October 22 - 1 Corinthians 1 - "Gospel Significance"

MPC 22nd October 2017.

Jeremy Wales

You don't need to me to tell you the big story in the news right now. It's all over social media. One side is accusing the other of rank dishonesty. The other side is throwing the same accusation straight back. The war of words is escalating, getting more and more heated and no one knows where it's going to end or what it will mean for the world at large.

I refer of course to the conflict between pop queens Beyonce and Taylor Swift, or rather between their fans.

Beyonce fans allege that Taylor Swift's new video Look What You made Me Do copies the style of Beyonce's 2016 video Lemonade. But Swift fans are adamant that Taylor Swift already wore a black crop top back in 2015's Bad Blood so it was really Beyonce who copied Taylor Swift.

Now I don't pretend to be able to sort out such complex issues in just one Sunday morning. I raise it just to ask you to consider: Why do Beyonce fans and Taylor Swift fans care so much?

I think it's because: Who you support says something about who you are. Their significance reflects your significance. So if you're a Beyonce fan and you can make Beyonce look more significant than Taylor Swift, then that makes you more significant than Taylor Swift fans. And vice versa.

You get your significance from who you support.

You see it in music all time. You also see it in sport.

Masterchef's George Calombaris has been in court this week on charges of assault stemming from last season's A-League grand final. Now what makes Melbourne Victory fans and Sydney FCfans get so stuck into each they actually come to blows?

Isn't it because: If my team's better than yours, then that makes me better then you.

You get your significance from who you support.

You see it in politics. One person is like, "Well, I support this party because I'm economically sensible, unlike some people." And others are like "Well, I support this party because I'm environmentally ethical, unlike some people." And so on.

You get your significance from who you support.

You see it in music, in sport, in politics.

Can you see it in yourself at all?

As we look this morning at Paul's letter to the Christians in Corinth, you even see it in people's support for particular Christian leaders.

Have a look there at v12. This is the problem Paul's addressing:

"One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ." Paul says there's divisions among the Corinthians, and it's over which Christian leader they each support.

See one says, "Well, I follow Paul, the one who originally established the church in Corinth. In fact he personally baptised me, so that makes me more significant than you lot."

But another says, "Well, Paul's a very simple speaker really. I can see why someone like you would appreciate that, but for my much more sophisticated tastes I prefer the polished style of Apollos. That's the kind of person I am."

Another says, "Well, that's nice if you don't have any real connections with properly powerful people like I do. You might like to know I'm personally connected to Peter, the founder of the first church in Jerusalem, or as I call him Cephas (he likes me to call him by his Aramaic name)."

And yet another says, "Well, you all sound a lot less spiritual than me. You all need intermediate leaders, while I follow Christ directly. That makes me more significant than all of you."

Now, Paul knows full well that this is perfectly natural,

perfectly normal human behaviour.

It happens with music, sport, politics and everything else, and here it's happening with Christian leaders. People want to assert their significance over other people, and one way they do that is by who they choose to support. It's natural. It's normal.

That's the problem.

Because you see, the gospel, the good news that changes everything - it's meant to change everything.

Especially the way you find your significance.

As Paul says to the Corinthians a little later (3:3-4): "Since there's jealousy and quarreling among you, aren't you worldly? [still thinking like the rest of world who doesn't believe the gospel] Aren't you acting like mere humans, when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos"?"

People who believe the gospel, people who believe the one who died for sin is King, you're meant be changed by that belief. You're not meant to be natural and normal any more, not in the way you find your significance anyway. The Corinthians have believed the gospel, but they haven't been changed like that.

Not yet anyway. And Paul's hope is that they will change,

if only they reflect more deeply on the gospel they already believe.

In the part we read together, Paul basically says there's 2 ways the gospel rescues you from this mess. This mess of asserting your own significance over other people the way people usually do.

The message that the one who died for sin is King gives you 2 new benefits that help you out of that mess. It gives you:

1) A new standard by which significance should be judged

2) A new boast to make about your own significance

Let's look at both benefits together.

1. New standard

First, the gospel gives you a new standard to assess significance. The Corinthians are assessing their own significance and that of their leaders. And the standards they're using are the world's.

