El Peligro de la Distracción

God bless you. Last week, we began to study 1 Corinthians in the New Testament. And we saw that the apostle Paul, the first thing he had to deal with was a fractured church, a divided church, and the reason why the church was divided, or was in fractions, is because the people of the church, instead of focusing on Jesus, instead of focusing on the message, they focused on the person who was on stage. They focused on the pastor, on the leader, and that I like this pastor more, that I like this leader more, that I prefer this preacher. And they had begun to stick flags, you see, when you stick flags and you take them in your truck, so that everyone knows where you are from, the people of the church began to stick those flags, insignias, saying that I belong to this leader, in the case of Paul. There were some who said, I identify with Paul, the apostle Paul, not this Argentine preacher, and that Paul is the one who gives me my identity. I am of Paul, Paul is mine. And Paul, a follower of Christ, converted after Jesus was resurrected, wrote a letter to them, almost with a heart full of tears, saying, how can it be that they disengaged so quickly? Was I the one who died on the cross for you, says Paul? Was I the one who was nailed to a piece of wood for you, so that you would begin to acclaim me, as if the power was in me? The apostle Paul says, perhaps when they were baptized, what did they say? In the name of the apostle Paul, Amen? Do you belong to Paul? Obviously, what is the answer? What is the answer? Of course not. And Paul will continue his argument that it does not make sense for you to idolize leaders. Of course, you can respect a leader, and you have to respect him. Of course, you have to follow a leader, as long as that leader follows the word of God. But one thing is to respect, another thing is to idolize. One thing is to admire a leader, and to thank that leader for the blessing that was given to you. And another thing is to treat him as if he were your pseudo-messiah,

hoping that he would give you everything that Christ would have to give you. So the apostle Paul, with the same idea, says, it does not make sense for you to put me on this pedestal. I am only a servant of Christ. He is going to say, look at the message that I brought you. The message was never about me, it was always about him. And that is what we are going to see today in the text that we are going to read. If you have your Bible, I ask you to put it up like this. If you brought your copy of the word of God from the Catholic or Christian Church, you will find it in the same place. Lift it up. Come on, loud. No, not loud, loud. What do we say? This is the word of God. Come on Corinthians, we are reading chapter 1, verses 18-30. I am going to read it to you quickly, and then we are going to see piece by piece what the message says. It says like this, The message of the cross is ridiculous for those who are on their way to destruction. But for us, those who are on our way to salvation, we know that it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will discard the intelligence of the intelligent. So where does that leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the specialists in debate in this world? God has made the wisdom of this world seem ridiculous, because God, in his wisdom, made sure that the world would never know him, through human wisdom, He used our ridiculous preaching to save those who believe.

Verse 22. It is ridiculous for the Jews who ask for signs from heaven, and it is ridiculous for the Greeks who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended, and the Gentiles, who are the non-Jews, say that they are pure nonsense. However, for those whom God called to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And that ridiculous plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and the weakness of God is stronger than the greatest human strength. Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the eyes of the world, or powerful or rich, when God called you. On the other hand, God chose you, God chose what the world considered ridiculous to embarrass those who believed to be wise, and chose things that have no power to embarrass the powerful. God chose what the world despised. what is considered as nothing, and used it to turn into nothing that the world considers important. As a result, this is the highest point of this whole paragraph, no one can ever act in the presence of God. To act means to pat your own back. No one can applaud themselves in the mirror, saying, how good that I have God, because I came by my own way to Him. No one. God has united you with Christ Jesus. God made Him the wisdom itself for our benefit.

