“The Wisdom of God” – 1 Cor. 1:21

The Fox and The Crow

A Fox once saw a Crow fly off with a piece of cheese in its beak and settle on a branch of a tree.

"That's for me, as I am a Fox," said Master Reynard, and he walked up to the foot of the tree.

"Good day, Mistress Crow," he cried. "How well you are looking today: how glossy your feathers; how bright your eye. I feel sure your voice must surpass that of other birds, just as your figure does; let me hear but one song from you that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds."  The Crow lifted up her head and began to caw her best, but the moment she opened her mouth the piece of cheese fell to the ground, only to be snapped up by Master Fox.

"That will do," said he. "That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese I will give you a piece of advice for the future: "Do not trust flatterers."

 

I can't stand fables. I never have liked them. I remember being in grade school and the teacher made us read these and even as a little kid, I didn't like them. I didn't like them because they weren't believable. Oh, sure they had a good lesson to be learned but that was lost on me as a 10 year old. I liked to read but back then I wanted to read about things blowing up or about dogs or something funny. Come to think of it, I guess not much has changed.

 

But because I knew that crows and foxes couldn't talk, I didn't want to read it. I didn't want to read about the boy who cried wolf because it wasn't believable to me that the boy didn't get a spanking the first time he cried "wolf". That's not believable. Or the tortoise and the hare, completely unbelievable. #1, call them a rabbit and a turtle. #2, rabbits and turtles can't talk. #3, do you know what happens when you line up a rabbit and a turtle for a race? The rabbit runs off into the woods and the turtle doesn't move. There is no race! There's no racing turtles and rabbits. Completely unbelievable. Just stop.

 

Or how about the wolf in sheep's clothing? Don't insult me. Then there is the fable about the guy in the Bible who had to build an ark big enough to put 2 of every kind of animal. Do people really believe this stuff? C'mon. Do you know what I read the other day? I was minding my own business reading through the book of Joshua and it said that the Israelites crossed over the Jordan River on dry land. That's bad enough. But then it says that they conquered the city of Jericho by walking around it and hollering. Give me a break. You can't do that, right?

 

The Bible is full of this kind of stuff. Moses banged a rock with a stick and water came out of it. An axe head floated. Samson killed a thousand men with a donkey jaw. Daniel was thrown into a den of lions and lived. I could go on and on. And it's not just Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus heals all kinds of people, even bringing them back from the dead. But the biggest story of them all is that Jesus, who lived a perfect life, was hung on a cross and killed but then rose again after 3 days, paying the debt for sin that we could never pay.

 

That's a story that even the Bible itself calls foolishness. It makes no sense whatsoever. It makes as much sense as a crow and a fox talking about flattery. Aesop may have been a wise man to come up with all those fables, but even he couldn't come up with a story like that. And that is exactly what our passage in 1 Corinthians is saying this morning. It says that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisest man. (1:25)

 

The people in Corinth thought they were pretty smart and pretty wise. They loved nothing more than to just sit and talk about how they would solve all the world's problems. Again, I guess not much has changed in all the years. But in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul spends some time talking about what is wisdom to the world and what is wisdom to God and the huge gap between the two. We saw last week the wisdom of man in this chapter. This week we will see the wisdom of Christ and the cross as we look specifically at 1 Corinthians 1:21 but we will read verses 18-21.

 

“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. 19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." 20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For, since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.”

 

As immature Christians it is not uncommon for us to want to do the bare minimum to stay in the good graces of God. We have made some changes in our lives and it wasn’t easy but we have also seen or heard about God’s wrath so we don’t want to make Him mad but we don’t want to have to do a whole lot either. But as more mature Christians, we see the benefits of pleasing God and that becomes our goal. We see not only the blessings of peace and joy that it brings (and how much is that worth?) but we also know that we are laying up treasure in Heaven when we please God.

