5th Sunday after Epiphany
– February 6, 2011
What to Expect!
A sermon based on 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
There
is a book that can be purchased by pregnant mothers titled, “What to Expect
When You’re Expecting.” In it, the
authors try to enlighten the expectant mother of some of the changes they will
experience during their pregnancy - things such as changes in their appetite,
in their mood, in their body, and so on.
The whole point is to help the mother know what to expect.
I
suppose if we were looking for such information on what to expect when we come
to church on Sunday, the inspired words which serve as the basis for our
devotion this morning would do just that.
Paul writes:
1
Corinthians 2:1-5 - When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence
or superior 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 and fear, and
with much 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 men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
So, what is it
that you expect when you come to church?
Or to ask it another way, why do you come to church? Do you come so that you might be entertained
by your pastor? We like to be
entertained, don’t we? We don’t just
have 19 inch televisions anymore, now we have plasma and high-definition with
surround sound, all so that it can appeal to our senses. We have phones with internet access so we can
watch movies and computers that can give us whatever we want at the click of a
button. Is entertainment what you expect
when you come to church?
Or, are you
looking for a message that will address the social ills of our society and
world today? Do you expect a message
that will fit your lifestyle? Too often
the criteria set down when choosing a church is whether or not the message
matches a person’s world-view. But if it
makes them feel guilty or calls them out on the carpet or expects them to
change their lifestyle, well then they don’t like it anymore. Is that what you expect to hear, a message
that simply suits your fancy but never tells you that you are a sinner?
Friends, Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians to tell
them what they should, and should not expect.
He wrote them to remind them what the most important thing they should
be looking for is. And these words still
remind us what we should expect: “When I
came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom…I came
to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were
not with wise and persuasive words…I determined to know nothing among you
except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
You know, I
wonder if the Apostle Paul would have made a very good TV evangelist. Would Jay Leno or David Letterman have had him
as a guest on his program? Would our
senses be pleased to listen to Paul? But
when it comes right down to it, none of that matters. Paul hadn’t come to Corinth to glorify
himself or to start a religious “fan club.” He had come to glorify God. He would have been a failure if he would have
had to wow or woo the people with his speech.
Had he used spectacular speech and philosophy, Paul would have exalted
himself and hidden the very Christ he came to proclaim.
So too, we do
not come to be entertained. It isn’t a
message that matches up with our way of thinking that we need. It isn’t eloquence or superior wisdom or wise
and persuasive words that we should be expecting. Rather than listening for the things that
tickle our ears, we should be expecting to hear a message that touches our
souls. We should expect to hear Jesus
Christ, and him crucified.
Now
to be sure, this does not give your pastor the right to become lazy. He is
not to stop putting work into making the sermon engaging and easy to follow. But it does mean we are not here to see the
man in the pulpit – whoever he may be.
We are here to hear the message of Jesus Christ. We are here because of our desperate need to
have a right relationship with our Lord.
We are here to be fed with His words of life.
So, we cannot
come expecting that our guilty consciences won’t be pricked. That would then mean we would never have the
need to repent of our sins and turn to Christ the crucified. Instead, expect to hear the law used to point out
how hopelessly lost we are on our own, doomed to spend an eternity in
hell. Expect to hear how we can never
work our way to heaven or hope to gain acceptance by God because of our
life. Expect to be crushed by the way we
failed to live up to God’s standards this past week. Expect to feel ashamed of how we failed to
witness to our faith. Expect to feel
guilty that our attitude towards God’s Word isn’t always what it should
be. Expect to feel guilty that we
haven’t always received and responded to his Sacrament of Holy Communion. Expect to be reminded that we have not been brought
to faith because we are “better” than anyone else. Yes, expect to feel the flames of hell…so you
can be comforted with the gospel promise that Christ took the punishment of
that hell for you on the cross. That he
removed your every guilt. That he paid
for every sin.
Jesus rescued us from the hell that we deserved. He went to the cross to atone for our every
sin. Yes, even the ones where we
blatantly disobeyed a commandment; even the ones that seem so small and
insignificant; even the ones when we came to church for the wrong reasons; even
those times when we got angry at having our sin exposed; even those times we
tried to excuse sin – all those and all the rest. That’s why Christ came to our world in the
first place. He came to provide the
righteousness with a perfect life that we couldn’t provide. He came to pay the penalty of our sins on the
cross so we wouldn’t have to. He came
to win forgiveness of sins so we might have a right relationship with God
through faith. He came to be our Savior.
That’s what the shepherds expected to find when they went to
the manger; “a Savior…[which]
is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). That’s
what the wise men came looking for: “the
one who has been born king” (Matthew 2:2).
And that’s what we should
expect and be looking for when we come to church - the message of Christ Crucified
boldly proclaimed; the message that Christ was delivered over to death because
of our sins and raised to life because of our justification; the message that in
baptism we were baptized into his death so that we could be raised to live a
new life every day in thanksgiving to our Savior who rescued us from the depths
of hell.
The Apostle
Paul kept sight of what was most important – to lead people to Christ
crucified. And he was so adamant about
it because he wanted to make sure their faith would rest on God’s power, not on
men’s wisdom.
And
Paul showed them the evidence of the power of the gospel by reminding them that
the church was not built by his wise and persuasive words. He had not persuaded the people into joining
or guilted them in by the law. No!
Instead, the Holy Spirit softened people’s stony hearts with the message
of Christ, and him crucified.
Paul pointed to the love of God for the lost sinner that
changes people’s hearts. This is the
power that makes spiritually dead people alive in Christ. This is the power of which Paul wrote to the
Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel,
because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes”
(Romans 1:16). This is the power of
God that works in the infant, in the ungodly, in everyone sitting here today. This brings a person to faith and keeps them
in faith – not a faith that rests on something as wavering as human wisdom or
your IQ or ability to persuade others, not a trust in the messenger God
sent, but a faith firmly planted on the
words and promises of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified for you.
When we understand this we can understand why we come to
church. We realize we don’t come to be
entertained. After all, you could
find a pastor with more charisma than me.
We realize we don’t come for eloquent speech, because while one week I
might find a good illustration to bring out the point of the text, the next
week I might lose you completely. One
week I might keep you on the edge of your seats waiting to hear what is next,
while the next week I bore you to sleep.
No, we come to receive the ointment that soothes the guilty
conscience. We come to be fed with the
bread of life. We come to gaze upon a
wounded, beaten and dying Savior whom we helped put on the cross, yet hear him
say “I love you. I forgive you.” We come to hear of Christ and him crucified. If we understand
that, then we will be able to handle the fact that some Sunday’s the hymns we
sing might not be our favorite, we’ll be able to look past the slight squabble we
might have with a fellow member, you will get over the fact that pastor didn’t
visit you when he wanted – because you are here to see Christ, and him
crucified for you. Letting nothing stand in the way of this
blessed hour, letting nothing distract us from our need to be here, and let
nothing hinder us from receiving the blessed sacrament.
The story is told of a certain pastor who had wandered away
from the truth of the gospel, and as a result, his congregation was not being
fed spiritually. One Sunday morning he
found a little note in the pulpit that said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” This sent the preacher to his knees in
prayer, as he asked for God’s guidance and blessing. Once again he began to lift up Jesus Christ
in his sermons. Shortly afterward, on
another Sunday morning, there was another note in the pulpit. It said, “Then the disciples were glad when
they saw the Lord.” God’s people are
always glad to hear the message of Jesus and his love. That’s what we need to expect to hear when we
come to church. That’s what we need to
make sure we are hearing. That’s what we
should want to hear. Amen.