Who Chose Who? – Part 2
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
June 11, 2017
Well, last time we met started looking into this idea of Sovereign Election.
Having already settled the issue of ABSOLUTE INABILITY
• We saw in Romans 5 that Adam killed us all.
• We saw in Ephesians 2 that we were all dead and incapable of responding
• We saw in John 6 that no one can come unless God draws him
So we saw that man is incapable on his own.
This then led us to our next question.
If man cannot initiate salvation then who does?
• And of course the only possible answer is: God.
If God does not breathe at least some life into the dead
Then he cannot even hear the gospel call, let alone respond to it.
So salvation then is a matter of God’s sovereign prerogative
To give life to whom He chooses.
We are talking then about GOD’S SOVEREIGN ELECTION.
And as I told you last time,
This is not a doctrine that comes without massive argument.
I even read you some quotes of prominent evangelical leaders
Who see this as the most evil and blasphemous of doctrines.
Tim Lehaye even said:
“And to suggest that the merciful, long-suffering, gracious and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like this, predestination, which would have us believe it is an act of grace to select certain people for heaven and by exclusion others for hell comes perilously close to blasphemy.”
(MacArthur, John [The Doctrine of Election, Part 1, a sermon on www.gty.org,] code: 90-273)
And perhaps you’ve had similar thoughts on the matter.
• No way God chooses…
• No way God elects…
Well, that’s why we went on our little Bible journey LAST WEEK
To see that God is in fact a God who chooses.
We started with Israel (God’s chosen people)
And walked right into the New Testament
Where we saw over and over the reality that God does have His elect,
Whom He foreknew, and whom He chose.
You just can’t escape the language.
So what do people who reject this doctrine do with all of those verses?
That is simple: they reinterpret them.
They simply take the word and say it means something
Other than what it means.
Let me give you an example.
Ephesians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”
That passage seems pretty clear to me, so what do Arminians or Semi-Pelagians do with a passage like that?
They simply interpret it as groups of people instead of as individuals.
So, “He chose us” doesn’t mean He chose me and you,
It means He chose a group of people.
Well that then begs the question, WHO IS “US”?
• Everybody (well not everybody is saved, so I guess not)
• Gentiles? (obviously not)
• Jews? (couldn’t be)
• Ephesians? (they weren’t all saved)
The only possible answer is that God chose believers.
Let me give you another one, and this one is probably the most famous.
Romans 8:29 “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;”
Perhaps you’ve heard this point.
Foreknowledge simply means that
God just knows ahead of time who will be saved.
Now, the problem there is that in Romans 8:29 “foreknew” is a verb
Which means it is something God does. He foreknows people.
When people try to say that God just knows ahead of time they are using “foreknowledge” as a noun, which doesn’t work.
But perhaps you’ve heard that foreknowledge simply means
God knows ahead of time.
Well, can I tell you that this still doesn’t solve the problem?
So God just knows ahead of time who will be saved.
You say, “Yes”.
Then I have to ask: If God knew that some people would not be saved, then why did God create them?
So people say, “No, God didn’t know specifically.”
And you just jump into the “open theism” debate and say,
“No, God doesn’t know ahead of time who will and won’t be saved, He just creates men and hopes for the best.”
Well surely by now God has to have seen that the majority of men love sin and reject truth, so at what point would you call God cruel for not doing a better job of reading the data and just pulling the plug on the whole thing?
See, you never escape it.
But because it doesn’t taste well,
We try to say election is just a broad term for a group of people,
Foreknowledge simply means God knows ahead of time
And predestination just means that
God determined for you to hear about Jesus.
I know that’s how I grew up hearing it
And that’s how I believed it for many many years.
God doesn’t choose, God doesn’t foreknow (in the verb sense)
God doesn’t’ elect, God leaves all that up to the sinner’s free will.
Well, LET’S SAY THAT’S HOW YOU BELIEVE IT,
And even though we saw all those verses last week,
You still want to hold on to that way of thinking.
Then tonight I want to challenge your thinking a little.
Let’s now get to 1 Corinthians 1.
And just to save some time, the backdrop here to this passage
Is the boasting of the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 1:10-11 “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.”
And that isn’t the only time their boasting is mentioned in this book,
But you get the idea.
• They were looking for ways to distinguish themselves as more important or
more holy or more devoted than the person in the pew next to them.
• It was a bunch of people flexing their pride and their spiritual resume, seeking
to feel superior to their fellow brothers and sisters.
Paul’s answer to that arrogant boasting comes here.
And he simply seeks to point out to them
Who they were and why they were saved.
And there are 4 things we learn in our text tonight.
#1 THE ELOQUENCE OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:26
I do want to help you see a natural progression.
This text has a definite skeleton or structure to it.
Paul takes three characteristics and follows throughout the text tonight.
1) WISDOM
2) ABILITY
3) WORTH
Paul will continually refer to these three characteristics in this text.
And you will notice first tonight,
That those who are called of God had NONE OF THEM.
“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;”
One could almost say, that in order to succeed in life,
A person must have 1 of 3 things.