 

And if you ever wonder what you can do that will please God, Paul tells us here one way that we can do that. It says that God is pleased through the foolishness of what was preached. And some of you are thinking, “Well he must just love you since you are about the biggest fool who ever preached.” And that may be true, but the good news is that this isn’t just talking to me. It’s not intended for just those people who stand in the pulpit on Sundays.

 

The word “preach” means to declare or proclaim and can and should be done by everyone. In fact, everyone who is a believer must preach. We talked last week about being able to call a sin “sin” and not water it down. Some people think that if it’s not in the 10 Commandments then it doesn’t really mean we should or shouldn’t do something. If it doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not…” in front of it then it’s ok to do it. But when the Bible says something, and it doesn’t matter if it was written by Paul or David or Moses or Jude, not to do it is a sin.

 

When the Bible says we are to forgive, then not to forgive is sin. When it says to love your neighbor as yourself, then not to is sin. And even in this verse this morning. It doesn’t say in so many words that we are to preach but it says that it pleases God. And not to please God is sin. James 4:17 says, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” And as Paul would say, we must preach the foolishness of the cross!

 

We talked last week about what Paul meant by the cross being foolishness to the world. It might as well be an Aesop’s fable to people in the world. They just can’t believe that it could be so simple. This week we will see that the foolishness of the cross must be preached and that we must all preach Christ, we must all preach Christ crucified and we must preach Christ risen.

 

I have heard it said that the true function of preaching is to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed. And that is exactly what preaching about Christ will do. And while I love to stand here and do my best to disturb and to comfort, who is going to do it to your neighbor when they get a bad report from the doctor? Who is going to disturb your spouse when they get lazy? Who is going to tell your friend about the only way to Heaven if you don’t do it?

 

Because your neighbor, spouse and friend may all be smart and wise in the ways of the world but if they don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ then how are they going to make the wise decisions they need to make at these times?

 

This might be a good time for me to try to guilt you into telling your neighbor about Jesus. I could make you feel bad for not doing it. I could try to bribe you, although I don’t have much with which to bribe. I could challenge you to a soul-winning contest. How about that? I’ll double-dog dare you to do it. Let me just tell you a story that is told of Harry Winston, who was one of the world’s greatest jewel merchants.

 

It is said that he was watching one of his employees talk to a man about a big, beautiful diamond. The employee talked all about the 5 C’s - it’s cut, clarity, certification, color and carats. He mentioned all the great technical aspects of the diamond but in the end, the customer said he wasn’t interested.

 

Winston then asked the customer if he could show him the diamond one more time. And Winston simply talked about how the gem was such an object of deep beauty. Abruptly the customer changed his mind and bought the diamond but asked Winston why he was able to change his mind. Winston simply said, “That salesman is one of the best men in the business. He knows diamonds – but I love them.”

 

 

 

I understand that none of us preach the cross of Jesus like we should and God, please forgive us of that. And I understand that none of us always feels secure about what we are supposed to say. We don’t know the right words and we don’t know the right scriptures to use. But when you see Jesus as an object of deep beauty; when you see not only what he has done in your life but in the life of others and even in the life of this church, you can’t help but love Him.

 

When you understand what He has done in this life and what we have to look forward to in the next life, you will be obedient. John 14:21 says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.” And here we are told to preach Christ. And when you don’t know what else to say; when the verse won’t come to mind and all the training goes out the window, just fall back on the beauty of Christ. Fall back on what He has done in your life and the changes that He has made. It’s ok to tell somebody you don’t know the answer to their question but you do know what Jesus has done in your own life. Preach that.

 

A young pastor was driving home from church one Sunday morning with his wife and he was thinking about the service they had just left. He asked his wife, “Honey, how many really great preachers do you think there are?” She just replied, “Well, I don’t know, but it’s probably one less than you think.”

 

You don’t have to be a great preacher. You don’t have to preach in front of a lot of people. You just have to be obedient to preach when, where and what you are supposed to. And in fact, when fishing for men, you are probably better off with a pole than with a net, if you know what I mean. So, just preach. Preach Christ. And preach Christ crucified.