They're like: If the world values wisdom, intelligence, education, then I want to be associated with Apollos who has those things.

Or: If the world values power, influence, authority, then I want to be associated with Peter who has those things.

But Paul says: You've got to know something about the world's standards of wisdom and power. They've been proven completely empty and worthless... by the death of Jesus.

See, only the death of Jesus can save people.

Only Jesus stepping in and taking the death you deserve will see you rescued from death in the end.

That's the gospel: the one who died for sin is King.

But if you were to judge the cross of Christ by the world's standards of wisdom and power, how would it fair?

See v22: Paul says "Jews demand signs [of power] and Greeks look for wise[-sounding arguments; that's the world's standards of significance] but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews [because the cross looks so weak] and foolishness to Gentiles [because the cross looks nonsensical]."

But we know the truth, says Paul in v18: The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing [everyone who's dying from a life lived apart from the God] but to us who are being saved [from that] it is the power of God.

That's the true significance of Jesus' death on the cross.

But the wisdom and power of the world don't get you there.

In fact, v21, the world's wisdom and power don't get you any knowledge of God at all. That's what shows, v20, how foolish and weak is the so-called wisdom and power of the world.

Paul says in effect, Corinthians, you're assessing your own significance and that of your leaders by the world's standards.

But if you cared about the world's standards of significance you'd never have seen that the one who died for sin is King.

You'd just have thought Jesus' death was weak and foolish.

So then if you do now see the truth about Jesus, why do you still care about the world's standards that contradict that truth?

Do you see his argument?

Now you might think that only goes for ancient standards of wisdom and power, not modern ones. Well, let's consider it.

When I think of someone today who's wise, educated, intelligent, knows a lot, one of first people that springs to mind is Stephen Hawking. He's the kind of person a lot of people would like to be associated with. His book A Brief History of Time explores how far science has come toward having a grand theory of everything. And if you've read it, and unlike me you actually understood it, I'm guessing you probably wouldn't mind people knowing that about you. That you're smart enough to understand Stephen Hawking. Am I wrong?

But then listen to how Hawking ends his book. He says,

If we do discover a complete theory,... then we shall... be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God.

Hawking admits we've got a long way to go just to understand the physical universe. And if we get there, we still won't know the really important thing: why there's a universe, the purpose of God, the mind of God.

What's clear is that for all Hawking's massive intelligence and learning, it hasn't got him any closer to seeing God's power and wisdom in the death of Jesus.

So if you do see God at work in the cross, why would you try to find your significance by a standard of intelligence and learning that doesn't see God at all?

Or if you think about those who are most powerful and influential in Australia today. I imagine most of us wouldn't mind being close to at least one of these people, depending on your political leaning. And if we were close I bet we wouldn't mind other people knowing that about us. That we were that significant.

But which of them, with all their power and influence, can save people from perishing the way the cross of Christ can?

And if you know they can't, why would you try to find your significance by a standard of power and influence that you know is too weak to save in the end?

Paul says, when you really get the gospel... when you see that the one who died for sin is King... you'll get a healthy disrespect for all the standards of significance the world clings to for no good purpose.

It'll liberate you from caring how you measure up against those standards. It'll push you instead to a new standard of significance:

What does God think of me?

See v25: The "foolishness" of God [in the cross] is wiser than human wisdom, and the "weakness" of God [in the cross] is stronger than human strength, then it's what he thinks that matters, not what the world thinks.

2. New boast

Of course that does raise the question: What does God think of me? Does he think I'm bad? Does he think I'm good? Does he think I'm significant at all in this vast universe that he's made?

To which the gospel answer is a resounding YES to all three.

So bad Jesus had to die for you. So loved he was glad to.

Truly good because Jesus himself is now you're righteousness.

That's what Paul says, see that there in v30: It's because of God that you're in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

Sinners like us were never going to be righteous like God on our own. That's why Jesus had to die for us. But he did die for us.

In his death, he took away our sin making us righteous.

In his death, he took away our uncleanness making us holy.

In his death, he paid the price to redeem us from slavery to sin, setting us free.

So from now on, that's what your boast.

