1 Corinthians: 1 Faith, 1 Love, 1 Focus (Baptism of Our Lord – B)
Sunday, January 8, 2011
• Fools.
• Freaks.
• Insane.
• Dim-witted.
• Hopelessly misguided
• Uninformed.
• Naïve.
• Out of touch with reality.
• Not firing on all cylinders.
• That’s how the world sees us.
• Fools.
• That’s what the world thinks about people who take Jesus seriously.
• Fools.
• They think we’re wasting our time.
• They find it extremely strange that we decorate our buildings, decorate ourselves with the cross—a sign of an execution
• Of course, calling us fools, that’s nothing new. It started with Jesus Himself.
• One time Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers come to where He’s preaching and try to stop Him, they figure Jesus is “beside Himself,” not well, not thinking straight (Mark 3:21).
• Another time, after Jesus says that He’s the Good Shepherd, well, the Jewish leaders don’t embrace Him and paint portraits of Him with sheep. They say he’s demon-possessed and raving mad. (John 10:20).
• People who become followers of Christ, they, too, are labeled as fools.
• Paul, the apostle, the great missionary, the writer of 13 books of the New Testament, well, he was told that he was “out of his mind” when he was on trial.
• Then later as the Church grew, the critics continued to call it foolish. In the second century, a philosopher named Celsus said that Christianity is absurd because they are “actually worshipping a dead man.”
• Absurd.
• Foolish.
• Insane.
• Crazy.
• Woo-hoo.
• But hey, at least we’re in this thing together.
• If you’re going to be a fool, at least you’re not alone.
• We’re all considered fools for taking our faith seriously.
• Yet, what unites us is that we don’t consider Jesus to be a foolish belief.
• What unites us is that we believe that Jesus is the power of God for salvation.
• That’s what Paul’s saying in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians.
• When Paul says that the world thinks believing in Jesus is foolishness, when Paul says that, he means to unite the Corinthian church.
• Paul says: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
• “To us who are being saved,” to us who believe in Jesus, to us who believe in the cross—the death of Jesus, to us who believe in the resurrection—Jesus rising from the dead, to us—this is not foolishness. This is the power of God for salvation.
• So the world may call us fools, freaks, or clueless,
• but hey, we’re in this thing together.
• We’re united by the power of God in the cross.
• That verse in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, it’s verse 18, that verse is said to be the theme of Paul’s letter.
• And if it’s the theme of Paul’s letter, well, then it’s the theme for our series on 1 Corinthians, these 13 weeks before Easter where we’ll take one chapter a week through the 13th chapter of this letter of Paul.
• And so that’s the meaning behind the series title:
1 Corinthians: 1 Faith, 1 Love, 1 Focus.
• We are united by this one faith in Jesus.
• We are united by this one love of Christ.
• We are united by this one focus on Jesus and the cross.
• That faith, love, and focus may seem like foolishness according to the world’s standards, but for us, for us it’s the power of God working in our world to save us, to forgive our sins, to give us new life, to rescue us from eternal death.
//
• Now maybe you’re thinking: Christianity doesn’t seem so foolish. Christianity seems pretty normal.
• If so, it’s probably because we’re just so used to it.
• We spend so much time in the church and around Christians that it’s hard for us to realize what our faith looks like from the outside.
• But think of how strange it seems to those outside of the faith.
• Like I said, we decorate our buildings with the cross.
• We wear the cross as jewelry and on our t-shirts.
• And in the process, we’ve forgotten that the cross was a tool for execution, a tool for a gruesome torture and death, a tool to make an example out of the worst criminals, the lowest of the low.
• The world looks at us and sees us rallying around a symbol of death.
• The world sees us stating our belief in a Jewish manual laborer from Galilee who was killed on the outskirts of Jerusalem among the lowest criminals.
• The world sees this, and well, it’s no wonder they think we’re fools.
• It’s no wonder they think that God’s plan of salvation in Jesus sounds pretty weak, like a failed enterprise, like something completely powerless.
• Yet, we know through faith that the cross is the power of God.
• Through faith, we know that the cross is empty, the tomb is empty, Jesus lives and reigns and rules over all things with grace and love and forgiveness.
• Through faith, we don’t see the cross as a symbol of death. It’s a symbol of life—Jesus dying and rising again. It’s a symbol of life—putting our sinful lives to death and bringing us new life.
• Through faith, we don’t see this as foolishness; we see it as the power of God for our salvation.
//
• But what’s this have to do with unity—bringing a congregation together?
• What’s it have to do with encouraging the Corinthians—and us—to have one faith, one love, one focus?
• Well, it seems that the Corinthian church was arguing about which leader to follow—Paul or Apollos or Peter or just simply Christ.
• They were arguing about which way was wiser.
• They were arguing about who was right.
• Their unity was being torn apart because each faction was trying to outdo the other, trying to be the smartest, wisest, most well-spoken.
• So Paul reminds them of who they are:
Think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
• In other words, God called fools to the faith.
• God’s building His Church with fools.
• Freaks.
• Dim-witted.
• Uninformed.
• Naïve.
• Not firing on all cylinders.
• But hey, at least we’re in this together.
• Unless we’re not.
• Unless we’re not sticking together.
