SPEAKER_01: Would you turn in your Bible to First Corinthians chapter one, verse 18?
SPEAKER_01: And as you're turning there, let me just make mention of the video that you saw earlier.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Dan.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the pastor of college ministry, and uh we are launching kind of a new college ministry here at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_01: We've been doing college ministry for a number of years, but we're uh starting some more Bible studies in earnest.
SPEAKER_01: For the last several years, our young adult and college groups have been one group.
SPEAKER_01: It's been one thing, the foundry, and so at the end of August, August 27th, that'll be the first Sunday that we're meeting separately, and we're gonna have separate Bible studies in the middle of the week.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be on campus on Monday evenings doing evangelism, which we've done for a number of years at Mason.
SPEAKER_01: And we will continue to meet in Bible studies as well, right across from Mason at a coffee shop over there, and uh have other events for college students on campus.
SPEAKER_01: And please be praying for this new college ministry.
SPEAKER_01: We desire for many students to come to Christ, for them to see the light of the glory of Christ in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So please pray that the Lord would open hearts and minds through that, that we'd be faithful in our evangelism, and uh pray that the Lord would grow that ministry through his gospel.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 1.18.
SPEAKER_01: One verse to set our minds on and meditate on as we prepare for the Lord's table this morning.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 1.18.
SPEAKER_01: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_01: But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: So reads the word of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: You want to know the secret to deconstructing your faith?
SPEAKER_01: How to lose your religion in one easy step?
SPEAKER_01: According to the pollsters, the answer is get another degree.
SPEAKER_01: According to several recent polls, an increase in education is meaningfully correlated with a decrease in religious conviction.
SPEAKER_01: A Pew research poll from last year found that, quote, most Americans say it's not necessary to believe in God to be moral.
SPEAKER_01: What was interesting about that study is that the likelihood to jettison God as the basis of your morality increased the more degrees you got.
SPEAKER_01: If you were a high school graduate only or less, then you were more likely to believe in God as the basis of your morality.
SPEAKER_01: Much has been made in recent years of the meteoric rise of the nuns, atheists, agnostics, the undecided, but it is still a relatively small percentage of the population.
SPEAKER_01: Only about 9% of Americans would identify themselves as atheists.
SPEAKER_01: Yet a recent study done at elite doctoral universities found that 36% of professors are atheist or agnostic.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, the higher you go, the less God there is.
SPEAKER_01: One more.
SPEAKER_01: Recent Pew study discovered that 63% of college graduates in the United States, people who've graduated with a bachelor's, 63% of them believe in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But 48% believe in hell.
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, the more you're taught, the less you know.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 14, 1, God says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God.
SPEAKER_01: You want to know how to become a fool?
SPEAKER_01: Apparently, you just go to school.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as Christians, of course, we we understand the value of education.
SPEAKER_01: We have a Christian school attached to this church, starting in a few weeks, 600 some kids, praise the Lord for that.
SPEAKER_01: We know the value of an education for a Christian, but I want to speak specifically to the college students who are here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know that as you go back to your campus, or maybe you're going for the first time, you are very much stepping into enemy territory.
SPEAKER_01: You're going into a culture, a world, a place where Christianity is seen as anti-intellectual, foolish.
SPEAKER_01: And I think your temptation in that campus, where the Bible is seen as backwards and wrong and probably just outright immoral at points, your temptation is going to be to want to camouflage, to fit in, to blend in, to not stand out, to take all the weird parts of Christianity, all the hard, offensive things of the Bible, and just paste over them and make them easy and comfortable.
SPEAKER_01: You're not going to want to look like someone who doesn't understand and is backwards and foolish, believes in an old book.
SPEAKER_01: And I think for the rest of us, I think we understand this.
SPEAKER_01: This is our experience too, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: In our workplaces, in our friendships, our neighborhoods with our family members who don't know the Lord, we feel the same pressure, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: Same temptation to cover over the hard things of Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: Usually it sounds something like, well, I don't like to talk about religion and politics.
SPEAKER_01: That is too divisive.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it sounds like, well, for me, my opinion personally, me, what I believe, not for you, but just for me.
