Meet the Church: Part 2 – Why Church People? — A Christian Growth Message

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Well, if you have 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 opened, our scripture is this passage this morning, that’s what we’re focusing on, and we’re thinking specially of the church in its weakness. Thinking about the local church, we’ve seen some quite mind-boggling things and we’ve seen many of the privileges of being God’s people and many of the responsibilities. However, we must be honest that the church is weak.

Meet the Church: Part 1 – Why God’s Day? — A Christian Growth Message

It’s not only weak across the country and the city that we’re part of, but it’s got a sense of weakness even as we gather, the message is weak, the members are pretty weak, the messengers are weak.

And it is very unusual for the world to sit up and be impressed by the church. There are not many places where the world is being struck by the church.

And the question that we want to ask is, we know the future of the church will be good. But what about the present?

That famous little poem to live above with saints we love, that will be grace and glory, to live below with saints we know is quite another story, and it is true, it is true, what are we gonna make of the present with the church, what hope is there?

Well we will see in 1 Corinthians chapter one that things are not what they seem, that there is more power in the message of the church than the world could ever really, not only imagine, but produce.

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I once was travelling to a conference to give a talk and I was late and I decided to hitchhike and I was picked up by a guy who was actually going to the international conference on nuclear energy.

And it struck me as we said our goodbyes, I told him where I was going, he told me where he was going, it struck me as we said our goodbyes that I was going to a conference which would look to the world incredibly tame, but it was actually dealing with the Word of God which would make the nuclear energy of the world look like a $1 rocket. Incredible power in the Word of God.

We’ll also see in this section this morning that the weak members of the church are exactly as God has planned it and the weak messengers are exactly as God has planned it. This is a deliberate policy on his part to shame worldly arrogance, and to promote his own worthy honour, so he’s very clever. He knows what he’s doing.

And is it not true, I think we would agree with this, that there is more power in the gospel which when a person hears it, and they are transformed by it, and they move from darkness to light, and from the broad road to the narrow road, and for a destination of hell to a destination of heaven, that is an incredible piece of power in the gospel, I think we would agree that there is more power and there is more blessing that often takes place in the gathering of the local church where God searches us and rattles us and shakes us or comforts us or challenges us, often more in the gathering of a handful of people where God speaks to us than going to the New Year’s Eve fireworks where we’re left completely unaffected.

So the apostle Paul is going to do this in our section this morning, 1 Corinthians 1:18 to 25, and there are 3 points. The first is he’s going to talk about the weakness of the message, then the weakness of the members, then the weakness of the messengers. And let’s think about this together.

Look at chapter 1 verse 18, the weakness of the message.

Our message, he says, is the cross, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

What we do on Sundays, believe it or not, is we concentrate somehow on the message of the cross, that is we don’t want to say the same things every week. Till we get to the point of familiarity that breeds contempt.

But we want to undergird everything we say with the wonderful message of the cross, which is the past is dealt with, the present is dealt with, the future is dealt with. That God through the cross shows himself to be wise, powerful, loving and holy.

The cross is the absolute bull’s eye of our ministry.

But this means that we’re not telling the world to do wonderful things and achieve wonderful things and be wonderful people and therefore it doesn’t sit well with the world. Because the world likes to be told you’re wonderful, you can do anything, you can be anything.

But the message of the cross doesn’t say that, the message of the cross says you’ve fallen short of the glory of God. Christ has come and died, there’s your bridge, there’s your solution, so we tell what Jesus has achieved, we tell people that the only sinless man the world has ever seen, was being punished for the sinful things that we have done, when he hung on the cross at Calvary.

That we might escape and go free, that’s our message, but it does seem foolish to many people, doesn’t it? I don’t imagine there’ll be many people that we know even in the boardrooms of work or the staff rooms or home neighbourhoods. I don’t imagine there’ll be many people who’ll mock the cross. I don’t imagine there’ll be many who’ll laugh at the cross or who’ll scoff at the cross, but it’ll be a very unusual CEO professor, headmaster, headmistress or leader. Political or at whatever level, who will say yes, we’re doing a big job, we’ve got a big business, yes, we’re making a lot of money, but actually the message of the cross of Christ is the key to the world, that’ll take a very discerning person.

