Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "A Study of 1 Corinthians" by Neal Pollard - Part 1

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"A Study of 1 Corinthians" by Neal Pollard - Part 1 · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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There is a class in the adult classroom this quarter. It's going to
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be taught by Barrett Hammer and Grant Wilson. I think Barrett's teaching
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this morning. And so if you're in that age group,
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it's the adult classroom, room 114. They are doing studies
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from the Psalms, devotional studies from the Psalms. And so feel free to
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be there in class. There's also a college
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class this quarter. Joey Morgan is teaching that, and the
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subject of that is sin struggles. And so, if you're in that post-high
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school age group, you may also go there.
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In this class, Hiram and I are going to be co-teaching on
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the subject of, you can see it on the PowerPoint in front of you,
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Studies in 1 Corinthians. I'm not trying to name this class. Hiram may
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think of a better name for it. It does seem to fit with what we're
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going to be studying today in chapter 1,
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calling it same mind and same judgment. I thought that the way that
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we might, especially I'm thinking about Cumberland
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Trace as we are today, and maybe it's always been this
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way to an extent, but at least since I've been here, we are a congregation
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of people who have come from a lot of different places and who have a
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lot of different experiences. And so, out of your past,
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there may be some unique answers that you have. I do ask
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in the question I'm about to answer that we don't want dirty details.
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And so keep that in mind. Keep it vanilla and generic if you would.
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But why do people leave a church?
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Why do people leave congregation A and go to congregation B?
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Okay, hurt feelings. All right? In fact, it's one of the
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jargon terms of our time, church hurt. You'll run across it a lot
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in social media. People will talk about how they've suffered that. And so hurt
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feelings, we could drill down on that without getting
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beyond the vanilla. Maybe it was a brother or sister
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in Christ. Maybe it was the preacher. Maybe it was the
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leadership, somebody, or maybe it was more broad than that, by a
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group of people from which they felt excluded. Hurt feelings.
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Okay. All right. Needs are not being met.
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And that oftentimes can be frustrating for leadership because it's not more specific
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than that. What needs? And then the answer that's followed up is still
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aggravatingly nebulous. Andy, do you have a— Okay.
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All right. There are certainly circumstances where something is being taught
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or maybe there's a focus on something where there's a hobby horse.
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And so it could be a doctrinal issue from the right hand or
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the left. Okay. Lack of
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connection. I just don't really feel like I'm apart, or it
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feels odd. It just doesn't work. It doesn't fit. All right,
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Alice. Okay, preacheritis.
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That's not relevant at all to 1 Corinthians, but yeah,
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have you ever seen that? I mean, it's very rare that people just
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love a preacher so much that they— I've even— you ever see anybody who follows
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a preacher from church to church to church to church to church?
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Boy, now we're going to meddling. All right.
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Uh-huh. Okay. Sometimes, like, if you have kids and
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you, like, you're in a smaller congregation and there's nothing for
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your— that your kids can grow, or there's nothing for the youth,
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then you move more. Exactly. Okay. I'd say we would— if
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you didn't hear what Shedona said, that's a very common reason that people give.
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Uh, it's, uh, it's kind of that idea of the rich get richer and the
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poor get poorer. Um, you're in a small congregation and maybe you are a,
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uh, a family with children and there aren't other children
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and you go to where there can be children. Okay.
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Anything, can you stitch together any kind of commonality in
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all of these things? Well, let me ask this.
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Is it ever, even in the answers that were given, is it ever a good
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idea to go from one church to another?
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And all— yes, sir, Roger, go ahead. Somebody mentioned doctrinal issues.
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If you leave because of a solid doctrinal issue that
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you find great opposition to, but certainly you're Christians, then it would be the right
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thing to do. Yeah. I'll give you an example. I think it's still pretty
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vanilla because I'm not going to give any names. My sister and her husband had
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been a member of a congregation in, I'll just say Alabama, for many
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years. And the frog had been boiling in the pot for a long, long time.
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And then all of a sudden they had a seminar one weekend where the speaker
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was teaching on demons. And as he was delivering
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that seminar, which is a great subject, spiritual forces in the world, but he
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actually saw one in the corner while he was delivering one of his
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lectures. And finally, that was just the straw on the camel's back.
