Passion of Christ and his purpose for
us
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
Boasting in any shape is offensive to God. And as much as we would like to assume that all the
proud, self-inflated humans are outside the church, that simply isn’t real. Prideful, man-made
faith is all around us. The secular humanists declared in their manifesto that we cannot wait
around for God to come and save the human race. Prideful religionists say they're just the ones
God has been waiting around for because they are so good!
The problem with a lot of man-made religion is that those who practice it are measuring
themselves by the wrong standard. Paul wrote to the prideful church in Corinth about those who
“measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves” (2 Corinthians
10:12). We will always find someone worse than ourselves to measure ourselves against, and
when we do that we come away looking pretty good—or so we think.
But the standard we as believers are called to follow is not each other, but Jesus and Him
crucified. It is on the cross of Christ that we see ourselves and our sins in all their ugliness. In
Galatians 6:14 Paul set the real standard for our self-evaluation: “God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I believe that we have established the centrality of the cross in Christ’s passion. Therefore, I want
to spend the final chapters of this book dealing with the question of Christ’s purpose for us in His
passion. That is, having seen Jesus on the cross, how are we now to live?
That’s worth a whole book in itself, but we will limit ourselves to what I believe are essential
attitudes we need to adopt.
I want us to see firstly that the cross excludes human pride. The Bible says, “For by grace are ye
saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man
should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,)
dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). The stark reality of our unworthiness before God leads
us to ask, as did Paul, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded . . . by the law of faith” (Romans
3:27). Let’s consider three truths that reveal this fact.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE METHOD OF GOD’S SALVATION
The reason the apostle Paul said all boasting is sinful apart from the cross is that the cross of
Christ is the only way of salvation. Salvation is in the cross alone, by grace alone, through faith
alone, in Christ alone. We come back to Paul’s statement, “It pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21).
The cross shows man’s total unworthiness for Salvation How does the preaching of the cross
strike a deadly blow to human pride? Firstly, it shows our total unworthiness to receive the grace
of God. When you tell people that there is nothing they can do to save themselves and that
they're going to have to be saved by the crucified Christ and the blood of the cross alone, that
leaves no room for pride. And that is a thorn in the side of many people today.
Have you ever noticed how much of today's marketing and advertising is built around the idea of
what people deserve? We have been told by a popular hamburger chain, “You deserve a break
today.” Advertisements tell us that the products they are selling are the most luxurious or
expensive items available, “but you’re worth it.” We are also constantly reminded, “You owe it
to yourself” or “you have this coming to you.”
The same thing is true in much religious marketing and preaching today. People are told that
Jesus is waiting to solve their confusion or loneliness or lack of purpose. But these things are
completely other than the issue of salvation. The human dilemma is not what sin has done to us
in making us lonely or sad, but the offense that sin is against the holiness of God. Sin is an
affront to God, a clenched fist in His face.
Many “seeker-friendly” ministries tell us you can’t attract people to the church by talking about
sin and the cross and how bad off they are without Christ. But I don’t find in the Bible that God
has done a widening project on the narrow road that leads to salvation. That road begins at
Calvary, and at Calvary human pride is laid in the dust.
What I’m saying is that in God’s sight, we deserve nothing but judgment. If we don’t understand
that, we will never have a sense of gratitude to God. If we think we richly deserve what we are
about to get, we will not feel grateful when we get it. It’s more likely that we will feel very self-
satisfied—or perhaps even angry if someone else got more than we did.
The cross shows man’s total inability To save Himself Ask some people why they think they are
going to heaven and you'll get a grocery list of their good traits and good deeds. But the old
hymn has it right: “Nothing in my hand I bring; only to thy cross I cling.” One of my favorite
stories is of a little boy who came forward in church professing his faith in Christ. The counselor
asked him if he was saved, and the boy answered that he was. “I did my part, and God did His
part, and now I’m saved.”
This didn’t sound right to the counselor, so he asked the boy to explain. “I did the sinning, and
God did the saving.” He got it right. That’s the gospel.