There are presidents like that, there are prime ministers, there are CEOs, there are professors, there are headmasters and headmistresses who will talk like that, but mostly the world applauds its own powers.

And therefore the message of the cross seems feeble and you can imagine people saying to us, why do you get so excited about the cross? How can you make such a big deal of Jesus’ death, lots of people have died very cruelly, we respect your great interest in Christ’s death, yes that’s nice for you, but it just doesn’t seem to me to be as big as you make it out to be and I can’t see the relevance frankly for myself because look if he died for all people that’s great. It’s free pass into heaven.

But if he didn’t die for all people, which I suspect says your unbelieving friend, my sins are not all that serious anyway, so no big deal, why get so excited about the cross, and I think you can imagine people thinking or speaking like that, what are we gonna say?

Well, you may at this point think to yourself, I’m not sure how I’m going to sell the message of the cross and make it seem and appear to be as great as I think it is. Paul’s argument is very different in 1:18, he says if you’ve got a friend who doesn’t think much of the cross, or if you, my friend, don’t think much of the cross, it’s not because the cross is unimpressive – it’s probably because you’re perishing.

That’s a punchy thing to say, isn’t it?

If you don’t think highly of the cross, it’s probably because you’re blind.

It’s probably because you’ve not come to see. Find out what someone makes of the cross of Christ, and you’ll be able to work out, says the apostle Paul, whether they’re being saved, because they’ll say that’s the key, that’s the secret, or whether they’re perishing, because they’ll say moderate interest.

I remember meeting a lady once and I asked her how she’d become a Christian and she said that John Stott had asked her in some polite company, what does, what do you make of the cross?

And she said she stumbled and she bumbled and she didn’t know what to say and he was absolutely clear and it was obvious to him that she didn’t understand Christianity at all and so he explained to her the cross, and that’s where she came to be transformed.

So to the perishing, says the apostle Paul, it seems foolish, silly, dull, unimpressive, to the people who are being saved, and you expect Paul to say it’s wise, but he doesn’t, he says – it’s powerful.

Because when you get the message of the cross, you don’t just look at it and say well that’s clever. You say that has hit me over the head with a piece of 4B2. My brain has changed, my heart is changed, I’ve now moved from a hopeless position to an absolutely certain position.

The cross is powerful, it’s a powerful message. So it’s God’s deliberate policy verses 19, 20, 21 to destroy the cleverness of the world so that it cannot, in its own power reach up to God and congratulate itself. You see in verse 20, when the professor gets together and the philosopher gets together and the genius gets together or the journalist or the writer or the commentator or the shock jock, they all get together and they begin to discuss the subject of God and they put down their cleverest ideas, Paul says they’ve not even come close, they don’t understand him. And they certainly have not connected. He laughs at their thoughts.

It’s like 3 blind men trying to describe a painting, they must guess.

But in verse 21, God was pleased to send to us the news of Christ, which clever people may scoff at or clever people may rejoice to listen to.

And when people listen to the message of the cross, they’ll get the facts of God and they’ll find fellowship with God is possible and there are millions around the world every year who receive the message of the cross and are transformed for eternity. So we cannot ascend, says Paul, but wonderfully he has descended. Well, you’ll see in verse 22 that in his day people were demanding evidence.

And they do today. There are people occasionally who will say what’s the proof, what’s the evidence, and that’s a pretty good question because the Lord never expected people to make dumb decisions, he never expected people to leap into the dark, he would always say, I’m the bread of life, feed a crowd.

I’m the light of the world, heal a blind man, I’m the resurrection, bring Lazarus out of the tomb. It was word-proof, word-proof, he expected people to take in his words and his proofs, so there’s nothing wrong with asking for evidence, that’s sensible. The $64,000 question is the attitude, if the attitude is, all this evidence – not good enough for me. It’s unlikely anything will persuade you.

