In our culture, being a Christian
is a shameful thing. Actually believing the words on the pages of the Bible the
way they were written and submitting to and teaching them is…weird. It is not a
popular trend to acknowledge God as Creator and Savior, and it is not the
majority who would believe the cross itself in what it really was. This makes
Christianity a shameful belief. It doesn’t help that there are a myriad of
pseudo-Christian flavors plaguing this generation, with a reputation for corny,
shallow beliefs and the songs to match, designed for the emotionally unstable
who need a crutch. “Weak ” and “shallow” describe this common form of
Christianity well. One good example is the Charismatic movement, which was accurately described by one individual as “the professional wrestling of
Christianity”.
But
moving right along, from the unsaved world’s point of view, believing the cross
is a strange thing. How odd to believe in a crucified Jew, and that He was
raised from the dead. It doesn’t have intellectual significance or special
super-natural signs. It’s just…silly.
But
I want to remind us today that this is by design. The cross in and of itself
was designed to appear a foolish thing to the world. It is repulsive to those who
acknowledge only what their mind can comprehend. It isn’t accepted by those who
put faith in their intellect, faith in what makes sense to them. In summary, it
is foolishness.
Why
is this? Why has God designed the cross of Jesus to be void of human wisdom?
Why doesn’t it ‘make sense’ to the unbeliever? Don’t we want to win people
here?
Simple:
it was designed to be a shame not to those who believe, but to those who don’t
believe. We must know that it is God’s wisdom seen in the cross, not man’s. God
cannot be accessed by human intellect. Truth cannot be obtained by human
cognition or brain-power. Given that,
God has designed to shame those trusting in their own ability by saving not
them, but the weak, the foolish of this world by a seemingly ridiculous message.
Further, those saved ‘foolish’ people now become ambassadors of their ‘foolish’
message. The world’s wisdom, knowledge and reason we now see benefit it none,
as they contribute nothing to their salvation.
Perhaps
we might find it tempting, when explaining the gospel, to adjust it to make
sense. We are, after all, trying to win this person, and we don’t want to come
across as strange to him or her, thus losing credibility in their eyes. So, we
capitalize on certain aspects of the gospel to make it less embarrassing. We
attempt to make the gospel more palatable by implementing reason and try to make the gospel fit for our audience.
However,
when we try to make the message of the cross acceptable by means of our
cleverness of speech, we actually make the cross void, empty, and useless. We
have just compromised the very power of the message, and replaced it with our
own. The cross itself is the wisdom of God – it doesn’t need our help. You
should expect it to come across odd; expect to be seen as strange - but don’t
tamper with the message. It’s not yours anyway. You, as a Christian have been
entrusted with the gospel to simply preach it, not manipulate results. Let God
do His work with His word, and don’t replace it with yours.
This
is what Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 1:17ff. When Paul preached the gospel to
the Corinthians, he purposefully left out his own “cleverness of speech” in
order to fully expose the cross. Why?
Because it was and is by this foolish message that God has chosen to save his
children. Verses 23 and 24 of the same chapter read “but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to
the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Once
you tamper with the gospel to make it more appealing, you have done two things:
1) compromised the power of the message, and 2) exchanged the target audience of the
message. If you preach something that makes sense to the world, they’ll hear
that. However, they won’t be saved by it. Further, don’t forget that, as Paul
said, it is those who are the called who will believe this message and are saved by it. This is the only message by
which they will be saved. They are your target audience – preach their message so that they might be saved .
(I am obviously not saying that those who will be saved own the gospel, but
merely associating it with them in that it is only by the gospel that they are
saved.) You don’t know who the called are. Your job is simply to preach and let
God be concerned with who believe and those who don’t. Your faithfulness to
the Word of God will result in the hardening of some. You can’t help that.
Their death sentence is their intellect, because it excludes them from
believing in the foolish message of the gospel, which is also the only message
that rescues sinners from eternal judgment. This is not a trite thing, and I do
not want to come across as heartless. But this is reality. The unloving, cold,
heartless, and downright hateful thing to do would be to not explain the actual
gospel to them, remembering that you have no idea as to whether or not God will
use it to save them or harden them. This is not an arrogant in-your-face
approach, as that itself compromises the gospel by introducing pride. You want
you to get out of the way and simply be a mouthpiece for the Word of God. The
example we have of this is Christ Himself, Who was gentle, humble in heart,
giving rest to those who came to Him – not a burden. And, it was for the sake
of those whom would receive that rest that He aggressively attacked the Jewish
religious leaders, refuting them and their teaching as publicly as they had
asserted themselves and their teaching (Matthew 23).
So
I challenge you, fellow Christian; do you understand the gospel well enough to
teach it clearly so that the gospel, and only the gospel, may be the content of
your evangelism? Are you tempted to assist the gospel, making mention of only
certain parts of it, leaving the more ‘embarrassing’ and ‘strange’ aspects out
for later? If you do so, I ask this: what are you really preaching? Is it the
gospel anymore? Be faithful, knowing that it is not your message you have been
entrusted with. Follow Paul’s example in Acts 20:26-27, and do not “shrink from declaring…the whole purpose of
God ”.
Sincerely,
Joshua
