1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Sermon

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

What’s Church For? Power

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. (NIV)

Ask a guy what his idea of power is and he might mention an NFL linebacker bearing down toward the quarterback at full speed, or a hemi under the hood of truck, or his collection of power tools that adorn his man cave.  A woman might have other ideas of power, probably being more likely to speak to how a book or movie was emotionally stirring and powerful.  A child’s idea of power might be a strong, invincible father, or a frightening thunderstorm.  Different ideas of power abound.

The church has always served as an example of power, unfortunately both good and bad.  Bad examples of corruption and the abuse of power show up in history where the church has lost its bearings and gotten tangled up in secular ideas of power, blurring the line between church and state.  But good examples of the church’s power are also evident. A look at the names of various hospitals, universities, shelters, and other buildings and organizations established to benefit society would indicate that the church also had the power to make positive contributions that served to benefit all people.  

But one wonders how many outside church would still point to the church as an example of power today.  In fact, the perception increasingly seems to be that the church is not for the strong or powerful, but for the weak.  It’s perceived as being for those who need a crutch or who don’t have the strength of character to go against the current and stand up for themselves.  Many feel church is for the weak, and the trend of dwindling numbers of men in the pews may reflect that perception.  After all, church is where we hear about love and feelings and emotions – not manly stuff; not the stuff that pertains to power in the eyes of most men.

This morning we continue to hear from one man who thought differently.  As Paul continues his letter to the Corinthians this morning, he asserts that, contrary to what may be popular belief today, church is for power.  And if one wishes to test Paul’s credibility or manlihood, remember that this is the man who endured no small amount of suffering for the sake of the church.  If anyone manned up for the church, ironically, the very church which he had previously been intent upon destroying, it was Paul.  He was shipwrecked, stoned, and starved, sleep-deprived and beaten. He was jailed and flogged.  Paul was no sissy.

Paul isn’t the only one.  When we consider God’s record of powerful acts throughout history, there is plenty that points to power in the church, as God acted in defense of, and at other times, against, his people.  Think of the accounts that clearly served as shows of God’s power.  The expansive universe and every microscopic detail that is a part of it – all of it was created by his powerful word alone.  Every square inch of surface area on the earth – submerged beneath a suffocating Flood.  Fire rains down on a wicked city, consuming it.  Thunder cracks and trumpets blast terrifying sounds from a smoke-smothered Mt. Sinai.

Yes, God’s power has been prominently on display since the dawn of time.  But that kind of power wasn’t the power Paul was referring to when writing to the Corinthians.  The power he was referring to was the power that was displayed on the day of death known as Good Friday.  The power he was referring to was the power that was displayed three days after that on the day of resurrection, the day of life eternal, the day of Easter.  No greater display of power in the world and in history had been witnessed like the power over death that brought life.  That was the power to which Paul had committed himself while with the Corinthians, as he explained, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (v.2).  And why should he?  Why should he bother with anything else when nothing else is so powerful as the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified?

Paul shows so clearly that he gets it, doesn’t he?  The believers in Corinth had myriad problems and sins that needed to be hashed out and dealt with.  Things were not looking pretty in Corinth.  Their congregation would not have served well as the model church you’d put on display if trying to sell someone on the benefits of church membership.  Ah, but that’s just it.  Paul recognized it wasn’t the caliber of the congregation that mattered, but rather the content of the message by which it stood.  In that regard then, Corinth actually did serve as a fine example of what church was for – its failures were the perfect showcase for God’s power.  Paul’s confidence in shepherding the believers there was not based on their past performance that led him to believe with the right coaching things would turn around.  No, his confidence was in the power of the gospel – Jesus Christ and him crucified – that alone was able to turn things around.  That was the same confidence Paul expressed when he wrote to the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of salvation for everyone who believes” (1:16).  Paul knew that the gospel alone had the power the Corinthians needed to aid them in all their troubles.  There was no greater power in the world than the gospel.

Still today we can say that there is no greater power in the world than the gospel.  We just had our Annual meeting last Sunday.  When we reflect on things like the number of baptisms or confirmands, when we look at averages for worship and Bible class attendance, what are we really seeing?  We’re seeing evidence of the power of the gospel at work.  When we discuss plans pertaining to a preschool or starting worship at a second location, what are we demonstrating?  We’re demonstrating that we have confidence in the power of the gospel, and we want to explore any and every possible opportunity for that powerful gospel to be communicated, so that it might bear fruit as God determines.

But we also have to consider that someone could come to another conclusion on the basis of the aforementioned statistics, or at least raise some questions that deserve to be asked.  For example, when worship or Bible class attendance decline from one year to the next in a congregation, or over the course of a few years, is there need to ask if such a trend is because some are questioning the power of the gospel, and therefore conclude that being in the means of grace, the gospel in Word and sacrament, doesn’t really make a difference?  Is it possible that a congregation’s worship attendance declines because its members are not availing themselves of opportunities to communicate the gospel to friends and relatives, or invite them to hear it in worship, because, well, they just don’t think the gospel will work on them?  Is it possible for a Christian congregation to struggle to move forward because, even though it may recognize the power of the gospel, it doesn’t want to give the work of that gospel precedence over personal preference and convenience in how things are done?  Or, might a congregation be tempted to go too far in the other direction and implement questionable or unwise practices that are witnessed in other “growing” or “successful” churches because, well, the gospel just doesn’t seem to be getting anything accomplished?

We cannot say with certainty that it’s a lack of confidence in the gospel that would be the root cause of these sorts of issues.  However, it is necessary for each and every Christian to consider such possibilities, for each of us to ask these questions of ourselves, so that if a lack of confidence in the power of the gospel is exposed in our hearts, each of us can take that sin before the Lord and confess it.  And when we do that, then we will have the opportunity to again be reminded of just how powerful the gospel is.

How powerful is it?  You’re forgiven, I’m forgiven for our failures of putting complete confidence in the power of the gospel.  How ironic that the very tool that we would question or doubt, the gospel, is able to turn around and give a demonstration of its power by assuring us that such questioning and doubt has been paid for and forgiven.  I know – it shouldn’t be this way, should it?  We don’t deserve to be shown any mercy by means of the very gospel that we at times turn away from or neglect.  It should be one and done with the gospel; we get the chance to hear it and see it at work, and, if after witnessing that, we ever question its power again, God should rip it away from us and give it to someone else who cares!

But he doesn’t do that!  Instead he continues to entrust that very powerful gospel to you and me, to his church, that it might demonstrate its power again and again through the pronouncement of forgiveness, secured for you and me at Calvary.  Now do you understand why Paul “resolved to know nothing… except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (v.5)?  There simply is nothing else so powerful in all the world that is able to forgive the very sinners who are guilty of doubting or despising its power.  And Paul was so confident in the gospel that he didn’t want to present any possibility of confusion.  He did not want anyone being led to believe that the power was really in his eloquence, or that it was really because his wisdom allowed him to craft such a convincing message, or that his ability to turn a phrase or his way with words was really the power at work.  Paul’s message was always the proclamation of Jesus’ life and death as Substitute and Savior.

May that always be our message as well, for God has entrusted the power of his gospel to believers, the Church.  Let our proclamation, our message, never be like the weathervane, which points in whatever direction the winds of popular opinion and preference are blowing.  Let our proclamation instead be like the compass, which no matter the conditions, always points in the same direction, and that direction is always to the cross and the One crucified on it.  And, dear friends, if that is to be our message, the proclamation of the powerful gospel, then let us encourage one another to hear it.  That power is what church is for.  Amen.

                                                               

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)