Hope in the Cross
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ESV
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ESV)
What Kind of Hope?
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. That is going to become the pinnacle of our sermon. Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Recently, Don started a series in 1 Peter entitled “Hope for the Hopeless.” Hope is a funny thing. So often we think about hope only with regards to our problem. If we are having an issue at work, our hope is that our boss will notice and care for us well. If we are having a disagreement with a friend, our hope is that we will agree (or more specifically, they will agree with us). If we have put a little extra weight on, we hope it will magically disappear without needing to do any real exercise or dieting. If our car isn’t starting in the morning, we hope one more turn of the key will finally get it moving.
Hope, in that sense, is our desire to see what we view as the solution to our suffering finally happen. If we could flip over the coin of suffering, we think we will find on the opposite side the solution to our difficulties. And, in turn, our happiness. Hope is the flipping of the coin in our mind. We want to see the opposite suffering, so we dwell on that potential flip, the moment when it could all be different. Often, we try to do what we can to help the coin flip. We have conversations with our boss pleading our case and trying to ease our difficulties at work. We have conversation after conversation to try to convince our friends. We make a schedule and try to do the exercise necessary to lose the weight. We yell at the car, pleading with it to do something different this time.
With all of these, sometimes our efforts work, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes our work, our growth in trying, is exactly what God wants. It is us “working out our salvation with fear and trembling” as Philippians 2:12 says. We are growing in the areas that God wants us to grow in, and learning how to better trust and follow him. Yet, sometimes that doesn’t even work. When it doesn’t work, as Christians, we pray to God and petition him to change everything for us. We know that if God were to will a change, even a passing thought of it, it would be so. This is right and good for us to do. After teaching his disciples the Lord’s prayer, Jesus says to them and us, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9 ESV) And yet, sometimes we still don’t see the solution the way we envisioned it.
It is exactly that problem that we want to deal with today. What kind of hope should we have when we realize that all our hard work, all our prayers, still don’t seem to produce what we thought it should? Or, even better, is there a kind of hope that might put us on a different path from the very beginning, so we might see and savor God differently and hope more rightly?
Corinth & Corinthians
It is exactly this different type of hope that Paul is talking about here in 1 Corinthians 2. If it has been a while since you read 1 Corinthians, here is a quick refresher on Corinth and Paul’s work with them. Corinth was a major trading city and port city in Paul’s day, sitting on the Aegean sea at the South-east corner of Greece. It was one of Greece’s major connections to present day Turkey and Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. Paul had visited Corinth in the early 50s for about a year and half. He then moved on to Ephesus directly east across the Aegean sea, where he settled for the next three years establishing a church there, and from where he is writing to the Corinthians in this letter.
Now, the letters to the Corinthians are very misnumbered. We know from 1 Corinthians 5:9 that Paul had written another letter to the Corinthians which we don’t have. We know he at least mentioned issues about sexual immorality and how they should deal with it (1 Corinthians 5:113; 6:12–20). He then heard reports from others that the Corinthians were confused by what he said and were also divided (5:10), and then he received letters from them (7:1; 8:1; 12:1; 15:12, 35) with other confusion and questions. So, Paul takes the time to pen a substantial letter that has been saved in our canon of Scripture. That means 1 Corinthians is at least the second letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians, but the first we have. That would make 2 Corinthians at least 3 Corinthians, but there may be letters between these two as well.
The numbering really isn’t important, but what is important is that Paul and the Corinthians have had a good, long history with each other—both in person and through correspondence—and they are conversing back and forth with him about the day-to-day difficulties their church is having and what to do. He has been caring for them, as he says, a “father” (1 Corinthians 4:15).
When you look at what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, at first it can look like a long list of separate issues. He talks about divisions in their church over which leader to follow, sexual immorality, lawsuits between believers, marriage, food offered to idols, communion, and so forth. These all seem so different and, like we talked about before, with different outcomes to hope for. Yet Paul goes out of his way to tie them all together with a common hope: Jesus, and him crucified.
