to make me known. So what will happen when you're listening to a person who is preaching the gospel, and truly the gospel, Jesus will always be promoted and we will always be in a place of decrease. Now, that doesn't mean that he's going to sort of reduce us to a groveling mess on the floor of nothingness. We all matter to God. We matter. We are important to God. He loves us. But we will always be in that place where Jesus is shining, where we are basking in his brightness, where we are reflecting him. Because that's the reason why human beings are on this earth, is to reflect God is to be images of God. And so that's what a preacher will do. So anytime, all he's talking about is how you can advance yourself. Know that he's feeding self. But Paul brought forth the cross. He said, I sought to know nothing whilst I was among you, except for two things, Jesus Christ and him crucified. And so here he's saying in this passage today that Jews demand a sign, Greeks demand wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, which is a stumbling block to them. You see, both of these things represent something that is worldly. The way the World thinks, you know, the world wants a kind of wisdom, doesn't it? And those of you who've come to the West, Jenny was sharing that. She's been with us for just a short time. You. You will discover that, you know, Westerners want this. They want you to explain. They want you to give the wisdom and understanding. They have no time for mysteries. There's no time for any of that. They just want wisdom. But now if you travel me to Kenya, where my last ministry was in Kenya, you'll find that they are demanding signs. What power do you have? I don't care what you are teaching. What power do you have? The trouble is, sometimes if you have enough power, it doesn't matter what you're teaching. And so you find men with power teaching the wrong things. And everyone says, well, there you are, you know, he's the man of God, who am I to question, because he has all of these miracles. But Paul says neither of those is the way to go. It's not that we shouldn't have miracles. I think we need more miracles. I think we need more healings. I think we need more words of knowledge. I think we need more people raised from the dead. Especially on a Sunday morning when I see your eyes getting heavy. We need that Lazarus effect, don't we? On a Sunday morning. I think we need wisdom. We all need wisdom. The Bible does tell us with all you're getting to get wisdom, right? So we need wisdom. But what Paul is saying is that miracles don't validate and that wisdom isn't the end of the game. It's Jesus at the center of it all, because he is the model and he is the reason for our existence. And we need to have a relationship with him, with the cross and at the center. And you see, the cross will challenge our pride in our knowledge and our wisdom. The cross will challenge the idea that it's all about power. The cross puts something else at the center. It puts humility at the center. STORY A few years ago, some friends of mine went to minister in a certain African nation. I won't say which nation because, you know, there might be accusations, but they went to minister in a certain African nation and they were doing a very big crusade. And they went to this crusade and they noticed that the platform was big. And on the platform there were not just chairs but thrones. They were, you know, there were, you know, the kind of chairs, I mean, chairs that are fit for the apostles and the. And the great bishops and the men of God. And so they did this Crusade. And, you know, my friends are the kind of people who just turn up very simply and humbly. And so they. They got up on this stage and they sat there. They were a little bit uncomfortable, but as the men of God arrived, and of course, the worship had to pause for the men of God to ascend the platform. They weren't just going to step up on the platform, they were ascending to the platform. And as they ascended the platform, of course their blessing preceded them. As they got onto the platform, they waved. And as they waved, the. The crowd was cheering for the men of God. And the men of God are here. And they arrive in their cars with their security. And all of this was going on. And so as the men of God were on this platform, taking all of the applause and all of the accolades, there was. There was a sound like that one in Ezekiel, the sound of the rattling of bones. Only it was the structure of the platform that was rattling. And things began to go wrong. And slowly the platform came. And every single man of God was humbled in the presence of God's people. But my friends, they sat on the chairs on the platform, and the platform collapsed around them. And the part of the platform they were sat on a little island of safety and just remained there. And you know, sometimes, even if you are in ministry, even if you have given your life into ministry, there's a danger that you can be led into a place of pride. There's a danger