Christ made us just before God. He made us pure, saints. He freed us from sin. Therefore, as the Scriptures say, if someone wants to be hacked, let him be hacked only in the Lord. This is the end of the Scripture. I'm going to start as I always do. I'm going to give you the main idea of everything I've just read. If you're taking notes, I encourage you to use your pencil, or your cell phone, just turn off the notifications on Facebook and Instagram to be locked in, as some say, these 30 minutes with me. What is the main message of what I've just read? You're going to see it on your screen. The main message, or the main idea is this. It makes no sense to idolize the messenger. Why? Because the message of the cross does not praise your wisdom, does not submit to your demands, does not give you what you want, and does not make you superior. What the message of the cross does is... What does it do? It saves you. In other words, let's lower it a little bit. If you came to church waiting for someone to praise you, to make you feel good, to come out of here saying, how smart I am, how good that the pastor also knows it,

how smart I am, how good that the Bible confirms me, you are in the wrong book. The message of the cross did not come to applaud your own wisdom. Nor did the message of the cross come to submit to your demands. You think that you know what you need from God. So you come to God saying, if you give me this, then I will believe. If you fulfill this for me, then I will serve you. And God says to you, calm down, champion. You are not the one who sets the rules. You are not in the judge's seat. You do not put me in front of you to decide what I have to do for you. The message of the cross does not submit to your requirements. Finally, it does not make you superior, it does not make you feel. If you come out of here saying, how good that I have Jesus, how good that I am better than the rest of the sinners of the Springdale, it is because you did not understand anything. Because when you receive the message of the cross, instead of feeling superior, you feel the smallest and the last in line. The message of the cross came to save you. Can someone say Amen or no? So now we are going to break it down a little bit, and I am going to start with the first part of this message, which is, the message of the cross saves you,

does not flatter you, you will see it on your screen, does not flatter your own wisdom. Look at what the text says, verse 18. It says, the message of the cross is a ridicule for those who go towards destruction. The message that Paul says, the heart of the message, what is it? The cross. The heart of the message is not the messenger. What gives life to the message is not my good ability to explain things to you. The heart of the message is the cross. And for you, maybe that does not surprise you, because right now the cross is a work of art, it is something that you carry in your chest, it is something that we see in cathedrals, it is something beautiful, it evokes the death of Christ. But in the first century, when this was written, the cross was one of the most cruel ways to kill someone. I do not know how much you will have romanticized the cross, but you know that the cross was crossed woods, in which they nailed you naked, and the kind of death was not like you think, that you would die of bleeding in a matter of two or three hours. The death of the cross was made so that you would die in several days, and you would not die of bleeding, but you would die of the internal collapse of your organs. You could not breathe.

It was one of the worst deaths there was. It was so cruel and so bloody and disgusting that it was not even legal to kill a Roman citizen on a cross. The cross was something similar to what, perhaps for you, is a lethal injection or an electric chair. It is not something that evokes beauty. It is not something that gives you romanticism. How beautiful is that electric chair! How beautiful is that lethal injection! And yet, Paul is saying, that cross is the center of my message. The execution of this Messiah is all that I have to give you. It is all that is sufficient to be saved. It is all that God gave me to give you. The death of Jesus is not just an important message because, historically, a Jewish rabbi died 2,000 years ago. It is a little deeper. Listen carefully. What makes this message crazy is that not only do we all know that a man died 2,000 years ago, because there were a lot of men who died 2,000 years ago, and Jesus was not the only martyr. There are a lot of martyrs in history who died because of their beliefs. What makes this particularly crazy is that we believe that when Jesus was dying on the cross, God was punishing my sins on someone who never committed a sin. That doesn't make sense.

That message doesn't make any sense to us. That message doesn't make any sense. I can understand if God asks me for my sacrifices. In fact, I would even bet, but since I'm a pastor, I don't bet. But if I weren't a pastor, I would bet $100 or more that deep inside of you, you still think that you will reach God with your own sacrifices. I can assure you, in your heart, you are still thinking that there is a kind of sacrifice that you have to make to reach Him, because you grew up in this. We grew up saying, no, no, I have to do this, I have to do that, and I have to kill my flesh, and I have to do so many things, I have to stop drinking, I have to stop dancing, I have to... And our mind is ready and structured for that. It is my sacrifice that will take me to God, right? That is the message that we all bring. And what if this morning I tell you something? You are deeply mistaken. The crazy message of the cross is this, that there is a sacrifice that takes you to God, but it is not yours. It is the sacrifice of your God. God Himself is the sacrifice for His enemies to reach Him. Now you understand why that message is ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. It means that you start to be a better person, and you start to improve things. And I look at him and say, no. He avoided me, and he kept talking.