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There were a lot of other things that had preceded that, and they said,
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we need to find somewhere else. And it was a good move. Where they are
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today, we wouldn't recognize them as a New Testament church anymore.
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Doctrine. I think if you have a
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place where something is being taught that you know that is doctrine in
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your own mind, And you need to go to the elders
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and to these— whoever is doing it. Okay,
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yeah. Try your best. Try everything at all
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possible to get that over through— over to them
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and to— and get it straightened out before you leave. That's great.
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That's a— that's a fine point, and it really helps us to move closer
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to 1 Corinthians. Miss Dolores said, I think in most of these
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cases, maybe even in a doctrinal situation, before you just pick
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up stakes and you go somewhere else, that if there's— if there are elders,
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you go to that leadership. It's a lot harder if you don't have elders,
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and to address your concern and say, hey, what can be done? Or if it's
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perhaps a teacher, you go to that teacher. If it's the preacher, you go to
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him and express that concern and try to do things in a biblical way.
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Would you agree with me that sometimes we get a little hasty?
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I think about— this is the first time I've ever lived in what's truly
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considered the Bible Belt where the Lord's church exists in abundance, and I think that
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there's a struggle that we deal with
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here more than we do in places to where there's— the next
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church is fit— and there's a lot of places in the country where it's this
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way, where the next church is 50 or 60 miles,
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and you really got to buckle down and try to make it work and to
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try to overcome whatever the friction, whatever the struggle
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is. I'm going to make a generic
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answer. If you've moved from one church to another, I'm not talking to you necessarily.
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I might be. But there is a consumer mentality
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that exists that is expressed in a lot of the answers
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that you gave where my needs have not been met.
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What are you doing for me? How does this benefit me?
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Which runs contrary to the Christ life and being a disciple and follower
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of Jesus, which is a life of self-denial, taking up our cross and following him.
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When we look at the study we're going to be engaging in in this particular
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quarter, there are difficulties. I don't know what kind of reprisal
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they had. Could they go? How many churches were meeting in Corinth at
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this particular point? A lot of them met in houses, and so maybe multiple
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locations, but there was a problem of
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folks who were struggling with being one.
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Now, let me ask you this question and then we'll get into the content.
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Why do churches divide? Sometimes most people
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leave, they cause a mess on the way out. Okay, sometimes just regardless
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of the reason, People will leave with a big hook and they'll drag
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it, you know, they'll take people with them as much as they can to reinforce
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their case. And a lot of times you didn't say it, that might be pride.
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If I think something's wrong, you ought to think it's wrong. And we're going
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to see if we can't rally the troops and go with us. All right?
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Yeah.
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Yes, ma'am. And it's not the only time. That's tragic.
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What Miss Doris has not said, it's implied, is that
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when she and her husband obeyed the gospel because of their race,
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there were folks that left because they were upset at that.
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And now we live in a different time, thankfully, but I can tell you
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I've lived long enough to where I've seen the same thing happen. Yes, ma'am.
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Okay. Yeah. It involves
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judgment for sure. Yeah, I don't know.
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And those are all subjective things. You know,
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what's dying, what's dead, you know, and that sort of thing. But that's a factor
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for sure. Any other reasons why churches divide?
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Go ahead. We're at a point we've got to figure out, is this a conservative
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church problem? Liberal church problem?
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Are women leading the service? Okay, so are you speaking— Okay.
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Okay. Okay. So that's— you're
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saying churches divide over doctrine. It could be.
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We'll explore that further. But the things that you mentioned, I would
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put in the— at least the one thing I heard was doctrinal. If women are
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leading the services, that's not a matter of judgment. That's tied down
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in Scripture. And so if that's happening in a church and it divides over that,
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then certainly that's a reason why churches divide. Mike and then Hiram.
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Nope, Mike has observed the Passover.
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Hiram? Personalities. All right, let me ask you this.
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We could give a bunch of answers. I really want to get into 1 Corinthians.
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In the totality, the mosaic of
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church history, do you think Let's just go in modern times, that more churches have
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divided over doctrine or personalities?
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Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, I thought I was going to have to make my case.
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We divide over personalities.
