In coming to you, brothers and sisters, I
come proclaiming the testimony of God, not according
to excellent words of wisdom or persuasive words
of wisdom, for I decided to know nothing
among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
I come in weakness and in much fear
and trembling, and my proclamation and my word
are not in persuasive words of wisdom in
order that your faith, because they come, my
words come with the Spirit and power, might
be in the power of God and not
the wisdom of man.
Those are the words of Paul to the
church at Corinth and my words to you.
I would consider my life well spent if
I could preach and live and die the
way the Apostle Paul did, who wrote those
words 1,900 years ago.
Would you open your Bibles with me to
1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 to 5?
And I'd like to look at part of
the text that Pastor Carlson read, verses 1
to 5 of chapter 2.
Two things I want us to focus on
in this text.
One is the aim of Paul in his
ministry and the other is the way that
he thought he, and I think we, can
go about hitting the target that he aims
at.
W.
A.
Criswell is the pastor, you may know, of
that giant Baptist church in Dallas, Texas, 10
,000 members.
He was approached by a man who had
a business across the street from that church
and he was asked, I thought you were
a Baptist pastor, how come all of your
people carry the prayer book to church on
Sunday?
And Criswell smiled and said, we are a
Baptist church and those are Bibles, not prayer
books.
Baptists the world over have a reputation for
encouraging every man and woman who can read
to read the Bible for themselves.
And I want to encourage that tradition.
If I could choose a symbolic sound that
this church would come to be known for,
you know what it would be?
It would be the swish of the pages
of 500 Bibles on Sunday morning and Sunday
evening opened to the announced text.
Would you help me bring that about?
Here's the reason that would be my choice.
My source of authority lies in no wisdom
that I have nor in any private revelation
that God might choose to give me apart
from the written word.
I have authority only in so far as
I communicate what stands written in the word.
I have authority only in so far as
I stand under authority.
And the corporate symbol of that fact is
your turning to the text when I announce
it.
I have a profound conviction about the nature
of preaching.
One of the elements of that conviction is
this.
It's the duty of every pastor to show
his listeners that what he is saying has
already been said or implied.
And if he can't show it, he has
no special authority for what he's saying.
And if that's true, it's imperative that you
join with me in looking at the pages
of Scripture.
My heart aches for the pastor who adds
to his burden the burden of having to
come up with new ideas for the people.
I don't have any eternally significant ideas for
you.
But God has many.
And I pray that I never tire of
speaking those ideas.
One more word from Criswell.
When I read this essay from which I
found that first illustration from, I felt a
strong resonance in my heart when I read
this.
See if it doesn't strike a chord in
you.
He says, When a man goes to church,
he often hears a preacher in the pulpit
rehash everything he's read in the editorials, the
newspapers, the magazines.
On the TV commentaries, he hears that same
stuff over again, yawns and goes out and
plays golf on Sunday.
When a man comes to church, actually what
he is saying to you is this.
Talking to me.
Preacher, I know what the TV commentator has
to say.
I hear him every day.
I know what the editorial writer has to
say.
I read it every day.
I know what the magazines have to say.
I read them every week.
Preacher, what I want to know is, does
God have anything to say?
And if he does, tell us what it
is.
Oh, that really rings true for me.
And that's my goal.
That's what I hungered for when I sat
in the pew for 34 years.
And it's what I hungered to do for
the rest of my life from this side
of the pulpit.
So let's look at 1 Corinthians 2, verses
1 to 5.
Paul had spent about 18 months in Corinth
founding that church.
Now he's away, and he's writing his first
letter back, and he's warning them that they
not base their faith on the wrong thing.
In this case, it happens to be the
wisdom of men instead of the power of
God.
And the way he goes about doing this
here in chapter 2 is by drawing their
attention to his aim when he first came
to them, and secondly, the way that he
tried to achieve that aim.
We're going to talk about those two things.
First, the aim of Paul's ministry, verse 5.
He came and his purpose was that your
faith might not be in the wisdom of
men, but in the power of God.
Now, Paul stated that aim again and again
in his preaching ministry.
For example, in Romans chapter 1, verse 5,
he said, I was given the grace of
apostleship so that I might bring about the
obedience of faith to the glory of His
name among the nations.
That's my aim in preaching too.
That's really my only aim.
Everything else will follow from that.
And I think it ought to be the
name of all the staff, and every seminary
intern, and every Sunday school teacher, and all
of the rest of you who must count
yourselves ministers in the church when you talk
to other people.
