1 Corinthians 1 v 18 - 25

Obviously, in these verses Paul is thinking of the grand sweep of human intellect and then it is true that the great intellectuals do not often decide to follow Jesus. Because the message of the cross demands total commitment and faith from the would-be follower of Jesus Christ, those who hesitate and begin to bring up a whole list of seemingly logical questions can often discover that they are buried by the questions, whilst others gratefully receive the Good News (possible reference to this by Jesus in Matthew 11 v 12). Now, most definitely that doesn't mean that those with great minds are automatically lost to Jesus. At the first Youth Alpha we ran for the older teenagers last week, we were introduced to Francis Collins, an American physician-geneticist who leads the human genome project and he gave his testimony about finding Christ. However, what it entails-in parallel with the rich young ruler whom Jesus told to divest of his wealth-is to become like a child, to enter God's presence humbly and to recognise that there are more questions than answers in this present world. Remind yourself that Jesus often answered an enquirer's question with another question! Questions are good, because they lead us deeper into the mystery of God, but it is we who are 'in the dock', not God! Christianity cannot be fitted into a box, no matter how large, because it is about relationship with Almighty God and He will choose to do what He will do. Yes, we can read about examples of God's working in people's lives in the Bible and in books of testimony, but we cannot expect God to work in exactly the same way. These are extreme examples, but we cannot expect to successfully wrestle and kill a lion as Samson did in God's strength or jump aboard a ship and assume that God will guide us to where He wants us to minister, as Jackie Pullinger did! However, what both those stories tell us is that God will go with us, even when we are going our own selfish way (Samson), He will remain faithful, even when we are so impatient we don't listen to our church leader's words of caution (Jackie) He will do great things through us. God chose to do what the world castigated as foolishness and obscene to ensure that it is only those who truly want to follow Him and to be His children who enter into the Kingdom. Remember John chapter six and the conclusion of that passage where lots of disciples of Jesus turn away from Him, because He exhorted them to ''eat my flesh and drink my blood''? This morning we will be taking part in drinking Christ's blood and eating His flesh as we share Communion together.