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Maybe sometimes there's some central core issue that needs to
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be resolved that maybe has some manner of importance, but when
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we don't follow the Lord's template for how to— and what Miss Delores said,
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when we go to the person and not make this World War III, but we
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start small and we try to get this thing resolved, Maybe we can get through
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this, we'll be in a better place. But there's this tendency
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for us to be drawn towards certain people and not be drawn toward others.
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And within the context of church dynamics, we find ourselves not
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meaning to, but pockets develop. And some of that's
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natural, some of that's fine, sometimes it's not. And the next thing
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you know, that's not— that's my guy or that's my people
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and that's your people. And we're all supposed to be the Lord's
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people. And united in Him. Now,
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if you can— if you have an appreciation for that out of your background,
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then you're going to appreciate 1 Corinthians because
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this is a church divided. And we're going to talk about
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what they were divided over. And we're going to see what Paul says, proposes,
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especially as this letter starts to help them to get over that.
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Now, when you think about Corinth, what comes to your mind?
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I don't know why I can't hear you, Kevin. Idols. Okay,
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I-D-O-L-S. All right, idols. Idolatry, yes,
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was very much part of Greek Gentile culture and certainly was
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in Corinth. Immorality.
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All right, and we'll say a little bit more about that in a moment.
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What else? Philosophy. We're going to see that at the
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end of chapter 1, worldly wisdom, earthly wisdom.
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Preacheritis, certainly so. But if one word captured
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all of that, what would the word be?
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Okay, worldly, certainly. It's a mess.
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These are great words. I think the word that I would say is
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division. They're divided. Man, we're going to see all the
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different ways that they're divided. There are going to be a lot of individual subjects
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that the Apostle Paul is going to address throughout this letter,
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especially from the beginning of the letter through chapter 14. There's a very optimistic and
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hopeful end the book of 1 Corinthians, but first
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we got to deal with all the different ways that this church is divided.
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And frankly, there are ways in which we find ourselves divided today.
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And so when you think about that, I would say sexual immorality
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and division come to the top above even more than that. But it's
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also possible, as you remember what we studied last quarter,
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that the second missionary journey comes to mind. Who establishes
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the church at Corinth? Paul.
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Paul and his coworkers, they go into the city. And when you think about
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the work that Paul had done there, he had just had what we might by
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earthly standards say was a failed mission in
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Athens. Very few people seem to believe and to follow the Lord.
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And he's appalled by the idolatry that's in the city there.
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And this is before the 3 years, the longest tenure of
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Paul's ministry where he goes and has this relationship
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with the church at Ephesus. But in between, we have those 18 months
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where Paul finds himself at Corinth. And as he works with them,
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we begin to see the success that he has. You remember one of the last
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things we saw in the class last quarter was that Paul was afraid.
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And in his fear, he didn't know how he was going to be received.
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And the Lord says in Acts 18:9, I have many people in this city.
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And so he stays there, he buckles down, and he works with the church until
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he's finally pressured to leave. 18 months later. And we think about some
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of the folks that are converted. There's Crispus and
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his household. In fact, Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 is going to talk about some
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of the folks that— excuse me, he himself baptized.
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It's a relatively small group that includes Gaius and just
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Stephanas and not many people at all. But here's Paul who's
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working and maybe they're captured in Acts 18:8 where
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Paul says, that many of the Corinthians believing were baptized.
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And so as we think about 1 Corinthians, I don't want you to forget
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what we saw in Acts chapter 18. Paul helped
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to start the nucleus, the foundation of the work that exists
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now as we read 1 and 2 Corinthians.
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It's going to be written about 56 AD. So we're talking about a short span
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of time in which the Apostle Paul is writing to a church did
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have many people, apparently, enough people that they were dividing under
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the banner of different folks who were dominant personalities
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in the church. And so Paul is going to be focusing that.
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You remember some of what was involved in that work, but I want to say
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a few things about the history and geography of the city so that we can
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get into 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
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Corinth, yes, it was an immoral city. But it
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was also a wealthy city. It was a
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city that was strategically located. I think we've said this before,
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it's on this isthmus where it had access to 2 seas.
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And with a port like that, you find yourself really attractive to
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traders all over the world. And so people are coming in from everywhere.
