“The Case for Christ - Jesus Christ and Him crucified”

‘For I am determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’

This was an explicit affirmation by Paul to the Corinthians in his first letter to them.

It was the one subject that was worth anything at all - the subject of the Person and Work of Christ! That was all!

And, how happy it made Paul when he saw how the church responded as the outcome of his resolve. The godly sorrow that Christ worked in them made the difference in how they handled their situation.

I hope you had some time to read through that seventh chapter of 2 Corinthians that we investigated last week. Paul reminded them how they could look back and see how Christ’s work was so effective. It confirmed his resolve to preach only Christ and Him crucified, as we will see tonight. 

To this point, Corinth was all about ‘sin’ and sin among them was making the preaching of the Cross of no effect.

Were they Christians? Yes - according to Paul’s estimate -  for he did call them ‘saints’.

Were they committed, dedicated, consecrated Christians who lived out from the living Christ within? It certainly did not look that way! They had pushed indulgence and carelessness right on down to the very last degree - and that was not good!

No wonder Paul was so concerned. Yes - he thanked God for the spiritual blessings God had given them through union with Christ (1 Cor 1:4) but where was the move toward godliness in their personal lives and in the church?

So - what was needed and is still needed in the church today - is the message of Christ and Him crucified - that is all!

When Paul spoke only of Christ, Christ was held up as a real Man Who was crucified, died, was buried, rose again, ascended, and is now the living Christ fully at work in the church. His Godhead was always in focus. Both in His humanity and in His divinity, He was worshipped and adored as very God of very God.

Paul was determined not to speak after the manner of smooth-sounding orators of the world, not to know how to think deeply according to the mode of the philosophers, but only to preach Christ - just to set Him forth in His own natural beauties to be discovered in the depth of the heart of the church.

What did he say about that in 1 Cor 1:17?

‘For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made of none effect.’

‘For though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me; yea - woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel.’ (1 Cor 9:16)

There is no point in trying to aim at pleasing an intelligent audience. If we look for one moment of glory there, the glory is short-lived! If we have designs to set ourselves up as a profound teacher, we are headed for our own undoing - believe me!

If we rely on the power of mere persuasion, we are relying upon that which is flesh. If we depend upon the power of logical argument, we again rely on that which is born of men’s reasoning. If we depend on teaching man-made ‘steps’ to spiritual fulfillment, we are still missing the work of the Holy Spirit.

These things are futile, fruitless, purposeless - carnal, is the word Paul used. Those are all of a worldly attitude, controlled by our own desires on the purely human level of the lower nature - they settle absolutely nothing! More importantly - they are hostile to God! (Check out 1 Cor 3:3 and Rom 8:7 for yourself.)

But if we rest upon the naked omnipotence of a crucified, risen, ascended Savior, upon the innate power of His love and believe that the Spirit of God only changes hearts and lives through using the instruments of we weak, poor vessels, then, Christ can minister in the power of His wisdom.

Why must we preach Christ and Him crucified only?

Listen - the first thing is to arouse in ourselves our own sense of sin - to really see that it is not something so trivial that God is just overlooking its seriousness and so, we can, too!

Oh - no - God forbid! Sin cannot be forgiven without an atonement for it. Someone has to pay for the wrong done, just as, in a worldly sense, the world seeks justice for wrong done several weeks ago.

And it is so - even more so - with the Almighty God.
 
Sin is an enormous, crushing burden. Even Christ - when the sin of the whole world was laid upon Him - cried out under it when He was in the agony of His death. If it caused the heavens to react and the earth to shake - as it did - then, what an awful evil sin is!

Are we guilty? Oh - yes - we are! No one of us is without excuse.

But - I have good news - we ‘preach Christ and Him crucified’! That was Paul’s burden! That is still the message of today! It will never change until Christ returns!

And, along with the crushing burden of sin, Paul also wanted to awaken in the minds of the guilty that humble hope that God’s forgiveness is mingled with God’s justice.
Christ is God’s forgiveness! Christ is God’s justice!

There He stands in our place! Christ crucified penetrates the thick darkness of our despair and He makes our penitent hearts hope for pardon from a righteous Judge.

And, once the Holy Spirit opens that to the heart, after that, there never, ever needs to be any doubt - even once - that the heart has seen the crucified Christ Who washed away our sin and did away with guilt. 

And, finally, Paul longed to lead men to actual, daily, living, active faith in Christ and what Christ is able to do now in the one who trusts Him. 

So, he told the Corinthians early on, that they had been enriched in every way in Christ. They had the full power to understand the faith hidden deep in their hearts and to speak of their faith and to speak of the wondrous works of God through Christ in their faith.

Ps 26:6: ‘I will wash mine hands in pureness: so will I join the procession around thine altar, O Lord!’, the psalmist confessed.

