The Ground of preaching: The Cross of Christ

The following is adapted from John Piper's

Supremacy of God in Preaching
If the goal of preaching is to bring Glory to God and the Pride of man resists it, what is to be gained by preaching, and how is this goal to be reached?

The goal of preaching is met with two massive obstacles: 
The righteousness of God and the Pride of man:

God is righteous in desiring His Glory to be manifest.

Man is sinful in desiring that his own glory be manifest.

The cross overcomes both the objective, external obstacle of God’s righteous opposition to human pride and it overcomes the subjective, internal obstacle of our proud opposition to the Glory of God.

The cross is the ground of the objective validity of preaching. What hope do we have in light of God’s righteousness and our sinfulness? 

Luke 13:1-5 This has been called the misplaced locus of amazement...
Man wonders that God should deny life, Heaven’s righteousness wonders that God should deny death to such sinful creatures as ourselves.

The cross of Christ is the only solution... 

Rom 3:23-26 Even though all scorn God’s Glory and God is committed to uphold that Glory, God has designed a way to reconcile the sinner to God.

My pride causes me to attach some sense of worth based on the idea that Christ went to the cross to purchase me because I was worth it.

That's wrong. 
I am not worth it. 
I have to die. 
Only the life of Christ living through me attaches any worth to my pitiful being. 

The Cross is not a witness to my infinite worth but to the immensity of the sin of my pride.

It witnesses to the infinite worth of God and the infinite outrage of sin.

The cross is the ground of the subjective humility of preaching. It is the power of God to crucify both the preacher and the congregation.

Gal 6:14 Crucified to the world.
Throughout the Apostle Paul's writings, he shows us that we may glory in the greatness of the Lord, not in ourselves. Pride stands in the way, the cross crucifies pride bringing us to a glad reliance on the mercies of God.

The problem of Corinth was that loft oratory and intellect would violate the very thing that the cross is intended to bring.

1 Cor 1:17 shows us that unless the preacher is crucified, the preaching is nullified.  What we are is crucial to what we say. 

Therefore, faith must not rest in the wisdom of men. 
Saving faith can only rest in the power of God.