And he says, of course, because when God saves you, that way of saving you is when you start doing things for Him and serving Him. And I look at him and say, no. There was a moment when he caught her, he got angry with me, and he says to me, why are you so arrogant, saying no to everything I say? And I say, I'm not arrogant. It's just that, no. And he says, no, what? I say, salvation in the New Testament is the other way around. You think that salvation is what you do for the divinity. In the New Testament, salvation is absolute. The board turned. It is God Himself coming down when you would never have gone up to Him. The message of the cross is not knowing if you can establish a ladder to reach Him. It is that God Himself came down in the person of His Son because you would never have tried to go to Him. The message of the cross. For those who get lost, it doesn't make sense. But, the text says, for those who are saved, for those who are on the path to salvation, what is it? It is Him. Say it. It is the power of God. Is there anyone who has been saved by the death of Christ in this place? Can you tell me that there is something more powerful than the message of Christ dying on the cross for you? It is the power of God for salvation.

And you only know this when you recognize the message. This doesn't mean that intelligence or knowledge will take you away from God. In fact, there are people who say, Pastor, my son is asking me a lot of questions. Tell him something. And what do you want me to tell him, bro? Answer him, bro, because I already have three. And I don't even know how to answer him. The questions in the church are generally taken as if they were a sort of enmity with God. If I ask a lot of questions, if I go to college, if I read things about science, then I will take myself away from God. Can I tell you something? The more I have studied in my life, the closer I have gotten to the Lord. Here it is not saying that wisdom takes you away from God. Here it is saying that when you believe that your wisdom is your own way to God. When you think your knowledge is your own ladder to God, that's when God says, wrong, you're not going to get in here. And God says, I've been prophesying this since the Old Testament, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will discard the intelligence of the ignorant. God says, to me, to me, the way to get to me is not your way, and you're going to have to be humiliated. You say, but this hurts me, pastor.

They brought me so you could tell me something that hurt me. Yes, you're getting it right. Because the message of the cross humiliates you because it says in your face, your way is not a good way. Your religion, even if it's the cross church, it's not going to get you anywhere. It's just a message, because the cross church didn't die for you, much less me, that I have more sins than yours. It's a person, Christ Jesus, who came to die for the sins of the world. Can anyone say amen or no? God says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and that's why he says, philosophers, there's no problem with philosophy, there's no problem with studying, there's no problem with debating. I love it! Get on Facebook, and you're going to find me there debating with some troll. At least 10 years ago. I already left it. The problem is that these philosophers and scholars and specialists have rejected the message of the cross and have wanted to make their own way. And God says, you're out. There's no way to get to me like this. God has made the wisdom of this world seem ridiculous. God, what does he use to save you?

He used our preaching to save those who believe. The way to be saved is to announce, to believe with all your heart, in the crazy, ridiculous, world-announcing that all your sins have already been carried out by someone else. And you say, but what am I going to give God in return? That's the beautiful thing. Salvation is such a beautiful gift, that it's not about what you can give him. It's about you opening your hands in humility and saying, I have nothing to give you. I just have to accept what Christ did for me on the cross. Can you believe that message? It doesn't make sense to idolize the messenger because the message doesn't praise your wisdom. It doesn't applaud you. It applauds the only person who died and rose again. But let's continue. The message of the cross saves you, second point. It doesn't submit to your demands. Verse 22 says this. The preaching of the cross is ridiculous for the Jews. And it says that the Jews ask for something. What do they ask for? Signs from heaven. And the Greeks, who are those who, in the case of Paul, were not Jews, look for what? Okay. We all come to God with our own demands.