And - in verse 7 - the purpose of that washing was so ‘...that I may sing aloud a song of thanksgiving and tell of all Thy wondrous works!’

Oh - what a blessed part of Christ’s church is the people who are full of His love, full of self-denial, a holy and  consecrated people, zealous for good works - who can join that procession around the altar of the Lord and sing aloud of His wondrous deeds! 

That was what Corinth was all about - to put away sin and to lead the saints onward in just being immersed and buried in Christ alone - nothing else.

This would come only by preaching Jesus Christ. Apply faith for spiritual hearing. But spiritual hearing comes by the Word of God, the subject about which the faith has to deal.

The hearing of Christ leads men to the putting of their reliance upon Him.

Yes - ‘What carefulness!’ What earnestness!’ ‘What disgust of the wrong done!’ ‘What desire to clear away every stain of reproach!’, Paul told the church.  

‘Carefulness’ starts with deep godly sorrow that leads to repentance, a searching of the heart before Christ, a bitterness of regret, a stern resolve, and a moving onward in newness. (2 Cor 7:11)

Those are the things that took place in the Corinthians when they came to themselves. That is what comes spontaneously when we submit ourselves to the sorrow that is guided by God.

Spiritual eyes suddenly opened - they, too, joined that procession around the altar of the Lord together with pure hearts before Him. ‘What have we been doing?’, they had asked themselves. ‘We must become more earnest, more fervent, more sober about this life in Christ!’  

This was the attitude taken. Tell me - is this attitude not just as important today with us? Is Christ that vital to us?
Or - do we think we can just continue with a careless, indulgent attitude about Him? How really serious, eager, and passionate are we about Christ and Him crucified? 

I ask you to think about this - to pray about it! It is very important, you know! 

Do you know what makes Christians discontent? 

It is not the differences in our worship, or the ways we may praise our Lord, nor the ways we may express our love to Him?

Oh no - not at all! It is the arguments and the divisions about those things that surround the Gospel - those things that are wrapped around the Good News.

And they can be any number of things: for instance, His second coming, or where He will establish His throne upon the earth, or who will and will not be included in the end-time gathering, or the preaching of doctrine alone, or the preaching of precepts alone, and so on.

Those are all things that are admirable and right in their place and proportion. But - when they are taken out of place and out of proportion and made the end-all and the be-all, beware!

These are not safe selections to get caught up in! They are not what held the heart of Paul to his calling. Those things only ‘surround’ Christ.

Do we realize that the same thing was true of Christ when He lived among us?

People were circling around Him in their opinions and views of Him. Some said He was a devil, some said He was mad. Some said He was a sinner; yet, if He was, some wondered how He could do such miracles. Some said He was a prophet, yet questioned His background.

And on and on they went - just kept going around Him - never to Him and through Him! Those are the things that divide.

If you and I speak only of Christ - of how He has given us life today, in some way or another - we would never be divided. Do we realize that?

Embrace Christ and Him crucified and you are perfectly joined together with others in one mind and one judgment. 

Choose Christ and Him crucified, and you will find that which is always fresh, always new, always suitable to all peoples from all walks of life.

Paul, then, made this the one sole subject among the Corinthians. And - as the record proved - it did not hurt the Corinthians by his doing so. They took him seriously and were borne along in Christ. As they submitted themselves to Him, the Spirit of God led them, step by step, to the right end-result. 

Keep the work of Christ to the front of our beings, and nothing else but this, - and, that will happen each time - believe me, it will!

I do not think, for one moment, that any of us will die looking for consolation from any church doctrine. I do not believe any of us will die hanging on to peculiar truths that depend so much on minute points. 

It is godliness with contentment that is great gain - the godliness that houses Christ in us and will be the hope that is realized at the moment of death. 

Are we still discontented? Perhaps this is a good time to pose a challenge to our hearts!

I hate to think this may be so, but, if it is the case, perhaps the foundation was started with man-derived ‘steps’ or built on our own carnal means and has not been carried along by the Holy Spirit at all! It could be possible that we may need to start back again at verse 10 of chapter seven in second Corinthians! 

For the church to move on into godliness and into the purity of Christ amongst it, I do think we must leave all those carnal things behind and, by the Spirit of God, live spiritually healthy lives.

And, spiritually healthy lives must be lived among our loved ones at home first. That is one of the best places for spiritual life to grow within us, if we would just realize that. 

And we must let the love of our Christ move out to others, particularly to ‘those of the household of faith’.

And we need to attend to the commonplace, routine duties of Christ’s church filled with the love of Christ in spite of the times we may feel used or feel defeated by them!

Do you not agree with me in that? I hope so! 

I will leave these things tonight for us all to ponder this week.

And, as Paul said it, so say I to you: ‘I am determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified!’

So be it! Amen! 

Let us pray!