How many professional golfers do we have here today? None? Nobody on the PGA or LPGA? How many of you are semi-pro golfers? How many would consider yourself to be very good golfers? How many don’t even like golf? But you do know what it is, right? This illustration will be perfect for us today then.
Here’s the scenario: You have been chosen to play in the World Cup of golf. It’s the championship of the sport, whatever you call it. Yes, you, with the talent you have for golf, have been chosen to play and if you win you will be a millionaire. The catch is, if you lose you die. It’s just an illustration. It doesn’t have to be plausible. It just is supposed to help you visualize something. So, work with me here.
So, you borrow some clubs and go the first hole and just as you are about to tee off, somebody taps you on the shoulder. You look up and it’s Tiger Woods. He says, “I’m sorry to bother you but I see the predicament you are in and I’ve seen how you play golf. I would like to play the round for you just because I like you. You can have the money and the fame. I just want to do this for you,”
What do you say? Of course you let him play for you, right? But then you tell him that he can putt but you are going to do the driving. He nicely convinces you that would not be wise. So you then tell him that you will do all the pitch shots. He advises against it. You tell him that you are pretty good with a 7 iron. No, not a good idea. “Can I carry the bag?” He says, “No, I can do even that better than you. And no you can’t tee the ball up because you might even mess that up. Just sit over there and be still and know that I am Tiger.”
And of course he goes on to win the contest and you get all the money and all the glory and you didn’t do a thing. Tiger even gave you a ride to the course that morning and brought you some coffee. All you did was agree to the deal. He did everything else. Winning the tournament had nothing whatsoever to do with you and yet you got all the benefits.
How does that sound? Pretty ridiculous, right? Sound crazy? Does it sound foolish? That may be typical of most of my illustrations but I chose to make this sound foolish because that is what the world thinks about the Gospel. When you tell somebody that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for sin that we could not pay and that if we just believe on Him then we will have everlasting life in Heaven with God, people will think that is foolish. They always have and they always will.
And just like Tiger Woods didn’t need to borrow your clubs or wear your spikes, Jesus needs nothing from us to provide the way to eternal life and glory other than you agreeing to the deal. Our passage in 1 Corinthians this morning tells us that Jesus did everything necessary to provide eternal life, no matter what the world says.
And He did it all so that there would be no way we could boast about having any part of it. If you loaned Tiger a couple of tees to use and he won the tournament while using those tees, you would be up at the clubhouse making sure everybody knew that those were your tees. Those tees were really good tees and you’re pretty sure it was the tees that sealed the win. Oh, sure, that Tiger has talent but look at these tees!
Let’s look at what the Word says about it in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Our focus verse will be verse 30 but let’s read 26-31 to get the overview.
Brothers, 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. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,29 so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Like I said, I want to focus on verse 30 as we continue our look at the foolishness of the cross. This is the 3rd of 5 messages on what the world calls foolishness and what Paul is calling wisdom. We saw the week before last the wisdom of the world that has such a hard time believing that Jesus is the only way to Heaven and that we get there through Him and by grace. They feel there must be something more because that is too easy.
Then last week we saw the wisdom of God which is to use all of us as His preachers of the Gospel and how we are to preach Christ and to preach Him crucified and to preach Him risen. And this week we see the wisdom of Christ, Who, it says became our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
So let’s go back and focus on verse 30 where it says that. 30”It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” It says it is because of God that we are in Christ Jesus. What does it mean to be in Christ? Plywood
Plywood is basically a couple of sheets of thin wood pressed together to make one piece of stronger wood. And you would think that it would be pretty easy to just pull the two pieces apart but when you try, it doesn’t work. This piece of wood is “in” that piece of wood just like we are in Christ. It’s similar to the way that 2 people become when they are married. The Bible says in Genesis, Matthew, Mark, 1 Corinthians and Ephesians that when 2 people come together, they are one flesh.
That’s why God hates divorce. It also says all through the Bible that we as the church are the body of Christ. We are in Christ in much the same way that 2 married people become one. But this verse isn’t about marriage. It’s about how we are in Christ and we are there because God has allowed us to be and He wanted us to be. We can’t even do that on our own.
The verse says that we are in Christ Jesus who has become, through the wisdom of God, our righteousness, our holiness and our redemption. Paul emphasizes that it is through the wisdom of God that we are in Christ because it is important to see that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the natural man. It makes no logical sense to think that Jesus would do that for us, especially when you explore what it truly means to have righteousness, holiness and redemption.
Righteousness, believe it or not, means to simply be right. It literally means to be correct in what you do, to do life in the right way and without error. Have you ever been in an argument or a debate with someone and you just know you are right until that moment you realize…that you’re not. You realize half way through that the other person is right and you are wrong. Oh, that’s a bad feeling. And some of you may never admit to having been there but most of us know that feeling.
In fact, it is the realization that all of us must come to when we come to Jesus. We have to admit that we have been doing this thing called “life” the wrong way and turn to Jesus. The problem that most people have is that they think that turning to Jesus will make them a better person and as a better person they will be more acceptable to God. That is untrue. God’s not in the business of making bad people good. He makes dead people alive!
Trying to be a better person so God will accept you is like trying to give Tiger Woods your golf clubs. He doesn’t want to play in this tournament with your mismatched, garage sale clubs with broken handles and cracked heads. And Jesus didn’t die on the cross to make you into a good enough person to go to Heaven. We have no righteousness of our own. We have to get to Heaven; we have to have a relationship with God, not on our merits, not on our righteousness, but on the righteousness of Jesus.