One of our problems today is that we have become too smart and sophisticated to believe the
message of the cross. I would invite you to review our discussion of 1 Corinthians 1:18ff. in
Chapter 7 to remind yourself of God’s opinion of human wisdom. We have more knowledge
today than we have ever had. Yesterday’s fanciful science fiction is today’s technology. And yet
we are in more danger than we have ever been.
On a recent trip I looked around at the people sitting near me at the airport. Across the way was a
man working on a laptop computer. On his right and left were people talking on cell phones.
Down at the end of the row was another person with a laptop, and someone else was working on
a Palm Pilot. And there I was with a pencil and a yellow legal pad! It was nice to see all these
products in use.
We are in a technological transition now that is truly without precedent. It is coming at us so fast,
it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I drive a computer-operated car. My dashboard tells me if I’m
running out of gas, the door isn’t shut, or the trunk lid is open. If I want to transmit a message to
my secretary, neither of us has to be in the office. I can pick up a phone and dictate to her
answering machine while I’m driving. Then when I get home, I can heat my tea in a few seconds
and sit with a remote in my hand watching news reports from all over the world.
There is no question that we are smarter than we’ve ever been, but we are not wiser. And human
wisdom will never lead us to God. He counts it as foolishness because it leads us away from the
cross.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MAKEUP OF GOD’S SAINTS
We also find that we have nothing to boast about when we realize that God has largely bypassed
those whom the world considers to be truly important.
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his
presence. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Not only is the message of the cross a blow to human pride, but the messengers whom God often
uses to tell the story are also a blow to human pride.
For too long the church has been plagued by our fascination with the high and mighty and
famous of this world. A number of us consider that if we can simply get the movers and shakers
into the church, then we’ll get somewhere and gain some stature in the global. Now don’t get me
wrong. We need to share the gospel with people in all strata of society, from the up-and-inners to
the down-and-outers. But the Bible says that very few of the world’s elite have ever come to
humble themselves on the cross. God chooses what the world considers silly people to deliver
what the world calls a silly message. The Greek word for “foolish” is moros, from which we get
our word moron. Now don’t be angered by that. Paul was simply referring to folks who are not
necessarily Phi Beta Kappas or Ph.Ds. If you are, I’m happy for you. And I have some good
news—God can use you too. He will have to work a little harder to do it, but He can. I say that
somewhat lightheartedly, but seriously you are in the minority in the body of Christ, for the rest
of us are pretty common people. Abraham Lincoln once said that God must love ordinary
looking people because He made so many of them. I’d like to paraphrase that and say that God
must love to use ordinary people because He uses so many of them.
I mentioned D. L. Moody in an earlier chapter. Although he was a man of great power and
“street smarts,” Moody was a fifth-grade dropout who was said to murder the English language.
Someone once told Moody that he was offended by his grammar. Moody knew the man, so he
asked him, “And how many people have you won to Christ with your grammar?” Moody also
rode his pony through the streets of Chicago, handing out candy to attract street children to his
Sunday school. He was known in his early days as “Crazy Moody.” But God used him to shake
two continents. Moody was so well-known in Chicago for his zeal for Christ that one time, when
he asked a man on the street about his soul, the man retorted, “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” Moody replied. “Then you must be Moody.”
I think also of Billy Sunday, the Billy Graham of the early part of the 20th century. Billy Sunday
was a former major league baseball player who did some odd things at his crusades. He would
slide across the stage to illustrate how we need to reach heaven. Many people considered Sunday
to be an eccentric crank. His own biographer called him God’s joke on the ministry. But God
used Billy Sunday in a great way because He delights to use intellectually average people.
God also chooses the physically weak to confound the powerful and do His work. When I was
pastoring in Florida, we had a special sports outreach week that included Paul Anderson, who
was at that time the world’s strongest man. He had a great testimony for Christ. His testimony
was basically this: If the strongest man in the world needs Jesus, so do you. But there was also a
time of free testimony. A man who was a paraplegic was wheeled forward in his wheelchair.