That's your claim to significance.

Not that you're wise or powerful or significant in the world's eyes. That wouldn't really make you significant even you were.

Your boast is that you're significant in the eyes of God, the one whose opinion actually matters.

Not because of anything you've done. Simply because of Jesus.

That's why Paul says, next verse, 31, see that there, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Can you see then how boasting in the Lord is radically different to any other kind of boast? See when you boast normally:

I follow her, or I follow him, or I achieved this, or I achieved that... it's all an attempt to make yourself seem better and more significant than someone else.

That's where boasting in the Lord is different.

It does show why you're significant.

You do matter to God, look what he's done for you in Jesus.

But it doesn't make you any better or more significant than anyone else. Why? Because it's ALL about what God's done in Jesus, and nothing at all to do with what YOU'VE done.

God's been so generous to you in Jesus, you can't achieve anything beyond what you've already received.

As Paul says a bit later (3:21-22):

So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

You've received so much in Jesus you can't add to it yourself.

Which should mean no more boasting as if you're better than anyone else. As Paul says a bit later still (4:7): "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you didn't receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you didn't?"

One of the few bits of A Brief History of Time I understood was the nice little story at the start: A well-known scientist... once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Now, that's the opening paragraph of the book and I must admit I didn't understand much after that. But I can still give you the gist. It turns out the world is not supported by turtles all the way down. That's my summary of A Brief History of Time.

Not very informative, I know. But I can tell you this.

If Paul's right, then our lives are supported by God's grace all the way down. There's no bit in the chain of events that you did better than anyone else that makes you more significant than them.

It's God's grace, his undeserved favour, all the way down.

You don't get your significance from what you've done.

You don't get your significance from who you support.

Yet get your significance from who supports you.

And that is something to let people know about.

That's your boast. That's your significance.

I want to close with just one practical way this gospel view of significance can help us.

I've talked about how our search for significance can lead to divisions. That's what was happening at Corinth. That's we see in so many ways today. But for you, you may see it surface differently. Instead of divisions with other people,

Your search for significance may lead to division in yourself.

Beyonce was on Oprah recently. And talking about it afterwards Oprah makes an interesting comment. She says I've done over 37,000 interviews since 1989. And after every single interview the guest always asks me the same question. No matter how famous or successful or powerful or rich or influential they are, they always ask me the same question afterwards.

What do you think that question would be?

Oprah's interviewed everyone from Barak Obama to Beyonce, yet they all ask her the same question afterwards...

"Did I do OK?"

You'd think Oprah'd be used to it by now. But she says she was still shocked when Beyonce asked it. After all her success, all her number ones, all her awards, all her sell out tours, even Taylor Swift copying her videos, even after all that Beyonce still, like everyone else, isn't sure of herself, still needs someone else to tell her if she's made the grade. Oprah says when Beyonce asked it she just said, "Girrrrrrl, you Beyonce!"

But I guess even Beyonce isn't sure of herself.

And I guess when people aren't sure of their own significance people look to the world to settle it for them. The problem is, then you're enslaved to the world's standards of significance and you're only ever as good as your last assessment from the world. Do you ever feel that yourself?

Well Paul says the gospel changes that. It changes everything.

The gospel offers something better.

Listen to model Paul sets the Corinthians. He says to them, in light of the gospel: "I care very little if I'm judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I don't even judge myself."

Can you believe that? Where does he get such freedom from insecurity? Such freedom from internal division?

Such blissful self-forgetfulness!

Well, Paul gets it straight from the gospel.

From the simple knowledge that the one who died for sin is King. See he now knows what God thinks of him because of Jesus,

He knows he's significant to the one who really matters, so it doesn't matter what the world thinks.

Or even what he thinks of himself!

Wouldn't you like a bit of that? If you would, how can you get it?

Well, you don't get it by moving on from the gospel to something more advanced. You get it by moving deeper into the gospel.

Or rather letting the gospel move deeper into you. Appreciating more and more how this simple message - the one who died for sin is King - really does change everything.

How you evaluate the significance of those around you.

And even how you see yourself.

Table of Contents

October 22 - 1 Corinthians 1 - "Gospel Significance"