Everybody. We all come to God with our own requirements. No, it's just that if God speaks to me like this, then I'm going to believe him. Don't worry. Who put you in the judge's seat? I didn't get the invitation. We all come to God telling him what God has to do to believe in him. In the case of the Jews, who were expecting a very different messiah from Jesus, they said, no, I'm expecting a messiah. I'm expecting a savior. But the messiah that a Jew was expecting was someone with a king's bearing. Someone who would win. Someone who would kick the ass of Rome. Not someone who would lose against Rome. I'm expecting someone who would come and conquer, not someone who would execute him and be a criminal stuck out there in his own city. For the Jews, the message of the cross never satisfied their demands. It's not what I'm looking for. It's not the kind of message I was expecting, and that's why they reject it. The Greeks, in the case of Paul, who says, they seek wisdom and humanity. Look, the Greek philosophers have in their history, if you've studied a little bit of philosophy,

they had Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Presocratics, a lot. The Greeks had no problem with having a Jewish rabbi who had a philosophy of life and who taught you about loving God, loving your neighbor. The problem for the Greeks was not that Jesus was intelligent. The problem for the Greeks was that you told them that the way to find wisdom was to believe that that philosopher won salvation by stabbing him in a piece of wood. That doesn't make sense to them either. And the beautiful thing about the apostle Paul, you would think, well, the Jews ask for what? Signs, show me that he is the Messiah. Show me him with the crown and the throne. The Greeks were saying, show me wisdom. What did Paul do? He said, well, let me adapt the message so that you can understand it. Let me negotiate what the heart of the message is so that you can receive it. What did the apostle Paul say? We are going to preach one thing. What does it say there? What do we preach? Say it. If you don't like it, daddy, that's the message. Maybe it doesn't satisfy what you wanted from him. Maybe it's not your way.

But I'm not going to twist my preaching because it doesn't satisfy the commitment these two groups have. I'll ask you a question. What is your commitment? There are people who come to church and are waiting for a sort of psychoanalytic message. I want to come to church to be taught the 15 steps to be a better mother. I come to church to be taught the 3 steps to be a faithful husband. I want to come to church to be taught the 20 steps to have cats and not kill the neighbor. We all have demands. Others say, no, I come to church to be prophesied. Provision, pastor. Prophesied me jobs and cars, Mercedes, Benz. Prophesied me the Ram, pastor, I've been asking God for the Ram. Subliminal message. Others are still waiting for the message to be a sort of, once a girl told me, I'm not going to your church because in your church they don't talk about what I need to hear. And I say, and what do you need to hear? Let's see, educate me. And she says, I want you to talk all the time about how Republicans and how, I say, OK, let's see. You can't see that on television? Yes. And why do you go to church? To see the repetition of what you read in the newspaper, bro? The message here may not satisfy you. And I want to give you a liberating message. Are you ready or not?

Are you with me or not? Do you know what the liberating message is? It's that you don't know what you need. I don't know what I need. That's why I don't get to decide what the message is. That's why I don't decide what the message of God is. I let God tell me what I need. And if God tells me, you don't need all these little things. You don't need the RAM. You don't need me to tell you the 20 steps of how to be a better friend. You need my crucified son, carrying your sin and restoring your relationship with me. That's the message. The message of the cross didn't come to give you what you think, to satisfy your perceived needs. It came to satisfy the true need that you have. And that can only be found on a cross, where my Messiah died as a criminal. In Wallah, where God was carrying the sins of the world. That's our message. So it makes no sense to idolize the leaders of the church, because the message didn't come to praise your knowledge. The message didn't come to satisfy your needs either. But the third point is that the message of the cross saves you, it doesn't make you, what does it say there? Read it with me, it doesn't make you what? Superior to others. Ah, no one read it with me. Read it again. It doesn't make you what? They made me doubt if the letters were in the back, bro. Participate, bro.