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So when you begin to think about a couple of things that that impacts,
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first of all, total population. This is a strategic place to
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try to plant the seeds of Christianity. Because there are so many
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folks there. When you start taking the population in the first century
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world, you start with the fact that there are 200,000
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free citizens, people who are from Italy, people who are from Greece,
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Roman soldiers who have come,
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business people who were wealthy enough and merchants that they were able
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to live there freely and considered freely, whether they had to purchase their citizenship
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or if they were freeborn. And there were a lot of folks from Near Eastern
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nations, and among them, there were a great many Jews.
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This is the free population, 200,000.
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This does not include, the census did not include the slaves.
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There are 500,000 slaves
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in Corinth, 2.5 times more bonded
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than free. And they have come because there is
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a robust slave trade because of the port city, because slavery
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was practiced throughout the Roman world. Was the
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pipeline that got those out to the different places where slaves were
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held by the Romans. 700,000 people,
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a great many of them who were portable. Man,
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you think about how the Lord says, Paul, you're my man.
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Acts 9:16, you're going to take the gospel all over the Gentile world.
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And as he does this, he's teaching somebody who maybe is in
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Corinth for a month or two, or maybe on a port stopover. And after
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they're converted, they go far-flung all over the world.
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No wonder Paul would say what he says in Colossians 1:23,
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that the gospel was heard by every creature under heaven.
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Now, when I say port city,
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think even in modern times, anything come to mind?
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What would happen in a port city even today?
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Okay, all right, seedy behavior. Levi says
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prostitution, and it was, and idolatry and the practices that they're
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bringing from all over the world. They're all accumulating in
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Corinth. And maybe that's one of the reasons, you've heard this in other classes before,
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that Corinth was so bad that they
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used the term to Corinthianize, which meant to be sexually
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immoral. And so Paul is writing, and so we're not surprised that Paul is going
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to spend a couple of chapters, we have them divided into chapters, but a portion
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of that letter is devoted to sexual immorality.
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But with all of this hodgepodge of beliefs and people coming from all over the
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place, you already have a tendency, an inclination
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toward division, but you also have, somebody said it,
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worldly, fleshly. When you're guided by your flesh
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and by your desires, man,
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it's going to be very easy for division to occur. And so Paul's going to
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spend a lot of the time talking about that.
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But the biggest, it's seen by this idea of unity,
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division is captured in a lot of different ways. It's in
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the plain language that Paul uses, but it's also found even in some of
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the keywords that you'll find in the book. And I'm not going to try to
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give you all the number of times that they occur except on a few occasions.
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The word wisdom is going to be a keyword in
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1 Corinthians, 28 times it's going to occur. The word knowledge
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is going to be found 66 times across that 16-chapter
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book. The word gifts is going to be found several times.
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The word brother, it's going to be found 40 times.
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You'll find the word weak and spiritual and judge.
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Now I want you to think about all of those words in the light of
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what we are seeing and what we're going to see as we go through 1
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Corinthians. Wisdom, there's more than one kind.
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Knowledge, there's a lack of it, and that could be a problem. There's the
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wrong kind of knowledge that can lead to difficulties.
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Gifts, whose gifts are better, my gifts or your
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gifts? Whose is more important? Whose does the Lord need more than
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anyone else? Brother, am I going to be focused on my brother or do I
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want my brother to be focused on me? Who's weak
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and who's strong? Who's spiritual and who's
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fleshly? Who gets to be the judge in
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a particular matter? And so Paul is setting up what this
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letter is about as we see in the keywords, but then there's also the word
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body. It's found 47 times in 35
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verses. And when you think about a body, a body is, and Paul's going
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to talk about this in 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, the body
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is not one member, but many.
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And you think about just in the last time you experienced any
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kind of a trauma or any kind of a difficulty in one part of your
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body, you know, we'll put it in the daily bread, we'll mention it in the
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announcements that so-and-so is having a, a surgery or a
20:19
procedure on X part of the body. It could be
20:23
seemingly relatively minor or very important.