SPEAKER_01: In a world and in a culture that considers the Bible to be irrelevant, foolish, and hateful, how then shall we speak?
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul actually gives us an answer in this text.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, you know how you speak?
SPEAKER_01: You go to the most absurd, outrageous, and offensive thing the Bible has to say, and preach that.
SPEAKER_01: You preach the cross.
SPEAKER_01: You preach the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Because the message that your roommates, that your dormates, that your neighbors, that your co-workers, that your family members, the message that they need to hear, that they consider to be repugnant and disgusting, is the only message that can save them from eternal hell.
SPEAKER_01: And so they need to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: And in that way, I think first century Corinth, who's really not so different from 21st century Springfield, as a Greco-Roman trading hub in the capital of the region of Achaea, Corinth was inundated with what they called education, which is a way of saying satanic programming of worldly philosophy.
SPEAKER_01: There were tons of them, lots of different schools of philosophy back in the day, and all of them vying for some explanation of who and what and how and why we exist.
SPEAKER_01: And it's into that world that Paul comes preaching a message about a crucified rabbi from backwards Palestine and plants a church.
SPEAKER_01: Some people believe in it.
SPEAKER_01: And then Paul leaves that church and he installs a guy to start preaching there, a guy named Apollos.
SPEAKER_01: And Apollos is a different kind of preacher than Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He's refined.
SPEAKER_01: He knows Greek rhetoric.
SPEAKER_01: He's a fancy preacher.
SPEAKER_01: And the people really like the way that he preaches, and so they start gravitating towards him and away from Paul, and it starts to cause division in the church.
SPEAKER_01: I am of Paul or I'm of Apollos.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul writes this letter to the Corinthians to address that division, and he goes right to the heart of the matter, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01: This isn't about celebrity pastorism, really.
SPEAKER_01: This is about what we preach and how we preach it.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he says in verse 17 to those who would say, your message is not refined enough, not polished enough, it doesn't appeal enough to the Greeks outside of the church, it needs more eloquent wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, verse 17, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
SPEAKER_01: He says, in contrast, the word of the cross, the message that I preach, is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's contrasting the two, the word of the cross and the eloquent words of wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: What's the connection between those things?
SPEAKER_01: Well, notice the little word for at the beginning of verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: For is just the word because.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is saying, Christ sent me to preach the gospel because the word of the cross is foolishness and power.
SPEAKER_01: He's explaining his motives for preaching, why he preaches the way and the content that he does.
SPEAKER_01: Two reasons why he preaches the unadorned word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And friends, these are the reasons why we preach the very same message.
SPEAKER_01: Why we don't give in to tactics of eloquent wisdom or that which would appeal to the foolish mind, but we still preach the foolish cross.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do it?
SPEAKER_01: Where do we find the motivation to do that in a world that so hates that message?
SPEAKER_01: Two reasons, which will be our outline.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we preach?
SPEAKER_01: First, because the word of the cross is foolish.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's foolish.
SPEAKER_01: You say, whoa, whoa, that doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: You preach because it's foolish?
SPEAKER_01: You mean like sarcastically.
SPEAKER_01: No?
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean it the way Paul means it.
SPEAKER_01: That it really is foolish.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we preach it.
SPEAKER_01: To understand why Paul says it that way, we have to understand this phrase, the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, it's a contrast here with the phrase in 17, words of eloquent wisdom, literally wisdom of a word.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is eschewing rhetoric, polished speech, smooth talk, excellent public speaking.
SPEAKER_01: That was what the Corinthians loved.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they wanted to hear.
SPEAKER_01: They were into.
SPEAKER_01: The whole Greek world was enamored with.
SPEAKER_01: As an example of this, there was a guy in the first century who was a rhetorician named Favorinus who stopped by Corinth on a number of occasions, and when he was there, he would give some kind of public address, and it would be loaded with all kinds of good rhetorical prowess, metaphor and simile and assonance and all kinds of beautiful speech.
SPEAKER_01: And the people loved him for it.
SPEAKER_01: And they loved him so much they built a statue of him out of bronze and they stuck it in the middle of their library, which in those days was like the place to be.