And you remember in Jesus’ day that he would raise Lazarus from the dead and then those who were opposed to Jesus would try and get rid of Lazarus, which just reminds us that those people who say if I see I’ll believe are making a mistake because there are many people who did see but didn’t believe, and there are many people today who might see but don’t believe.

So it’s absolutely essential to have the right attitude when we read the words in the works of Christ and the attitude is good — we’ve got all that we need. Don Carson says, how can idolatrous attempts to domesticate God, be rewarded with deepening knowledge of the Almighty?

And then in verse 23, therefore we stick with the message of Christ crucified, because believe it or not, when people understand the cross, they understand the door of the kingdom, the door of God’s family.

That there is a hope of forgiveness, there is a way to the Father, there is a future which is secure.

And when we used to run and put talks on cassettes, do any of you remember cassettes? Funny little weird things, we have hundreds of them sitting in the office somewhere, gathering dust, never to be revealing up their secrets, but when we used to have cassettes someone very cleverly worked out a design for the cover, which was a little hill like Calvary, and underneath it said we preach Christ crucified. 1 Corinthians 1:23, that was the text, that’s the essence, and friends, the message of the cross is not decided by the response.

You mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking that we should change the message to get a better response.

I remember that story of the official tour guide at the Louvre standing beside the Mona Lisa and a bunch of schoolboys came up and stood in front of this painting and were laughing at how little it was and how ordinary it was and they were making fun of this painting until finally the tour guide could take it no longer and he stepped forward and he said, young men, the value of this painting is not on trial. The value of your discernment is on trial, and that’s what the cross says to the world, it is objectively wonderful.

It may seem to be foolish.

But that’s the problem of the listener.

May seem to be wonderful.

That’s the privilege of the listener.

Now the second thing that Paul talks about the weakness of the members in chapter 1 verse 25.

He says in verse 26, brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many famous, not many film stars, we are not the A-list of Sydney. Be funny if we were, wouldn’t it?

It’s funny to be sort of.

I don’t know, the Hollywood superstar church, everybody collecting autographs over morning tea from one another.

Glancing around.

Thinking of ourselves as the cream of the cream, be very weird, wouldn’t it, but it is the genius of God, you see.

To make salvation something that does not lie in our greatness where we would then spend the rest of our believing days patting ourselves on the back, and this dreadful thought of going to heaven one day and it being a self-congratulation, for eternity, just unbearable, but he’s caused salvation to be based on grace.

That is his kindness, choosing his people for his own loving reasons, and that’s why Paul says in 1:26, not many of you were noble. Not many royalty, not many superstars, not many Oscar winners. But he doesn’t say not any. Because praise God he brings people out of every type and tribe, and everybody who knows this verse and has ever read a commentary on this verse knows the famous story of the very godly Countess of Huntington, who lived in the days of Wesley and Whitfield, and she was from the aristocracy, very wealthy and very noble, and she put all her money at the disposal of the gospel and she brought the wealthy and the royalty into her home to listen to Wesley and Whitfield preach the gospel.

And she said she owed her salvation to the letter M.

Because Paul said not many, but if he’d said not any, she felt she might have been excluded. But he said not many.

So God in His wisdom brings people from every tribe and type. The whole spectrum of people, we have people in the church around the world, from every nation, every class, every social strata, every spectrum on the IQ range, etc.

A man in the 2nd century called Celsus, who was a critic of the church, wrote this, let no one educated, no-one wise, no-one sensible draw near. But as for anyone ignorant, stupid, anyone who’s a child, let him come boldly. This was Celsus’s way of saying the church is a joke.

But actually he was quite wrong and one of the great Australian historians, Christian historians, Edwin Judge has shown that the church from the very beginning cut right across all the sociological lines and drew people from every strata. But the church is still a little bit embarrassing nevertheless, isn’t it?

