Midweek Lenten Service

SERMON

God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in my heart and in my thinking. God be in my eyes and in my looking. God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be at my end and in my departing. Amen.

INI

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18

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.

In the name of Christ Jesus, who died upon the cross so that we who were perishing might be saved, dear fellow redeemed:

A father and his son are walking in the twilight on a warm spring evening. They live just outside of Jerusalem and their walk brings them to the foot of a small hill. On the top of the hill silhouetted in the glow of sunset there stands a blood-stained cross made of rough-hewn lumber. The son knew very well what took place on such crosses because crucifixions by the Roman government were not uncommon. But the boy didn’t know the story behind this crucifixion, so he asked his father to tell him the story.

The father looked his son straight in the eye and said, "The man who died here, died in his foolishness!" He was a rebel against the government, he was a robber, and a murder. He was foolish enough to follow that kind of life and now he has reaped the consequences! Son, beware! That you don’t fall into that same kind of foolishness and meet the same destructive end."

Such could have been the story if Barrabbas had been crucified instead of Jesus. If Barabbas had been executed, he would have had his own foolishness to blame without excuse. Barabbas’ cross would have been a symbol for his foolishness.

During this year’s midweek Lenten season we are going to go back in time and look at Jesus’ suffering and death through the window of Paul’s epistles. Like the father and son, we are coming to look at the blood-stained cross set up on small hill outside Jerusalem. Jesus’ cross has become a symbol representing…"foolishness"? Paul through his pen and by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is the father who looks us in the eye to tell us THE CROSS IS FOOLISHNESS to some, but to you let it be life!

I. The Foolish Cross

Crosses from the Roman crucifixions were very much symbols of foolishness. The repentant thief on the cross next to Jesus understood this because he pointed out to the other thief, “…we receive the due rewards of our deeds…” (Luke 23:41). It’s foolishness to believe that there is no consequence for sin, so when the cross became the means for the government to execute God’s wrath upon sin, it became an emblem of the criminal’s foolishness and God’s judgment. In Deuteronomy we hear God saying, “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree…so that you do not defile the land…for he who is hanged is accursed of God”(Deuteronomy 21:23, cf: Galatians 3:13).

The foolishness and shame of death by crucifixion were great. Often times the criminals were crucified naked. People passing by would taunt and ridicule those who were dying this very slow, miserable, agonizing death. It was no different for Jesus. The taunting ridicule came, not only from those passing by, but from people who specifically went to Calvary to ridicule Jesus! Jesus was ridiculed not only by those passing by, but by the soldiers, the religious and social leaders of Jerusalem, and yes, even the two criminals being crucified with Him!

To the human eye did Jesus look foolish on the cross? Of course He did! And even more so for those who knew His history. For here was a popular man who really wasn’t a criminal, but who was foolish enough to buck the system and to irritate the religious leaders, but was not willing to let his followers fight and defend him—now isn’t that foolish?!

Everyone who stood at the base of the cross watching and laughing as Jesus died, knew full well that he wasn’t a criminal. Nevertheless, they still saw His death as pure foolishness.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he said, “the message of the cross is foolishness…” The "message of the cross" neither begins nor is it completed at Calvary. The message of the cross begins and is completed in eternity. The message of the cross encompasses all that we know as the Word of God.

There is one moment in time when Jesus died on the cross, but all the rest of history flows to that point.

In eternity, God saw the need for salvation that sinners would have and from eternity planned our salvation which was accomplished by Jesus on the cross.

In time, God created the whole universe and everything in it. He created man and woman in His own image. It is because the creature rebelled against his Creator and disobeyed Him, that Jesus death on the cross became necessary if we were to have life.

From the fall into sin to the time that God sent His Son to be the Redeemer of the world God was directing history with Jesus’ death on the cross in mind. Why didn’t God utterly destroy Israel when they worshipped the golden calf? So that He would remain true to His promise that said His Son would come from Israel and die on the cross for the sins of all the nations of the earth. When God brought judgment on the people Judah why was it just a 70 year captivity in Babylon and not total destruction as it was for the other 10 tribes? So that Jesus could come from the family of David, be born in the city of David, and be crucified outside Jerusalem.

Jesus’ life was lived perfectly to fulfill the Law’s demands on us and so that when He died His death would mean something more than just another death. All of Jesus’ preaching, both before and after His death and resurrection, proclaimed how He was the Savior who would die on the cross for sins. Through His Word in Scripture, Jesus still proclaims the message of His death on the cross for the worlds’ sins. Jesus can give us the promise of life eternal in heaven because His death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins which before had stood blocking our way into heaven.

The message of the cross is all of this plus everything else that God reveals in His Word! That full message of the Word is what the world regards as foolishness. To the world it is foolish to believe that we are creatures under the rightful authority of our Creator. If it is foolish to believe that I have a Creator then it is even more foolish to think I need someone to save me from what allegedly do against my supposed Creator. If I look at things from a logical educated point of view, its rather foolish for me to even talk about sin because that makes me feel bad and less of an admirable human being. It’s foolish to cut yourself down by calling yourself a sinner!

Let’s say (for the sake of argument) you convince me of sin and its consequence before some god, but even then you won’t get me to believe that a little water and some words from a book will take sin away and change a person by causing them to believe all this! Even if you call it baptism its still foolishness to me! Should I go on with how foolish it is to believe that with bread and wine you are getting the very body and blood of this Jesus?! Come on…think about it…isn’t that foolish?!