SPEAKER_01: They hailed anyone who could speak with this kind of ear-tickling wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: They were obsessed with words of eloquent wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, if I were to preach that way, I would empty the cross of its power.
SPEAKER_01: The cross would be useless to you if I preached it that way.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he explains it in other words in chapter 2, verse 5, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to come to Christianity because you like the way the preacher sounds.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to come because you've seen the glory of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And if I were to cause you to come by some other means than the cross, well then I've emptied the cross of its power.
SPEAKER_01: Wait, so is Paul saying here then that good preaching is bad preaching?
SPEAKER_01: Is that what he's trying to say?
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that preaching that wins its hearers on their terms, appealing to anything other than the cross as the reason why you should believe, guts the cross of its efficiency.
SPEAKER_01: This is what you see all across churches today, countless churches, particularly in our own country, just given over to eloquent words of wisdom, the kind of preaching that just appeals to modern man.
SPEAKER_01: One of the most egregious forms of this, which is going on probably this very Sunday in churches all across America, is Summer at the Movies sermon series.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been to a church where they do this, they just take a popular summer blockbuster and they preach that.
SPEAKER_01: You have a Mario sermon, you have a Barbie sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
SPEAKER_01: This is what tons of evangelical churches are preaching today.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says if someone comes to your church and becomes a part of your group and says that they're a Christian because they liked your movie sermon, they have not come to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They've come to a show.
SPEAKER_01: Not the cross.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is so highly important to this point that Paul calls it the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: This is the only time in all of Paul's writing that he uses that phrase.
SPEAKER_01: Other times he'll talk about the gospel with other words.
SPEAKER_01: He'll call it the word of truth.
SPEAKER_01: He'll call it the word of the Lord, the word of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: This is the only time he calls it the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why does he call it the word of the cross?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because the cross is one of the most profound reasons why this message is considered so foolish.
SPEAKER_01: Folly.
SPEAKER_01: The word in Greek moria, it's the word that we get our word moron from.
SPEAKER_01: Idiotic.
SPEAKER_01: Simpleton, stupid, plain.
SPEAKER_01: Why is it considered that way?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard for us to imagine because the cross is just the preeminent symbol of Christianity today, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's literally, it's right up there, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's on the ceiling of our building.
SPEAKER_01: It's everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you wearing it around your neck, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're proud.
SPEAKER_01: We like the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that wasn't what it was in Paul's day, was it?
SPEAKER_01: It was a means of Roman torture and execution, public shame.
SPEAKER_01: This would be like saying, I preach the word of the hangman's noose.
SPEAKER_01: I preach the word of the guillotine.
SPEAKER_01: I preach the word of the burning at the stake.
SPEAKER_01: That's the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The cross where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was slain for the sins of his own.
SPEAKER_01: That cross is a message of death.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just, well, Jesus came and he died and did this nice thing for you so that you could kind of add him into your existing life.
SPEAKER_01: No, the word of the cross is a message for you to come and die with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 6, 3, do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the very first time he tells his disciples that he's gonna have to go to the cross and die.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: You remember Peter's response?
SPEAKER_01: I don't like that program.
SPEAKER_01: Can we do a different one?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus responds, get behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_01: That is satanic thinking that I could circumvent the cross and still save sinners.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, if anyone wants to follow me, he has to take up his cross and come after me.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the cross is an invitation to death.
SPEAKER_01: To die to your dreams, your pride, your ideas, your morals, your philosophy, your wisdom, and to embrace an executed Jewish rabbi from the first century who alone can grant you entrance into the eternal court of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the word of the cross is.
SPEAKER_01: You're nothing.
SPEAKER_01: So come and die.
SPEAKER_01: And it gets worse.
SPEAKER_01: You know why else the word of the cross is foolish?
SPEAKER_01: Because Paul says it's the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The definite article, word, singular noun.
SPEAKER_01: It is exclusive.
SPEAKER_01: This is the only way of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: There is no other way but through the cross.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a cross, it's not a word, it's the word.
SPEAKER_01: The one way to be saved is through the one cross.
SPEAKER_01: Meaning that the word of the cross says that every other religion is a demonic lie.
SPEAKER_01: Try that at your next DEI training.