Paul’s Summary
This different type of hope is very common to Paul. He talks about it in Romans, Galatians, Colossians, Ephesians, and here in both 1 & 2 Corinthians. Our passage this morning, 2:1–5, is a summary of his hope in Jesus and him crucified. What I am summarizing this morning as “Hope in the Cross.” Let’s look at the passage again:
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ESV)
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Hope in the Cross. Paul is saying that the one thing he wanted the Corinthians to see, to know when they heard him teach, preach, or simply relate to them, is to know Jesus and him crucified. He wanted them to see the cross and to see in it hope. Paul’s main message to the Corinthians is not just reorienting them to Jesus, but he is reorienting them to a different kind of hope. A hope that is based on their identity not on the outcome of their suffering. And he is telling them this hope is seen as you look to Jesus crucified. Hope in the cross.
We will look at the rest of 2:1–5 in a moment, but we first need to unpack this phrase. What does Paul mean when he says he wants the Corinthians (and me and you) to know Jesus and him crucified? What does he expect we will see if we are hoping in the cross and Jesus’s crucifixion in this way?
Lucky for us, 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 is not just a summary of Paul’s hope for the Corinthians but also a summary of his longer explanation in the section just previous in 1 Corinthians 1:17–31. I was trying to be nice to our sermon text reader and give them the smaller section, but we need to turn back just a bit in our bible and look at the section just previous to this one for more clarity. Look at 1 Corinthians 1:17 with me:
“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 not God 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. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1 Corinthians 1:17–31 ESV)
Hope in the Cross: It’s Your Salvation
Look again at these first two sentences:
“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.” (1 Corinthians 1:17–18 ESV)
One of the main messages of the cross is that it is the very power of God. It was through the cross that you and I were saved. That is the very first hope we have in the cross—Hope in the Cross: It’s Your Salvation.
The power of God was demonstrated in the blood of Jesus, crucified on the cross:
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” (Ephesians 1:7 ESV)
Amazingly, God did this for all of us while we were still sinners and not trusting him:
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 ESV)
It’s because of Jesus, crucified, that those who place their hope and faith in him will one day be shown to be victorious before the throne of God:
“And they (the Saints) have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Revelation 12:11 ESV)
First and foremost, this is the Jesus Paul is pointing us to hope in. Our beloved God and Savior, crucified, that we might be in relationship with him again and for the rest of eternity. That is why Paul says here in 1:18 that the cross is “the power of God.” In our main verse this morning, in 2:4–5, Paul says this:
“my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (Ephesians 2:4–5 ESV)
Paul’s very message here means he isn’t talking about miracles or signs or wonders, though miracles often accompanied his message. Here, the power Paul is talking about is the power that God alone has. The power to change hearts, to change minds, to birth out of a cold, dark heart a beautiful bouquet of faith to his glory alone. That is the demonstration of power God wrought in the Corinthians—faith! Faith that rested not on the wisdom of men, but the work God did in each person. A faith that comes from, as Hebrews 12:2 says:
“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)
This is a very different kind of hope. Hoping in the cross puts our hope not in the solution to our suffering or problem, but in a person—God—and his power working in our lives. If you haven’t done that yet, would you consider how Jesus is the power of God for salvation, and he is calling to you to put your faith in him today?
Hope in the Cross: It’s God’s Upside-Down Wisdom
It is this type of hoping that points to the second way we hope in the cross: Hope in the Cross: It’s God’s Upside-down Wisdom. Notice again what Paul says here in 1:17–31:
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God’s plan is “folly” to the world.
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God has said he will “destroy the wisdom of the wise, the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
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It pleased God through Paul to preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.