1) BE SMART – and education
2) BE SKILLED – a skill (such as sports)
3) BE SPECIAL – have a rich family
And in general those are three areas that make a person successful.
But notice what Paul says about what type of people
The Corinthians were.
“were not many wise”
In other words, these were not the brainiacs of ancient Greece.
It could mean they did not have a formal education,
But it could also mean they lacked the street smarts simply to survive.
There were not many who were deemed as “wise according to the flesh”
“not many mighty”
The word here is DUNATOS, and it is sometimes translated “mighty”
For example:
Acts 18:24 “Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures.”
Many times, this word is translated
“possible” as in “with God all things are possible”
And it carries the idea of a person with ability.
Someone who has the ability to do something else.
They are skilled in an area.
They can do something that perhaps someone else cannot do all that well.
But as you will notice,
The Corinthians didn’t have much of that going for them either.
Paul also notes that:
“not many noble”
The word here is EUGENES (you-gen-ace)
“Eu” = well
“Genos” = family
So it would speak of a person who came from a good family,
And was ahead in society because of their family status.
And yet Paul says that there weren’t many of those in Corinth either.
And so the point is that when God called the Corinthians,
It wasn’t because they were worthy to be called.
AND THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MOMENT.
WHAT DO YOU THINK GOD SAW IN YOU?
John 2:24-25 “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”
God didn’t call you because
He saw in you something exceptional and special.
Our world has spent billions on the notion of “SELF-ESTEEM”
Trying to convince people of their inner goodness, and their inner worth
It plays right into the ego driven society that we have.
Where everyone is looking for an area
In which they can boast in regard to their goodness.
BUT SELF-ESTEEM MAKES PEOPLE FURTHER FROM SALVATION.
But when Paul asked the Corinthians to look back over their lives, do you know what they found?
NOTHING.
• They weren’t smart…
• They weren’t skilled…
• They weren’t special…
And yet God called them anyway.
For when it comes to salvation,
God calls those who are down and out.
In fact, look at the first beatitude.
Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
But you see Paul’s point.
Don’t boast about being something special.
God didn’t choose you because you were special.
I KNOW THAT IS HARD TO SWALLOW, BUT LET’S GO ON.
The eloquence of the called
#2 THE EXPLANATION OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:27-29
Paul just said that when God called you,
There wasn’t much noteworthy about you.
“but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise,”
Paul’s second reference to WISDOM
And he points out that God didn’t choose you because you were wise,
Instead God chose you because you were “foolish”.
God chose “foolish” people on purpose.
WHY? – “to shame the wise”
He goes on
“and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong”
Paul’s second reference to ABILITY
God didn’t choose you because you were strong,
But rather He purposely chose you because you were weak.
WHY? – “to shame the things which are strong”
And look at Paul’s third point.
(28) “and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,”
Paul’s second reference to WORTH
“base things” translates AGENES (a-gen-ace)
“A” = not
“GENOS” = family
In other words, you were of no reputable family,
And that is why God chose you.
You were a nobody, a figurative orphan in the world.
“despised” translates EXOUTHENEO
Paul will use this word later.
1 Corinthians 6:4 “So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?”
You were literally of “no account” in the world
Then Paul really drives it deep.
“things that are not”
Meaning you had no worth.
It wasn’t that you were rejected,
You weren’t even noticed to begin with.
Reminiscent of that Ezekiel 16 forgotten baby
We saw a couple of weeks ago.
And Paul says that God specifically chose us like that.
WHY? “so that He may nullify the things that are.”
• God chose the dumb on purpose…
• God chose the weak on purpose…
• God chose the despised on purpose…
To make a point that man’s wisdom, man’s ability, and man’s status are of absolutely no benefit in regard to salvation.
His choice was a slap in the face
To man’s wisdom, man’s ability, and man’s status.
DON’T YOU EVER GET SICK OF THE ARROGANCE OF MANKIND?
People who think they are important because they are so smart?
And yet none are smart enough to figure out how to get to heaven.
People who think they are so talented?
And yet none are talented enough to avoid the grave.
People who think they are so important?
And yet none are so important that they get to remain forever.
Well God is sick of their arrogance as well.
Instead God chose the dumb, the weak, and the despised
In order to shame them.
God purposely selects the rejected
In order to shame those who think they are so special.
(29) “so that no man may boast before God.”
Could you imagine heaven of God called those who thought they were worthy?
Every conversation would be about why I deserved to get here,
Or how I got here, or the way I figured it out.
THAT IS WHY HE CALLED THE WEAK.
The eloquence of the called
The explanation of the called
#3 THE EQUIPPING OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:30
Now here you will notice Paul’s third reference to:
WISDOM
ABILITY
WORTH
First notice the grace involved.
“By by His doing you are in Christ Jesus”
If there was ever a verse
That squashed the notion of works salvation, this is it.
The only reason you are in Christ is because God did it.
Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
• You weren’t smart enough to choose Christ…
• You weren’t strong enough to claim Christ…
• You weren’t important enough to deserve Christ…
You are not saved because you did anything at all.