Besides all of this, the world sees it as pure foolishness when a child of God conforms his or her life to God’s will. It is foolish to deprive yourself of what your flesh craves, even if God says it is sin deserving of death. It is foolish to be honest when dishonesty gets you so much further. To the world, the height of foolishness is when you bear the cross of Christ and endure some hardship for no other reason than because you are one of His disciples.

As Paul says, the message of the cross IS foolishness to sinful world.

II. The foolish sinners

Wisdom will look like foolishness to those who are fools, just as much as truth looks like foolishness to those who are lying. However, just because something looks foolish doesn’t make it into foolishness. It is neither the cross nor its message that are truly foolish. Rather, it is the sinners who are perishing whom God describes as the fools.

Throughout Scripture, especially in Psalms & Proverbs God describes many different things that make people fools. We need to remember that when God calls someone a fool it is not name-calling, but a judgment on what is being said or done—a judgment on sin. Sin is foolishness. To follow sin is to be a fool. King Saul confessed, “I have sinned…indeed I have played the fool and erred exceedingly” (1 Samuel 26:21)

God says in Psalm 14, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God” (Psalm 14:1). It is not only true atheists whom God here calls "fools" but likewise all who say in their heart that there is no God, which includes any attitude of heart that acts as if there is no God or as if He doesn’t punish sin.

Listen to a few more characteristics of fools as described by God Himself: A fool is "never wrong" because…“the way of a fool is right in his own eyes…” (Proverbs 12:5).“…fools despise wisdom and instruction(and correction is implied, cf: Prov. 15:5)“ (Proverbs 1:7).

Anyone who laughs at sin and finds wrong-doing funny is called a fool by God when He says, “fools mock at sin” (Proverbs 14:9) “to do evil is like sport to a fool” (Proverbs 10:23).

“Fools hate knowledge” (Proverbs 1:22) "As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11)

The reason that the message of the cross is foolishness to the sinful world is that every natural born sinner is absorbed in himself. For someone who doesn’t want his pride hurt by accusations of wrong doing, who doesn’t want to hear that he should do something other than what he wants to do, to someone who wants to stand independantly on his own two feet, what God says in His Word will be foolishness. God’s Word will always be foolishness to the self-reliant and self-sufficient because the Law condemns them despite their best efforts, and the Gospel says there is salvation but God alone accomplishes it and receives all glory for it.

Those who see the message of the cross as foolishness, Paul describes as "perishing." All who treat God’s Word as foolishness are perishing. That is the "perishing" of living forever in the never-ending death of eternal damnation in hell. The world is perishing because by rejecting the Word of God as foolishness they are walking the broad path to hell. They are perishing…not perished because their life on this earth remains a time of grace in which to be made wise by the very Word they are currently rejecting.

III. The wise children

The Message of the Cross is powerful and where that message is not rejected as foolishness the Holy Spirit has created faith to believe that it is wisdom. In the next chapter of his letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him” (1 Corinthians 2:14). God’s Word would be foolishness to every sinner, us included, if not for the Holy Spirit’s working.

The message that we by nature regard as foolishness is the very tool that the Holy Spirit uses to create faith in our hearts. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16). This is an amazing thing! The Holy Spirit uses what we consider to be foolishness to convince us that what we think is foolish is really the truth of God that brings us life! It makes no sense humanly speaking but to us who are being saved—who have been called to faith by the Gospel—it is the power of God." What Paul says a few verses beyond our text is certainly true, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20).

We know from our own experience that there is plenty of fool left in us. Those of you who are school age as well as those of us who can remember our school years— have not we all at one time or another been eager to rush out into the hall to whisper some misdeed to a friend and then laugh at it? Fools mock at sin. Do we always love correction? Do we follow God’s instruction daily? Do we ever knowingly sin and decide we’ll just live with the consequences? Do we ever sin and then find ourselves doing the same sin again another time? An honest look at our lives shows that the answers are all "yes" for everyone of us. Recall what God said in the earlier passages from Proverbs, and we are all branded as fools.

The cross of Christ does represent a foolishness, but it is not His—it is our own. Our foolishness, our sins are what led him to the cross. But the message that He went to the cross and died for us there is POWER for us! It is the power of God for our life. For by God’s grace our foolishness was removed from our "record" when God brought us to faith in the saving work of Jesus, our Savior.

As children of God we are following our Savior to eternal life. We are "being saved" but that salvation has yet to reach its full completion in eternal glory. We as natural fools can return to our folly which is why we cling to the message of the cross—that power of God which rescued us from our foolishness and its damnation and has given us life in Christ! We need the Word to daily encourage us so that as we take up our cross and follow Christ and continue to see it as wisdom. We need to daily examine ourselves for the "fool factor," that is, examine ourselves to see our sin, to repent of that sin, to lay it at the foot of Jesus’ cross and plead, "God be merciful to me a sinner, forgive me for Jesus’ sake, I believe help my unbelief!"

The moments we spend before the cross of Christ this Lenten season will be sweet and rich in blessing because that cross is a symbol of our foolishness for which Jesus’ died. It is a reminder of our natural state and eternal fate which we deserve. It is a reminder of our helplessness and hopeless. The cross is also an emblem of the message that Jesus wrote when He said, "It is finished" and which He punctuated with an exclamation point when He rose from the dead. It is a message that we have been redeemed from our sin and have salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Pastor Wayne C. Eichstadt