SPEAKER_01: And it gets worse.
SPEAKER_01: It's the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Word like words, like air passing over your larynx and coming out of your mouth and hitting someone else's ears.
SPEAKER_01: It means just talk.
SPEAKER_01: It's not superpowers.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a big stack of money.
SPEAKER_01: It's not political influence or sway.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the cross is just a message.
SPEAKER_01: It's just talk from people to other people.
SPEAKER_01: It's human language about a crucified rabbi who said he was God and tells you to give up everything to follow him into persecution and death.
SPEAKER_01: Paul needs some marketing help, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01: Good night.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity, your worst life now.
SPEAKER_01: So why on earth, if this word of the cross is so foolish, why is that foolishness the very reason why Paul preaches it?
SPEAKER_01: It's because of who it is foolish to.
SPEAKER_01: Notice who he says in the text.
SPEAKER_01: It is folly to those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_01: Perishing, destruction, lostness, being destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: It's a present participle.
SPEAKER_01: It's going on right now and it's leading to an eventual end.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same word from John 3.16 that they may not perish but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: This is a reference to the second death, to judgment, to the wrath of God, to hell, to the lake of fire, eternal judgment and damnation.
SPEAKER_01: Those who are born for the lake of fire and are on their way to the lake of fire and will spend eternity in the lake of fire, it is those people to whom the word of the cross is foolishness.
SPEAKER_01: You realize, of course, that it doesn't matter what you believe, somebody's gonna think it's foolish, right?
SPEAKER_01: Whatever religion, whatever worldview you take on, someone's gonna say it's foolish.
SPEAKER_01: You could even try to embrace all of them and get a coexist bumper sticker.
SPEAKER_01: I'll still call you foolish.
SPEAKER_01: So the question is not, will you be called foolish?
SPEAKER_01: The question is by whom.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, you know why I preach the word of the cross?
SPEAKER_01: Because hell hates it.
SPEAKER_01: So I know I'm on the right track.
SPEAKER_01: I remember a number of years ago there was a particularly evil, hateful group calling themselves Christians who picketed a manual Bible church on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you may remember this.
SPEAKER_01: Signs out there spewing all kinds of evil things.
SPEAKER_01: I remember going out and seeing them and thinking.
SPEAKER_01: One, uh just how heartbreaking that these folks think that that kind of hatred is Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: But also we must be doing something right if they're the ones picketing us.
SPEAKER_01: One of the strangest evangelistic interactions I've had on campus at Mason is when I'll be talking to a non-Christian student, sharing the gospel with them, and at the end of that, they proceed to lecture me on how to evangelize them better.
SPEAKER_01: Usually something like, you know, you should probably tone down the sin talk.
SPEAKER_01: It's a little offensive.
SPEAKER_01: Take the Bible out of it, sound kind of like a thumper.
SPEAKER_01: You should really just focus on the things that we agree on.
SPEAKER_01: That would be more appealing to me.
SPEAKER_01: What they don't realize is that in telling me how to evangelize them, they have just guaranteed that I will never preach the gospel to them that way.
SPEAKER_01: If it seems like wisdom to a fool, then it's foolishness to the wise.
SPEAKER_01: Brothers and sisters, are you at all discouraged because you have been sharing the gospel with someone for maybe years and they keep rejecting it?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a wayward child, maybe a relative, a friend, a neighbor.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: Of course the word of the cross is foolishness to them.
SPEAKER_01: Unless and until God gives them eyes to see and ears to hear, they'll rage against it.
SPEAKER_01: They'll see it as foolish.
SPEAKER_01: They'll be blind to it.
SPEAKER_01: You were too.
SPEAKER_01: And don't let that discouragement cause you to camouflage the cross.
SPEAKER_01: To try to round off the sharp corners, to try to remove the offense from it.
SPEAKER_01: You're not the cook, you're a waiter.
SPEAKER_01: You just bring the meal.
SPEAKER_01: You don't change it, you don't dress it up, you just bring it out kindly.
SPEAKER_01: We don't change the message to appeal to the sensibilities of modern man or words of eloquent wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: We just preach the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, 2 Corinthians 2, 15 to 16, for we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_01: To one, a fragrance from death to death, and to the other a fragrance of life to life.
