Remember the theme of this whole book is the gospel applied to the daily life of the church so that the church might be found to be a holy, beautiful, and profound unity in Christ. And the way that happens is if all human pride is removed out of the way. Division happens because of pride. Humility in Christ unites.
So, Paul uses strong language, “I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that you may all say the same, and that they made not be division among you, being complete/whole/united in the same mind and in the same purpose.”
This is strong language! He appeals to them in name of Jesus Christ! Paul exhorts them to be one – because in Christ they are one. That is the point here. We saw in the first sermon they must first see the reality in which they live in Christ, and now apply that to their divisions.
Be united in boasting:
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Boasting in people
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Boasting in the Lord:
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Consider the Cross
- Consider your calling
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Boasting in people
There have always been divisions and cliques that form in the church. This is our reformed church. Our reformed pastor. And their arguments have torn the church apart. What is the remedy? Christ and his cross. Unity in Him.
First it is important to note: unity is not something that is worked by us. We don’t make it happen by our agreement on every point. Unity is accomplished by God through Christ, and unless God makes it happen, we cannot find unity. We cannot force it. God unifies. God reconciles. God brings peace. And He does so through the cross. This church having gone through some dark days may understand that better.
Paul had received a report from Corinth. We read in verse 11, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ.”
What’s happening? Well, they have a celebrity culture in the church. And I mean, who wouldn’t!? Imagine the apostle Paul was the preacher of Bellville? I doubt I would be on the preaching roster much. Imagine you hear the apostle Paul preach! How doctrinally sound and theologically rich he was. You would always be going away learning something new! Or better yet, imagine you had the apostle Peter himself preach here, how fiery, and direct he was. He did not mince words! He went straight for the heart. It felt like you were cut to the heart every time. Or imagine Apollos! That silver tongued preacher. He had such a way with words.
Or if we put it in today’s context. Some people love ds. Erik van Alten, some love ds. Boon, some love ds. Boersma, some love ds. Van Wyk, some love ds. Abrahams, some love ds. Johan, or br. Jaco, or one of the elders. In fact, there were starting to even be different cliques in the church. Each following the pastor they like the most. Only coming or tuning in when with their preferred pastor. Sometimes they would just skip church if their pastor was not preaching. Some just get bored and tired of all of these and just stayed home to watch the big guys, like Keller, Macarthur, Sproul, or Piper. The whole church was name dropping like it was going out of style. The church had become a celebrity circus.
In order to help us better understand what Paul is getting at, allow me to ask a question, “What would you tell a person that will convince them to come to this church?” Is it that Christ is here in our midst?
The question I am driving at is what makes a church a church, and why are you here, with all these other people? Is it because of the music, the reformed-ness, the tradition, the history, the pastors? Is it the organ, the dress, the young people? What would cause you to leave this church? Would it be a pastor even if he preached the gospel? Would you divide if the organ was no longer played? Would you leave if there was no youth, or if there was only youth? What would cause disunity?
Dear Church, what are we boasting in? Let us boast in the LORD. Let us boast in the gospel. Let us boast in a crucified Savior. Let us boast in our weakness. These are things that we can all agree on, right? When is the last time you boasted in the doctrine of original sin? In radical depravity? When is that last time you boasted in the total and undeserved grace? That’s what it means to boast in the cross! If we want to overcome disunity it can only be in the gospel grace!
Division in the church start when people do not see themselves first united in Christ. So they no longer see Christ in the other. But when we believe and see Christ in each other then there can be vigorous debate even while there is profound unity.
This is what Paul is driving at in this text. Let’s return to it. In verse 13 Paul asks a few rhetorical questions; the first one is, “Is Christ divided?” What is he saying with this rhetorical question? When the church divides and quarrels, then it is as if Christ is divided. In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul makes the astounding statement that we are the body of Christ. Now, can a body be cut in pieces, and live? Can Christ be divided? Paul says ‘no’ and he will make this point abundantly clear throughout this letter.
He goes on, “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized into my name.” And then he says that he is not even sure who all exactly he baptized. Now let me ask you a question. Why is this in the Bible? Why did the Holy Spirit put it here, the fact that Paul is forgetful about who he baptized? Because it underscores his point. It’s not that you were baptized by so and so that really matters. It does not matter if I baptized you or anyone else. It’s not important to me either – in fact I forget who I all baptized. What is important is that you are part of the body of Christ – baptized into Christ! That glory far outstrips the fact that you were baptized by your favorite preacher. The point is not a person, or doctrine, or whatever. It is Christ. It is the gospel. It is the preaching that brings repentance, and this is his point in verse 17. “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquence wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power.”
Boasting in the LORD – Consider the Cross, Consider your calling
Boasting in the preaching of the Cross
In verse 1 Paul said he was sent by Jesus, and here he gives the reason. Not first to baptize – but to preach the gospel. That was his divine mission. And what was that gospel? It was the cross. He was to preach “with human wisdom – in order that the cross of Christ may not prove hallow (or be emptied or mean nothing.) What preaching does is it exalts the cross, it glories in the cross, it gives weight to the cross. And it empties humanity – it humbles man. If the cross is to be exalted, our need for the cross is to be highlighted! That is why the preacher (a mere man) must never be central – as the Corinthians were doing.
If preaching were about the preacher’s skill, abilities, and charm, the cross would be emptied of its power. Or put another way, the preacher would be obscuring the view of the King who sent him. When preaching becomes about entertaining jokes, quaint illustrations, feel-good stories, or self-help tips, Christ is no longer seen. Preaching is a simple message that ensures we see and know Christ. And what is the content of this simple message? Paul tells them – it is not wisdom, and great philosophical arguments. We don’t perform wonderous signs. We preach a Person. In verse 23 he says, “But we preach Christ and him crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.”
The cross does not affirm you. It does not boost you. It humbles you. It brings you down. The cross is foolishness because it throws the value systems of this world upside down. It is not in a recognition of your own greatness, but your own sin that you are saved. As Stott putts,
“It is impossible for us to face Christ’s cross with integrity and not to feel ashamed of ourselves. It shows our sin for what it is and strips us of all self-righteousness and self-satisfaction. The cross forces us to humble ourselves at the foot of the cross, confess that we have sinned and deserve nothing at his hand but judgment, thank Him that He loved us and died for us, and receive from Him full and free forgiveness. Against this self-humbling our ingrained pride rebels. We resent the idea that we cannot earn – or even contribute to – our own salvation. So, we stumble, as Paul put it, over the stumbling block of the cross.”
For the Jews demand a sign. “Give us a sign!” was their constant refrain. “Give us some miracle”, says the people today. Show us, God, that you exist. In a way that we will believe. Greeks seek wisdom. In other words, there are the experts. They follow the experts, no matter what. If you are exalted as knowledgeable and smart and charismatic, then you get a crowd in the Greek world.
“But to those who are called … Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Those who are called. Again, we have that idea of calling. Paul was called to preach the gospel – that gospel calls others to recognize Jesus Christ and Him crucified as the power and wisdom of God. Do you hear the call on your life? Do you hear God calling you now?
He is using the “foolish” preaching of the cross to bring people to himself. The foolish preaching of the cross to give live to the dead, forgive sins, and bring eternity into the time. My conviction is that, if we knew what was happening in truly biblical, Spirit-wrought preaching, we would feel much differently about sermons. We would approach preaching in an entirely different manner. So, what is happening in the sermon? By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself speaks through His ordained servant, saving sinners by the spoken word, to the glory of God.
Consider your calling
Now let’s go back to the quote Paul gives in verse 18-19, “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those you who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” He does it through not only the message of the gospel – which is foolishness to those who are perishing. But also, through the people that are being saved by choosing the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He uses the broken, the marginalized. The slave. The poor. This whole section underscores that point.
Almost 500 years ago Luther wrote, “If there is anything (good) in us, it is not our own, it is a gift of God ... Thus, my learning is not my own, it belongs to the unlearned and is the debt I owe to them. My wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed ... We must empty ourselves in order that the forms of a servant may be in us, because it is with all these qualities that we must stand before God and intervene on behalf of those who do not have them.”
For consider you calling, Brothers, not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; god chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast.
If you want to start a revolution you start with the best philosophers. If you start a political campaign you don’t go to the streets, and convince the homeless, the addicts, the prostitutes to be on your side. If you want to start a winning sports team you get the best players. If you want to start a university, you get the smartest people. If you are building a kingdom in this world you go for the strong and influential. If you want to start a mega-church and be successful according to the worlds standards, you get the most gifted speakers, with the most entertaining music.
But this is not the way of God. You want to build the church. He gathers the peoples from the byways and highways. The sinners. The sick. The destitute. The poor. The bruised reed. The smoldering wick. You want to start a church you don’t need influential speakers. You need a man preaching Christ and Him crucified. You need preaching that puts Christ central, not an inspirational message that puts man central. You need a crucified pastor.
Status and expectations, as the world now knows them, will be turned upside down as the reign of God is fully demonstrated. Already God is using the weak, the foolish, the low and despised for his redemptive purposes. Do not think, dear child of God, you have no purpose. No matter how poor. How weak. How small. How sinful. In fact, feeling that way is a perquisite for God to use you. The Christian community at Corinth was comprised of slaves and freed persons; few enjoyed the privileges of wealth or noble birth.
To declare “I am nothing”, contradicts popular theology, and western cultural definition of success. We live in a culture that celebrates individualism and celebrates distinction! It is all about this life, the consumption of goods, and living life to its fullest. Anonymity is an enemy. Everyone wants to be someone. One author writes, “In self-seeking religion there is no true encounter with God but rather the construction of an idol.”
It was no different in Jesus’ day or Paul’s day. In Mark 9:33 we read about an argument that arose among a group of disciples on a journey with a poor man who had nothing to his name – and yet was said to be the son of God. His name was Jesus. And the argument was, “Who is the greatest?” Jesus’ response on that day was classic and unexpected: sitting down, Jesus, standing at the dawn of his crucifixion and the new Covenant, called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” You want to become great. Then deny yourself, pick up your cross, and be united in Christ by walking in the way that He walked. Why? So that all the glory be to Christ. So that He might be formed in the church.
It is because of God that we are here. It is his calling upon our life. As verse 30 makes clear, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the LORD.” Clearly, he is proclaiming that Christians have no life apart from life in Christ; before they believed, they could be counted among "things that are not" (v. 28). But now they have been saved, redeemed, and brought into communion with God. Now they have been remade. Only those who are in Christ exist as God intended them to exist.
Just consider your calling – from what you were called: sin, death, slaver, darkness, and hell. From a purposeless life of meaningless under the sun – to what you were called: life, freedom, light, communion with God – a life of purpose and meaning in the Son of God.
Consider who you are and what you are called to in Christ. Consider that you were a sinner condemned to die, and He has made you alive in Christ. Consider you were a prisoner, and He has set you free. Consider you were broken in body and soul, and He has made you whole in Christ. Consider it for a moment. Does not this help you glory in Christ and nothing else? This brings true unity. No pastor can do that. No tradition can do that. Nothing can do that. Christ can. He has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.
It’s not about your righteousness. His righteousness saves. It is only Him and through Him and his resurrection life that we become holy. And it is only through his blood shed on the cross that we have been bought and redeemed.
Therefore, let him who boast – boast in the LORD!
Amen.