And when we accept the fact that there is nothing about us that can be called anything close to righteousness then the wisdom of the world would be to think that since we don’t have to be righteous to get to Heaven then I can do anything I want and jump around and act the fool. But we as believers, who are “in Christ”, understand that it works just the opposite. Understanding the righteousness of Christ and that it is the way to relationship with God actually makes us want to conform to the will of God. We understand a little better about the sacrifice that God made and how unworthy we are and we love Him and want to serve Him because He first loved us.
The Chinese character for righteousness is very interesting. It is composed of 2 separate characters, one standing for a lamb and the other for me. When the lamb is placed directly above me a new character is formed: righteousness. This is a helpful picture of the grace of God that between me and God there is a Lamb and when God sees me He sees the righteousness of the Lamb. (Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Green)
So, not only is Jesus the righteousness we need to get to have a relationship with God but He is also the holiness that we need. Some of your translations may say sanctification. Speedy at the Biker Church was just talking about the definition of sanctification and how it means to be separated to God. It doesn’t just mean to be separated from the world. You can go live in a cave by yourself and be separated from the world but you are not holy or sanctified. You’re a hermit or a unibomber maybe but not holy.
We have talked many times about how we are to be holy. The Bible is full of scripture telling us that we are to be separate, set apart, different and sanctified. God commands us to be holy and as we learned last week, when God’s Word says to do something, not to do it is sin. The problem is we can never be holy enough on our own.
Yes, we are supposed to try to be different from the world. They should be able to see at a glance that we are different. We handle stress differently and we handle happiness differently. But this is where my stupid illustration about Tiger Woods breaks down. Because even Tiger doesn’t play golf all day every day. He’s not perfect at golf.
When it comes to holiness, we can’t get it done good enough to have a relationship with God on our own. God demands perfect holiness. He demands complete separation and we will never be able to do that and so this passage says that it pleased God; it was His wisdom to allow us to use the holiness of Jesus in the place of our holiness.
Monica just had surgery this past week and she seems to be doing well. She had a good surgeon evidently. Monica, how would you feel if you found out that that surgeon used a scalpel to cut into your back and that scalpel had not been cleaned since the last surgery? Would that be ok? What if it just had a little spot of blood on it? What if it looked clean but had just a little bit of bacteria; just one little germ? That wouldn’t work would it?
It’s the same way with holiness. God can’t have a relationship with you even though you have tried to be holy. Even though you have made a valiant effort, you still fall short. God demands holiness because He is holy. And if it were not for Jesus, we would die in our unholiness. But it says that Jesus has become our holiness.
Again, the wisdom of the world would be to hear that Jesus is holy for us so we don’t have to be and they would think that means we have a free pass to do anything we like. In fact, in 2nd Corinthians Paul even says that where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. So, why should we even try to be holy if our holiness is not what gets us to God?
Because we are in Christ. Because we have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus and because we have that relationship, we want what God wants. We want what is best for the Kingdom. And yes, when we are holy we see God’s blessings poured out on our lives in ways that the world will never know. We see blessings here in this life and, more importantly, we will see blessings in the next life. But ultimately we are holy because we are in Christ, even though it is the holiness of Christ that provides that relationship.
So, we see that Jesus is our righteousness and our holiness. He is also our redemption. Redemption means to be purchased or bought for a price. It even can mean to pay a ransom for deliverance or to be set free.
A little boy was walking down the street with a bird cage with 3 birds in it. His neighbor saw him and asked him about the birds. The boy said, “Aw, they’re just sparrows that I caught in a trap. They aren’t worth anything. I’m taking them home to feed to our old cat.” The neighbor told the boy he would give him $2 for the birds and the old cage but the boy tried to explain that wasn’t a good deal for the man because they didn’t sing. They weren’t pretty and they weren’t good for anything. But the man insisted and the boy went off happy with his $2. As soon as the boy got around the corner the man opened the cage and let the sparrows fly out. That is the picture of redemption.
Ephesians 1:7-8 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
We see in this verse and in the verse we have been looking at that it was the wisdom of God that we should have redemption through Jesus. If not for the sacrifice of Jesus we would be in the same situation as those 3 birds. We would be doomed with no hope. But because God decided that my penalty of death for sin could be paid by Jesus and because Jesus was obedient to the Father, I can have a relationship with God here on earth and for eternity in Heaven. And today that makes me want to say “amen”. That makes me excited and I am glad to share that excitement with my family here today.
And do you know what that is going to mean to me tomorrow? Tomorrow I am going to wonder what’s on TV. Tomorrow I am going to complain about traffic and I’m going to gossip and have a bad attitude. Tomorrow I am going to worry about if my salvation is secure and how I am going to pay the bills and everything else Satan wants me to think about UNLESS I remember that I have been redeemed.
If I leave this place and fail to remember what God has done for me through His Son Jesus then I could very well look like everybody else in this world. But if I remember that I have been bought for a price by a loving God Who wants more than anything for me to be like Him, then that will change my whole outlook. That will make me grateful. That will keep me from sin. That will keep me from worrying about my salvation or anything else and it will motivate me to tell others about this relationship I have with the Creator of the universe.
And do you know what I am going to brag about? Well, since I had absolutely nothing to do with it, the only thing I can brag about is Christ. And that is what Paul is saying in that last verse. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” I can leave here and brag about what Christ has done for me and through me and around me and I can boast about Him because it had nothing to do with me. All any of us have done is agree to the deal.
It is not through my righteousness. Jesus became my righteousness. It is not through my holiness. Jesus became my holiness. And I sure didn’t redeem myself. Jesus became my redemption. And while that is foolishness to the world, it is the wisdom of God through Christ.
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