5b The Christian Life Means Repudiating the Myth of Influence
Stand Firm: Living in a Post-Christian Culture • Sermon • Submitted
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22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
Last week we began to look at the Myth of Influence and ended talking about the Horror of the Cross to the world and talked about the verses on the screen. Tonight we will continue this discussion.
The Futility of the Mind
The Futility of the Mind
The offense of the gospel isn’t limited to the cross. Paul also identifies its shameful simplicity. Returning to 1 Corinthians 1: 19– 21, the Apostle writes:
19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
What do these verses tell us about the world in which Paul lived? Or what do you know about that time in history?
Both Jews and gentiles were into complexity. The Jews found theirs mostly in the rabbinical traditions. But the gentiles— the Greeks, in particular— loved exploring philosophy, metaphysics, mental gymnastics, and intellectual labyrinths. They believed that the truth is knowable only to those who have exalted knowledge and elevated insights. They were awash in philosophies and schools of thought vying for supremacy. The pursuit of intellectual complexities and transcendental knowledge was woven throughout their thinking.
What do we call that transcendent knowledge today?
The gospel has no sensitivity to that. It leaves no room for Gnosticism, and it pays no homage to the human mind. It has no interest in complex, esoteric insight. God says He will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever, followed by these mocking statements: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?” (v. 20). This is a comprehensive denunciation of all the accumulated insight, understanding, and wisdom of the world’s elite minds. They have nothing to offer when it comes to true, spiritual knowledge of God and His truth. In that sense, the gospel effectively attacks the wisdom of the world. Human insight and intuition are fickle and unreliable. The sinful mind has no capacity to reason its way to God or His kingdom. The truth God has revealed for salvation is beyond the natural mind of man:
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
God planned it this way. He ordained that no one could come to know Him through human wisdom. The prophet Jeremiah said,
9 The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, so what wisdom is in them?
So, the gospel is also offensive because it collides with the sinner’s intellectual, moral, and religious pride.
Lack of Options
Lack of Options
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
What offense does this verse point out?
Paul points us to a third offensive aspect of the gospel— we’ll call it the shameful singularity. In 1 Corinthians 1: 23, he simply asserts, “We preach Christ crucified.” There are no other options, no alternative means of entrance into God’s kingdom. The message of the gospel is straightforward and exclusive. Christ Himself said,
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The Bible resounds with the testimony that
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
How does this message land with Modern America?
But in these postmodern times, that is far too narrow to believe. Even some in the evangelical church would argue that sinners can be saved without the gospel, without the Bible, and without ever knowing who the true God is or ever hearing the name of Jesus. How many of you have heard something like this:
“God has a lot of attributes, but the greatest is Love and Love will win out in the end.”
or this
“The whole of humanity was included in Christ and god has now universally accepted all according to HIS faith in them and their redeemed wholeness in his son.”
What these quotes illustrate is that many people who would call themselves Evangelical understand that an exclusive gospel is the only thing this culture of tolerance cannot tolerate. So they devise an accommodating false gospel and a wideness in God’s grace that have no basis in Scripture.
“God everyone just they way they are”
Is that a true statement?
In one very narrow sense yes, God does Love everyone and show a tremendous amount of mercy everyday as he delays his judgement. But is that what that statement was trying to communicate?
What does the quote communicate?
“God everyone just they way they are”
It gives them permission to stay where they are. They deceptively offer false affection from God, who hates sin
11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.
11 God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
What do these verses tell us?
In fact, there’s no discussion of sin and its consequences, no thought to the threat of hell or even a potential eternity in heaven. The focus of the postmodern gospel is almost exclusively on the sinner’s felt needs, unfulfilled dreams, and victim status. It reduces Christ to a cosmic life coach whose primary focus is helping us get the maximum satisfaction out of this life. This is not an accurate picture of God and it is not loving.
And to be frank that simply isn’t the gospel. Look at what Christ himself said about following him:
23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
How does what Christ says here differ from the message we saw earlier?
This is the gospel of self-denial, not self-fulfillment. True faith in Christ is not about becoming all that we can be in this life. Rather, coming to God’s kingdom means coming to the end of ourselves. It’s the attitude reflected in the repentant cries of the tax collector in Christ’s parable. Contrasting the arrogant hypocrisy of Israel’s religious leaders, Jesus said,
13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
Like the tax collector, we come to Christ only when we understand there is no other hope for us. We turn to the cross because we understand the vast array of human religions are all based on the same lie— that good works can merit the favor of God. Until the vain idol of self-righteousness is finally shattered in our hearts, we cannot come to true faith and repentance. We can’t enter the kingdom of God while holding on to the false notion that we in any way earned our acceptance with God. The sinner’s only hope for salvation is to recognize his condition and its damning consequences and flee to Christ alone.
In Matthew 13: 44, Jesus says,
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
The gospel is offensive because sinners refuse to believe there is only one treasure buried in the field, and they have to “sell all” they have to receive it.