that you can take the power of God and make it your own. You can feel that the applause, at least some of it, belongs to you. It's a very real danger because it's what the devil himself fell into. He saw the glory that belonged to God, and he said, I can have a piece of that. A piece of that belongs to me. But actually all of the glory belongs to God. Hallelujah. And the cross speaks to that. Because Jesus himself went to the cross, didn't he? Jesus himself, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, went to the cross even though he was worthy of worship. He's the only one who was ever worthy of worship. People bowed down and worshipped him. And yet, of his own volition and his own choice, he went to the cross. He agreed to that. He allowed himself to be humiliated. I can't tell you how humiliating the cross was and is Jesus went to the cross. You know, when you went to that cross, not only were you beaten, you were stripped naked. You know, the pictures we see are very polite. Obviously they have a nice cloth and everything. But you were thoroughly naked, humiliated before the whole world. He was worthy, and yet he did that. Psalm 75, 6 says, Promotion doesn't come from the east or. Or the west or the south, But God is the judge. He lifts. We don't lift ourself. That's something that the cross speaks to us. That's really the beginning of Christian understanding. And the knowledge of God is knowing this God who is ready to lower himself. One of the things that happens when we debate various other religions is you hear how high their God is, how untouchable, but you never hear of a God who is humble. Whoever heard of a God who is humble? And in fact, that was the problem that the Jews and the Greeks were having. The Jews could not accept a God who would demonstrate himself in humility. They could only believe in a Messiah who would come and conquer and show signs and power and wonders before them. They were only interested in a conquering king. They couldn't understand someone who would humiliate themselves and lay down their lives. They couldn't understand that. And the Greeks couldn't understand that. If you've ever seen the Greek gods. Have you ever seen the Greek gods? They spent too much time in the gym, right? Those Greek gods, they spend way, way too much time. I mean, I'm never going to be a Greek God. I don't have the qualifications. I can try, but I don't think I can get there. This was the picture that they had. But we serve a God who is willing to humble himself. That's the example that we have. And when we have that example, it changes everything. If people would just see God in the light of the cross, in the light of Jesus, can you imagine how much different it would be when we tune into preaching? We would have preachers who demonstrate humility. We would have preachers who don't demonstrate pride, but who are open and say, you know, I fall short like you all fall short. And I'm just, you know, one way I put it was I'm just a beggar speaking to another beggar and telling him where to find bread. You know, that's what preaching is. It's just saying, look, maybe I've done a little bit further than you and I've learned something, and I'm going to share that with you. And I want us to grow together. It's not, look at me. It's not, look at how powerful I am. It's not, look how I have ascended to the heavens and come back before breakfast. I'm just walking this walk with you. We're in this together. And I know sometimes it's hard for you. Let me help you, Let me encourage you. Let me tell you something from the word of God so that we can look towards Jesus. Don't look to me, look to Jesus. Hallelujah. I said that once in a meeting. I said, don't look at me, look at Jesus. And the rumor went round that there's this pastor who has said to people that when he's preaching, you should not look at him. But that's not what I said at all. What I'm saying is, don't look to me, look to Jesus. And if anyone's looking to you, you should be afraid, because we are signposts pointing to Jesus, pointing to the cross. And what an example. The CR is nothing but the cross. I tell you, if we preach nothing but the cross for a whole year, I tell you, can you imagine what that would do? You know, that just if we had nothing but the cross? You know, John Wesley once preached on repentance for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. And someone said to John Wesley, they said, why? When are you going to stop preaching repentance and preach on something else? He said, when you repent, sometimes we just need to labor on something until we get it in our system. And I think, you know, the cross is something that each one of us needs to ask ourselves. Is that cross at the center of what we believe? Is it at the center of my faith? Because what Paul is saying, he says, I sought to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ and him crucified. What he's saying is that was sufficient for a firm foundation that Jesus Christ and him crucified is sufficient to