A Call To The Remnant

1Co 1:18  For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 

There is a great gulf that exists, a divide that cannot be bridged. Much like the divide between the beggar Lazarus and the unnamed rich man. This divide exists between the those who are genuinely saved, and all the rest of the world. What divides us is not the fact that one set of people will be saved eternally and the other set will perish, although that is certainly true. What truly divide us is fellowship, first and foremost, with God. In verse nine we are told that “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” The saint has an intimate and genuine fellowship with Jesus. And this is primary and it is a calling, we were called into it. This is the gateway into the Body, the Church. All things pass through Jesus. We cannot have spiritual, eternal, edifying fellowship, true fellowship, unless we have fellowship with Jesus. This is the primary reason why there is so little genuine fellowship in Christendom.

Those who have intimate fellowship with Jesus are greatly affected by His suffering, His death and His resurrection. It forms the core of their very being. They see the victory where others see defeat. They see the King high and lifted up because He was lifted up. The Jews were looking for an earthly King who would liberate them from Rome and establish them on this earth in power and glory. The Greeks were looking for a philosopher who by strength of intellect would also rule and dominate. Jesus was utter foolishness to both. God has chosen the things that are despised, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. He hides Himself in the midst of what men consider to be foolishness. He raises up the weak things of this world to confound the wise. Men who are drawn to strength and their own abilities are blind to the God who hides Himself among the broken and the contrite.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus came to call and to heal the broken-hearted. He did not come to the high and the mighty, but rather He came to set at liberty the captive. He came to raise up the pauper and to fellowship with those whom He would deliver. I thank God that we are enriched by the mercies and the grace of God and not the titles and the riches of men. I thank God that the testimony of Jesus is confirmed in His own and that He gives us gifts in order to edify  us and establish us in Himself. The greatest gift being that of fellowship with God. The world and the wise may despise us, yet they do not fellowship with God. The mighty and the noble and the wisest of men are but fools to God so therefore God has taken the foolish things of this world and raised them up in Himself. Without education or riches, we, the foolish ones, are recipients of the wisdom of God and the world marvels. We are in Christ, who became for us wisdom from God, and not only wisdom but righteousness and sanctification and redemption and now we glory, not in ourselves, but we glorify the Lord.