The Disputed Verdict
The Disputed Verdict
The gospel is also offensive to the world from the perspective of its shameful sentence. In 1 Corinthians 1: 18, Paul writes,
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
What does the phrase “those who are perishing” refer to?
The phrase “those who are perishing” refers to those who are ruined, destroyed, and on their way to hell. The cross is shameful in the eyes of the world because of the dire sentence it reveals— that the sinner is hopelessly headed for eternal judgment.
Christ was crucified to rescue sinners from God’s eternal wrath, so as we proclaim the gospel, we must address that reality at the very outset. The formidable foundation of all gospel presentation must be an inescapable indictment of the eternally damning guilt for constant crimes against God that rests on every human being. Those who seek to make the gospel palatable and popular will always ignore or soften these truths significantly, if not eliminate them altogether.
Consider a quote I put up earlier:
“The whole of humanity was included in Christ and god has now universally accepted all according to HIS faith in them and their redeemed wholeness in his son.”
Nothing is more offensive for the sinner to accept than the fact that he is under such a severe condemnation.
A stunning story from the life of our Lord illustrates that point. At the beginning of Christ’s ministry in Galilee, He returned to the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth and delivered a provocative and convicting message to those in attendance. Luke’s gospel records the incident:
17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21 And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
The passage Jesus read was a messianic prophecy from Isaiah 61, and those in the audience would have recognized it as such. His affirmation that “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” was an unmistakable claim that He was the long-awaited long-awaited Messiah. Luke records that the reaction was mixed:
22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
It would have been difficult for them to believe that the young man they watched grow up was actually the Son of God and their Savior.
Acknowledging their doubt, Jesus said,
23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘ “Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’ ”
He knew they wanted Him to verify His claim with the same signs and wonders they’d heard about from neighboring communities. But no one ever rejected Christ because of a lack of evidence.
37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him,
Knowing the inevitability of their unbelief, the Lord said,
24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.
And to further prove His point, Jesus reminded them of two prophets who were famously unwelcome.
25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land,
26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
Both of those incidents would have been deeply offensive to the Jews.
In each case, Jesus pointed out that God blessed people the Israelites would have considered rejected enemies. The widow in Zarephath, although a God-fearing gentile, lived in a nation dominated by idol worship that was also the homeland of Jezebel. The tale was particularly galling because the drought and ensuing famine had been a divine judgment on Israel’s apostasy, and the aid God sent this gentile woman He denied to His covenant people. In the same way, God showed mercy to Naaman, the pagan leader of an opposing military force who lived a blasphemous, immoral life before he humbled himself and obeyed the Lord.
Christ’s point was clear. If Israel did not recognize their spiritual condition— if they refused to admit that they were poor, prisoners, blind, and oppressed— God would not bestow His grace and favor on them. Jesus was telling them that the gospel comes to those who know they are spiritually bankrupt, prisoners to their sin, and under judgment. Israel was blind to those realities, and they bore an immense, intolerable weight of guilt, carrying them to eternal punishment.
The Jews sitting in the synagogue that day were offended by such an indictment because they saw themselves not as spiritually poor but as spiritually rich. They were the devout, faithful members of the synagogue. They kept the ceremonies and the Sabbath. They believed they had achieved a certain status by their devotion to the law and to ceremony. In short, they were utterly self-righteous. And they reacted in much the same way sinners do today to the charges and the eternal condemnation against them.
28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.
30 But passing through their midst, he went away.
Guess what, the same is true today. Sinners don’t naturally tolerate the confrontation of their sin or the reality of the judgment and wrath it demands. Out of self-love and self-preservation, they will do everything they can to shout down and silence the truth about their desperate situation and need for the Savior. But we cannot acquiesce to that natural hostility. God’s people must hold fast to the truth about sin and its dread consequences. We must be faithful to prosecute sinners for the guilt of their offenses against God. Every gospel presentation must begin with a clear and thorough explanation of what they need to be saved from. Again let me state that you can be bold and loving at the same time. I had a roommate in college named Hiram O’Kane. He and I struck up a friendship with girl named Ruth that we met at a local coffee shop in Salem. We saw her often at the coffee shop and as we conversed it came out that Ruth was a lesbian. We continued to see her and talk. She knew we went to a Christian College and had lots of questions about the bible and what we believed. I can clearly remember one day as we were talking, Hiram got this sad look on his face and Ruth asked him what was wrong. Hiram looked at her and said “I am worried about you Ruth, I am worried that you are rejecting the truth and going to hell.” As I relay this story today I am sure some of you are sitting here and thinking wow that was abrupt, and in the context of this story it is, but at the time it was astonishing as she was not offended by the statement nor was she put off. She knew Hiram cared about her and truly wanted what was best for her, and she accepted the words as they were offered. Not long after that graduation happened and we all drifted apart over the summer and following year. I do not know ultimately what happened to Ruth, or if she ever came to Christ, but as I was preparing for this week, the story came to mind. We can be bold with the truth and compassionate and loving at the same time. We can tell proclaim the gospel and love those who are hostile toward its message. We can stand firm and still love others.
Let’s pray.
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