The aim is to beget and to build
faith.
But it was possible in Paul's day, and
I believe it's rampant in our day, on
television and radio and in churches, to go
about building faith by calling attention to the
wrong things.
And it's devastating for the mission of Christ
and for the church.
And I think we can see why as
we look at verse 5 more closely.
Why is it so crucial that our faith
not rest on the wisdom of men, but
rather rest on the power of God?
Does it really matter what your faith is
based on, provided you have faith in the
right object?
I mean, who cares if it's based on
the wisdom of men or the power of
God, provided it's faith in Jesus, right?
No, wrong, according to Paul.
It mattered a great deal for Paul, made
a great difference whether a preacher offers the
wisdom of men as the basis for faith,
as opposed to the power of God.
Why is this so?
The answer is given in chapter 1 in
the text that was read from verse 18
on, and we'll look at that in some
detail in a moment, but let me try
to sum up the answer to this first
question like this.
If you try to base saving faith on
the wisdom of men, it ceases to be
saving faith, because the content of saving faith
is regarded as foolishness by the wisdom of
men.
The genuineness of faith is at stake not
only in what you believe in, but what
your faith is based on.
There is a basis for faith that will
ruin faith.
There is a foundation which will destroy the
superstructure of faith, and that's why it's crucial,
absolutely crucial, that we not base faith on
the wisdom of men, but rather on the
power of God, because faith that is based
on the wisdom of men is a mirage.
It's a bogus faith, and it will lead
no one to eternal life.
Why?
What is it about the wisdom of men
which makes it destructive to faith?
Verses 1 and 2 of 1 Corinthians 2
say, When I came to you, brethren, I
did not come proclaiming to you the testimony
of God in lofty words of wisdom.
That's what he didn't do.
Now, here's what he did do.
For I decided to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now, there's a contrast here, isn't there?
Between an effort to win faith by calling
attention to wisdom and preaching Christ crucified.
And I infer from that contrast that the
wisdom of men must at least mean the
use of the human mind to come up
with ideas that are contrary to the meaning
of the death of Christ.
Or to put it another way, if we
follow the dictates of merely human wisdom, we
will regard the claims of the cross as
folly.
Now, to confirm this, turn back to verse
18 of chapter 1.
Now remember, here's the question we're trying to
answer.
What is it about the nature of human
wisdom that makes it so destructive to faith
when it's the basis of faith?
Verse 18, following.
The word of the cross is folly or
foolishness to those who are perishing.
But to us who are being saved, it
is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of
the clever I will thwart.
Where is the wise man?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of
the world?
The way God has made foolish the wisdom
of the world is by devising a plan
of salvation which is an offense to the
wisdom of the world.
Namely, salvation through the ignominious execution of a
lowly Jewish carpenter's son turned preacher who just
happened to be the son of God.
The word of the cross is foolishness.
It's folly to the wisdom of this world.
And that's why the wisdom of men is
destructive to faith, because faith has that cross
as its central object.
And that's why we must work like crazy
not to put men's attention on the wisdom
of men, but on the power of God.
So, the wisdom of men is destructive to
faith because it regards the word of the
cross as foolishness.
But now here's my next question.
Why does it?
Why is it that the wisdom of men
regards the word of the cross as folly?
What is there about human wisdom that makes
it regard the word of the cross or
Christ crucified as folly?
Again, chapter 1, I think, gives the answer.
Look at verses 26 following of chapter 1.
Consider your call, brothers.
Not many of you were wise according to
the flesh, that is, according to worldly standards.
Not many were powerful.
Not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the
world to shame the wise.
And now drop down to verse 29 where
the reason, the purpose is given.
So that no human being might boast in
the presence of God.
God has set himself against the wisdom of
the world so that nobody can boast before
God.
Evidently then, at the core and the heart
of human wisdom is pride.
So I deduce this definition, see if you
agree with this, of the wisdom of the
world, as he calls it, which is the
same as the wisdom of men in chapter
2, verse 5.
The wisdom of the world is the use
of the human mind to achieve and to
maintain a ground for boasting before God and
before men.
The wisdom of men, as Paul understands it,
is the use of the human mind in
all of its vast ingenuity to achieve and
maintain a ground for boasting before God and
before man.
And now it begins to come clear, doesn't
it, why the wisdom of men must always
regard Christ crucified as foolishness.