SPEAKER_01: So we preach because the word of the cross is foolish, but Paul also says that we preach because the word of the cross is power.
SPEAKER_01: It's power.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: This phrase here, to us who are being saved, Paul is now including himself in this group, us, and any who come to believe in the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross for them.
SPEAKER_01: And it may sound strange to you the way Paul phrases it.
SPEAKER_01: Those of us who are being saved, usually we say it like past tense, I got saved, I was saved.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that the Bible talks about salvation really in three ways.
SPEAKER_01: It's past, it's present, and its future.
SPEAKER_01: Think of it this way: it's like you're on a ship and then there's a shipwreck, and then you're rescued by a lifeboat.
SPEAKER_01: At that moment, you were saved, you are being saved, you haven't gotten ashore yet, and one day you will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: So it is with Christians.
SPEAKER_01: We're not in heaven yet.
SPEAKER_01: We are being saved.
SPEAKER_01: And for those who are heaven-bound, being saved, he says, this message, the word of the cross, is the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: The ability, the efficiency of God to do what?
SPEAKER_01: Well, salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 1, verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It is the power of God unto salvation.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this is for, is to save sinners from perishing, from death.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what's incredible is that all the points at which the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing are the very reasons why those who are being saved glory in it.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's the cross.
SPEAKER_01: It's an implement of death.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 6, verse 6, Paul says, exactly.
SPEAKER_01: My old self is crucified there so that I could be freed from sin.
SPEAKER_01: I needed to die.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful that God sent a Savior to die so that I can die with him.
SPEAKER_01: The fact that it's an exclusive message, the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what glory is that?
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to search for another one.
SPEAKER_01: Once you've found it, that's it.
SPEAKER_01: The search is over.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go to some institution of higher learning to find out what other groups have thought in their way of climbing up to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, there's just one.
SPEAKER_01: And if there's just one, that also implies that it is accessible to all.
SPEAKER_01: This is not some esoteric doctrine that only PhDs learn in an ivory tower.
SPEAKER_01: No, this is for kids.
SPEAKER_01: We teach this in children's church every Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: This is for the simple, for the plain.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the word.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says it's it's the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord its words, that God has condescended to use our capacity, human language, to communicate with us.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't come down and say, here's some experience, here's some feeling, here's some image to look at.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: He said, here are words that you can understand, internalize, and then repeat to be a part of God's work of saving people all throughout this world.
SPEAKER_01: What an incredible gift that is.
SPEAKER_01: The very power of Jesus Christ's salvation has been funneled like a magnifying glass of the sun, beamed at its sharpest point into this one message.
SPEAKER_01: That Jesus, the eternal Son of God, has come down, lived a perfect life.
SPEAKER_01: He has died in atoning death, and he has risen to give life to all.
SPEAKER_01: That message is the power of heaven to mankind.
SPEAKER_01: And look who this message is power to.
SPEAKER_01: It's to those who are being saved.
SPEAKER_01: The citizens of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: They're the people who appreciate this.
SPEAKER_01: The people who see reality and get it.
SPEAKER_01: Those are the spiritual pulse to see what is obvious and true.
SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes people get worried about sharing their faith because they think my non-Christian friend is going to outsmart me with their philosophy, with their learning, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize that if someone believes in evolution, they think their granddaddy was a fish?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, at least you think all of your relatives are humans.
SPEAKER_01: You're on the side of truth here.
SPEAKER_01: God is the most obvious reality in the universe.
SPEAKER_01: For someone to deny the existence of God is to decry their own foolishness.
SPEAKER_01: Not the inaccessibility of God.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what is the Christian's favorite thing about the Word of the Cross?
SPEAKER_01: It's that when God uses the Word of the Cross to save sinners, we get none of the credit.
SPEAKER_01: And he gets it all.
SPEAKER_01: It is not the power of the mind of man unto salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Not the power of classic rhetoric unto salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Not the power of persuasive speech or a trendy haircut or cool music or nice people or good facilities or a dynamic speaker or anything else that we can manufacture to try to convince people to come to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: No, it is, what does the text say?
SPEAKER_01: The power of God.
SPEAKER_01: The very power of the divine.
SPEAKER_01: Come into a word for the salvation of sinners.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Paul says in chapter 2, verse 3, I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling.
SPEAKER_01: That's what his preaching was like.
SPEAKER_01: My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: Why would God do that?
SPEAKER_01: Why would God funnel all of his power for salvation through weak, pale, sickly, broken, unimpressive rebels like us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul answers.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 1, 26.
SPEAKER_01: For consider your calling, brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
SPEAKER_01: But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
SPEAKER_01: God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
SPEAKER_01: God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: God gets all the glory in salvation because of the foolishness of the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we preach the word of the cross?
SPEAKER_01: Because it is the way that God fills the halls of heaven with the chorus shouting out, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
SPEAKER_01: There was a man named John Wise who aspired to be a preacher.
SPEAKER_01: But the more education that he got, the less he believed in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And eventually he left Christianity altogether.
SPEAKER_01: He became an atheist and a professor of philosophy for 25 years, where he, in his classes, tried to convince students that there's no way you could believe in your silly religion.
SPEAKER_01: How could you ever be certain of that?
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: And then one day, as he was reflecting on it, he realized, oh, I can't be certain of that either.
SPEAKER_01: And through that revelation and through the word of the cross, God saved him.
SPEAKER_01: And today he is an apologist with a podcast and everything.
SPEAKER_01: Instructing people about the foolishness and the emptiness of worldly philosophy and the power of the word of the cross to save sinners.
SPEAKER_01: The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man, is it not?
SPEAKER_01: I would imagine that there are some of you who can hear me today who are still perishing.
SPEAKER_01: You think maybe you've outsmarted God?
SPEAKER_01: All this church talk, it's it's all it is, it's just talk.
SPEAKER_01: Let me appeal to you as Paul does.
SPEAKER_01: How has it worked out for you?
SPEAKER_01: All the wisdom that you've tried.
SPEAKER_01: The philosophy, the way of living that you ascribe to, has it given you the fulfillment that you want?
SPEAKER_01: Has it given you the peace that you've been seeking?
SPEAKER_01: What if you're on the wrong side of this thing?
SPEAKER_01: And what you thought was foolish is actually the very wisdom by which this world was built.
SPEAKER_01: I would appeal to you with nothing more than the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Come and die.
SPEAKER_01: Come and find Jesus Christ to be everything.
SPEAKER_01: Give up your whole life to him.
SPEAKER_01: Pray, even in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Pray to him and say, I know I don't have it figured out.
SPEAKER_01: And I know that I can't.
SPEAKER_01: And I know that I need your wisdom, God.
SPEAKER_01: Through the cross of Christ, save me.
SPEAKER_01: And you will find that what has seemed so foolish to you for so long is in fact the very wisdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Brothers and sisters, you who have been discouraged and tempted to camouflage the Word of the Cross.
SPEAKER_01: Dear ones, go on preaching the Word of the Cross.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing more than that.
SPEAKER_01: This is it.
SPEAKER_01: This is the message that we preach.
SPEAKER_01: Resist the siren song to give the world the message it wants to hear.
SPEAKER_01: Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom, Americans want entertainment.
SPEAKER_01: And just preach the word of the cross and keep preaching it.
SPEAKER_01: And do it all for the sake of the Prince of Heaven and his eternal song.
SPEAKER_01: For Jews demand signs, the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, how we need to be humbled, Father.
SPEAKER_01: Beneath the word of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: How desperately we lack insight and understanding.
SPEAKER_01: And how graciously you give it.
SPEAKER_01: How freely through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: Father, I pray for you to do your work in this room in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: In the hearts of those who are yet perishing, Father, save them.
SPEAKER_01: If you would.
SPEAKER_01: Help them to see the foolishness of their way and the wisdom of yours.
SPEAKER_01: To those who are being saved, O God, would you embolden us to keep preaching the word of the cross?
SPEAKER_01: To not grow weary, to not accommodate, but to be energized by and thrilled by and motivated by the cross of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We ask all of this.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tml.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing for you, and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of folks.