CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Opening Joke - Three sisters, ages ninety-two, ninety-four, and ninety-

six, lived together. One night the ninety-six-year-old drew a bath.
She put one foot in and then paused. "Was I getting in the tub or out?"
she yelled.
The ninety-four-year-old hollered back, "I don’t know; I’ll come and
see." She started up the stairs but stopped on the first step, shouting,
"Was I going up or coming down?"
The ninety-two-year-old was sitting at the kitchen table having tea,
listening to her sisters. She shook her head and said, "I sure hope I
never get that forgetful," and knocked on wood for good measure.
Then she yelled, "I’ll come up and help both of you as soon as I see
who was knocking at the door."

Sometimes we see the weakness in others without seeing it in

ourselves, but we all have areas of inferiority.

All of us at times struggle with inferiority issues in our lives. Maybe it

is we feel inferior to others, or we feel others are inferior to us.

Paul in 1 Corinthians is dealing with a divided church. Some felt

superior to others based on our persuasion and affiliation. Because of
that, others felt inferior and thought God could not use them.

Proposition - Paul gives us three outstanding principles to remember as

we consider our service to God.

Principle 1. God’s selects average people.

God takes ordinary people and does extraordinary things.

Survey - How many people here have been….

Listed in Who’s Who?…
Won and athletic award?…
Were Valedictorian?…
Were beauty queens?…
Class president?…

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 CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Voted most likely to succeed?

If you raised your hands for any of these, God can use you too, but
he will have to work a little harder.

Read - v. 26

A. The minority God sometimes uses.

V. 26 - “not MANY wise men…” “not MANY mighty…”

“not MANY noble…”

Illustration - Lady Huffington was a part of English nobility who

was came to Christ through the revivals of Whitfield and was
friends of John & Charles Wesley. But she would often testify
that she was saved by an “m.” People would question how
were you saved by the letter “m”? She would take them to this
verse….not Many noble. She said it could have said “not ANY
noble” but God put the M and it meant she could be saved.

Illustration - The Apostle Paul was in this minority. Paul was…

Phl 3:5 KJV - Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of
Israel, [of] the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews;
as touching the law, a Pharisee;
Phl 3:6 KJV - Concerning zeal, persecuting the church;
touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
Phl 3:7 KJV - But what things were gain to me, those I counted
loss for Christ.
Phl 3:8 KJV - Yea doubtless, and I count all things [but] loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them
[but] dung, that I may win Christ,

B. The majority God most time chooses.

Read - v. 27 - “God has chosen….foolish & weak

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 CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Read - v. 28 - “God has chosen….base things & nobodies

Just look at the disciples Jesus called….

Fishermen, tax collectors, Galilean farmhands and peasants.
The only “gentlemen” He chose was Judas of Judea and look
how that turned out.

From this rag tag, motley crew of disciples, Jesus used them to
be the impetus to reach and change the world! In fact at one
point it was said of them they “turned the world upside down.”

Peter, James and John who when they were born in Capernaum
probably thought they would die there a simple fisherman.
Little did Peter realize he would be the mighty evangelist of
Pentecost and begin a movement reached not Jerusalem but the
uttermost parts of the earth.

All from a simple, average fisherman in Capernaum.

God specializes in taking ordinary people and doing

extraordinary things.
But how does God do that? That leads me to the next principle.

Principle 1. God’s selects average people.

Principle 2. God’s supplies amazing power.

Read - v. 30

HERE IS THE SECRET OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE - God

doesn’t want me to do something for Him, He wants to do
something through me.

Gal 2:20 KJV - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet

not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me.

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 CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

God I am tired of being INHIBITED and I want to be

INHABITED by your power!

Now what happens when average ordinary people like us are

INHABITED by his power….

God’s power is confounding to the world. V. 27

Confounding καταισχύνω kataischynō - Victory in the shame and
disgrace of enemies

There are four ways God’s power is confounding to the world when
we are inhabited by God’s power….