The reason is that the death of Christ
on the cross is the most radical indictment
of our hideous sinfulness that ever was.
And if the wisdom of men is to
maintain its ground for boasting against that indictment,
it must mount its biggest guns to destroy
the cross, and the way it destroys it
is by regarding it as foolishness.
There are two possible approaches you can take
to the cross of Christ, two responses you
can make.
You can look at Christ crucified and say,
foolishness, and thereby maintain your ground of pride
and boasting before God and man.
Or you can look at the cross and
say, therein is the power and the wisdom
of God, and die with Christ.
And only one of those ways leads to
life.
Here's the way Paul put it in Galatians
6.14, Far be it from me to
boast except in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, by which the world has been
crucified to me, and I to the world.
If we put our trust in the crucified
Christ for salvation, we die to the world,
which simply means we die to every claim
to a ground of boasting that the world
has to offer, including what our own minds
have to offer.
But since the wisdom of this world is
devoted 100% to maintaining a ground of
boasting before God, it will always reject Christ
crucified and attempt to diffuse it of power
by calling it folly, foolishness.
So here's what we've seen so far.
The aim of Paul in verses 1 to
5 of 1 Corinthians is to strengthen faith.
Secondly, it's possible to try to build faith
by appealing to the wrong things, in this
case, the wisdom of men instead of the
power of God.
And that can destroy faith.
Why?
Thirdly, because the wisdom of men always regards
the cross as foolishness.
And you can't believe in something you regard
as foolish.
And fourth, why does it regard the cross
as foolish?
Because the cross is the most radical indictment
of human sinfulness that is, and the wisdom
of men cannot maintain its ground for boasting
unless it diffuses the cross of its power
by calling it stupid and foolish.
So it's reasonable, very reasonable and urgent that
all of our efforts to win faith, the
efforts that aim to draw people's attention to
the power of God and not to the
wisdom of men.
Now what is this power of God?
That's the question remaining on this first point.
What is the power of God?
We've already seen it.
Let's just look back again.
Verse 18 of chapter 1.
The word of the cross is foolishness to
those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved, it is the power of
God.
Look at verse 23 and 24 of chapter
1.
We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to
Jews, folly to the Gentiles, but to those
who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God and the wisdom of
God.
So, the power of God in verse 5
of chapter 2 is the power that was
unleashed when Jesus died on the cross.
It was the power that was manifested when
Jesus was at his weakest.
When Jesus was at his weakest on the
cross, God's power was at its strongest, lifting
the infinite burden of condemnation and sin off
the backs of all those who would trust
in him.
Paul said in Romans 8.32, He who
did not spare his own son, but gave
him up for us all, will he not
then freely with him, and we could add,
by his infinite power, freely give us all
things.
The power of God in which our faith
rests is the power of God manifested in
the weakness of Christ.
But now listen to this carefully.
Don't make a mistake about the nature of
God's power and its ground for faith.
Just like the world regards the foolishness of
Christ or the wisdom of God as foolishness,
so the world regards the power of Christ
as weakness, and God intended it that way.
Look at verse 27 of chapter 1.
God chose what is weak in the world
to shame the strong.
He meant for it to look weak.
The divine power in which our faith rests
is not the power of Mayday in Red
Square, or big business, or block voting, or
personal savvy, or self-assertion.
The power in which faith rests is this.
It's the power of divine grace radiating out
through weakness.
The power which sustains the lowly, loving heart
of Christ in his weakness.
That's the inimitable power that we see in
Christ as he meekly and lovingly mounts the
cross for our sins.
The power of grace sustaining the humble, loving,
lowly Christ through his weakness, and radiating out
to us in the gospel through his weakness.
That's the demonstration of the spirit and power
referred to in verse 4.
So I want to commit myself as your
pastor and call you to commit yourself with
me to so act and speak that we
lead people's attention to the wisdom of God,
or the power of God and not the
wisdom of man.
That's our goal together.
And now in the last minutes, let's shift
our attention to something very practical and very
crucial.
Away from the question, what's the aim of
God or of Paul in his ministry, over
to the question, how shall that aim be
attained?
Remember I said there was in Paul's day,
and I think there are in ours, peddlers
of the gospel who have forgotten that at
the heart of our faith is the old
rugged cross, an emblem of suffering and shame.
They've forgotten, it seems to me, that to
trust the crucified Christ means to identify with
him in the humiliation of his suffering and
death.
And that only in the age to come
will we be glorified.