I wonder how uneasy you actually feel bringing somebody into this building.

Because we’ve all got some very tough non-Christian friends and maybe family.

And a gathering like this just maybe too much. I wonder whether we realise too that many people who long to see their friends saved, who are way, way away from the church, are looking for gatherings that are less embarrassing than the ones that we put on.

But is that the way?

Well, one young writer has written about his search for the perfect church, and he says this, I’ll just read you a few sentences. He says in the 1980s we became disillusioned with organs, pews and little old ladies, so we built churches with stadium seating that looked like small arenas, put together praise bands that looked like Barbie and Ken. We made Christian superstars out of people who claimed to be able to do it better.

In the early 2000s, the offspring of the eighties generation got disillusioned with their dad’s arenas. Let’s meet on a beach, let’s meet in an empty warehouse with exposed brick and ductwork. Let’s start a movement that won’t have any leaders, because non-movements are the new movements.

This guy says I was done with conventional church and done with what I perceived as a bunch of middle-class Christian whites who just wanted health, wealth and prosperity.

I think in general he says it’s easier to be against something than stand for something. For years I knew I was against evangelical cheesiness. I was the first guy to rant about Christian music, shallow books and mega churches, but I didn’t know what I was for. During my churchy shallow phase I was approached by a great guy with a plan, what if we did church differently? So we ended up taking lunch meetings in a greasy spoon pizza place.

There were discussions about how church shouldn’t be about the building and how worship should and could take place in people’s homes, coffee shops and pubs, and then a funny thing happened.

The church didn’t work at all.

Starting a movement that would take people away from the faithful churches seemed less and less plausible.

He goes on to say, I wasn’t looking for the guys with the biggest projection screens anymore. The coolest gathering place or the best film discussions. I was now looking for theology, and a body that I could give my life to and entrust my children to. The reason I love Christianity and the bible is I think they’re really the only things in this world that don’t need to be periodically repainted or reframed. A place where truth is spoken, where people pray. My church is a small church, flies under the radar most of the time, but good things are happening.

I think my church in the broader sense helps people find the Father, a Father who is loving and kind, demanding and true, so he’s done the complete circle, wandered away and wandered back.

Now Paul says if you look at 1:27, that God chose the foolish to shame the wise, he works through what the world considers foolish and weak and lowly, the nobodies, to put down human pride and exalt his own grace and glory.

And so there is really no human explanation for the work of God and if we find there is a human explanation for why a church is impressive, it’s probably that we’ve missed the point and we may be looking in the wrong place. Paul says our boast verse 30 is that we’re in Christ Jesus. That’s our boast, that’s what we boast about, we belong to him. And why do we belong to him verse 30, we belong to Him because of Him.

We belong because he’s great, because he’s kind, because he’s generous, and because he’s loving, and this is what we rejoice in, says Paul, we rejoice that we have become his wisdom, so friends how clever are you, let me ask you that this morning, how clever am I? I’ll tell you how clever I am.

I need a saviour.

That’s how clever I am.

And Christ has saved me.

That’s my cleverness, that’s the greatest wisdom that he has shown to me, and because he’s done that to me, verse 30, those of us who belong to Christ by grace, we have his righteousness, we stand forgiven and accepted, we have his holiness, we stand forgiven and accepted, we have his redemption, we stand forgiven and accepted and so we boast about him.

And when someone comes and says, what’s great about this, look at the building, look at the people, we want to say the building’s OK, keeps the rain off, the people are OK, you should find out about Christ. That’s what’s worth finding out about. I love the way the apostle Paul, because he knew the Corinthians were immature and he knew they loved to boast about foolish things. I love the way he gives a list in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 of all his humiliations.

It’s kind of like he’s turning the whole boasting conversation upside down and he says, I wanna boast about this trouble and this failure and this difficulty and this dead end in my life.

Because Christ has come and has taken over and he comes to the climax at the end of 2 Corinthians 11 where he says, I’ll tell you how great I am, says Paul, I was once let down, in a basket through the wall of Damascus.