form a strong foundation of understanding and of teaching. He was saying that whatever I need to teach you, I can find it in the cross. Whatever I need to teach you about life as young Christians, he was saying, I can find it in the cross. It is a sufficient curriculum for us because we find everything there. You want to know about judgment, it's there. Jesus went through judgment, judgment upon sin. He took it upon himself. And we see the judgment of God not upon man, but upon sin. See, sometimes we think judgment is upon man, but the Bible talks about judgment being upon sin. And Jesus bore the sins of the world. And we see upon the cross what God sees when he looks at sin. We see the judgment of God. Isn't it amazing that when we look at the cross, at the same time, we see the judgment of God, the mercy of God, the love of God, all in one place, because we see the judgment of God, because of what Jesus went through and what he suffered because of sin. We see how terrible, how awful sin is and the brokenness of it all. We see that. But the same time we see the mercy of God, that he would take it upon himself. And we see the love of God that he so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that if we would believe in him. So we see the judgment of God, we see the mercy of God, we see the love of God. Anything you want to know, you find right there at the cross. You want to transform your life. Spend a little time just reading about the cross, thinking about the cross, meditating upon the cross. Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow after me. We have a lesson for life there when we are saying, oh, boy, you know, sometimes you get up in the morning that, you know, not every day is a Friday, right? Sometimes you get up in the morning and you're just like, oh, you know. And he said, take up your cross daily. Take up your cross daily. He took up his cross himself because of the joy that was set before him. And we take up our cross and we suffer it. Look at how he suffered abuse. Anyone have frenemies? Anyone have frenemies, Anyone have enemies or frenemies or colleagues who mistreat you or people that you just see in your daily life who are not good to you? Jesus hung on that cross and he looked down and he said, lord, forgive them. They know not what they do. He looked down on them and he loved them. Do you know how hard it is to hang on a cross and to look at the people who put you there and pray for them? Have you ever been conned? Have you ever been robbed? You're like, father, Do you know how hard that is? The cross teaches us something about how we relate to other people. And Jesus marched towards him. Jesus marched towards him. It says he set his face like flint to Jerusalem. Peter said to him, come on, this is not your portion. Peter said that. And Jesus resisted that. And do you know what? We see that in the life of Paul as well. You see, Paul was on his way to Jerusalem. Paul had been ministering around and he came to Jerusalem and there was a certain prophet, wasn't there? Was it Agabus? Agabus came and saw him and he took his belt, didn't he? And he bound Paul with the belt. And he said, so will the man that has this is bound with this belt be bound in Jerusalem. This is why you know, the cross teaches us something about prophecy and the word of knowledge. I don't know if any of you have ever had a word of knowledge, whether you've prophesied it teaches us something about prophecy. It teaches us something about prophecy because you know when you prophesy and you give that information, you then need a word of wisdom to go with the word of knowledge in how to apply it. And Paul had the wisdom. Where did Paul get his wisdom? He got it from the cross. He said, you're very right that prophecy is true. Now let me go and meet what the prophecy has said. I'm going to meet you. See, we'd say that prophecy is a warning from the Lord. Paul said, thank you, Lord, for showing me how you will be glorified when I am bound. When I get to Jerusalem. You see, the cross will rewire the way that you think about things. Because Jesus didn't resist the cross and Paul didn't resist the cross. Paul understood that those who believe in Jesus will be persecuted. We don't teach that. We teach those that believe in Jesus will be the head and not the tail, isn't it? But Jesus said, those who believe in me, all those who desire to lead godly lives will be persecuted. And Paul understood that. Paul understood because Paul said, there is a greater weight of glory for me. Now. I believe that Paul could have remained where he was. I believe that Paul could have legitimately said, I've had the warning. Now let me go and minister in Chelmsford. It's not so hot. Let me go there and minister. He could have said that there was no direction in that prophecy. Agabus didn't say, go. Agabus didn't say, don't go. He just said, what is. And Paul had a decision to make, and Paul chose. And I think sometimes we have a decision to make and if we look to the cross, it will guide