A Scandalous Christ (Scandalous Church #1)
Notes
Transcript
Big Idea
Big Idea
Tension: How does God bring all flesh to boast in him alone?
Answer: Through the scandal of Christ crucified.
Exegetical Idea: God brings all flesh to boast in him alone through the scandal of Christ crucified.
Theological Idea: God brings glory to himself through the scandal of the crucified Christ.
Homiletical Idea: If we are to bring glory to God, follow Christ or help others follow Christ, it will only come through the scandal of Christ crucified.
Outline
Outline
Introduction:
“The new world will be a different place. In some ways deeply recognizable, but in some profound ways, different as well.
And, as a result, the church will be a different place—same mission, just some very new methods.
As much as you may want everything to go back to normal, you can’t go back to normal when normal changed forever. The future isn’t kind to the unprepared, so prepare.” - Carey Neiuhopf
Now, I’m not going to make any predictions about what church will look like in 5-10 years, I have some ideas. But I do think that now is perhaps the time more than ever to consider what kind of church we want to be, what are some of the ways we can speak into a culture that is self-destructing, what are some of the things that the Church has which cannot be found anywhere else. And the place where I want to start is in 1 Corinthians.
Outline
vs. 31 - God wants the boast of people. He wants to be our glory.
Jeremiah 9:23-24
vs. 29 - Which means that we cannot find our boast, our glory, our status in anything but him. Which means everything that anyone tries to find identity in other than God is an affront to him.
So how will God remove the ways that we might be tempted to boast?
vs. 28 - By choosing the things that are low and despised and are nothing to abolish the things that are. God’s goal is to totally reconfigure, rehabilitate, renovate, and reestablish boasting and glory so that they will not glory in themselves but glory in him.
What are the things that are low and despised in the world that Paul wants to reconfigure them to?
vs. 22 - Greeks want wisdom and Jews want a sign. We see later in vs. 25 that this is not Paul saying he is anti-Greek, or anti-Jew. Rather, Paul is using them as representatives of two broader aims that humans have.
Wisdom - Greeks highly valued wisdom. They respected people who were wise and called “sophists.” People who could bend wisdom to their own purposes.
Signs - Jews highly valued power and might. That’s what they respected. The Jewish people desired and looked for a Messiah who could put the Romans in their place, who would conquer in power, who they could rally to.
vs. 19-20 - These are the things that God says in vs. 28 that he will abolish and destroy. He will wipe away the wisdom of the wisdom and the world. God actually says in vs. 20 that he will “empty them.”
Why will God empty them?
vs. 21 - Because they used these things to ignore God. Therefore God has chosen to save those who believe in the preaching of his message through foolishness.
What is it that he preaches that saves through foolishness?
vs. 23 - The message of Christ is a stumbling block, a cause of ruin, scandal to those who those who want a sign. It is emptiness, or foolishness, or vanity to those who want wisdom. The idea that a Messiah, that a Savior, would die on the cross makes absolutely no sense to them.
So then, is the cross merely to condemn mankind?
vs. 18, 24 - Not at all! The cross may be foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God for me. Because God’s foolishness not only destroys the wisdom of the world, it provides salvation for me. It is God’s power working for me.
But then don’t I have a reason to boast?
Vs. 26-27 - Not at all. Just as God chose Christ to shame the pretensions of mankind, to empty the wisdom of mankind and to cause to ruin or scandalize the power of the world, so God chose me to neuter the pretensions of the world. Only a foolish people is fitting to a foolish savior, only a weak church is right for a weak shepherd, only a crucified church truly knows a crucified King.
But, don’t I have a reason to boast in that I am saved?
vs. 30 - Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul says from him you are saved. Only in him is salvation possible, and you can only be in him through him. And it is only in him that God gives you Christ’s righteousness, Christ’s holiness, Christ’s wisdom, Christ’s redemption. Every single bit of salvation belongs to him and not to me.
Why does God choose this way to get glory?
vs. 25 - God uses foolishness and weakness to shame the wise and the strong, because it glorifies him and it removes their boast.
Application: How does this matter for the vision of our church?
We can only follow Christ through the cross. Our church is a church that follows Christ. We can only do that if the message of the gospel, the message of God’s forgiveness, the message of Christ’s love, the message of everything God has done for us is front and center.
We can only help others follow Christ through the cross. If our church is truly to fulfill its vision, then the center of any kind of outreach, any kind of evangelism, any kind of help that we give others must come through the cross. We are profoundly against the world, for the world. Only when the world realizes that all its pretensions of grandeur, all its vanity is crucified, will there be any hope.
We can only bring God glory through the cross. Dear friends, the only kind of glory that God wants is a crucified glory. A glory that is neutered and emptied of all attempts to establish human righteousness, and is instead an exultation of Christ crucified.