And while this age of misery and sin
lasts, we walk the road of calvary and
not the road of glory.
Oh, to be sure, we walk with joy,
as Peter said, joy indescribable and full of
glory.
But always joy in the midst of weakness
and calamities and insults and persecutions and hardships.
Watch out for the slick preacher who never
mentions these things, for whom the cross is
just a token symbol, who used power and
wisdom and fame and luxury to beckon the
self-centered middle-class American to consider himself
Christian at no cost to his pride or
his self-sufficiency.
Contrast the apostle Paul, look at verse 3
of our text in chapter 2.
I was with you in weakness and in
much fear and trembling.
Paul never would have made it on the
major networks, never.
You remember what his enemies said about him
in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 10?
They said this, they say his letters are
weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is
weak and his speech is of no account.
There's a brand of Christianity today that would
have asked Paul, what good can he do
for Christ?
He'll just turn everybody off to Jesus.
What Christ needs is shiny people, people with
education and power and status and flair.
How else are you going to sell Jesus
to the public and Christianize America?
Paul's question was not so much, what good
can I do for Christ?
But rather, what good can Christ do for
the world through unworthy me?
It was not so much, how much power
can I muster for Jesus?
But rather, how much power can Jesus show
through my weakness?
Remember 2 Corinthians 12, verse 8, very familiar
text, where Paul says about that infirmity that
he had, I asked the Lord three times
about this, that it should leave me, but
he said to me, my grace is sufficient
for you, my power is made perfect in
your weakness.
I will all the more gladly then boast
in my weaknesses in order that the power
of Christ might rest upon me.
Paul knew that if he was to be
an agent of the crucified Christ to win
faith in him, he had to follow the
road of Calvary.
That is, he had to draw people's attention
not to his own power and wisdom and
status and flair, but to the power of
God made perfect in weakness.
He knew that if human power and human
education and intelligence and class and flair got
center stage, whatever conversions there would be, and
oh, there are conversions, they would not be
conversions to the crucified Christ, but to Antichrist.
If it is the power of God manifest
in the weakness of death, the death of
Christ, that kindles and sustains saving faith, then
the way to reflect that power in our
lives for the sake of others is to
carry the death of Christ in our bodies.
Here's the way Paul said it in 2
Corinthians 4, verses 7-11.
And with this, I close.
We have this treasure, the treasure of the
gospel, in earthen vessels, that is, our weak
bodies.
Let me pause here to mention that when
you're healthy and strong and young, that text
might sound inapplicable to you.
Don't bank on it too long.
I have seen too many young, strong, athletic
types wither away with debilitating diseases and die,
get into accidents and become vegetables.
We are miserably frail creatures, no matter what
you can achieve with your healthy body right
now.
We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that's
okay, so that the transcendent power might be
seen as belonging to God and not to
us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not
crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted,
but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed,
always carrying in the body the death of
Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may
be also manifested in our bodies.
For while we live, we are always being
given up to death for Jesus' sake, so
that the life of Jesus might be manifested
in our mortal flesh.
So I hope you'll understand when I say
that I come to you as your pastor
today with weaknesses.
You don't have to have those listed, you'll
find them out soon enough, and with much
fear and trembling.
Not that I distrust the promise of God,
but that I distrust myself so much, and
not so much that I might fail as
the world counts failure, but rather that, worse,
I might succeed by my own strength and
wisdom and fail by the way God counts
failure.
There's a paradox here.
Jesus said, Piper, don't be anxious, don't be
anxious for anything.
Isaiah, fear not, for I am with you.
Be not dismayed, I'm your God, I'll strengthen
you, I'll help you, I'll hold you up
with my victorious right hand.
And here comes Paul into Corinth trembling like
a leaf.
Why?
It's an awesome responsibility to undertake to preach
the gospel.
Is it lack of faith that Paul shakes
for and I tremble about?
Yes.
I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
But there's another reason, a very, very important
reason, that applies not only to me but
to you, I think, why the minister of
the gospel ought to tremble when he undertakes
to preach.
During this age in which human sinfulness remains
in my heart and in your heart, even
though we are being redeemed, and in which
the temptation to self-reliance is relentless, especially
after the leaders in the church.
In this age, while those two things remain,
God has appointed mercifully for his servants to
tremble with a profound sense of insufficiency in
order that we, you and I, might not
forget that it is God's power and not
man's wisdom that creates and sustains faith.