 

Why preach Christ crucified?  Why can’t we just preach His love and His teachings and His healings?  There is plenty there to preach.  He still gets all the glory that way, right?  Why do we have to get into all that gory, bloody story of Jesus dying on the cross?  I just told you to preach about how Jesus is the object of deep beauty and surely the cross would not come up if we are talking beauty.

 

Well, let me ask you this.  Why do you have it around your neck?  Why do you wear it on your t-shirt and put it on the bumper of your car?  Why do we have 3 of them above the baptistry?  I’ll tell you why.  Because it’s beautiful.  Oh, sure, some people wear them around their neck only for the beauty and they don’t even realize what they are doing.  But for us who know what it represents, it is beautiful.

 

Do you realize how absurd that is?  The cross was a method of torture and death.  It is comparable to wearing a guillotine or a whip or chains.  It was, in fact, horribly ugly and yet it is THE symbol of Christianity.  No other religion uses a symbol of torture and death.  I have to say that no business would start up and use a method of torture to represent their business.  Dr. Pepper didn’t put a big skull and crossbones on their bottles.  And for Christians to do it is just…foolishness.

 

To the world, the cross is a pretty piece of jewelry but its message is pure foolishness.  I admit that I hate to think about what actually happened to Jesus on that cross.  I don’t want to watch “The Passion of the Christ” because I can’t bear to watch anybody, much less a character representing Jesus being tortured and dying like that.  It was gruesome, animalistic, humiliating…and beautiful.

It was beautiful in a way that is foolishness to unbelievers.  It was beautiful because never has one person lived their life with such focus on being Who they were supposed to be.  It was beautiful because it was God’s perfect plan that came together.  It was beautiful because it was God’s way of providing a way to relationship with Him for me and for you.

 

Selah has a song with these lyrics: 

There is a beautiful terrible cross
Where though You committed no sin
Savior, You suffered the most wicked fate
On the cruelest creation of men

Yet on that beautiful terrible cross
You did what only You could
Turning that dark inspired evil of hell
Into our soul's greatest good

We see the love that You showed us
We see the life that You lost
We bow in wonder and praise You
For the beautiful terrible cross

There on that beautiful terrible cross
Though darkness was strong on that hill
You remained sovereign, Lord, still in control
As Your perfect plan was fulfilled

We see the love that You showed us
We see the life that You lost
We bow in wonder and praise You
For the beautiful terrible cross

We preach Christ crucified because, even though it is foolishness to the world, we know that it is beautiful.  Christ is beautiful and so we preach Christ.  Christ crucified is beautiful and so we preach Christ crucified.  But the reason, the way, the purpose of the cross would be wasted without Christ being risen.

And of all the “foolishness” of everything in the Bible, this takes the cake.  Almost everybody believes in Jesus.  They don’t have a problem believing that he lived and that He was a good man and that He died.  But come on, resurrected?  That’s just too much for most people.  And do you know what?  I think we could get more people to believe that our religion was the right one if we didn’t talk all that resurrection foolishness.  Don’t you?

In no other religion does the god die and come back to life so maybe we shouldn’t preach that so much.  Maybe we should take our religion more mainstream.  Maybe we should tone down the foolishness of the cross and talk more about the things people like to talk about; you know, love and peace and such.  That makes a good religion.  What do you think? 

Or…maybe…we can be more like Paul, who talked very little about religion but a whole lot about relationship.  And maybe we should preach how we can have a relationship with our God because our God is alive and active in our lives and in our church.  And we can preach how God is pleased when we preach such “foolishness” because if it were any other way then man would be able to say he found God.

If man could find God in man’s own wisdom, then He wouldn’t be much of a God, would He?  But when God reveals Himself to man on God’s own terms by showing grace then we see the beauty of God and we see the beauty of Christ.  We see the beauty of Christ crucified and we ultimately see the beauty of Christ risen.  It’s not a fairy tale or a fable.  It is the wisdom of God.