God did not come as the conquering King first, he came as a suffering servant and saved his people through his blood and death. This is backwards from everything we would expect from an all-powerful, all-knowing God. Yet this plan pleased him. And we already saw from Hebrews 12:2 that it brought him joy to do it this way. This way of bringing about salvation brings God joy and glory, and it demonstrates again and again that salvation cannot be from the power of people in any way shape or form. Salvation must be from God moving hearts to faith. As Paul says here in 1:24–25:
“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.” (1 Corinthians 1:24–25 ESV)
This is such good news to us! Whenever you and I share with others, we don’t have to worry about convincing them or looking good, we simply share the gospel and trust God to do his work. It was never about our power or strength, and it never will be. This can be so freeing to us as we share what we have come to know and love about our God, but I think it comes with a twin truth that we often don’t want to acknowledge quite so quickly.
Hope in the Cross: It’s Your Identity
If we are saved in Jesus Christ crucified, and his crucifixion justifies the upside-down nature of God’s wisdom and plan for us, then our identity is now found in this same upside-down nature. Hope in the Cross: It’s your Identity. What do I mean by that? We see it in 2:1–3 as Paul describes himself:
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom…and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling.” (1 Corinthians 2:1–3 ESV)
Paul was seen as weak and in fear and trembling, without sufficient words or wisdom, and he saw that as a good thing for God to demonstrate his wisdom and power through Paul. Throughout 1 and 2 Corinthians, when Paul talks about weakness, it usually isn’t about sin or even sickness, but rather, how he and we would be viewed by the world. In Corinth, an important Roman city, they expected an orator to come with pomp and circumstance, the equivalent of a rockstar today. Paul would have been expected to be so good at speaking that he earned his living by doing it. For him to work as a tentmaker, in their eyes, meant he was obviously not worth listening to because he had to supplement his income, and even then with a lowly job like leather and fabric work.
This doesn’t bother Paul one bit. As he says later in 2 Corinthians 12:10:
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10 ESV)
Whether it is the “thorn in the flesh” Paul is talking about right before 2 Corinthians 12 that is hindering his ministry, or his lack or oratory prowess, Paul is pleased with these hindrances or shortcomings. Even if he isn’t nearly as productive or comfortable as he would like nor as smooth as others expect, he is pleased if his message is gospel centered and Christ-exalting. He is especially pleased if they see Christ crucified, regardless of the other pressures those around him have, the expectations others would want to place on his work, or the difficulties put in his way. These all demonstrate that the gospel truly comes in the power of God.
In saying all this, Paul acknowledges the upside-down nature of his ministry. Where he should find his joy and where he won’t find it. And we can see that not only has Paul owned this as his identity with the crucified Christ, but he is also lumping you and me into this upside-down nature. He said it this way in 1:26–28:
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus.” (1 Corinthians 1:26–28 ESV)
This is the part that can be hard for many of us. We, you and me, by our very nature of being saved, show how God is not working by the same rules we would all expect. He is not picking the biggest, the fastest, the smartest for his dodgeball team or his Red-Rover group. If he was a third-grader he would boggle everyone else because he would be grabbing the smallest, the slowest, and the weakest for his team. That is me and you. The fact that you and I stand here today, saved by the grace of God, shows he is not playing by the rules the world would expect. That can be hard to swallow, but if we do, we can help the world understand why they shouldn’t be impressed with us, but with the God who could save even us!
Paul goes even further. As we look on in 1 Corinthians through that list of issues we mentioned earlier, Paul continues to show how our identity in this upside-down wisdom of God extends to each circumstance. For example, in 1 Corinthians 1:10–16 and 3:1–9, Paul notes that there are people in Corinth arguing over which of their favorite leaders they are going to follow. Who is better? Paul? Apollos? Cephas? Paul answers with the very unusual, upside-down wisdom of God. None of them! They are all nothing, and none of them did anything to help save the Corinthians. Only Christ did something to save them. They each may have done their job (sharing the gospel, encouraging the church, helping them to grow), but God is the one who did all the work. That is not the same logic the world uses. Someone must be better. Someone must have been more influential or helpful in the process. But Paul says no.