Salvation is “by His doing”
And look at what He did.
“by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,”
We did not have anything the world thought was noteworthy in an intellectual sense, and yet God chose us, and instilled wisdom to us.
He gave us Christ.
He gave us the Holy Spirit.
He imparted wisdom to us.
Earlier Paul told the Corinthians
1 Corinthians 1:4-5 “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge,”
God took the foolish, chose us, and then gave us wisdom.
Paul continues.
“who became to us…righteousness and sanctification”
We had no ability.
We had no way to distinguish ourselves at all.
Not to fear, God gave it to us through Christ Jesus.
Mike Trout appears set apart on a baseball field…
Tom Brady is set apart on a football field…
Michael Phelps is set apart in a swimming pool…
Ussain Bolt is set apart on track…
But I am set apart in this world because I am righteous.
I didn’t achieve it, God gave it to me through Jesus Christ.
And still Paul continues.
“who became to us…redemption.”
We had no worth, until God bought us back.
And now, we are members of the most esteemed family every born.
When Bill Gates dies I will not inherit a penny of his estate,
But when I die, I will inherit all of creation, for I am a co-heir with Christ.
We were literally like that China-baby on the sidewalk.
No wisdom
No ability
No worth
And that is why God called us.
So that when He gave to us wisdom, and ability, and worth,
The only One who could receive any glory from it would be Him.
The Eloquence of the Called The Explanation of the Called The Equipping of the Called
#4 THE EXPECTATION OF THE CALLED
1 Corinthians 1:31
Notice that “so that”
It is vitally important.
“so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boas in the LORD”
DO YOU SEE PAUL’S POINT NOW TO THE CORINTHIANS?
You are all running around looking for a reason
To boast in something you have done.
1 Corinthians 1:12 “Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”
You constantly run around trying to prove
• Why you are important to this church,
• Why the church could not go on without you,
• Why we should all bow before you, give you your way, and worship the ground you walk on.
BUT YOU HAVE MISSED THE POINT
• You would not even be worthy if God hadn’t given you worth.
• You would not be here if God hadn’t chosen you.
• God wouldn’t have chosen you if you in yourself weren’t worthless.
None of us have one single thing
That we can boast about in this life.
Christians ought to have
The absolute worst self-esteem
And the highest God-esteem in the world.
That is the problem with the Church.
We all run around looking for ways to esteem ourselves,
When we are commanded to “boast in the LORD”.
Romans 3:27-28 “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
Paul will tell the Corinthians later:
1 Corinthians 4:7 “For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
And that is precisely Paul’s point.
Quit elevating what you have done,
And start bragging about what God has done!
God did it all, and He deserves all the glory!
1 Corinthians 1:30-31 “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
SO YOU SEE THE TEXT.
Here is what I want to do now.
For just a moment I want you to DENY the doctrine of divine election.
Go ahead and take the other side of the issue.
• Tell me that God does not choose individuals for salvation.
• Or Tell me that God just chose everyone and the reason not everyone is saved is because everyone didn’t choose God in return.
• Tell me that God merely foreknows ahead of time what choice I will make.
• Tell me that predestination is nothing more than be being exposed to Christ so that I will have the opportunity to choose Him.
Take that train of thought.
That is the Arminian position, that is the Semi-Pelagian position.
By chosen it just means that God chose you after you first chose Him.
SO TAKE THAT DOCTRINAL VIEW.
NOW:
EXPLAIN THIS TEXT TO ME
If it doesn’t mean God chose me when I was incapable of choosing Him, then what does it mean?
I mean what is Paul’s point?
Stop boasting!
• You’re not wise (even though you were smart enough to choose Christ)
• You’re not mighty (even though you were strong enough to overcome the flesh)
• You’re not noble (even though you took the high road when everyone else didn’t)
I mean that kind of kills the whole point doesn’t it?
Paul gives the point as “So that no man may boast before God.”
But if I chose first and if God only knew what I would do,
And I was willing to respond after being predisposed to the gospel,
Then absolutely I have something to boast about.
SO WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THIS TEXT EVEN MEAN?
It can only mean one thing.
• It can only mean that God chose me, the man too dumb to choose Him.
• It can only mean that God chose me, the man too weak to choose Him.
• It can only mean that God chose me, the man too unimportant to choose Him.
That’s all it can mean,
Any other doctrine and this passage makes no sense at all.
Furthermore, how can a person only boast in the Lord
If salvation is a cooperative effort?
Maybe they boast mostly in the Lord, but they can’t boast only in the Lord.
Do you see?
There is no other way to see it.
• When the Bible speaks of God choosing, that is what it means.
• When the Bible speaks of God electing, that is what it means.
• When the Bible speaks of God foreknowing, it doesn’t just mean He knows ahead of time, it means He brings to pass that which He desires.
You can hate the doctrine of divine election, but that doesn’t make it false.
GOD CHOOSES THOSE WHO WILL BE SAVED.
Now, that doctrine is met with cries of “That’s Not Fair!”
Some come back next time and we’ll talk about that.
