1. "Division in the church is nearly always a symptom of a much deeper problem. That's because unity in Christ only works if Christ is primary. The moment you make anything else primary in the church, you have sowed seeds of division."

2. "Unity in Christ need not require uniformity. Though I don't want us to confuse what Paul is advocating for here with organizational unity between churches. How often has biblical fidelity been sacrificed on the altar of organizational unity?"

3. "The greatest injustice in this universe is nothing that could ever be done to you or to me. It is the injustice of Jesus Christ being defamed. It is the injustice of him not being seen and known and delighted in as the glorious God he is."

4. "If you are defensive or you deny your sin, Jesus is going to be very small in your estimation. But as you discover the depth and breadth of your sin, as a Christian, you will discover the depth and breadth of your forgiveness and the depth and breadth of Christ's love for you."

5. "There should be something about every true church that you just cannot explain except for the power of God. And I think what is most often obviously supernatural in a church is precisely what Paul's been talking about, this idea of unity."

6. "The Bible defines wisdom in relation to God. You might find wisdom in this world that does a magnificent job of explaining reality in this world, but if it does not draw you to the One who made this world, the Bible calls it folly, not wisdom."

7. "God is not merely wiser. He's not merely most wise. His wisdom exposes the wisdom of this world as folly, categorically, not just relatively. It's not that God's wisdom is better at solving your deepest problem than the wisdom of this world. No, only God's wisdom, the wisdom of the cross can do that."

8. "If you have ever sought to hide your sin in order to protect your witness, I hope you see here the absolute folly of what you were attempting. Confession, humility, honesty, that's what proves that the word of the cross has power."

9. "When you deconstruct your faith, you are left with nothing. But if you deconstruct worldly wisdom, then you are ready to receive the wisdom of God."

10. "At the cross all your dreams must die, all your hopes must be extinguished, all that you value will be turned on its head, and yet at the cross we find the power of God to give us what is truly life, to give us better dreams, better hopes, enduring values."

Observation Questions

1. In 1 Corinthians 1:10, what specific appeal does Paul make to the Corinthian believers, and what three things does he call them to regarding their unity?

2. According to verses 11-12, what problem had been reported to Paul, and what were the different factions in the church saying about whom they followed?

3. In verse 13, what three rhetorical questions does Paul ask the Corinthians to expose the absurdity of their divisions?

4. According to verses 18-19, how do "those who are perishing" view the word of the cross, and what does Paul say God will do to "the wisdom of the wise"?

5. In verses 22-23, what do Jews demand and what do Greeks seek, and how does Paul describe the message that he and others preach in contrast to these expectations?

6. How does verse 25 describe the relationship between God's "foolishness" and human wisdom, and between God's "weakness" and human strength?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul connect the Corinthians' quarreling and factions (verses 11-12) directly to questions about Christ being divided and whether Paul was crucified for them (verse 13)? What does this reveal about the true stakes of church division?

2. In verse 17, Paul says Christ sent him "not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." Why would relying on eloquent wisdom empty the cross of its power, and what does this teach us about how the gospel actually works?

3. What does Paul mean when he says the world "did not know God through wisdom" (verse 21), and how does this explain why God chose to save people "through the folly of what we preach"?

4. How do the categories of "those who are perishing" and "those who are being saved" (verse 18) relate to the categories of "Jews and Greeks" who are "called" (verse 24)? What determines which group a person belongs to?

5. The sermon emphasized that the Corinthians had embraced "worldly wisdom in Christian garb." Based on the passage, how does worldly wisdom differ from God's wisdom, and why is the cross the ultimate test for distinguishing between them?

Application Questions

1. The sermon mentioned that unity in Christ only works when Christ is primary, and that making anything else primary sows seeds of division. What things in your own life or in your church community might you be tempted to elevate above Christ, and what would it look like to reorient around Christ's preeminence this week?

2. Paul was not ashamed to name his source (Chloe's people) when addressing the church's problems. When you have concerns about conflict or issues in your church or relationships, how do you typically handle them—in the light or in secrecy? What would it look like to bring concerns into the light in a healthy, reconciling way?

3. The sermon identified four forms of worldly wisdom that infiltrate Christian life: egoistic ("love yourself first"), therapeutic (wholeness over holiness), optimistic ("believe in yourself"), and hedonistic (YOLO). Which of these do you find most compelling or dangerous for you personally, and how does the message of the cross challenge that particular wisdom?

4. The passage teaches that the cross appears as "folly" and a "stumbling block" to those who are perishing. How does this shape the way you share the gospel with unbelievers—particularly regarding your expectations and your reliance on persuasion versus prayer and faithful witness?

5. The sermon challenged listeners to consider whether their closest friendships at church are limited to people who share their politics, education, or background. What concrete step could you take this week to build a relationship with someone at church who is different from you, demonstrating that Christ is the true center of your unity?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Isaiah 29:13-16 — This passage, quoted by Paul in the sermon text, shows God's judgment on those who honor Him with their lips while their hearts are far from Him, and His plan to confound human wisdom.

2. Matthew 7:24-27 — Jesus' parable of the wise and foolish builders illustrates the sermon's opening theme that only building on Christ's words provides an enduring foundation.

3. John 13:34-35 — Jesus teaches that love for one another is the distinguishing mark of His disciples, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis on unity as evidence of genuine faith.

4. Romans 6:1-11 — This passage explains the meaning of baptism as dying to the old self and rising to new life in Christ, connecting to Paul's discussion of baptism and identity in the sermon text.

5. Philippians 2:1-11 — Paul calls the church to unity through humility, pointing to Christ's self-emptying and death on a cross as the ultimate example of the "foolishness" that is true wisdom.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Danger of Worldly Values Dressed in Christian Clothing

II. The Symptom of the Problem: Division (1 Corinthians 1:10-12)

III. The Stakes of the Problem: Defamation of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:13-17)

IV. The Source of the Problem: Confusion of Wisdom and Folly (1 Corinthians 1:18-20)

V. The Solution to the Problem: Deconstruction Through the Cross (1 Corinthians 1:21-25)

VI. Embracing the Folly of the Cross as True Wisdom

---

Detailed Sermon Outline

It's amazing how often what you think is impressive about you one day is an embarrassment the next. When I was in junior high school, probably a good time of life to illustrate that concept, I joined the school marching band. I loved putting on my uniform for the parade that we marched every summer in my small Illinois town. But what I really looked forward to was the high school marching band with those tall orange plumes on their hats and the white spats and the orange and white capes. So the day I finally got that uniform, I was elated.

But I was in for a rude awakening when I met the woman who I wanted to be my wife, and at some point in the relationship discovered how unimpressed she was with all things marching band. It wasn't so much that I had been in a marching band that turned her off. It was how impressed I had been with it. Just to say, I don't think you're going to find any photos of me in my marching band uniform warm anywhere in our house now that that woman has married me. It's a trivial example.

We can all think of far more serious examples. The sense of humor that makes your beau so impressive at a party is now how he brushes off any serious conversation now that you're married. The perennial suntan that's now led to skin cancer. The impressive job that utterly consumed you. Teenage athletic success that's now led to multiple rounds of knee surgery, the retirement account that was very impressive when you were in your 50s, which doesn't seem like it's the ticket to security now that you're in your 80s.

I wonder what aspect of your life that's impressive to you today will carry a sour note, if not an embarrassing one, say 20 years in the future. Our world tells us what we should be impressed with. I think we can all agree its values are hardly enduring. So how do you know that you are building your life on values that endure?

We're at church. So it's no surprise that my answer is going to be the Bible. As Jesus said, Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. On the rock. It sounds simple.

Listen to the Bible, not to the world.

The challenge, though, is how often worldly wisdom dresses itself up as biblical wisdom so that as Christians we may think we are resisting the values of this world, but we end up swallowing Christianized versions of the same worldly values. Power struggles at work, trading idolatry of career for idolatry of family, judging the lack of evangelism or community engagement you see in others at church, sizing up your worth based on the books you've read.

So whether or not you're a Christian this morning, I wonder, in what ways has worldly wisdom infiltrated your concept of Christianity? That is the situation that the apostle Paul encountered as he was listening to disturbing reports about the church he had started in first century Corinth. Worldly wisdom done up in Christian garb wreaking havoc on that young church. This morning is our first in a six-part series through this section of 1 Corinthians that we're going to get in bits and pieces through the rest of the summer and the fall. Let me start reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

Verse 10, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 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 of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ, Is Christ divided? 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 in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanas, beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. And not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us 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. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Paul wrote these words to what was an impressive and energetic city located on a prosperous trade route in Greece. Corinth had actually been destroyed 200 years earlier, then refounded as a Roman colony 100 years after that.

So as a new and prosperous city, this was the place to go to to make something of yourself. And it seems that the church in that impressive city had imbibed a lot more of what the world thought was impressive than they may have realized. As we get into the passage, we discover that that was their problem, embracing worldly wisdom in Christian trappings. Whether or not you and I have bought into the same worldly wisdom that they did, I think we can all benefit as we watch the apostle diagnose and treat their ailments. So in this passage, we'll watch that great doctor at work as we first look at the symptom of the problem, verses 10 to 12, which is division, then the stakes of the problem, verses 13 to 17, which is Defamation.

Verses 18 to 20 highlight the source of the problem, confusion. And finally, the solution to the problem, verses 21 to 25, deconstruction. We need to deconstruct our values, then reconstruct in favor of what God values. So then, the symptom of the problem, division, the stakes, defamation, the source of the problem, confusion, and the solution, deconstruction. So let's start with verse 10 and our first point, the symptom of the problem, which, as I said before, is division.

You hear Paul state that positively in verse 10, his exhortation that there be no divisions among them. And negatively in verse 11, when he said that he's heard that there are, in fact, quarrels among them.

But note that as you read through the passage, what you see is that division is not the root problem. It is merely a symptom of that problem. The real problem, as I said before, is that the Corinthians had embraced worldly wisdom. The problem surfaced as division, and that's a good thing to keep in mind. Division in the church is nearly always a symptom of a much deeper problem.

That's because unity in Christ only works if Christ is primary. The moment you make anything else primary in the church, you have sowed seeds of division. When comfort or peace or your preferred style of music or your political persuasions or even things like missions and evangelism become primary in a church, you have sowed seeds of division. Comfort, peace, music, politics, evangelism, those are all good things. None of those can hold a church together.

And it seems that in this case, what this church had made primary was its teachers, verse 12, gifts of God, no doubt, but incapable of holding the center of unity. As you just keep reading into chapter 4, verse 6, you discover that these factions in the church involved boasting. So some people boasted in Paul, others in Apollos, others in who we know from Acts 18 was known for his eloquence, some in Cephas, the apostle Peter, maybe the most sanctimonious of all, a faction around Christ. And given the references to baptism in verses 13 to 16, I think we need to wonder if these rivalries had something to do with evangelism. The teachers themselves were not the reasons for the rivalries.

They seemed to have been completely innocent, but the people around them were arguing and competing over who seems to have been what Corinth needed. If we want to reach Corinth, we need a great orator like Apollos. No, we need a miracle worker like Paul. Nocephus is best because he knew Jesus. Of course, in their boasting about teachers, it seems the Corinthians are really just boasting in themselves.

I'm with Paul. I'm better than you.

Now, I think it's very significant that all of this quarreling doesn't seem to lead the apostle to question whether these people were believers. He appeals to them as brothers, verse 10. In fact, the letter of 1 Corinthians contains that word brothers far more than any other New Testament book, nearly twice as much. So though they are acting as people of the flesh rather than people of the Spirit, as we'll see in chapter 3, they are nonetheless Christians. Yet things are not good.

You see, unity is what proves out the Christian claim that Christ is worth more than anything else. That does not mean that unity is ultimate. Calls for unity were the Trojan horse through which theological liberalism was smuggled into many churches in the early twentieth century, including almost this church. What's more, calls for unity were an excuse used by many churches for apathy during the civil rights movement, which is why Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham jail was addressed to the Birmingham clergy, which had a significant impact on this church whose pastor at the time was from Birmingham. Church unity is not ultimate.

Christ is ultimate. Church unity matters because it indicates that we have, in fact, made Christ ultimate. The problem in Corinth is that they have focused on the wrong kind of unity. So here in chapter 1 they're wrongly divided. In chapter 5 they've wrongly united.

They're in that chapter keeping fellowship with a man in gross sexual sin who says he's a Christian. But whose life seems to contradict that profession. We also need to aim for the right kind of unity.

Now, maybe you're here this morning and you're not a Christian. I hope you're very welcome here. I hope you feel very welcome here. You certainly are welcome here. But as you think about us as Christians, I want you to hold us to account for this.

Not every human institution holds itself to this standard. The body down the street, for example, is riven with factions by design. I follow Schumer, I follow Johnson, no one's upset by that, that's how it's supposed to work. But at church, we say we hold Christ higher than anything else that might define us. And so a hallmark of a true church should, in fact, be unity in Christ above all other things.

And my Christian friend, you also need to be held to account for this. Christian love for Christians seems in the New Testament to be the preeminent verifier of faith. And in particular, given all the differences that we read of in these churches in the New Testament, Hebrew, Hellenist, Jew, Gentile, slave, free, rich, poor, male, female, it's love for a church full of differences that seems to most display the reality of your faith. So maybe you're a Christian and you've been visiting this church for several months and you have no intention to join this church. That puts your faith in a very precarious place.

Like a diamond you proudly wear but refuse to submit to a jeweler's appraisal. You will know that your faith is real if you see that your love is real. But if you have no intention of committing to love any particular body of Christians, I'm not quite sure what your love really means.

So, what does love look like in a church? What kind of togetherness does Paul expect in a church? Well, he doesn't expect them to think the same about everything. That's particularly clear elsewhere in 1 Corinthians and in Paul's other epistles, not uniformity, but unity. You see that here in verse 10 in that phrase, all of you agree, which literally means, say the same.

Function together such that you speak with one voice. Be united, Paul says, in mind and in judgment. It's interesting that word translated united is not the typical word used in the New Testament for unity. It's a word we first run into in the New Testament when it's described when it describes the mending of nets. Paul wants them to recover their ability to speak as one.

Because disagreements are going to exist in a church. Differences will exist in a church. And yet, if we prize Christ above all else, our unity will witness profoundly to His glory, His preeminence, His power. So, speaking to the members of this church, do all of your friends in this church basically agree with you politically?

Are your closest friends all from the same place as you are? Do your friends in this church share your educational pedigree?

That's not what the church should be.

Unity in Christ need not require uniformity. Though I don't want us to confuse what Paul is advocating for here with organizational unity between churches. We see in the New Testament lots of examples of churches cooperating in a spirit of unity. Nowhere do we see any kind of denominational apparatus that fuses churches together organizationally. How often has biblical fidelity been sacrificed on the altar of organizational unity?

I think one force for unity we see here is even in how Paul relays this news. Did you notice he names his source? Right, he heard about these problems, he says, from Chloe's people.

As a pastor, I sometimes have people voice concerns to me about others in the congregation, and yet they insist that when I do something about that information, I not ever say where I got that information from.

That's sometimes impossible.

That level of anonymity might be wise and necessary at times, but I would tell you it's always dangerous. We, like Chloe's people, should bring our concerns into the light whenever possible.

It's a good example of what it looks like to work for unity. Well, these verses, I think, are a good summary of how we should pray for this church. Just like a powerful magnet pulls all the metal shavings into the right same direction, may the preeminence of Christ be demonstrated in our unity together, because unity in Christ flows from love for Christ, which is what brings us to our next point. What's at stake in this problem? What's at stake, as you read verses 13 to 17, is the glory of Jesus.

Did you notice how strikingly theological Paul's warning is? Of all the different things he could have given them to argue against their quarreling, he goes for Christology. Is Christ divided? Verse 13, Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

No, no, no!

My first point, the symptom of the problem was division. Here in point 2, what's at stake is defamation. But Paul seems to give very little concern about his own reputation, though as we continue reading, we discover that he too has been defamed. No, it spurs Paul to action. Is the defamation of Jesus.

Because, my friends, the greatest injustice in this universe is nothing that could ever be done to you or to me. It is the injustice of Jesus Christ being defamed. And I do not mean that as hyperbole. It is the injustice of him not being seen and known and delighted in as the glorious God he is. There is no injustice that could ever overshadow the injustice of the one who is love itself being called hate.

The one who is the embodiment of all good being spurned as worthless. The one who is power itself being rejected as weak. The one who gave everything for his people being demeaned as selfish. That is the injustice that animated the apostle Paul. That is what should animate us as well.

Thus, the reason behind Paul's appeal in verse 10, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think in a very holy way, Paul is essentially scolding them, For Christ's sake, people, cut it out. Don't you see how these quarrels lie about Jesus?

So with us.

This church, just like the one in Corinth, has its own fault lines for potential division. We are also, like them, comprised of blind and selfish sinners. And there's people we also can find to be difficult at church. Lord, I know that all the parts of the body are indispensable, 1 Corinthians 12:22, but couldn't you have made her indispensable to someone else's church body?

And what about this current moment in our church's life together? I have been at this church now for seven presidential inaugurations, and I would say that the months since our most recent change in presidential administration have stretched our church unity unusually, which is challenging, painful, and an opportunity for us to show that Christ is preeminent. At the same time, there are situations when the cost of unity feels like it is beyond what you can pay. In that regard, there are many good reasons to leave a church. There are even good reasons to pause on some relationships inside your church.

And yet, as you work through that very complex web of decisions, hopefully not by yourself, Make sure that you are not merely fleeing Christ's exalted unity for the comfort of similarity. It's not always clear what to do in those situations, but it is always clear what your goal is. What will hold the reputation of Jesus high?

And what if you don't care about the reputation of Jesus like you should? I think by stating the question like that, we all fall in that category. A few thoughts for you, three ideas. Number one, know yourself. And more specifically, your sin.

If you are defensive or you deny your sin, Jesus is going to be very small in your estimation. But as you discover the depth and breadth of your sin, as a Christian, you will discover the depth and breadth of your forgiveness and the depth and breadth of Christ's love for you, and your love for his glory will begin to dominate your life.

You heard Josh give us that corporate confession earlier in the service. I wonder how your personal confession is going.

Second, know your Lord. Get to know Jesus. I don't think there's anywhere that you will meet him better and more clearly than in the Gospels. See Jesus there with new eyes, see his compassion, see his power, see his insight, see his glory. And third, know your church.

I don't mean the shiny church of the Sunday morning pews, I mean the dirty church of the weekly grind. If you only know people here at a surface level, you will not see much of Jesus in them. But once you get up close to our struggles and you see God's grace in our struggles, your estimation of Jesus will grow, your love for Jesus will grow. So, three quick suggestions for growing in a constraining love for the reputation of Christ. Know yourself.

Know your Lord. Know your church. Then in verses 14 to 17, Paul has this rather lengthy section on baptism. Ending with that assertion, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, which prompts a number of questions. What is the connection between baptism and a love for the reputation of Jesus?

And why does Paul seem to pit baptizing against preaching the gospel? Aren't they both part of the Great Commission?

The answer is found in how a baptism really is a naming. As we see in Romans 6, baptism symbolizes our death to our old selves as we go down into the water, and new life in Christ as we emerge united in his resurrection. And so, as Jesus said at the Great Commission, we are baptized into the name singular of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have a new identity with the triune God.

But these people aren't identifying primarily with the triune God. They seem to have picked some of God's servants to identify with. And Paul's goal is not to baptize a following for himself. He's about preaching the gospel. In fact, who actually does the baptizing is so secondary to Paul, he seems to forget for a moment who actually baptized at Corinth, which further cements his point.

This is a good instance in the Bible of the Scriptures giving us two things that are important and yet prioritizing them. Both are essential to faithfulness, but only preaching is essential to salvation. We need to keep the importance of both in view, but also the priority of one versus the other. Because one of Satan's oldest tricks is to get Christians to take something which is important, like baptism, and then to treat it as most important, and then to accuse all the other people who don't see it as most important as thinking it's of no importance. Baptism is not essential for salvation.

It is essential for faithfulness. And as Christians, we are not minimalists looking for the least we can get by on to be saved. We are maximalists looking to be sold out entirely for faithfulness to Jesus. So let's learn to treat priorities with the same relative importance that Scripture gives them.

And then Paul wraps up the section with the real punchline: Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, we just considered that, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. That's provocative, isn't it? The cross in this passage refers to the cross of Jesus Christ, his sacrificial death on behalf of sinners. And Paul says that if a ministry depends on eloquence, it empties the cross of Christ of its leaves it to be of no value.

You see, Paul is not interested in arguing people into a worldview, which is what that word wisdom would have suggested in the Corinthians Gentile context, a coherent system of thought that gave order to the world. Paul wanted much more than that. Paul wanted to see the spiritually dead raised to life. God's enemies become God's children, what the Bible calls conversion and persuasion can cannot do that. Sometimes, as Christians, we feel like what's most important is to get people to think like us, to convince them of our worldview.

They're still going to hell. Our hope, our prayer, our work is to see the Spirit raise people to new life. Persuasion cannot do that.

Which emphasizes the importance of an evidently supernatural ministry in our church. Right? There should be something about every true church that you just cannot explain except for the power of God. And I think what is most often obviously supernatural in a church is precisely what Paul's been talking about, this idea of unity. Right?

A congregation of young and old, poor and rich, professional and working class of different backgrounds and different ethnicities and different politics and convictions and yet who function together as family.

Jesus said that in John 13. He said, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, how? If you have love for one another. Just think for a moment of who's listening to those words. His disciples, looking at each other, right?

Simon the Zealot, who advocated taking arms against Rome, staring down Matthew, the tax collector who had sold out to Rome, thinking, Really? Lord, the world's gonna know that you are my Lord if I love him? How am I supposed to do that? Well, persuasion cannot do that. Eloquent wisdom cannot do that.

Only the power of God can do that as our lives are transformed by his Spirit so that by faith we obey his word. May this church be testimony to the power of God at work.

And yet the Corinthians seemed very content to build their ministry from human persuasion rather than divine power. They sought what was impressive in a worldly sense but risked casting off what was impactful in an eternal sense.

So again, what about this church? Are we caught up with a ministry that seems impressive? Three times a year, 150 pastors join us for one of our weekender conferences. They come because of the books our pastors have written, and the ministers our congregation has trained up and the churches our church has started, they come because there's at least something in what I think is a remarkably ordinary church, but something that has impressed them about this ministry. I'm not picking at their motivations, but I do want to warn you, Capital Hill Baptist Church, about the danger of being involved in a seemingly impressive ministry.

Five warnings for you. Number one, most obvious, is pride. Do you look down on churches that don't share this church's distinctives? God forbid. Those distinctives are important.

They are born out of biblical conviction. But as Mark DeVries says all the time, what's most important is what we share in common with every true church in every place at every time. Second is the danger that you may actually, in being impressed with this church, miss out on what is truly valuable in this church. I'm quite sure the aspects of this church that we will sing about forever in heaven will not be the things that makes our ministries feel impressive, as wonderful as they may be. They will be quiet acts of stupendous faith, love behind the scenes that nobody noticed, perseverance through doubt and disunity.

That is what most proclaims the glory of Jesus.

Third is the danger of perceived maturity by association. Just because you're at a particular church doesn't itself make you any more mature in Jesus.

Fourth is what happens when you leave this church. I've had the sad experience several times of talking to people who I think being as a compliment of saying we've never been happy since we left Capitol Hill Baptist Church. What a tragedy, right? Your time here, if the Lord chooses to move you on elsewhere, should prepare you to be happy and fruitful in whatever church that is. And lastly is what happens if you stay.

Because some of you should not be here at this church. You would grow better, evangelize better, be more hospitable in a church closer to where you live.

Sometimes staying here is the right answer. I want to affirm that. But sometimes you have merely fallen prey to the mythology of an impressive ministry.

So do I think that the Lord has done something unique and special in this church over the last 150 years? I do. And the right response to such blessing is not abdication but stewardship, thus those thrice-annual weekenders. But amidst those blessings, let us remember the danger of an impressive ministry, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Well, so far we've looked at the symptom of the problem at Corinth, division, and what's at stake, defamation. But in verse 18, Paul gets to, and this is our third point, the source of the problem. Confusion. That is, the Corinthians had confused wisdom for folly and folly for wisdom. Just as they'd embraced the wrong kind of unity, they seem to also have embraced the wrong kind of wisdom.

And that's a danger for us as well. For the word of the cross, Paul writes, is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Essentially, Paul is saying to them, you, who glory in eloquent wisdom, do you not understand the nature of the gospel? The gospel is a message of death, of humiliation. That is not a message which is attractive to the world around us.

And so Paul quotes from Isaiah 29 that we read earlier in the service, if the wisdom of men is produced a people who honor God with their lips, While their hearts are far from them, if that is what their wisdom has produced, God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. Or as Jeremiah 8:9 explains, Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord. So what wisdom is in them?

If that's what wisdom gets you, down with so-called wisdom. The Bible defines wisdom in relation to God. You might find wisdom in this world that does a magnificent job of explaining reality in this world, but if it does not draw you to the One who made this world, the Bible calls it folly, not wisdom.

Students, there's a lot of you here, whether you're in grade school or grad school, you are in the business of acquiring knowledge. And whether you know it or not, you are also in the business of acquiring wisdom, understanding how to apply that knowledge to life. Interest is in God's common grace. Much knowledge comes from the world around us. Much wisdom also comes from our world.

And so you are acquiring wisdom in the books you read, the conversations you have, the videos you watch. But be careful to acquire wisdom which really is wisdom. Does what you call wisdom draw you toward God?

Or push you away. So Paul taunts this wisdom of the world, verse 20, Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe that is the expert in Jewish law? Where is the debater of this age that is the superstar of Greek culture? What have they done to solve humanity's deepest problem, his alienation from God?

Has God not made foolish The wisdom of this world, Paul asks. You see, God is not merely wiser. He's not merely most wise. His wisdom exposes the wisdom of this world as folly, categorically, not just relatively. It's not that God's wisdom is better at solving your deepest problem than the wisdom of this world.

No, only God's wisdom, the wisdom of the cross can do that.

And yet, back to verse 18, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. Whether you're a Jew in that time or a Gentile, the idea of a crucified Messiah being your Savior was ludicrous, folly, a word that connotes mania, lunacy, dismissed as folly by those who are perishing. Such a striking turn of phrase. If you're here today in Jesus Christ is not yout Lord and Savior, this is you. You are perishing.

Perishing because you have sinned against a God who is just. You may not know that you're perishing. You may not believe that you're perishing, but God's Word says that you are perishing. Like the day before you learn from the doctor that you have terminal cancer. Ignorance is not the same as health.

And yet, being on the road to destruction does not mean that you have arrived there, does it? Just look at the end of verse 21, to save those who believe. For verse 24, but to those who are called Christ the power of God.

Right, Paul is very clear, perishing need not be your final destination. Again, speaking to those who are not Christians, I do realize that you can get yourself tied up in knots with these two verbs I just mentioned. Believe, verse 21, called, verse 24. Asking yourself, so which is it? Is the off ramp from the road of destruction, my choice to believe?

Or is it God's choice to call me? Well, my friend, why would we ever think that the infinite God would ever be so simple to give you an either or? Yes, salvation does depend on God's call because you are spiritually dead, entirely dependent on a Savior outside yourself, and yet, God promises that those who are perishing can reach for Him in faith and He will save them. And you can take God at His word when He says that. You don't have to reconcile divine sovereignty with human responsibility in order to be saved.

We believe all kinds of things in the world we don't entirely understand.

Christianity is rational, and yet it extends deeper than our natural rational faculties. You do need to believe. You do need to take God at His word, and He will take care of the rest. We are sinners deserving of God's wrath. God offers the precious blood of his Son in our place to take at the cross the punishment we deserve if we will turn from our sin and we will receive him in faith.

Not the crowning achievement of an otherwise virtuous life, but simply coming with empty hands saying, this is what I need and I cannot get it any other way. Nothing in my hands I bring, says the hymn, only to thy cross I cling. That is how we move from those who are perishing to those who are being saved.

Now, speaking to Christians, every day you have conversations with those who are perishing. I hope every day you have opportunity to talk about the word of the cross with them. And yet, Paul says, those who are perishing will dismiss it as folly. And no amount of eloquence can change that. In fact, if your eloquence could change that, then you would be the one doing the saving, not God.

So how do you share the gospel with those who are perishing, knowing they will dismiss it as folly? Well, you do it number one, through prayer. Praying that God would open eyes of faith to see his wisdom. And you speak that word of the gospel of Jesus Christ in conjunction with a life that itself is consistent with that word. Embracing humility instead of pride, loving our neighbors as ourselves, confessing our sin rather than denying it, and fleeing hypocrisy as fast as you can.

Remember, the word of the cross is proven not through our eloquence but through its power. And there is nothing better than hypocrisy to convince a dying world the cross has no power. So if you have ever sought to hide your sin in order to protect your witness, I hope you see here the absolute folly of what you were attempting.

Confession, humility, honesty, that's what proves that the word of the cross has power.

So Paul says to the Corinthians, the wisdom of their day, the wisdom that prized eloquence and rhetoric above all in the immortal words of Janet Jackson, what has that done for you lately? What power has that wisdom shown? It's by that wisdom that they have descended into quarreling. And what about us? What wisdoms does this world have on offer for us?

I'll give you four to try on for size. See which one you think might be the most otherwise compelling to you.

Love yourself. Or to quote a different song, I love me, gonna love myself. No, I don't need anybody else. Isn't that what our world is telling us all the time? Love yourself first.

That's a wisdom of ego. And that wisdom has its Christianized counterpart, right? The person who says, I am so special that Jesus died for me and then pursues a self first rather than a Christ first life.

Then there's what I'll call therapeutic wisdom that says the goal of life is to be healthy and whole, which when Christianized becomes an insatiable focus on peace, on recovery, on healing. There is much good there, especially for those who have suffered, but when wholeness takes priority over holiness, we will find that we have in fact bought into the wisdom of this world.

A third, the theme of a dozen Disney movies, believe in yourself. And its Christianized cousin, Christ serving self-reliance. And lastly, hedonistic wisdom, which you might call YOLO wisdom. You only live once, which seems to be the wisdom that reigns for so many in this town, which I think finds its way into the life of a Christian through a beautiful thing, which is Christian freedom that gets abused. Egoistic wisdom, therapeutic wisdom, what I might say is optimistic wisdom, the Disney wisdom, hedonistic wisdom, there are some truths there, and yet each one in their own way will lead you away from God, even in their Christianized versions.

To the Corinthians, it was buying into the worldly wisdom that respect is what mattered most.

That caused all their problems. So I wonder which of those four is the most dangerous for you. That'd be a great lunchtime conversation. And if you're a kid, ask your parents. A little moment of parental vulnerability.

Which wisdoms did they once believe that this world spouts that they now see as hollow and false? So, what's Paul's solution? Well, it's our last point and the final verses in this passage beginning with verse 21. For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

This world's wisdom has failed abysmally. God in His wisdom has taken action through the folly of proclamation. We find God's solution to our greatest problem. The word of the cross is folly to those who hear, and yet, it is the power to save. Maybe like Einstein's theories of relativity must have sounded to his contemporaries at first.

Time slows down as you get faster. Gravity warps time. E equals MC squared. That's crazy talk. No way the world works that way.

But it's true.

The folly of the cross, the crazy talk of the cross begins with the need it describes because it says there is nothing you can do to make yourself right with God. And you think, Really? Surely I've got something to work with here. No, the cross says, Nothing. And the folly of the cross extends to its provision.

The Creator nailed to a cross by His own creation. The idea that the justice of heaven is satisfied through substitution.

The folly of the cross continues to how we come to the cross. That life comes through death. Christ's death, but also your own, as in repentance we die to ourselves, like we saw in Mark 8. All you must do to receive everything promised in Christ is to believe, and yet in that one act of faith you are trusting Him with your whole life, giving over to Him. That's crazy talk, but it's true.

But we would like something more accessible, wouldn't we? The Jews demand signs, verse 22, which they did in Jesus' day. Greeks seek wisdom, which they did in Paul's day. Yet the Jewish people could not see the greatest sign when He appeared before them. The Greeks could not see the deepest wisdom when He appeared before them.

You see, demanding a sign means I believe the truth if it does what I want for me. Seeking wisdom means I believe the truth if it makes sense to me. But in neither case am I receiving things on God's terms. In both, I'm keeping truth on my terms. And in a world governed by God, not me, That's not how we find truth.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, I'm sure not intending to rhyme in English, if it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who corresponds to me. But if it is God who says where he will be, that place is the cross of Christ.

So Paul's challenge to the Corinthians is to rebuild what they value through the so-called Folly of the Cross. Their problem was that they had embraced worldly wisdom. So the solution in a word is deconstruction. Not the deconstruction we hear about so much in Christian circles today where we deconstruct the wisdom of God in favor of this world's folly, but the deconstruction of everything we believe to be wisdom based on the Folly of the Cross. When you deconstruct your faith, you are left with Nothing.

But if you deconstruct worldly wisdom, then you are ready to receive the wisdom of God. You see, the wisdom of the cross, the word of the cross, is a stumbling block until we receive things on God's terms. It is folly until we receive things on God's terms. So if you're here and you're waiting until Christianity makes sense to you before you receive it, You are waiting until your finite mind can comprehend the infinite. You are wanting to impose your sense of rationality on the God who made it.

Yet the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. We receive it on his terms, not our own. That is the gateway to life and freedom. For the Christian, then, everything we value comes to us through the folly of the cross, where the Corinthians valued respect and they sought it in what you may call a Jesus-fied form, which was the source of all their problems. So their solution was to return to the folly of the cross.

What about you? What core values have you brought into Christianity? Hoping for the Jesus-fied version, right? You hope in comfort, and as a Christian you hope in spiritual comfort. You value a healthy, happy family, and as a Christian you hope for a healthy, happy, Jesus-loving family.

You value respect at work, and as a Christian, no, you want to be respected as a Christian at work. You value true love and marriage, and as a Christian, when you pursue things God's way, you expect for the perfect Christian marriage. But none of that will work anymore than it worked in Corinth. Instead, we must deconstruct each of these things that we value through the folly of the cross. The folly of the cross is that you will only find true life as you really, really and truly put your old self to death, as you put your old desires to death, your old dreams to death, your old values to death.

To quote Bonhoeffer again, the cross meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. And there begins life eternal.

Christian parents, how is this going in your family's life? You're raising children to be in the world but not of the world. So what is their reaction? Based on how you're raising them as they look at the world? Is it attraction?

We don't want that. Is it fear? That's not good either. Scorn? No.

No, we want compassion. So in the worldly blessings you choose to give them and how you choose to educate them and how you talk about the world, How are you doing raising men and women who by faith live in the world but not of the world? The word of the cross with all its ethical implications can indeed look like folly. We are told every day by the world around us that this path we've chosen as Christians is the path of the fool. We're even told that the cross doesn't really demand all the things that the Bible says it demands as the world looks to compromise Christians.

As their ideal of a Christian? So how is your confidence that the cross is in fact the wisdom of God? We need to remember that confidence is collective. That's why the Scriptures implore us to meet together week after week, Sunday after Sunday. We need each other.

We need to hear each other sing. We need to live with each other and speak with each other if we're to hold onto the cross in a world that is seeking to undermine it. Because, and here is the glorious truth of this passage, God has made foolish the wisdom of this world, which is where we're gonna conclude. God has made foolish the wisdom of this world. Right, this world promises respect, it fails to deliver.

This world promises comfort, it fails to deliver. So with happiness and joy and justice and contentment, but my friends, the cross delivers, doesn't it? Its entrance is dark and frightening. It demands that you set everything aside. Its promise of salvation appears as foolish as Noah's ark did to his neighbors in the desert.

And yet, to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, it appeared to be folly, and yet it is power to transform us to life everlasting. There's been a lot of talk in recent years about being on the right side of history. Well, my friends, I can promise you that the Lord of history is and has always been and always will be on the right side of history. His wisdom will be vindicated. His cross will prevail.

That is, isn't it the glorious truth that we've been studying in Revelation that the unholy trinity of the beast, the false prophet, and the devil will be thrown into the lake of fire? The judge of all the earth will take his seat, and he will do what is right, and we, the redeemed, will reign with him forever. That's going to happen. As Jesus said, what you have said in the dark should be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms should be proclaimed on the housetops.

When we forget this, and we smuggle the world's values into our Christianity, we run into problems just like the Corinthians did. The symptom of our problems, just like theirs so often, is division in the church, because unity in Christ only works if we keep Christ foremost. The stakes of our problem, like theirs, are significant: the reputation and glory of Christ himself. The source of our problem, like theirs, is worldly wisdom dressed up in Christian garb. And the solution, like theirs is to reacquaint ourselves with the cross.

The cross in all of its worldly folly, in all of its divine wisdom, to rediscover that at the cross all your dreams must die, all your hopes must be extinguished, all that you value will be turned on its head, and yet at the cross we find the power of God to give us what is truly life, to give us better dreams, better hopes, enduring values. So, my friend, will you embrace the folly of the cross? Let's pray.

Oh, Father, we praise you that the cross is the place of power, a power that has not yet been exhausted because there are still dead people coming to life because of the cross. So Father we pray that we would put our faith in what you have done there. In Jesus' name, Amen.