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Life can be very complex and complicated. To navigate through it all, wisdom is very important.
Wisdom is important to help you make the right choices. Wisdom is especially important when you face the difficult realities of life: failures, disappointments, shameful moments, painful experiences.
Wisdom gives you ways to deal with these things.
In today’s passage, Paul talks about two kinds of wisdom: human wisdom and God’s wisdom.
Both kinds of wisdom help you deal with life’s painful realities. But they do so in very different ways.
When life presses in on you like this, the real question becomes: what kind of wisdom carries you through?
That is what I want to reflect on today.
Both human wisdom and God’s wisdom recognize failure, shame and disappointment as a part of life. They don’t sugarcoat or try to ignore them. But how they approach them is very different.
For human wisdom, failure plays an important role. Failures and disappointments are often necessary steps to success. They provide lessons and motivation to help you succeed. But the end goal of human wisdom – its real focus – is success.
We have grown up with this kind of wisdom.
Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player ever. There is a famous quote from him:
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. (Michael Jordan)
That quote became one of Nike’s most famous and successful commercials. It’s an inspiring example of human wisdom.
Failure is something that makes you stronger and teaches you important lessons. But what matters in the end is the result. The goal is always success. The failures you’ve overcome are left behind.
Human wisdom has been a powerful force in history. It has helped people endure, adapt to and overcome all sorts of challenges. With human wisdom, people figured out all sorts of cures for diseases. They figured out how to go to the Moon.
Human wisdom is powerful, but is it everything?
After great challenges are overcome, what greater purpose does human wisdom have?
Many people overcome all sorts of challenges with human wisdom and have been very successful. When that happens, you become proud of your wisdom and what it achieved. You take pride in the way you overcame challenges and failures to get where you are.
That by itself is not a bad thing. It’s good to celebrate the resilience and tenacity it took to overcome those things.
But if you’re not careful, that success can puff you up. Pride can harden your heart. It can make you judgmental. You can begin to look down on those who don’t have the same success you have.
This is exactly the tension Paul saw in the church at Corinth.
Their society valued human wisdom. Those who possessed that sort of wisdom and success were elevated in the community. Those who did not were looked down upon.
Their pride created division and disunity in the community.
Paul recognizes the value of human wisdom. He himself used to live by that wisdom. But in today’s passage and all throughout his letter to the Corinthians, Paul is talking about a different kind of wisdom – the wisdom of God.
God’s wisdom sees failure in a very different way than human wisdom. And that contrast is seen clearly in the cross.
Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross was a traumatic event for his followers. But they experienced Jesus’ resurrection, and they received the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ resurrection gave them hope, and the Holy Spirit gave them power.
They focused on these things and that’s how the church grew. But they did not really focus much on the cross and crucifixion.
They were too painful a reminder of what had happened. They triggered too many painful memories. It was something they preferred to keep in the past as they looked ahead.
The resurrection was important for Paul. He even says so later on in the letter. But for Paul, the focus of his attention was on the cross.
I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)
The symbol of shame, failure and humiliation was not something to leave behind and forget about. It was instead the focal point.
What Paul experienced was this: in this symbol of failure, shame, humiliation and defeat, God’s power was revealed and activated there.
In the cross, God’s power was released.
The power of forgiveness. The power of new life. The power of hope. The power of resurrection. The power of the Spirit.
Resurrection was important, but it came through the cross, not around the cross. It was the result of the cross.
In the cross, God’s wisdom was revealed: real power is not found in success or strength, but in weakness.
Your failure, shame, weakness, vulnerability – these are not things to merely overcome and leave in the past.
They are the very place where the power of God is experienced. They are the place you experience the fullness of God’s power and grace.
When I first met Jesus in a real way, I was so insecure. I didn’t feel loved by the world around me. I was so unsure of myself. I didn’t like who I was and how I acted. I was an annoying little bugger, because I was trying to get attention. I was trying to be loved.
In that deep insecurity, I heard the message of how Jesus loved me. In that vulnerability, I experienced the powerful love of Jesus. The power of that love changed me forever.
Sometimes I forget about the deep vulnerability and insecurity. I can become judgmental of others.
But when I go back to how I met Jesus, it humbles me. It reminds me of how my faith began in my brokenness. How I experienced grace when I was weak.
And that opens my heart and makes it more generous toward others.
There is a reason the cross is closely associated with the forgiveness of sins.
Your sins – all the bad decisions you made, the negative effects your words and actions have had, the mistakes you’ve made and consequences you live with – these are all sources of shame and a heavy weight.
You cannot get rid of that weight simply by ignoring it or burying it. That weight needs to be lifted off.
When you come honestly in your shame and weakness, you experience the power of God’s grace and forgiveness. You experience the power of new life.
What is true in an individual life is also true in the life of a community.
In the 1960’s, many young black people in the United States began questioning the validity of the black church. They said the church was the white man’s religion, that it made them forget their identity.
In the context of rising black consciousness, a black theologian named James Cone went back to the painful experiences of slavery. It was a history that many people wanted to forget.
But in that painful part of their history, he rediscovered the roots of their faith. Many of their spirituals were formed during those painful times. They had experienced God’s power and presence in those difficult circumstances.
In other words, he went back to the cross. At the cross, the symbol of their painful experience, he rediscovered the power of their faith. That rediscovery gave new purpose and mission for the black church of his day.
In a similar way, the Korean Church grew in the aftermath of the Korean War. The good news became healing and power for those with broken hearts. That is how the church grew.
The first immigrants came to church with desperate hearts open to the power of God. That is how the church grew here.
Many leaders have seen the resulting success and focused on that, the growth and numbers. I want to go back to the beginning, where broken, fearful and desperate people experienced God in a powerful way.
Going back reminds me that today all around us, many people are longing to hear good news for their weary souls. Our calling to be a place of good news for the weary continues.
If you’re experiencing a sense of failure, shame or disappointment – don’t just try to get through it and leave it behind. Human wisdom would tell you to do so.
Kneel down in prayer and lay down your weakness to God. You will experience God in a powerful way. When you are weak, you will be made strong.
Let the cross be the main lens through which you interpret everything in life. When you face difficulty, face it with the eyes of the cross. When you face insurmountable challenges that leave you weak and weary, look at it through the cross.
Let the cross be the source of your power in life.
Faith does not begin with your success. It begins in your place of weakness, shame and vulnerability.
The very places you want to hide or forget will become the places where God’s forgiveness is experienced, your heart is healed, and new life begins.
That is the wisdom of the cross. May that wisdom guide you every day.
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