A. God’s power in the foolish confounds the wise.

Illustration - Billy Sunday was the great evangelist of his day.

He was not like today’s evangelist. He was an ex-baseball
player. He would use slang language. He would do acrobatics
in the pulpit. He would do a back-flip to illustration repentance.
Billy Sunday was used to lead a million people to Christ.

Many times young men go to seminary to learn all the correct

techniques and homiletically structures, but God doesn’t use
them. They end up being Dr. Tinkling Cymbol and Professor
Sounding Brass.

God chose Billy Sunday to take the foolish to confound the wise.

B. God’s power in the weak confounds the strong.

Illustration - Life Without Limits :: Nick Vujicic (Voy-a-chich)

“If you can’t get a miracle - be a miracle.”
POWERPOINT SLIDE - LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS BOOK

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 CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

C. God’s power in the lower class confounds the upper

class.
v. 28 - “base things” - ignoble

Illustration - Gideon was on the threshing floor in the backside

of a corner hiding out. The Angel of the Lord finds him and
calls him a “Mighty Man of Valor.” “I have chosen you to
guide my people to release.” Then Gideon reminded the Lord
he was from the poorest family in Manessah, and was the least in
his father’s house, and Manessah was the poorest tribe of the 12.

Gideon the weakest in the poorest family of the poorest tribe.

But God took a low class general, a nothing arm (300 men) and
did something great and God got the glory. WHY?

Judges 6:34 - “The spirit of the Lord came upon (clothed)

Gideon”

D. God’s power in the nobodies confounds the

somebodies.
V. 28 - things that are not - the nobodies
v. 28 - “bring to nought” - καταργέω katargeō - to nullify

Illustration - There was a Sunday School teacher, Edward

Kimball, who was burdened for a student in his class. He went
to the show store where the student worked and led him to the
Lord. The teenager was Dwight L. Moody. But had not an
ordinary Sunday School teacher in the background with a burden
for his class, there would have not been a Moody founder of
Moody Bible Institute and Moody Church, and the name sake of
Moody Broadcasting.

Moody wasn’t himself an erudite professor but a rough cob of a

preacher. One time he went to preach for Dr. F. B. Meyer in

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 CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

England. Meyer was eloquent and educated and stately in his

presentation, but Moody murdered the King’s English. Meyer
listened to Moody preach and sat uncomfortably in his seat.
Finally at the time of the invitation the altar was filled with those
who sought to know the Lord. WHY? Because God chose the
nobodies to confound the somebodies.

Principle 1. God’s selects average people.

Principle 2. God’s supplies amazing power.
Principle 3. God’s sovereign absolute purpose.

Read - v. 29

There are no superstars in heaven!

The highest place in the world is not pastoring a church, being an

evangelist, being a missionary, or writing a book. The highest
place in the world for you is to be in the center of God’s will.

And when you are in the center of God’s will God will use you
unimaginable ways and open doors for you that are unstoppable.
Why because it is God working through you and therefore God will
work for you.

Read - v. 31

If you want to glory, glory in the Lord. Not your accomplishments,

awards and attributes. All the glory belongs to God.

Why because you are just an ordinary person with faults and flaws
that God wants to use in an extraordinary way!

Closing Illustration - Let’s suppose I take a $10 bill and I wad it up

and throw it on the ground and step on it. Then I take that beat up
and ragged $10 bill and unfold it and put it beside a nice, new crisp $10
bill. Let me ask you something which $10 bill would be worth more?

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 CROSS CULTURE - God’s Answer To Our Inferiority 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

You say both? WHY?

Because the worth of the bill is not found in where it has been or where
it is going, the worth of the bill is found who stands behind it.

You may be here today and feel ragged, worn out and worthless, but
you are worth something. You have God’s power behind you and He
wants to use you in a mighty way!

1Cr 1:27 KJV - 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;
1Cr 1:29 KJV - That no flesh should glory in his presence.

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