us. Because sometimes, you know, there's a. You know, this is the thing about God. You think that God just tells you, go here and go there. No, sometimes he just gives you a crossroad and says, choose. He just says, choose. You know, I think sometimes where. I don't know if you've ever, if you've ever prayed for a wife, prayed for a husband. I don't know if you've ever prayed for a wife or a husband. But, you know, God sometimes gives you a choice. You just have to choose wisely. He gives you a crossroads. You say, should I marry this one? He says, I don't have to live with her. You do. Sometimes he gives us a choice. I think Paul had. I'm only speculating, but I think maybe Paul had a choice. Agabus had given him a clear picture of what's going to happen if he goes to Jerusalem. I think Paul could have gone in another direction and flourished in ministry. But he saw something. He saw. That's the way my Lord went when he went to Jerusalem because he understood the cross and he said, there is more glory in the cross. And so I'm going there and I'm going to meet with what God has destined for me there. And there will be glory. And we see the glory of it today. Now, I don't think Paul lived the kind of life that was we would like to live. I don't think Paul lived the kind of life that many of us would want God to give us. That we are on our knees right now praying for. And that's okay. Some of us, we're praying for this or that, and that's fine. I'm not delegitimizing anything that anyone's praying for right now. What I'm saying is Paul made a choice. And that choice was a tough choice to make. It was a tough life that he lived, no question about it. But right now, Paul is in glory, looking at the fruit of his labors, and he is rejoicing. Amen. Did you ever have a friend at school here in the uk, all the cool kids don't work in school. All the cool kids, they avoid the. They want to play the fool, they want to do this, they want to do that. All the cool kids don't really work. It's. It's those people that get called geeks and whatever. They're the ones that are doing the work. Have you noticed how 20 years later the geeks are the millionaires and they're driving the Ferraris and the people who are cool are the ones that are doing. You make choices. And the cross teaches us that there are sometimes tough choices that we have to make. And so Paul put the cross at the very center. But the cross begins with a message. And this is why Paul wanted to take them back. Because they were living in a world where, you know, they had those Greek gods, they had those ideas about what religion is, and the cross just didn't speak to that. But he came. Paul came with a message. And that message was a message of surrender. Christ. Christ died for you. He's not like these other gods. Jesus came and he laid down his pride. He laid down his glory, he laid down his ambitions and he gave it all for you. And he says, if you will come to Jesus, you're going to be like that too. And this is going to be the foundation upon which you build your life. Now let me ask you, have you ever come to the cross? Have you ever come to the cross where Jesus died for you? Have you ever come to the One? Have you ever seen what Jesus did for you and come to the cross? And are you building your life upon it? Are you building your life upon that foundation of the cross? If we think about any situation in our life right now, maybe you're facing challenges, Maybe you have questions that you're asking. Ask yourself this. What does the cross say to my situation? I guarantee that whatever situation you're in right now, the cross has something to say about it. You say, I'm not putting up with that. I am not a doormat. Anyone said that. I'm not a doormat. Listen, Jesus was a doormat for you. Jesus was a doormat for you. He was willing to put up with all of that for you. What situation are you facing right now? Are people looking down on you? He was despised and rejected and we esteemed him not. The cross has something to say to your situation. Whatever questions you're asking right now, the cross has something to speak into that. What are you facing right now? What is the cross saying in your situation? I want to give you some homework today, and that is, let's take a few days. Just open up your Bible and begin to look at what the Bible says about the cross. Because so often we open up our Bibles and we look for the victory. We look for the parting of the sea. We look for the calling down of fire from heaven. We look at that one a lot. We look at the calling down of fire from heaven. We look at the miracles, the signs and wonders. And we should. God is a great God and he does great things. But let's just spend a week searching for the cross, searching for all the ways that God himself lowers himself for humanity. You know, I speak to some of my brothers in other religions and they'll tell me about their God is so high. I mean, just so high. So high. You can't even speak to him. He'll have nothing to do with you. It's so