• Unless we’re arguing over following Paul or Apollos or Peter or Christ.
• Unless we’re trying to outdo one another.
• Unless we’re trying to be seen as wise according to the world’s standards.
• And then, well, then we’re just pulling away from each other, we’re competing, we’re losing sight of the unity we have in the power of God.
• We’re thinking that our power unites us.
• That’s the situation the Corinthian church found themselves in about three years after Paul had founded the congregation.
• So word got to Paul about these troubles, and he wrote this letter (and eventually 2 Corinthians) to address these issues and encourage the Christians in Corinth to remain focused on Christ and Him alone.
• And so through the centuries this letter from Paul comes to us, comes to address issues we might face, comes to encourage us to remain focused on the cross, comes to unite us in the power of God.
• Now the first reason I picked 1 Corinthians for our theme these weeks is because readings from 1 Corinthians appear anyway in the lectionary during this time of the year, the lectionary—the assigned readings for each Sunday in the Church Year. We would’ve been covering part of the letter already, so why not expand it and cover 13 chapters of it.
• So that was the reason initially for picking it
• But then as I started to study for this week, I realized God had led me to the right book for our fellowship of believers, the right book for us to study.
• I say that because we need the encouragement to be united.
• I don’t mean that I’m concerned that we’re not united now, or that there are factions, or that we’re pulling away from each other.
• I don’t mean that at all.
• I think Bethel is in a great place—what with a real missional energy in this place, an eagerness to reach out to our community.
• What with the reFocusing process helping us to discover who we are as individuals and as a congregation.
• I can see God’s power at work in this place.
• So what do I mean that we need the encouragement to be united?
• We need it, because as we move forward, as God’s Spirit moves in this place, as the energy builds, as we step forward into the community, we’re going to be under attack—spiritual attack.
• The devil would love to see us fail.
• The devil would love to see us get tripped up.
• And a great way to trip us up would be to get us to do it to ourselves, to get us to go against one another.
• It’s not so much that the world’s going to call us foolish—that’s not the first danger.
• The first danger is that we’ll call one another fools.
•
• Fools.
• Hopelessly misguided.
• Uninformed.
• Wrong.
• Have you ever been a part of an experience in a congregation when people have been picking at each other?
• Have you ever been called a fool by a fellow brother or sister in Christ?
• Have you ever watched as people pulled away from one another, took positions of being right, and calling everyone else wrong?
• Have you ever run away or been tempted to run away from the church because you couldn’t stand how people were treating each other?
• Well, that in-fighting, what’s it really about?
• Isn’t all of that in-fighting about trying to be the wise one, the smart one, the one who has it all figured out?
• Isn’t it about calling someone else foolish?
• That’s what seems to be happening in the Corinthian church:
• “You’re foolish for following Paul because Apollos is the right one.”
• “No, it’s not Paul or Apollos, it’s Peter.”
• “You’re all wrong, We should only follow Christ, and I, of course, am doing just that.”
• Pride was rearing its ugly head.
• Pride was pulling apart the unity of the congregation.
• But before we’re too quick to set ourselves above the Corinthian Christians and start calling them fools, let us remember how pride comes to play in our lives together as well.
• Have we ever acted out of pride in the church?
• Have we ever closed our ears to someone else because we were trying so desperately to be right?
• Do we need to confess to a brother or sister that we were wrong to treat them like a fool?
• And when we realize this, when we realize our own pride, our own temptations to pride,
• That’s when we realize how much we need the power of God for salvation, the power of God in the cross.
• The very thing that seems so foolish
the foolish word of Christ crucified
comes to forgive us for our pride.
• Christ forgives us and restores us and sets us back in His grace and brings us back to others with love.
• That experience of being restored to a brother or sister in Christ. . .
• Admitting a sin to a fellow Christian and having them forgive you. . .
• Seeing the hurt and anger melt away because there’s power in God’s Word of forgiveness. . .
• There’s nothing like that experience.
• I experienced that with a dear friend, and it’s remarkable—remarkable to be forgiven for my sin, remarkable to be back in relationship with him, remarkable to see God’s hand at work, His Gospel coming to work in my day-to-day life.
• And it was only the power of God that could do this.
• This is the hope that Paul has for the Corinthians.
• He’s writing to them about lots of things, but the theme is restoring their unity, helping them to set aside pride, and rally around the foolish word of the cross.
• And hey, we’re in this thing together.
• This is my hope for us as well.
• I pray our unity will be strengthened, that we’ll all see ways we might need to set aside pride, and that we’ll rally around the foolish word of the cross.
• Together we are fools.
• Freaks.
• Insane.
• Dim-witted.
• Hopelessly misguided
• Uninformed.
• Naïve.
• Out of touch with reality.
• Not firing on all cylinders.
• That’s how the world sees us.
• Fools.
• That’s what the world thinks about people who take Jesus seriously.
• Fools.
• But hey, no matter what, we’re in this thing together.
• We’re in this together because the cross of Jesus brings us together.
• We’re in this together because we’ve been forgiven by the death and resurrection of Christ.
• We’re in this together because we realize we’re not any better than anyone else—we need Christ for salvation.
• We’re in this together, together with Christ.
• So, Fools, rally around the foolish word of the cross.
• Rally around the cross and be united in Christ.