Friends lifted him to the platform. He was anything but an athlete. He gave a testimony,
however, about what Jesus Christ meant to him. His face seemed to shine like the noonday sun.
The following Sunday in our church, a young man came forward to profess his faith in Christ. I
asked him when he had been saved. He said, “During the Week of Champions.” I asked him,
“Which night?” “The night Paul Anderson spoke,” he answered. I asked him, “What was it about
Paul Anderson’s testimony that convicted you?” His response was amazing. “To be very frank, I
hardly remember what Paul Anderson said. It was the testimony of the man in the wheelchair.
When I saw what God had done for that young man, and how He had given him victory over
circumstances beyond his control, I said to myself, ‘If God can do that for him, maybe He can do
something for me.’” I have never forgotten that occasion. In that room was the most powerful
man in the world, and yet God used a paraplegic in a wheelchair. Don’t insult God by saying that
He cannot use you.
God also uses people who are economically debased. The word “base” in 1 Corinthians 1:28
means ignoble, from the wrong side of the tracks, without a pedigree. Most of us in the family of
God do not come from a long line of old-money ancestors. Many believers are not necessarily
poor, but in terms of this world they are not the ones who have economic or social clout. Paul
also spoke in verse 28 of those who are not at the highest rungs of the social ladder. These are
God’s little people. They’re not in the Who’s Who of the world; they’re the “Who’s Not.” There
is a very sad story about a woman back in the early part of the 20th century who was a member
of the most elite society of her day. Her family was the upper part of the upper crust. She had a
strict rule in her house that the servants were never to speak to her directly. This woman had a
small child who had fallen ill, and one night while she was hosting a big party in her home, her
child died. The servants caring for the child were distraught, but as they talked among
themselves they agreed that they dare not tell the mistress of the house for fear of what would
happen to them if they broke her rule. So this poor rich woman went on with her party, not even
knowing her child had died. I’m not saying that all of the distinguished, wealthy, and powerful
people of this world are like that. But this story illustrates why it is so hard for people with this
mind-set to humble themselves and bow at the foot of the cross.
Now the Bible doesn’t say that not any mighty or noble people are saved, just not many. I thank
God for those in science, medicine, government, business, and other highly visible public arenas
who love Jesus. But they are not the majority in God’s army. What He likes to do is take the
message of a crucified Savior and use ordinary people to spread that message around the world
and in the doing of that bring glory to Himself. Remember God’s statement that “no flesh should
glory in his presence” (v. 29). He will not share His glory with another.
BOASTING IS EXCLUDED BY THE MANNER OF THE MESSENGERS
The message of God’s salvation and the makeup of His saints reveal that boasting is out of place
for the Christian. But consider now the manner of God’s messengers. For this we go once again
to Paul’s first letter to the prideful church at Corinth. “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came
not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I
determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1).
Preaching Christ Takes the Focus Off of Self
Paul’s message was Christ-focused. Someone may say that seems restrictive. But preaching
Christ is no more restricting to us than swimming in the Atlantic Ocean would be restricting to a
minnow. Everything we preach has to flow from the cross. If our message does not begin at the
cross and lead back to the cross, there is something wrong with it. Of course, Paul preached on
many issues and topics related to the faith. But his point in saying this was that everything he
said was related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
In our pastors’ conferences on Monday mornings, various pastors come and preach to the others.
One dear pastor from whom I have learned much was a black pastor named Brother Brown. He
was a man of great wisdom, and I was eager to hear him preach. But he had not gotten far into
his preaching when he made a statement that startled me. He said, “I don’t preach theology.” I
was sitting there thinking to myself, That’s a shame. You should preach theology. But then he
said something I will never forget. “I use theology—I preach Jesus.” What a marvelous
statement. I have repeated that around the world. That’s what Paul was saying. “I don’t want to
know anything but Christ and him crucified.”
Paul truly had no confidence in the flesh. He continued by saying, “And I was with you in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5). Paul
refused to be an intellectual or oratorical showboat, even though he had all the credentials to pull
it off. He was afraid that people would put their faith in him rather than in God.
