Rev. Gregory Gibbons
Lola Park Lutheran Church
Redford, MI 48239
I Corinthians 1:26-31
GOD MAKES SOMEBODIES OUT OF NOBODIES
INI
The football season is once again almost over. Next Sunday is the Super Bowl where the NFL champion will once
again be crowned. For the 51st consecutive season, we don’t have to worry about our Detroit Lions being there. While
the New England Patriots, Coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady will be playing for the championship again,
our Lions will be looking forward to the draft of players for next season. We don’t need a starting quarterback, a punter
or a kicker. Other than that, everything is up for grabs again.
Over the next few months the Lions and every other team will be looking for players. They will see how fast
players are and how strong they are. They will be asked all kinds of questions. They will show how they can run and
jump and catch and tackle. And then the teams will pick those that they feel can help the team the most. It doesn’t
always work out the way that it should. Sometimes you have a player that is considered a “can’t miss” athlete who fails
while there are others who are considered too small and too slow and turn out to be great players.
If God was going to draft people for his church, what would God look for? Would he pick the smartest, the
wealthiest, the most influential people? Wouldn’t that impress other people? We would think so. Wouldn’t people
flock to the church because they would see all the brightest and best and beautiful people? But God does not work that
way. In fact he does the very opposite. He is going to take people who are very unimpressive and build his church. We
see that GOD MAKES SOMEBODIES OUT OF NOBODIES.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a testimonial to God’s grace, his undeserved love, the very opposite of what we
deserve. Of all the congregations that Paul served, this one truly was his problem child. Now they believed the very
opposite. They believed that they were the brightest and the best. Sadly the congregation was full of cliques and
factions. They all had their favorite pastor. They all considered their group to be the best. They wanted to impress
others with their knowledge and giftedness. They majored in minors. They neglected the most important things, even
the teachings of the resurrection.
Paul is going to contrast the wisdom of the world with the foolishness of God. To the world there is nothing as
foolish as the cross. God would become a human being. Yet he would not take upon himself wealth and power, but he
would rather give up the wealth and power of heaven to become a human being. And he would not merely become a
human being; he would become the lowliest of servants. He would offer up his life for the sin of the world on an
instrument of torture reserved for the worst of criminals, an instrument known as the cross.
That did not fit in with what people were looking for. The Jews demanded miraculous signs. No matter what
God did for them, it was never enough. They wanted God to show his power. Yet they refused to believe. Think of the
time of the Exodus. God showed them miracle after miracle. There were ten plagues: the Nile turned to blood,
darkness, frogs, locusts, and others, the Passover, the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, the destruction of Pharaoh’s
army, the miraculous feeding of manna and quail, water from a rock, God’s physical presence as a cloud by day and as a
pillar of fire by night. Yet they refused to believe. Most of the people died in the wilderness, rebelling against God over
and over again.
They continued to demand the same miraculous signs from Jesus. Jesus never did miracles to show off, but he
certainly did many miracles. Those miracles were proof that he was the divine Messiah, the one sent from God. All of
those miracles were foretold by the prophets. He would give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, the ability to walk to
the lame, cleansing to the lepers and the healing of other diseases. He would even raise the dead. Jesus did all those
things and more, yet the people demanded that he do different miracles or that he do them again in a different way. It
was never enough. When Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, they refused to believe.
The Greeks on the other hand demanded wisdom, human wisdom. They were known for their philosophers,
men like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and more. They considered themselves the wisest people on earth. What wisdom
could possible come from a man who died on a cross and supposedly rose again? It was craziness, foolishness and they
would have none of it.
Are we any different? Aren’t we impressed with wealth and wisdom, power, good looks and many other things?
Of course we are! We love human achievement. We have awards and plaques on our walls, telling others what
wonderful things we have done. There are people with entire walls filled up with testimonials. We love to hear how
great we are!
God’s church is not built upon our greatness. It is built upon God’s greatness. The interesting thing about
“God’s draft” so to speak is that he does not choose the people we think should be first-round draft choices. He picks
people who we wouldn’t even have on our board. Every pick is a person who is spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of
God. That is every one of us by nature. We have absolutely nothing that we can offer God but our sins.
“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not
many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” Even though there were divisions among them, Paul still
addresses them as brothers. They are all part of a family, a family of believers. Why were they part of that family? Was
there something really special about them? Did they hold to some high political position? Was it because they were
considered to be geniuses? Were they the brightest and best of the people around them? They certainly thought so.
That is why there were so many divisions within the congregation.
Paul was not going to agree with them. Instead he points out that they should look at themselves. They really
weren’t what the world loves and worships. They were to consider the wisdom of God in choosing them. You didn’t
have any people of influence. You didn’t have any great philosophers. You didn’t have any kings or queens, princes or
princesses. You didn’t have any wealthy people. You didn’t have any celebrities. You just had common, ordinary
people. In all likelihood you had a number of slaves and former slaves.
Oh, the early church did have some “prominent” citizens. Church membership was not confined to the lower
classes. But the vast majority of people had humble origins. They were not considered to be special in any human sense
of the term. And people mocked the church for not attracting the right kinds of people. The pagan philosopher Celsus,
who lived in the second century after Christ wrote that a glance at the membership of Christian congregations in his day
would prove that the Christians “show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid,
and only slaves, women, and little children.”
Is it any different in our day? I sincerely doubt if there are many of the enlightened people in Hollywood who
have any inclination of following our Lord Jesus Christ. They think that they are so wise as they hand down their wisdom
to us poor peasants. There are all kinds of scientists who laugh at us for believing that God created the universe by the
power of his Word rather than through evolution. They can’t explain the origins of the universe, but they can laugh at
us.
So what? So what if other people think that we are simpletons and rubes? The important thing is what God
thinks of us. What the world considers to be something, God exposes to be nothing. “But God chose the foolish things
of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly
things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not- to nullify the things that are, so that no one
may boast before him.”
When are we going to get it through our minds that God’s ways are not our ways? God is going to do the very
opposite of what we expect. He is going to make a great nation out of a hundred year old childless man and his wife. He
is going to call an eighty year old shepherd to lead his people out of slavery. He is going to take a shepherd boy and lead
him to victory over the Philistine giant Goliath and make him the greatest king of Israel. Jesus’ disciples were all ordinary
men, fishermen and tax collectors and everyday people, who would turn the world upside down. Paul himself had been
a persecutor of the church.
Jesus was born in a stable. His birth was considered illegitimate by many. He was born in a little town called
Bethlehem and grew up in another insignificant town in Galilee called Nazareth. He never attended rabbinical school.
Yet he preached and taught and healed. And he laid down his life for the sin of the world! He continues to work today
through water, the most common substance on earth, and through bread and wine, and the preaching of ordinary men.
And all of this accomplishes his purpose! God gets all the glory. We have no reason to boast!
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our
righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’” True
wisdom comes not from ourselves, but from God. We know everything that we need to know. The world cannot find
this wisdom because it looks in all the wrong places. We have righteousness. God covers our sin with the blood of his
Son. God made him who had no sin, to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We
have holiness. We sinners are called to be saints. And that is what we are! We have redemption. We have been
bought out of slavery. The ransom price has been paid. It is nothing less than the holy, precious blood of Christ. Yes,
this is far better than human wisdom, human influence or noble birth. This affects our lives for all eternity.
There is no human reason that we can boast. We can do nothing, but God has done everything! Praise be to
God for his marvelous gift of grace in making somebodies out of nobodies! AMEN.