Lets jump right in:
1 Corinthians 1:20-25 1 Cor. (ESV website)
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
We are the scribes, the debaters and the wise fools of this passage. Our hearts churn out idol after idol (Calvin called the human heart an endless idol factory). These self made gods we create are very ruthless despotic tyrants that demand constant sacrifice: our merit. As we feed our own self made merit god that is never appeased or satisfied we bump into others on the same treadmill of despair. Whenever I fail to tell another about the wonderful free gift of Christ, I, in essence, tell that person, "go on, continue to work your fingers of merit to the bone trying to appease a made up god of your own selfishness that will die with you, unappeased." When I think about it like this it doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do to a person.
The gracious God of the scriptures is nothing like this. We can stop working now, stop trying to appease, stop trying to be pretend we are better than we really are. As we look up at the cross our hammer and chisel of merit should drop to the ground as our open, humble hands of repentance are lifted by Christ Himself to receive grace.