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But you see, the body is working in concert. It's not— no part of
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the body is out on an island by itself. And so Paul
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mentions this body metaphor to say, look, we're like the
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physical body. We are supposed to be united,
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working in the same direction, doing the same thing. It's a powerful,
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And so Paul has 2 major purposes in
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this letter, not to oversimplify, but it seems
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like his major purpose is to address the division that's running
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rampant in the church in Corinth. A church is not going
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to be what God wants it to be that is distracted by division. Do you
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agree? If we're caught up in our camps and our problems with
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one another, there is no way we're firing on all cylinders.
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Now, his secondary purpose is to apparently answer some
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questions. It's going to be signified, especially in the second
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half of the book, with the phrase, now concerning.
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There's apparently questions that they have, but this even relates
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to unity, doesn't it? Because we're going to find that maybe there were different
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points of view with regard to the positions that they held.
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And so Paul is going to say, look, in these things that we're addressing,
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I'm going to be very mindful of my brother, and I don't want to do
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anything that makes my brother to stumble, 1 Corinthians 8:13. When it
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comes to our gifts and our abilities, yours are not less
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or more important than mine, 1 Corinthians 12— 14:12,
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it's for the good of the body. Let everything be done for edification.
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And so Paul is going to deal with that. Now, how does he do it?
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That's what we're going to look at in the rest of the class as we
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go through chapter 1 this morning. First of all, Paul is going
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to challenge them to be of the same mind and the same judgment by focusing
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on a calling. This is how the letter begins.
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Notice it with me in verse 1 through 9.
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Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ
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by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church
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of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ
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Jesus, saints by faith, calling with all who in every place
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call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord
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and ours. Grace to you and peace from God
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our Father and our— the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always
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concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus,
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that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and
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all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you're
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not lacking in any gift, Awaiting eagerly the revelation of
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our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end,
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blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful through
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whom you were called into fellowship with His Son,
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Jesus Christ our Lord. Now we have a distinct
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advantage. How would this information originally
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have been disseminated in the congregation?
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Well, it's going to be read out loud.
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Okay, and so you're going to have a brother who's going to stand before the
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congregation and he's going to begin reading. He's going to read
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what is one of the longer letters of Paul, but this
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is all you've got so far. I mean, you think, pause your brain for a
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moment. This is all you've heard. You've not heard verse 10 through
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the end of chapter 16. What impact,
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what effect do you think that would have on you? First of all, do you
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think they knew what was coming? We have no reason to
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believe that they did. So what effect does
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this— well, and let me ask you this. How would you assess these
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first 9 verses? How would you characterize them?
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Any words come to mind? Positive.
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Yeah. And why is it positive?
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Okay. You can see the love. There's getting
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ready to be a negative. Oh, okay. Now he'd
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spent 18 months there. So you're thinking, oh, we've heard Paul preach before.
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Wow, this is sweet. We must be about to be hammered by something here,
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right? And so they perhaps know that about Paul.
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We know that looking at the corpus of Paul, all of his writings,
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that except for Galatians, he sets them up.
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He says the sweet and wonderful things that he actually feels,
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To let them know, look, that kind of goes to the first answer.
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I love you. You're wonderful. So how
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would this beginning help with
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the subject that he's about to hit, which is be
25:01
of the same mind, be of the same judgment?
25:11
These problems have taken them away from— I absolutely
25:15
do. Laura said, is it that he's trying to remind them
25:19
of who they are and who they are to be, who God
25:23
has called them to be? Yes, go ahead, Andy. And here
25:27
he's emphasizing unity beginning
25:31
not just with the congregation but the entire Christian body, because he
25:34
says, with all who in every place called Good.
25:40
So you think about what Paul is doing right at the very beginning. Big picture,
25:44
because when I'm divided, you know what? I have this tunnel vision and I am
25:48
just looking, everything, everything gets
25:52
put through the prism of the thing that I'm focused on. You ever thought
25:56
about that? Every word that's said, everything that's done,
26:00
it must have something to do with my issue that I'm focused on.
26:04
And so I hear it in the prayers, I see it in the things that
26:07
are said, and boy, that's it. So what do I got to do?
26:12
Step back. I'm a member of a church
26:15
where there's a lot at play.
26:19
I'm a part of a brotherhood throughout the world.
26:24
And so I've got to make sure I remember who I
26:28
am in the context of that. And who am I? I'm a
26:32
part of the body that's trying to help it to grow and to be
26:35
strengthened. So that's a great point is that I've got
26:39
to see about the church everywhere, but also I've got to remember who I am.
26:44
And so Paul really focuses in on that. And I think he does that,
26:47
by the way, the word calling is found 6 times in this one
26:50
chapter, all from the same general word family.
26:53
And Paul focuses on his calling, He focuses on
26:57
their calling and the calling of all Christians,
27:02
and he focuses on God's calling them.
27:05
And so there's this idea of a calling. So what do we mean by calling?
27:10
Okay, a divine purpose, a divine mission.
27:14
What else? We're called to honor the name of
27:18
our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. All right,
27:21
so we can look at— here's the technical definition. It carries the idea of urgently
27:26
inviting someone to accept responsibilities for a
27:30
particular task, implying a new relationship
27:34
with the one who does the calling. Hey, I need you to
27:38
be a part of this. And as the result of your accepting this responsibility,
27:42
it changes your relationship with me.
27:45
Now that works in 2 ways. If we all accept the calling,
27:49
does that change our relationship with one another? If we accept
27:53
that calling, does it change our relationship with God? Because ultimately God's the
27:57
one doing the calling. He may do it through the calls that come through
28:01
the preaching of the gospel, through the interactions of
28:06
the church leadership, but you have this calling.
28:09
Now, Paul focuses on his calling. Why would he start there?
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Paul called to be an apostle. What's the
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significance? Gives him authority.
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Okay. So he establishes his authority.
28:26
All right. So what written scriptures do they have access to when Paul
28:30
writes 1 Corinthians? I mean, I don't
28:34
know how quickly they're beginning to circulate, but this is pretty early. This is 20
28:36
years from the time the church is established. So mainly,
28:40
if not exclusively, the Old Testament.
28:44
Now, even Gentiles, if they come into a saving relationship with Christ,
28:47
are they going to revere? Are they going to see the Old Testament as authoritative?
28:52
Yes. That's why even when you're writing to Gentile congregations,
28:56
you say, this is what Isaiah meant. This is what David was saying,
28:59
because they recognize the authority. They're obedient to the gospel because they see that.
29:03
What about Paul's words alongside of the Old Testament?
29:08
Less than, equal than? It's the same.
29:13
And so Paul— so you think about what Paul— really nice in the first 9
29:17
verses, but when he gets down to the heart of the letter, going to be
29:20
some things hard to swallow. But they don't have the— they don't have
29:24
the right or the option to say, eh, that's just Paul.
29:28
Now, I want you to think about that. There are going to be some classes
29:29
later on, we get to chapter 7, where there's some great misunderstanding
29:33
where people go, oh, well, that's just Paul's opinion. Paul is an apostle
29:38
and what the words that he is writing, and I think as we wade through
29:42
some of that somewhat difficult material, we'll see that there's no inconsistency
29:46
here, that Paul is an inspired spokesman for
29:50
God and his word must be accepted the same as any other place in the
29:53
Bible. Yes, sir, Mike. Yeah, Paul, where he's talking
29:57
about 12 wars and he says sometimes he gives his opinion,
30:01
But then he says, I don't say this,
30:04
God says this. And then he turns around and he says,
30:07
but I have the will of the Lord in mind.
30:11
So he always goes back to authority when he says that. That's going
30:15
to be a fun chapter. I don't know, Hiram, if we're going to cast lots
30:18
or do rock-paper-scissors for that one. I don't know if we want it or if
30:21
we want the other guy to have it. I don't know. That's a tough chapter,
30:24
but yeah, that's a great point. There's maybe another reason
30:28
why Paul points to his apostleship. What did his apostleship lead
30:31
him to do? Remember, let's go back to Acts 9:16.
30:35
What did Jesus say he wanted Paul to do? What was his mission?
30:40
To the Gentiles. As part of being faithful to that mission, what does Paul
30:44
do? He comes to Corinth for 18 months. He works among
30:48
them. He spends time with them. He develops relationships with them.
30:52
That builds a bond. I want you to see the softer other side of this.
30:56
When Paul talks about his calling as an apostle that led him to spend
31:00
the second most time really intense, involved,
31:03
he stays there. He starts there as a tentmaker so he can be there with
31:07
them. And then when the others come with the contribution from
31:11
other congregations, Acts 18:5, 2 Corinthians 11:8,
31:15
he dedicates himself full-time to ministry. And so he's saying,
31:19
look, I have the right as an apostle, but I love you.
31:23
I care about you. We've done life together.
31:26
So when we— when we hit some speed bumps, some difficult things
31:31
that are to come, I want you to remember that. It's important.
31:54
Absolutely. Oh, okay. Yeah, sure,
31:58
sure. Maybe we don't hear about that as much as the Gentile world, but maybe
32:01
they were afraid of Paul on some— to some degree, maybe so. Now I
32:06
want you to see after Paul deals with his calling, he deals with their calling
32:09
in verse 2 through verse 9. And so,
32:12
by whom were they called? Verse 2,
32:16
verse 9. It's right there in the text.
32:20
Somebody said it, I think. By God. All right. So this
32:23
is not something you slough off. God is the one who's doing the calling.
32:27
To what were they called?
32:31
Look at verse 2, to be set apart.
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Notice he kind of doubles down on that, doesn't he? He says, to those sanctified
32:39
in Christ Jesus, saints by calling.
32:43
What does that help them with? What was the culture
32:47
like around them?
32:49
Unholy, unrighteous, immoral. You've already
32:53
said that. He says, hey guys, God has you here in this part
32:57
of the world called out of all of that. Now,
33:01
maybe they can see that more clearly with immorality than they
33:05
can with the other big, huge elephant in the room. The division.
33:10
Press pause for a moment. Do we have a pretty
33:14
clear picture on immorality? I'm going to talk about it in the sermon this morning.
33:18
Big, big sins, do we see it? If we
33:22
had a rampant sexual immorality— I'm going to tell you this. I won't even tell
33:25
you where. There was a work my dad preached a lot of different places.
33:27
There was a work my dad preached at where there was— it was— you
33:31
older folks in here, it's before my time, but I know the phrase, Peyton's Place.
33:35
It was one of those people chuckling, the folks who know what that was.
33:38
I think that's like real immoral, bad, you know, people who maybe looked
33:43
respectable on the surface, but there was a lot of sin going on. If that
33:47
were a part of our congregation, man, it'd be pretty clear.
33:52
How easy is it for us to see the worldliness of division,
33:56
of people camping out in allegiance to people
34:00
who are boasting about their gifts? I mean, these are,
34:04
These are a little harder to detect, aren't they? A little bit more subjective.
34:09
How do I know? Oh, I know, I can see it in you, but it's
34:12
a lot harder for me to see it in me. And so Paul is saying,
34:15
you've been called out. The culture is always divisive.
34:19
Think about our world today. Is our nation divided?
34:24
And it doesn't matter who's occupying the White House or which party is in charge.
34:28
It just seems to be going from bad to worse all the time.
34:30
And if you happen to be on social media, is social media world divided?
34:35
I mean, you just think about wherever you want to look in our culture.
34:39
And so what does God expect of us in the
34:43
midst of all of that? We are saints by calling,
34:46
sanctified by our Lord Jesus Christ. We're called out
34:50
of all of that into something different.
34:53
All right, and then when were they called? Boy, I'd like to spend more time
34:57
on this. When were they called?
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What does verse 2 say?
35:11
What did they call on? They called on the name of
35:15
our Lord Jesus Christ. When did that happen? At baptism.
35:18
Okay, alright, we have to do some leaps and I wish we had time.
35:21
We will have more chance to talk about that. Acts 2:21, whosoever calls
35:25
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's in the first sermon.
