4^th Sunday in Lent (C)

I Corinthians 1:18-31

Messiah Lutheran Church

God’s Wisdom Is Not Ours

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The text that I have chosen for this morning’s meditation is the Epistle reading from I Corinthians, which was read a few minutes ago.

When you think about the pace of technology over the last 100 years, you realize that it’s truly mind boggling. The world has seen an incredible advancement in the areas of transportation, medicine, communication, and science. Now without a doubt, many of the scientific advances that have been made are truly wonderful, and yet I wonder if we’re not in some ways worse off. It almost seems that as we’ve grown intellectually we’ve diminished spiritually. As we’ve become more sophisticated and more in control of the world around us, we’ve become less open to things we can’t understand or can’t control. And as we’ve advanced as a race and as a culture we think we can use our own knowledge and reason to determine the course of the world, our ourselves, and our lives. But as prevailing as it is, this view isn’t new. When Paul wrote I Corinthians he was writing to a city that had embraced the Sophist movement. Those who adhered to this belief believed that the use of logic and wisdom was the key to determining the course of life. But St. Paul tells the Corinthians, and us, that no matter how smart we think we are, no matter how much logic we use, we’ll never understand the wisdom of God. We can’t understand the wisdom of God because His most gracious work, our salvation, isn’t logical but rather is found in the foolishness of the cross and a crucified Christ.

The ancient Greek philosopher Protogoras once said "Man is the measure of all things". What this misguided man was teaching is that we determine, pretty much everything, according to what we think. As sophisticated people we have the ability and the duty to determine for ourselves what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s believable and what’s unbelievable. If it doesn’t make sense to us, then it can’t be. Or conversely, if you believe it and I don’t, that’s okay because you determine for yourself what works for you.

In our Epistle reading today, Paul writes "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing" and I firmly believe he’s right. Think about it for a minute. Where do people seek their salvation? Is it found in good works? We hear that all the time. "So and So is such a nice person, they are so loving, there is certainly is a special place for them in Heaven." Or is it found in many different places? How many times have you heard the old cliché that "all roads lead to Heaven". People all the time say that it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew, Buddhist, Agnostic or Christian. Pick what works for you and go with it. After all, God is love and He gave us freewill, so it’s only fair that He welcomes everyone into Heaven, or whatever you call it. Or is the question really whether people even seek salvation anymore? Many people see God as obscure and unreachable, Jesus is seen as long gone, and death to purchase life doesn’t make any sense at all so it can’t be true. If I’ve determined that it doesn’t make sense then it can’t be, plain and simple. But when people seek salvation outside of Christ, when they use logic in an attempt to understand God and salvation, they perish, they die in their Sin.

The problem with logic and reason, is that they’re corrupted by Sin. Sinful logic leads people to ask, how can there be a God who is everywhere at that same time, or how could a man die for all the bad things that I do? To those who think this way, the idea that Jesus is their Savior is not really foolishness, but it doesn’t make sense, so they stumble over their logic and forsake God. The sad fact however, is that this unfortunately happens even among Christians.

Has it happened to you? Have you spent your whole life going to church and Sunday School, hearing the Bible read, sometimes listening to the sermon and yet still wonder? Logic says that God’s a loving God so He can’t possibly condemn people to hell, even if they don’t believe in Jesus. Common sense says that if God’s forgiving, then I can live anyway that I want, as long as I confess my sins before I die. If I confess, He has to forgive me because the Bible says He will.

When Paul writes, "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?", he’s addressing all the faulty ideas above. He’s made it abundantly clear that God, not us, has determined the road to salvation. God hasn’t given us multiple options to believe in, and salvation isn’t a multiple choice test. It’s not up to us so we can’t use our logic or our intellect to determine what paths would be best for us. We can’t because "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men", and in His wisdom God chose the method of our salvation, because you and I are completely incapable of saving ourselves. No matter how smart we think we are, no matter how far we’ve come in this era of advancing technology, God leaves only one possible way to enter His presence, the cross and Christ crucified.

