The Compelling Cross of Christ
Text: 1 Corinthians 1
Proposition: The compelling cross of Christ is both a destination and a launch pad that invites in unmistakable ways our mind, will and obedience to faith in Jesus.
Introduction: This morning I’d like to talk with you about the compelling cross of Christ. It sounds like a strange place to start a sermon but the cross of Jesus Christ is first a destination point drawing us to a place of safety, identity, purpose and love and then once there it becomes a launching pad that impels us out with mission, faith and obedience.
I first heard about Karen because her daughter was a school mate and friend of my daughter. The girls were just in grade four. Karen was a single Mom, she’d had some hard knocks in her life and had become a guarded person, cautious to new friendships. My daughter went to Sunday School and did what kids do, she invited her friend. That meant Mom had to bring her to church which she did but only to drop her off and leave immediately. It soon became evident that her daughter loved coming to Sunday School and to church. Over the course of that year Bridget came to a faith in Jesus as her Lord and her Savior. One Sunday Karen came to drop off Bridget and as she stood in the entrance to the church she paused. Marci was there to meet Bridget and as the girls scurried off Karen asked, “Is there a place where adults can go too?” A few months later Karen too came to faith in Christ and her life became an ongoing series of mini miracles. So why did she keep bringing her daughter, why did she pause that day and how did she too become a person whose life was changed forever because of Christ? Let me suggest to you that what she experienced was compelling. You know what I mean when I say compelling? It was like something was pulling at her, inviting her, winning her and drawing her to take a step forwards.
Last week we took a look at how a man named Paul was directed to a city in Greece in about 50AD. It was a city that would make Las Vegas look like a quiet suburb. Corinth was a center for wealth, power, sexuality, a greed of all kinds and it was against all odds that any person there would ever consider the reality of Jesus Christ as God let alone trust in Him as the One Who came to rescue them. And yet Corinth was a place where the cross of Christ was compelling in bringing people to faith in Jesus. Then, as a church, that same cross launched them forward as people made alive in faith and spirit. Have a look at 1 Corinthians 1.
I. The Compelling, Both a Call and a Choice.
Have you ever been swimming under water, maybe doing the length of a pool, maybe training for a Scuba class or just seeing how far you could go? One thing for sure is that at some point you know that you can’t keep going. You are compelled to reach for the surface because air is compelling, life is compelling. The sense that there is something here that I desperately need even though I’m not sure what exactly it looks like is how God calls people to Himself. Paul starts his letter to people who have sensed that compelling of God. He says, “to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord…”. Sanctified means they were set apart from where they had been, called saints, that’s people who are drawn, invited, compelled to have a life that’s different from before. The people of Corinth who became Christians were Jews and Greeks, wealthy and poor, men and women and children who though immersed in a self-serving culture were now part of a family of people who call on the name of Jesus Christ. That term ‘call on’ refers to a way of not just believing in the historical existence of Jesus but rather who now cry out to Him, confide in Him, who now know Him. The call of people to Christ is something that God initiates, it’s He who speaks in a way we can hear. Even though we might have heard something similar in days past, garbled with jargon and stereotypes, now it’s a clear voice that my soul recognizes like air to a drowning man. I know it’s like air because of what comes with it. Look at verses 3,4, “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge.” Grace, peace, context that changes my way of seeing things, it affects what I want to talk about, what I now am learning… these accompany that compelling call to Christ and I begin to choose to know this Jesus more. To know Jesus begins with some historical frame work, when, where, how and why but then it moves from being objective information like a lesson in a math book, factual truth that just is, to becoming subjective information, like reading your own birth certificate, it’s directly relating to you. The subjective truth of Who Jesus is, is directly connected to the cross of Christ. Paul says that the purpose of Jesus coming was, “that you may beblameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Blameless refers to the dismissing of any charge or accusation that God would have against us because of sin. The cross of Christ compels us to see that we all have made wrong choices, corrupt actions, with self- serving motivation. We have sinned, that’s the long and short of it and there is no human being excepted from that. The cross of Christ compels us to agree that God both knows this and has responded to the need it creates. The cross of Christ is the instrument that God used to move the accounting for sin from the ones who could never reconcile that debt to the account of One who was willing to have that debt put upon Him. It’s by of our faith in Christ that we not only agree with God about the debt but also accept the only means for its resolution, the life’s blood of Jesus given for us if we would but accept the gift. That was what compelled the people of Corinth, prostitutes and slaves and merchants and soldiers to believe in Jesus. The cross of Christ is first compelling.
II. The Impelling, a Launching Pad to Faith and Obedience in Christ.
The physiology of our bodies is amazing, nerves, muscles and bone and blood and water all functioning together. What’s evident though is that the way they function is never an end in themselves. When your lungs take in air because the diaphragm contracts and the rib muscles contract creating chest cavity space air rushes into the lungs. But that’s not an end in itself, imagine the result if you could only inhale! The diaphragm and rib muscles need to relax to exhale and the body breathes. It’s the same with the cross of Christ, it compels us to come see, come know, come believe, inhale. Then it impels us forward to now live what you believe, to trust God as a new experience, to live by faith, to choose obedience to Christ, exhale. Whenever any church simply majors on inhaling, being safe in their relationship with Jesus, knowing the Word of God, worshipping on Sundays, then that is like inhaling. If it doesn’t exhale it will begin to get uncomfortable, even a little oxygen starved which would be like being unable to sense and follow the Holy Spirit. It begins to know it’s need and it becomes a critical need because without exhaling the church will in a sense… pass out for lack of oxygen. Exhaling is that work of the church as it goes out with what it believes and knows and is in identity. The church in Corinth had learnt to inhale but not exhale. Look what they had inhaled, “the grace of God… enriched in everything in all utterance and knowledge…you come short in no gift…”. The problem was they weren’t allowing the cross of Christ to be the launching pad God designed it to be, they were refusing to exhale and were on the verge of passing out. Look at verses 10-13, Paul says that the body has started to convulse, divisions arise, disputes over who they follow. They had begun to be oxygen starved in terms of trusting the Spirit of God to make the difference rather trusting in their own wisdom and only having confidence in what they could see. So Paul says in verses 18,19, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”
So to exhale, to allow the cross of Christ to be the launching pad God designed it to be for the world, demands not just an acquisition of knowledge but a dispensing of it, not just an acquiring of faith but an exercise of it, not just a trust in God but an obedience to what He commands. That can look like many things but know this for sure, it does not hinge on your perfect readiness, availability or connections. To know Jesus as the One who came to save you is compelling. To now let Him direct you with the wonder of this is the impelling work of the Holy Spirit evident in you.
Next week let’s talk about what capability looked like to Paul as he found himself being launched out as a disciple of Christ with the impelling message of the cross of Christ as the most strategic truth mankind could ever know.