It doesn't make you superior to others. Look at what the text says, verse 26. Remember, beloved brothers, that few of you were wise before the eyes of the world. Or few were powerful, or few were rich when God called you. Remember. Remember. The best bucket of cold water for anyone who feels better than others, when you're in the church, huh? And you say, ah, I'm better because I follow this leader. I'm better because I follow this YouTuber. Do you know what the best bucket of cold water is? Remember. Remember where God took you from. Because you were a nobody when God called you. And God didn't call you to give you a little more social status in the church, huh? God called you to remind you that you didn't deserve anything, and yet Christ died for you. That's why the text says, remember. I was traveling with one of the leaders who is here. We were going to a retreat, talking about spiritual retreats. And it was about two years ago. We were going to the retreat. And we were talking about how beautiful everything that God was doing in the church was, and how God was moving, and blah, blah, blah. And I'm not going to lie to you. There was a moment when my chest inflated. And I, you see, inside of me, I said, ah, I'm not such a bad leader, huh? I'm not such a bad pastor. Because God is moving, and everything else. And while I was there, I was there with my arrogant party inside of me, with me and myself.

The friend, the server that was next to me says to me, do you know what I like the most about all of this? He says to me. I didn't talk to him about all of this. Do you know what I like the most about all of this? It's that you did almost everything wrong. But even so, God saved you, and God helped you. I swear to you. And that told me, that told me, almost all the ideas you had didn't work, and even so, God is getting mad. When he told me, I did the same as you. I laughed because I said, remember, Pablito, remember, remember. When you get confused, you get distracted, and you think that the message of the church or the message of salvation, it's about you, you start to get distracted and do it about who is better, who came better dressed, who has more recognition in the church, who has better status, who came better dressed, but when, are you here with me or not? When you remember that the message is the cross of Christ, a Christ, Messiah, dying on the cross for you, all of a sudden, you remember that you were no one, no status, no power, because God didn't call you for your power, God didn't call you for your knowledge, God didn't call you for your intellectual abilities, God called you because He loved you, and because Christ died on the cross for you. That's why the text says,

God chose what the world considered ridiculous, and chose things that have no power to embarrass the powerful, and chose. Does it ring a bell to you? What is it telling you three times? That God chose you, and here you are, thinking that you're here because you're a champion who knows how to choose, and the message of the Bible is radically the opposite. If you're here, it's because you would never have chosen God, God chose you, God chose you, God chose you, and not only that, but also, God, if you're knowing Christ, it was God who united you to Christ. It's not that you came to Christ by your own will because you're such a wise person, God was the one who put you in Christ. Can someone say amen or no? Amen. What's the end of all this? Oh, good, Nick's back there, he can read the play to the kid. Look at all that Christ did for you. Look at why it doesn't make sense that you take your identity from anyone else. Who was the one who made you just before God? Who? Tell me. Who was the one who made you pure before God? Who was the one who made you holy before God?

Who was the one who set you free from sin? So why do you think you're someone when everything you have came from Christ? That's the message. That's why there's no reason to idolize anyone, there's no reason to applaud anyone else, only Christ, and I'll finish with this. As a result, now you understand why the verse says this. As a result, if you realize that the message doesn't praise your wisdom, the message isn't there to satisfy your needs, and the message of the cross doesn't make you superior to others, as a result, no one can ever act in the presence of God. I'll finish with a story. I've never been in the presence of God at the end of the day, obviously, but there's something I do know. Look at me. Everyone who's going to be in the presence of God will hear a song from them, you know? And none of them will ever sing, I'm here because of my own wisdom. I'm here because of my own wisdom. I'm in your presence because I was a saint. I didn't get kidnapped because I didn't find myself sinning, like that's what's going around. Because if you could be in the presence of God at the end of the day, and say that you're there for something that you did,

then you have a reason to reject yourself. In fact, I'm going to applaud you. Wow! Amazing! Bring the crowns for this man. He made it! Great guy! The day of eternal health, my crown he will give me. Only the cross. I'm here because I was invited from the cross. I'm here because my sins were carried on the cross. Can someone say amen? That's the only song. The only song that's going to be sung. You're never going to be the subject of the song. You're not going to be the object of the song. You're never going to be, I did this, therefore God saved me. You're going to say, I was a sinner, but I was saved by the blood of the one who died for me. It's the only song. That's why it doesn't make sense to put your hopes in any other messiah, more than in Jesus of Nazareth. I want you to stand up.