But God has also made it clear that His message of salvation is not understood by those who reject Him. Paul tells us later in I Corinthians 2, "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned". Even Christ raised this same issue with the Pharisees. The Pharisees should’ve known who Jesus was, but they rejected Him because of their own spiritual blindness and because Jesus wasn’t who they thought He should be. In a dialogue in John 9 Jesus makes it very clear that if you reject Him, you reject the only source of your salvation, we read, "Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘we see,’ your guilt remains". No matter how much we evangelize, preach and teach, if someone is going to continually reject Jesus, and rely on their own wisdom and logic to find their way, then they’ll be lost. For no one can be saved if they insist on doing it outside of Christ.

Contrary to what Protogoras taught, the Bible teaches that God is really the one by whom all things are measured. God determined in His wisdom the best way to save each of us, and even though it doesn’t make sense to us, it shouldn’t matter. As we’re told in Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord". But while we don’t always understand why God works in the ways He does, the Bible does make it very clear how and why we are saved. Listen once more to verse 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". Paul tells us in no uncertain terms that God is the source of our salvation! We have nothing and are nothing apart from God and the faith He gives us in His Son. When Paul uses the phrase "in Christ Jesus", he’s talking about our faith. So he’s telling us that in spite of the fact that we aren’t wise in the ways of God, God has chosen to give us the faith we need to be saved. We don’t know why He does this but He did, and it’s not really for us to know. God often works in ways that seem foolish to us, and because of our sinful flesh, God chooses not to reveal certain things to us, but He does reveal to us how we’re saved – it’s only by His grace through the death of His Son.

If you have any doubt about this look at how God has called you when seen in the light of I Corinthians. Paul says, "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". Did you catch what Paul was saying? Listen to these words again, "when you were called". When God chose you, when He gave you faith in Christ, that was your calling. He chose you, He called you, He gave you faith because you were lonely, weak, despised, and foolish. Think about it for a second, who did Jesus associate with during His earthly mission? Tax collectors, foreigners, the poor, the sick, the lonely and the despised; that’s who Jesus came for and that’s who came to Jesus for all that they needed. If that’s who Christ was touching while He was on earth, why do you think He’s changed? God doesn’t call those who think they’re spiritually wise when they rely on their works or those who think they’ve found enlightenment by following various false religions. When it comes to salvation, God called each of you, even if you don’t understand why.

That’s the foolishness of God, or should I say the foolishness of man. For we are told "the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom", so how can you ask "Can God forgive me?" So how can you ask, "How can Jesus atone for my sins?" You might think it isn’t logical, that you’re not a good person, that you fall into the same sins day after day after day, and that you don’t deserve to forgiven. And yet you are, you are every single time you come before that so-called foolish cross confessing your sins. For while it doesn’t make sense that God forgives you, and while you might not forgive yourself, He does, because His ways are not your ways and His thoughts are not your thoughts.

There’s one last thing we need to keep in mind. Paul tells us in verse 30, that it is "because of God that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption". What Paul is saying is that Christ has done more for us than just forgive our sins. We can’t minimize the forgiveness, it’s something truly wonderful. But because Jesus forgave us, He also gives us the power to live our lives as those who are no longer foolish in their sins but who are wise in their righteousness. Because God has called us by His grace and made us one of His chosen ones, He gives us the strength to lead lives that are a reflection of that grace. Our earthly wisdom tells us to try our hardest and that’s good enough. Our earthly foolishness says that while grace saves us, good works aren’t necessary. But Paul tells us that God gives us the ability, through Christ Jesus, to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to God and in ways that give Him the glory.

As we become spiritually wise and as we understand that God’s ways are often foolish to mankind, we realize that He’s why we are the way we are. There’s nothing we’ve done to save ourselves, and there’s nothing we can do to make sure that we live according to God’s commands. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast". Well we can’t boast in ourselves, but we can certainly boast in the Lord. We boast in the Lord because He called us and in His wisdom He choose Christ, who many see as a stumbling block and as foolishness, to be the source of our salvation. He chose the lowly cross as His means to redeem those of us who are lowly, despised, and completely unintelligent. And because He has called us, we can with Paul say that the word of the cross truly is the power of God and the only source of our salvation. Amen!

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen!