GOD’S GLORIFIED NOBODIES – 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 6, 2018 under 2018 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; May 6, 2018 from 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Theme: God chooses the ‘nobodies’ of this world for salvation in Christ in order to bring the ‘somebody-ness’ of this world to nothing.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
I wonder if you remember something that was said several years ago by one of the ‘big wigs’ of this world. He was one of the biggest of the ‘big wigs’ at the time; and everyone was a little shocked when he said it. But as our passage will go on to show, he was actually correct in what he said—and in a way that even he didn’t understand.
You all would most likely know the name Ted Turner—one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world; founder of Turner Broadcasting System Network and CNN. He has long been considered by many to be a symbol of worldly success. He’s also very opinionated—so much so that he has been nicknamed, “The Mouth of The South”. In the early 1990s, he was speaking before the American Humanist Association; and it was then that he made one of his most quoted declarations: “Christianity is a religion for losers.”
It has been reported that, as the years have rolled along, he experienced something of a change of heart; and is now not so critical of religious faith. But still, many of the powerful people of the world—those that are considered successful, and worldly wise—’the movers and shakers’, if you will—would say a hearty ‘Amen!’ today to what he said back then. As far as they are concerned, the religion that was begun by Jesus Christ—the Man of Galilee who hung on a criminal’s cross—is a religion for losers.
And the remarkable thing is that, based on what we find in our passage this morning, the apostle Paul would agree. Faith in God’s grace through Jesus Christ is a religion for those that this world considers to be losers.
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Paul, you’ll remember was writing to his believing brothers and sisters in the ancient city of Corinth. They had been allowing the values and priorities of the rich and famous of the Corinthian culture around them to slip in and influence their thinking. As a result, one of the things that they were doing was that they were inordinately aligning themselves to human leaders and teachers to the point of dividing themselves from one another. They were elevating human standards of ‘wisdom’ and ‘impressive oratory’ to the point of forgetting—or even defying—their basic unity in Christ.
As we saw last week, Paul dealt with this problem by showing them how inconsistent with the true nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ it is to try to judge it by human wisdom. As he told them in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, the message of the cross is ‘foolishness’ to this world. The people of this world—and the ‘wisdom’ by which they judge things—cannot rightly evaluate it or correctly appraise the message of the cross. It comes across as silly nonsense to the ‘worldly-wise’ person because he or she does not embrace the wisdom of God. In 1 Corinthians 1:25, Paul said, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
And then, Paul goes on to say something in verses 26-31. And it’s certainly not something that would flatter our own personal sense of human honor and human wisdom. It sounds almost like a qualified expansion on Ted Turner’s comment. He wrote;
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).
In other words, if Paul were to have a chance to talk with Ted Turner, I suspect he might say something like this: “You’re very right, Mr. Turner. From the fallen human standpoint of the values and priorities that characterize this world, the religion of faith in Jesus Christ is a religion for losers. But since you’re a news media giant, I should tell you that I’ve already scooped you: I basically said that almost two-thousand years before you did.
“But what you don’t understand is that it is that very point exactly that demonstrates the real folly of human wisdom. The thing that you have correctly observed is the very thing that God deliberately intended in order to make an important point. He wanted to show that the so-called ‘foolishness’ of God (that is, the message of the cross) is wiser than men; and that the so-called ‘weakness’ of God (the death of a crucified Redeemer) is stronger than men. God intended this so that when all of those ‘losers’ that He graciously saves are finally standing before Him in heavenly glory, everyone who beholds it all will have to say what I wrote in Romans 11:33-36;
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?’
‘Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?’
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36-38).
So; you are right, Mr. Turner. So long as it’s a matter of faith in the cross of Jesus Christ, Christianity truly is a religion for ‘losers’—’losers’, that is, whom God wondrously saves and washes clean and glorifies forever’!”
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That seems to be the kind of thing that God delights to do. It pleases Him to take those that the world considers unworthy, and pour out His rich grace upon them. He does this in order to clearly demonstrate that He is a gracious God whose wisdom far exceeds that of this world. We can see this early on in Scripture when He showed His grace toward the people of Israel. Just before they entered the promised land, Moses told them in Deuteronomy 7:6-8;
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8).
He does the same with us in Christ. He calls to Himself the ones that the world considers “unworthy”—the ‘losers’ of this world—the ones that the ‘somebodies’ of this world consider to be ‘nobodies’—and wondrously redeems and glorifies them; and all so that the ‘somebody-ness’ of this world is put to shame and brought to nothing; and all so that no human being will ever be able to boast in His presence.
And I hope you can see the very practical purpose for which Paul was making this point to the Corinthian believers. It basically destroyed the whole reason why the Corinthian Christians were dividing themselves from one another. They were elevating human teachers inappropriately on the basis of human standards of wisdom; and were looking down their noses at whoever didn’t follow their particular ‘superior’ group. Paul was showing them that this is utterly inconsistent with the grace that God has shown us in Jesus Christ.
All they had to do was look at themselves and see that, in His great wisdom and grace, God chooses the ‘nobodies’ of this world for salvation in Christ in order to bring the ‘somebody-ness’ of this world to nothing.
How inappropriate it is that believers in Jesus would ever divide over a kind of human ‘wisdom’ that God has brought to shame at the cross!
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Now; look with me at how Paul showed them this. He began by demonstrating to them that …
1. GOD GRACIOUSLY CHOOSES THE ‘NOBODIES’ OF THIS WORLD.
Paul demonstrated it by asking them to go back and look at their own experience of a ‘calling’ to salvation from God. He wrote in verse 26, “For you see your calling, brethren …”
What exactly does he mean here by ‘calling’? He means the gracious initiative of God by which he brought us to a condition of salvation in Jesus Christ. You can see this from verse 2; where Paul told them that they were “called to be saints”; that is, called by God to the gracious condition of being His ‘set-apart’ ones in Christ. He also mentions this in verse 9; where he said, “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
So; when you read the first few verses of 1 Corinthians, you can see what it is that Paul was asking these Corinthian believers to go back and consider—that is, God’s gracious way of ‘calling’ them to a faith in Jesus by whom they are sanctified and enriched and destined for future glory. And please notice that he said, “For you see your calling, brethren …”; calling them by that loving name in a gentle way, because he was about to say something that might seem rather harsh to them. He said with respect to their calling, “that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” Ouch!
When I read those words, I think of something that I read once about Lady Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon. You may not have heard of her before; but she was an important woman in church history. She was a wealthy British noblewoman who was a very devoted evangelical Christian in the days of the First Great Awakening. She gave much of her wealth to the support of such great preachers as George Whitefield, and John and Charles Wesley; so that their message of faith in Christ would spread across the British empire. She once read this passage and said that she was grateful that Paul did not say “not any noble” are called; but rather “not many noble”. “I got in by an ‘m’,” she said.
And it’s true that some of the great ones of this world are called by God. Praise Him for that fact! But, as Paul says, “not many”. Relatively few are called of those whom this world considers “wise” according to its standards—that is learned and impressively educated “according to the flesh”. There are not many who are considered “mighty”—that is, who are considered by this world to be the ‘movers and shakers’; the ones that are ‘capable’ and ‘accomplished’ according to its values. There are not many who are “noble” according to the flesh; that is ‘well-born’ and ‘well-bred’ as the world counts such things.
You read things like this quite often in everyday culture, don’t you? Statistical data is often published to show that the more college-educated a portion of the population is—and the more they occupy the professional class or are of the upper-income levels—the less likely they are to feel the need to embrace the Christian faith in a meaningful way. And at the same time, the statistics suggest that Christian faith is usually embraced by those who are less educated, or who are in a lower income bracket.
Personally, I don’t doubt those statistics. They seem to be what Paul is asking the culturally-conscious Corinthian believers to look and see as being true of themselves. Not many ‘wise’. Not many ‘mighty’. Not many ‘noble’.
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But Paul would also want us to know that, when God chooses the ‘nobodies’ of this world, it is as an intentional part of His plan. It is a purposeful act of God in His great wisdom. Paul went on to show the Corinthians that …
2. HE DOES THIS TO PUT TO SHAME THE ‘SOMEBODY-NESS’ OF THIS WORLD.
Paul went on to write, in verses 27-28, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are …”
Look at the point-for-point way Paul says that God has done this. The so-called ‘wise’ people of this world consider the message of the cross to be—by their estimation of things—utter foolishness. “How can a man dying a criminal’s death on a despised Roman cross two-thousand years ago in an obscure part of the world have anything to do with anyone today? How could such a disgusting and violent thing save anyone?” But to those whom God has chosen—to those who are ‘foolish’ enough in this world’s eyes to consider themselves worthy of dying a shameful death for their own sins—then the cross is where the righteous Son of God took the guilt of their sins upon Himself and paid the death penalty for them. And if Jesus did, indeed, pay the debt for the sins of those who trust Him, then God has made the cross-rejecting ‘wisdom’ of this world look utterly foolish!
The so-called ‘mighty’ of this world also reject the cross. It’s a sign of weakness. They often say, “Your faith in the ‘cross’ is a mere ‘crutch’. You are too weak to face the realities of life; and so, instead of rising up and making yourself worthy—instead of exercising your human potential—instead of saving yourself—you wimp out and rest on the strength of some supposed ‘Savior’.” But to those whom God has chosen for salvation—to those who are ‘weak’ in this world’s eyes—the cross of Jesus is where salvation was fully accomplished for us by the only One who can save any of us! What we could not do because of our weakness, He did for us—making us 100% righteous in His sight! And if Jesus indeed did accomplish full salvation at the cross for all who trust Him, then how utterly stupid God has made those who reject Him and try to do what they can never do for themselves!
And the ‘celebrated’ of this world also reject the cross. How often you meet people who would never dare place their trust in Christ because of the way it would affect their ‘reputation’ and ‘social-standing’ if they did! “I don’t want to look like some ‘religious freak’ and have everyone laugh at me. It took me a lifetime to get where I am. Why would I want to throw it all away? Everyone thinks that those people are the cause of most of the troubles of the world anyway. I can’t afford to be identified as one of them.” But those whom God has chosen—those that the world considers ‘base’ and ‘despised’ because of their identification with Him—Jesus raises up, and washes clean, and will declare to be His own on the day of His glorious return. And if that’s true, then how utterly ashamed those will be who rejected Him out of love for their own human reputations!
Paul says in verse 29 that God has chosen “the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are”—that is to say, He has chosen the ‘nobodies’ of this world in order to bring to shame the ‘somebody-ness’ of this world—“that no flesh should glory in His presence.” No one will ever be able to boast before Him; because nothing of eternal glory will ever come from human effort. It will all be only by His grace.
God does this deliberately! He means for it to bring the glory of man to nothing. Jesus Himself declared that this is so. Once He was declaring the fact that the unbelieving world was ignoring the proofs He was setting before them of who He was; and then—in Matthew 11:25-26;
“I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight” (Matthew 11:25-26).
I am so glad that God graciously calls the unworthy and reveals the saving truth to them; aren’t you? I’d much rather be considered a fool by the world and be saved by God’s grace, than to be thought ‘wise’ or ‘mighty’ or ‘honorable’ by this unbelieving world—and then be forever lost along with the unbelieving world in its folly!
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But that doesn’t mean that those whom God chooses end up without dignity and honor. Far from it! They end up with the greatest dignity and honor of all! Paul then pointed out to the Corinthians how God intentionally puts to shame the wisdom of this world through choosing those the world considers ‘foolish’; and that …
3. HE THUS MAKES ‘BEING IN JESUS’ THE ONLY WISDOM WORTHY OF GLORY.
Paul closes by saying in verse 30, to those who are willing to place their faith in Jesus Christ and be considered ‘foolish’ by this world’s fallen standard of wisdom, “But of Him [that is, of the heavenly Father—by His own gracious choice to call you to Himself] you are in Christ Jesus …” It is by God’s grace that we are in Christ; and dear brothers and sisters, there can be no greater honor than to be “in” Christ Jesus. It is by that relationship—by being “in Christ”—that we are made distinct from everyone else in this world. It is by that relationship alone that we are saved!
And look at what Paul goes on to say about Christ; that it is He “who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption …”. In the original language, this is put in a remarkable way. As it’s translated to us in most English translations, it comes across as if Paul was saying that Jesus has become four things for those of us who are in Him: wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. But that’s not the best way to translate it. It is really a description of the glorious dignity that is associated with the wisdom that is ours as those who are “in Christ”. The best way to translate this is that Jesus has become “wisdom” for us; and that this wisdom is far greater than that of this world because it is characterized by three things.
First, it is characterized by righteousness. That means that, in Christ, we are declared righteous in God’s sight, and there is no longer any guilt in us. All of the guilt of sin is completely taken away from us; because Jesus paid for it all. As Paul puts it in Romans 8:1; “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus …”
Second, it is characterized by sanctification. To be ‘sanctified’ can mean two things—and both would be true. For one thing, it could mean that we are forever set apart by God as holy unto Himself. Being “in Christ” then means that we are truly “saints”—set apart from this world as God’s own people. For another thing, it could mean that we are—every day—in the process of being made more like Jesus in the way we live. We are being “sanctified” because sin is daily being put away from us, and we are increasingly being made to live a life that pleases God.
And third, this “wisdom” that Jesus has been made for us is characterized by redemption. To be ‘redeemed’ basically means to be ‘bought-out’ of slavery or prison. But more, this could be speaking of our final ‘redemption’; that is, ‘the redemption of our body’ that will occur on the day of Jesus’ return—when our glorified spirit will be forever united with our resurrected body, and thus we will share forever in the eternal glory that characterizes Jesus Himself!
Tell me! What human wisdom could ever do that? What human wisdom could ever give us those things? They are all completely ours who have been placed by God the Father in Christ; “who became for us wisdom from God”—even “righteousness and sanctification and redemption”
And Paul declared what we should do with all this in verse 31. He wrote that God has done all this for us “that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’” Paul is here quoting from the Old Testament—from Jeremiah 9:23-24; where it says,
Thus says the Lord:
“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 9:23-24).
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And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; if we will do that—if we will truly cease from glorying in human wisdom, or human might, or human riches; and instead, glory in being “in Christ” who becomes all things for us—then we will also cease from being divided from one another! We will—together—just be ‘nobodies’ that God has made into His glorified ‘somebodies’ by grace in Christ!
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