Again, he mentions how some believers in Corinth are suing one another in court (1 Corinthians 6:1–11). Paul says this should never be and is appalled at the bad reputation they are bringing on the name of Jesus. Paul’s solution? “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Corinthians 6:7). Paul doesn’t even weigh who is right and wrong. In the sacrificial wisdom of God he calls the Corinthians to prefer being wronged instead of making the gospel look small. Lose money. Lose reputation. Lose property. Just don’t make the gospel and Jesus crucified look unimportant. Incredibly upside-down wisdom that embraces sacrifice to demonstrate righteousness. Just like Christ.
He does the same thing with marriage. If you become a believer and aren’t married, stay that way. If you become a believer and are married, stay that way. Only change if you are convinced God will not allow you to stay single and not sin. This is so different from the two different messages most of us hear about marriage. From the world, the encouragement is to stay single and live the good life without restrictions and responsibilities. So often from religious circles the encouragement is to marry because that is the only way you can really live out your life for God well. Paul, and God, present a different understanding of wisdom regarding marriage and how to best serve and be wise for the gospel advancement in the Lord with your life.
Again and again, Paul tackles each issue in Corinthians with this type of upside-down logic and wraps our identity and our entire life and decisions into God’s counter-intuitive approach that embraces sacrifice for joy in the gospel and knowing Jesus.
Hope in the Cross: It’s for the Crucifixion of your Flesh
It is here that we probably come to the most difficult part of hoping in the cross. Hope in the Cross: It’s for the Crucifixion of your Flesh.
If we follow Paul’s logic in rejoicing in Jesus, and him crucified, we start with our amazing salvation that Jesus bought at the cross, and we see the power of God that is the only way our salvation can come to pass—both through his work on the cross and in our hearts. We then note the upside-down nature of God’s wisdom and how it is in direct contradiction to the world and what it values, and that is good, even helpful! It continues to point to God’s necessary work in salvation even as we work to encourage others and grow ourselves. As we see this God-centered logic, we notice that it envelops everything we are, even our own salvation as those who are incredibly unworthy, and we realize this hope is not only in the God outside of us who has done everything, but it embraces our new identity as those who treasure the cross of Christ, and his crucifixion, above everything else.
But, if you are like me, the more you look at the different examples throughout Scripture or even just in 1 Corinthians, you begin to say to yourself, “How can I be like this? How can I truly find my identity in Jesus, and him crucified? Can I really look to and hope in the cross of Christ if this is what it looks like?” And there we finally see what Jesus meant when he told his disciples in Matthew 10:38 and Luke 14:27:
“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:38, cf. Luke 14:27 ESV)
And:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24, cf Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23 ESV)
“God, you really want me to forgo defending myself—even when it means I will lose goods, money, reputation—if it will damage the gospel message? God, you really want me to focus more on how I can serve you rather than focusing on whether or not I should be married?” Again and again we realize that, to even begin to live in this identity—an identity rooted in the hope of the cross—we too must go to the cross. We must die to our desires and be more conformed to our sacrificial savior.
“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14 ESV)
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24 ESV)
Conclusion
It is this hope, Hope in the Cross—Jesus Christ and him crucified—that brings us back to the beginning of our questions. This is the hope that doesn’t worry about the other side of the coin. We no longer tie our hope to the solution to a momentary problem. Rather, we tie our hope to a person, Jesus, and his crucifixion. In that we see a Savior who loved us more than we ever deserved and saved us when we could never have saved ourselves. We see the amazing, awe-inspiring logic of God that regards even me and you worth saving, and turns our self-serving nature into sweet sacrificial songs to his praise alone. We are wrapped up in Christ and his crucifixion, so much so that we too need to have our flesh crucified with him that we might even begin to be emblematic of his loving nature.
Oh, Table Rock, would it be so that this would be true of you and me. That we would no longer place our hope on the turn of the coin, but rather in the firm foundation of our loving Savior at the cross. This is a hope that knows that even if the solution is very different than we expected, if it takes years, or if we don’t see God’s plan until we are with him on the other side of glory—it will be good! We know that we can now come to the cross—to Jesus and his crucifixion—and find his love sufficient, his logic awe inspiring, our inclusion in him wondrous, and the death of our flesh joyful!