I got emails from several people who told me they were looking forward to reading Part 3 of my thoughts on the Foolishness of the Gospel. To be honest, though, I thought to myself at one point, "I think I'm done with this Foolishness!"
Then one night last week, our baby goats we are raising on a bottle prompted me to think some more about the "Foolishness of the Gospel." The two baby goats, just over a week old, were following me everywhere I went. These new babies follow Loretta or me, because we are the only security they know. Every meal they’ve eaten has come from Loretta and me. They know no other mother or daddy. So everywhere we go, they go as 1-week-old baby goats, seeking the only comfort they understand . . . something warm to drink from the people who provide it to them. We give them a sense of security.
The older goats we raised on a bottle graze around the barn, eating grass, comfortable in a larger sense of security. Now if you put them over the fence with the "goat herd," they make it back before morning by crawling through the fence, because they are not yet ready for that much independence. They do not feel safe there.
Other babies can crawl through the fence, but they do not do so, because their mothers are on the other side from our house. If one crawls through to eat on our side, all it has to do is see me coming, and it will scramble to get back to its mother.
I think that feeling – of wanting to feel safe . . . seeking security – is something that every living being experiences, in one way or another.
The baby goats have surrendered themselves to total dependence on Loretta and me.
That brings us back to the Foolishness of the Gospel. The only real security we have is Jesus’ death on the cross and our surrender to this truth, which is foolishness to our minds. We don’t want to accept this truth. To us, security means another person or even our marriage; a good job; money in the bank; a debt-free house; financial and personal success. To paraphrase Jesus, sometimes we seem to be so interested in gaining the world that we neglect our souls. A good marriage, a good job, and financial success can be healthy and good, but they’re not ultimate security.
Christ is the one and only source of ultimate security, which – to me – is eternal life and the abundant life found in Christ, bringing happiness and meaning and purpose to our lives. Our highest calling is to partner with the living Christ in what He is doing in the world. That may seem like foolishness to the world, but the reality is that it is God’s wisdom.
God’s wisdom turns our logic on its head. Our inclination is to seek the world at our feet. But the Foolishness of the Gospel puts us at Jesus’ feet. It requires us to surrender our lives and our selves – to lose ourselves in Him . . . to lose ourselves, as He did, in serving others. Remember Jesus’ words: "whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39) (NIV), and "the last shall be first and the first shall be last" (Matthew 20:16) (NIV).
The Foolishness is that Jesus gave His life willingly so that all of us might have life. Does that make sense? Not to us. It sounds like foolishness.
But think about this. When are you the absolute happiest? For most of you, I would guess that it is when you have lost yourself so totally in trying to help someone or fix some major problem that you have totally forgotten about yourself.
We all enjoy success . . . striving to achieve financial and emotional security is normal. But such security is only temporary, not eternal. All of us will ultimately die and leave our worldly goods behind; all that will truly be left of us is what we have invested in others.
Our only ultimate security is our partnership with Jesus – God who became man, lived among us, and then willingly gave up His life for us. The Foolishness of the Gospel is that Christ dying for us and our dying to ourselves makes us safe and secure forever.
"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe" (I Cor. 1:20-21) (NIV).
Paul understood the temptation to trust wisdom, experts, intellect, success, even appearance and popularity to give us a sense of security. But Paul says that God has made foolish this “wisdom of the world.”
I want to close with a Happy Birthday to my sister (March 24) and to Mother (92 on March 27): You have both tolerated me and my foolishness for a long time, and I appreciate it. I will also be thinking of my Dad, who would celebrate birthday 101 on March 31 if he were still with us. You know, I still feel him with me from time to time, especially as baseball season is starting again and new calves are being born.