Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Crucible of the Cross*

*1Corinthians 3              February 16, 2003*

* *

*Scripture Reading: *2Peter 3:10-14

 

*Introduction:*

 

When you read the title of this morning's message, you probably wondered the same thing my wife did when I told her what I was preaching on.

What in the world is a crucible?

If you have never taken a course in chemistry lab, you might not be aware of what a crucible is.

It is actually the best word I could think of to describe the central idea that Paul uses in 1Cor.

3 - the text for this message.

Remember the passage we just read in 2Peter?

A crucible is what the entire earth will become in the Last Day – the container upon which we all live that will undergo trial by fire to purge all that does not conform to the message of the cross of Christ.

Only what is holy, godly, and righteous will survive the divine fire of God.

We can say that about the world we live in and even about the church we serve and worship in.

Only what is united in Christ, by submitting to Christ, will survive.

But God has given us something very special to prepare us for that time.

And that is the crucible of the cross.

I speak of the cross in this way because the cross is the entrance exam we must pass in order to obtain entrance into the Kingdom of God.

Remember what I said in an earlier message, as we began this series in 1Cor., that a major theme here is the doctrine of the cross in its social application?

The cross not only provides for us the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins unto eternal life, but it also becomes for us a continual test of our submission to his Lordship.

Our visit to the cross is not a one-time event.

Indeed, the cross of Christ is for salvation, but the sinful nature we continue to struggle with requires that we continue to draw unity and wisdom from Christ's holy witness and sacrifice upon it.

This is what the previous two messages were about as Paul confronts the Corinthian church about their divisiveness.

They were saved, but they were not living like it.

They had received the message of the cross, but they weren't applying it to the way they did church.

The future and witness of the church was in jeopardy because they were not moving on to maturity.

You may recall that their lack of unity stemmed from two problems: they were following human leaders more than Christ's leadership, and they were lusting after human wisdom more than Christ's wisdom.

Just like our own national discourse with the United Nations and NATO over the situation with Iraq, each house church was setting up its own sovereign entity with all the competition of opinion that goes with it to the extent that they couldn't agree on the common mission against the common enemy.

Their survival was at stake.

The same thing happens within a church when individuals run their own agendas, pursue their own following, and attempt to set themselves up as better than others.

This sort of thing is divisive because it focuses on men rather than on Christ.

Paul's solution for them was to remind them of the community of the cross that brought them all out of their common hopeless and lost condition, and to remind them of the instruction of the cross that gave them all Holy Spirit insight into the mind of Christ.

So now Paul will remind them that the cross will continually test them in this.

The cross stands as an eternal witness either for or against our conformity to it.

It tests our conformity to Christ in which we find our unity.

So we must understand the crucible, or the testing, of the cross.

It comes from the Latin word /crucibulum/ that means a pot or lamp that burns before the cross.

In metallurgy or chemistry it is a container that can withstand great heat and is used for melting ore or performing experiments that make high temperature tests.

In common usage it refers to a severe test or hard trial.

You get the connection.

There is such a thing as the test of the cross.

It stands as a continuing trial of how well we will conform to Christ who took the heat for us.

A passing grade is the "C" that we get when we took Christ by faith in the first place, but when we can submit our all, we get an "A".

Paul wants us all to get on the honor roll – to strive for excellence in the church of the Living God, to put to death the old self that continues to compete with the Spirit for our allegiance and causes divisiveness.

*Big Question:*

 

/How does the cross test those of us who claim the name of Christ?/

The cross tests our level of maturity by assessing our allegiance.

The cross tests our level of humility by assessing our place of purpose.

The cross tests our level of service by assessing our foundation.

The cross tests our level of worship by assessing our unity in the Holy Spirit.

The cross tests our level of wisdom by assessing our devotion to Christ.

*I.

Cycle One*

 

*          A.

Narrative* (vv.

1-4)

 

*          B.

Implication*

 

The cross tests our level of maturity by assessing our allegiance.

*          C.

Illustration*

 

Chgo.

Trib., 1~/31~/03, /U.S. believes: It has faiths to prove it/.

 

*          D.

Application*

 

*II.

Cycle Two*

 

*          A.

Narrative* (vv.

5-9)

 

*          B.

Implication*

 

The cross tests our level of humility by assessing our place of purpose.

*          C.

Illustration*

 

From Farming:

 

A couple of years ago, the Associated Press released a study done by an agricultural school in Iowa.

It reported that production of 100 bushels of corn from one acre of land, in addition to the many hours of the farmer's labor, required 4,000,000 pounds of water, 6,800 pounds of oxygen, 5,200 pounds of carbon, 160 pounds of nitrogen, 125 pounds of potassium, 75 pounds of yellow sulphur, and other elements too numerous to list.

In addition to these things, which no man can produce, rain and sunshine at the right time are critical.

It was estimated that only 5% of the produce of a farm can be attributed to the efforts of man.

If we were honest, we'd have to admit that the same is true in producing spiritual fruit.

From Mining:

 

We ought to know better than to despair over the visible result of spiritual endeavor.

During a recent visit to Johannesburg I spent a day at one of the gold-mines.

There was immense activity, gangs of workers, clouds of dust, hissing steam, deafening stamps, heaps of quartz, torrents of water and cauldrons of slime; but I came away without having seen a single speck of gold.

The engineer touched the bottom of a turbid stream, and exclaimed, "There is a particle."

It was, however, as invisible to me as the same metal usually is on the collection-plate.

Yet, when on the return journey our ship anchored at Southampton, we discharged boxes of gold dust to the tune of a million dollars.

Thus today our evangelical work proceeds with noise of machinery, smoke and stir, sweat and blood, and a thousand things that are trivial and trying to the carnal eye, but the practical spiritual gain is often unseen.

-- Dr. W.L. Watkinson, as quoted by H. Jeffs in, The Art of Sermon Illustration, (Fleming H. Revell Co., 1926), p. 22 .

From Cooking:

 

During our church's worship service, the pastor invites all the young children to join him near the altar for the "Children's Moments Sermon."

One day, with seven small children in attendance, he spoke about the ingredients required to make up a church, using a chocolate chip cookie as an example.

He explained to the children that, as with a cookie requiring ingredients such as sugar and eggs, the church needed ingredients to make up the congregation.

Holding a cookie aloft, he asked, "If I took the chocolate chips out of this cookie, what would I have?"

A shy six-year-odd raised his hand.

"Six less grams of fat," he replied.

-- Kristine Payne, Reader's Digest, June 1995, p. 98-99.

Fulfilled Place of Purpose:

Title:  Saved by an Unknown Layman

 

   Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in the minds of some of us, was the greatest preacher since the apostle Paul.

When he was 22 years of age, he preached sermons that some of us hope we may preach before we die.

We won't, but we can dream.