high. But our God is so high and so low. So high and so low. Right at the beginning of the Bible, in the garden in Genesis, it says that God, God, you know, the God that David talks about. When I consider the heavens the works of your hands, the moon and the stars that you have set in place. What is Man? That you were mindful of him, the Son of Man, that you care for him. You made him a little lower than the angels, and yet you crown him with glory. That God, that vast God. When I consider the heavens, the works of your hand, that God walked with them in the cool of the day. There was a man called Marcion. He was so confused, a famous heretic back in the early days of the church. And he was so confused, he looked at the Old Testament, he looked at the New Testament, he said, these must be different gods. There's something about God that's a paradox. He's so high, so low. We are so small, and he is so vast. When we go out in the garden and we see the ants that are now just invading everywhere, and we're just. We don't give it a thought. Used to have, in our former house, we always have cockroaches and they come crawling in and you'd think nothing of getting a newspaper, rolling it up. Nothing compared to God, we are less than ants. We're tiny. Can you imagine how big is the universe? And how big is the God who created the universe? He is so high, so vast, so incredible. And we are just tiny, tiny. And yet he walks with me, and he talks with me in the garden. And yet he walked with me. He walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem. He walked to the cross. He let them bind him. He let them nail him to a cross. So vast, so big, so great, so awesome, so high. You cannot imagine, and yet so long. That's our God. And yet we can't even humble ourselves just a little bit, just a little bit. We can't say, you know, David said, I am a worm and no man. I think it was Tozer Tozer, I think it was, that said, you know, we come with a false humility. Sometimes before God, we say, oh, God, I am a worm and not a man. He said, the real test is when your wife says, you are a worm and not a man. That's when you know. That's when you know your heart. And yet God, who has every right to stay in his heavenly throne, he's so great, so vast and yet so low. That should fill us with wonder. If that is the foundation of our life. There's enough wonder in that to last a lifetime. And the more our vision of the vastness of God is, the more our wonder is of the God who came down and walked with us and talked with us and the more we wonder at that vastness and that humility, the more it changes our own hearts. And the more, you know, the British saying is, the more we wind our neck in, the more we humble ourselves, the more we realize that we need to maybe take ourselves a little less seriously to realize our weakness, to realize our fragility, and to realize that we serve a God who wanted to know exactly what it was like to be that fragile. And so he took on human flesh and lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died and paid the price. This is the center of the gospel. This is the way that you know God. You know God through the cross. You know God through that sacrifice. Have you ever really seen that? Have you seen that sacrifice? Have you had some grasp of it? Has it touched you? Has it affected you? Has it changed the way you think? Have you given your life over to him? Are you a religious person? Or are you someone who has seen the cross and seen what Jesus did for you? It was my life that he lived. It was my death that he died. Jesus, we thank you. Jesus, we give you praise. Father, we thank you for sending your son. Jesus, we thank you for giving your life on that cross. Lord, we want to say we're so sorry. Lord, we're so sorry for the times when we looked at that cross and we held it in contempt. By the way that we lived, by the way that we walked, by the way that we talked. Lord, we are so sorry for the fact that we follow so often without looking at that example for our own lives. How often we look glibly at the humility you showed at the sacrifice you paid. And yet we're so unwilling to humble ourselves. Father, in the name of Jesus, we want to say this morning, thank you for the cross. Thank you for the blood that you shed upon that cross. Thank you for the price that you paid upon that cross. Lord, what can we do except give our life to you in gratitude and thanksgiving? Let's take a moment and let's just. You can remain. You know, if you feel you want to bow down or you want to. You want to stand up, but let's. Let's come before him and let's give him. Give him our hearts fully this morning. Let's remember that cross. Let's remember that that day came as he walked up to Jerusalem carrying and bearing his own cross. He was carrying and bearing my pride, my sin, the things that I have thought and said and done. He stood before God and he took it. He took it all on himself for me, Jesus. Thank you. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the cross.