And we scratch our head at that point and we think, what is he talking about? Well, actually the background to this is that if you got to climb over a wall and get into a city, you got a medal because you were the first in for the takeover of the city. The apostle Paul says, I’ll tell you how great I am, I got let out of the city over the wall in a basket through a hole in the wall.

So he’s putting all the boasting upside down. So that he might boast in the Lord.

Well God shows his power through the message, he shows his glory through the membership and the last thing – through the messenger chapter 2:1 to 5.

He says in chapter 2 verse 1, this is the third area of weakness, it’s the messenger, the preacher.

Who has absolutely nil, zilch, no power to change anybody.

We see, what am I doing this morning?

There’s some breath coming out of my mouth, and I’m trying to form some words.

That’s all I can do.

Can’t change anybody.

Great, great weakness. Now the apostle Paul was not a feeble preacher.

He had, we know, a brilliant mind, he was a very persuasive man, we’re told in Acts 14 that when he was preaching in the, main square of a pagan city that they decided to call him Hermes, or Mercury, the messenger of the gods.

But what the apostle Paul did was he put away his trust in cleverness and he put away his trust in eloquence, and he put away his trust in anything human, and put his trust in the message of Christ crucified, and that I think is why he says in 2:3 he was trembling with fear, because he had come into a fairly sophisticated city and there was therefore going to be some mocking, and there was, or possibly he was afraid because of the size of the task, which he knew he couldn’t achieve. But the end result in putting his trust in God was that God was pleased to use him,

And the Corinthians experienced the power of God, even as they watched somebody unimpressive, they heard of an impressive God. Now this doesn’t mean that we despise our gifts or we put away our gifts or we do dumb things or do things badly.

Spurgeon was a brilliant preacher. He had oratory that would leave all of us for dead.

But he would climb the stairs of the pulpit in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Church in London and as he’s put his foot on every step, it is recorded that he would climb the steps saying I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit, which is a nice way of saying I’m completely dependent.

That’s the point I think Paul is making.

A more recent example would be John Stott who came out and did a Sydney University mission in 1958 at Sydney University, and he conducted the last meeting in the Great Hall and it was a huge occasion but he completely, totally lost his voice.

So he could only whisper into the microphone turned up loud, and he said humanly it was a joke, he couldn’t modulate his voice, he couldn’t speak up, he couldn’t speak down, he couldn’t emphasise, he just whispered into the microphone. He said I’ve come back to Sydney 10 times and every time I’ve come back, people have come up to me and said, do you remember that evening at the Great Hall 1958 where you lost your voice and whispered into the microphone, I came to Christ.

10 times, 10 visits and people were still coming up to him to say that in the middle of that great weakness God had shown his power. So I say again, it’s not an excuse to do things badly, we ought to explain the message as carefully as we can. We ought to be as loving as members as we can, we ought to prepare our sermons as well as we can.

But in the end our confidence is in him, that’s why we pray, that’s why we pray privately and collectively. So I hope this morning friends you might see from this passage a little look again at the church, you might have fresh confidence in our message, you might see a new appreciation for the members, and you might also have a proper estimate of the messenger because if we ever think we have power of our own, as if we built our building. Or have more cleverness.

God will humble us.

And we have fallen into a delusion. We’re beginning to patronise him. And not praise him. But while we do kneel before him privately and collectively, and we give him the glory for the message and the members and the messengers, we are thinking clearly and showing signs of spiritual wisdom.

Let’s pray.

Father, we give you great thanks for sending your son to the cross on behalf of sinful people.

We pray that the message of the cross would be understood by everybody here this morning.

Please in your kindness keep people from a blindness or a deafness to the news of your love in Christ.

We also pray Father with great thanks for giving us a message of power for membership which is a privilege and for messengers who tell the truth.

And we pray that in the midst of our great weakness, sinfulness, unworthiness, you would continue to work for your great praise for the spreading of the truth and the love of Christ, and we ask it in his name, amen.

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