35:29
We get a sample of how— what that means more specifically in
35:33
Saul's conversion when Ananias comes to him and he says, and now why do you
35:37
delay? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins,
35:40
calling on the name of the Lord. It's appealing to the Lord. 1 Peter 3:21,
35:44
out of a good conscience saying, I depend on your grace and I depend on
35:47
your mercy. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, they were all baptized into
35:51
one body. And so, So that's when they came into
35:54
this new relationship. They left the world, and now they were to be different
35:58
in the way that they behaved. Why were they called? We would
36:02
spend more time on this, but I just want to kind of give you this
36:05
out of verses 8 and 9. He says, you were called
36:09
to keep you firm, to endure. The Lord wants
36:13
you to make it. He wants the problems that you're having to be
36:17
resolved. He wants you to be firing on all cylinders, to be growing,
36:21
to be thriving, to be deepening your influence in the world, He wants you
36:25
to be like that church in Thessalonica, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, where your faith is
36:29
known all over the world. He wants that for you and
36:33
he wants you to be blameless. That doesn't mean sinless. It means that when you
36:36
stand before the King of Kings, the verdict is that you're not guilty.
36:40
And he wants this— you've been called to
36:43
have fellowship with Jesus. You're not just called out or
36:48
away from something. Towards something,
36:52
and that something is someone, Jesus Christ.
36:55
And when I'm called to, when I'm pulled into relationship
37:00
through obedience and submission into a relationship with Christ, and I'm really focusing on
37:04
that, and I'm really working on that on a day-by-day basis to be better,
37:07
to be stronger, to be more like him, what kind of impact am
37:11
I going to have on the local church? I'll be reflecting his
37:15
character. What is Paul going to say? 1 Corinthians 11:1,
37:19
Imitators of me as I am of Christ.
37:23
That humbles me. Here's the
37:28
way it sounds coming out of my mouth. Be imitators of Neil even as Neil
37:32
is of Christ. Now put your name in there.
37:34
Does it work?
37:38
And if it did, would we be more united or
37:42
would we be more divided? All right, so he focuses— before he—
37:45
we haven't even gotten to the problems yet. He focuses on the calling.
37:49
Man, see this not for your glory, but for his
37:52
glory, this elevated state in which you have found yourself
37:56
by being in Christ. All right, but then, oh, here it is, the heart of
37:59
the letter. There's a correction. Verse 10 through 17,
38:03
now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you
38:06
all agree, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete
38:09
in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I've been informed concerning you,
38:12
my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.
38:15
Now I mean this, that each of you is saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of
38:17
Apollos, I of Cephas, and I of Christ.
38:21
Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?
38:26
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized
38:29
none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say
38:33
that you were baptized in my name. Now I did also baptize the household of
38:36
Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other, for Christ did
38:40
not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of
38:45
speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Now, we've talked
38:49
about this before, but one of the ways you can establish the purpose of a
38:52
letter, sometimes there's a purpose statement. John says,
38:56
these things are written for this reason. 1 Timothy also does that.
39:00
Now, when we did Into the Word last month,
39:04
when Hiram started off chapter 4, he highlighted that
39:08
there are 2 petition verbs. And in Greek letters, they were really like
39:11
neon signs. And that petition verb is I urge, I beseech.
39:15
And depending on what version you have, you'll have a different word
39:18
I exhort, I appeal, or I plead. You'll see it there in verse 10.
39:23
And so Paul is saying, this is the occasion. This is the reason why I'm
39:26
saying all these things because Yodia and Sintike are divided.
39:30
It's causing problems in the church. Now in 1 Corinthians,
39:34
we find it right here at the heart of the letter. He says, I urge
39:37
you that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly
39:41
joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. What Paul is saying is,
39:45
Here's the roadmap. This is why I'm writing this,
39:49
because Chloe's people have come and told me that you're divided
39:53
to the point that you're standing behind different people, and Christ is not
39:57
divided. You weren't baptized in the name of any man.
40:00
You're forgetting Christ in all of this. And so he says, there's a
40:04
problem we need to correct. And man, you can walk through, here's a kind of
40:07
a roadmap of the rest of the letter. How was the division seen in 1
40:11
Corinthians? It was seen through their division by being— having
40:15
an allegiance to different men, chapter 2 through 4.
40:20
It is seen through their moral sin. He's going to talk about that in chapter
40:23
5 and verse 6. It's going to be seen in their marital strife in
40:27
chapter 7. It's going to be seen in matters of judgment in chapters 8
40:32
and 9. It's going to be seen in the mistakes by Israel
40:35
that they were mimicking, chapter 10. It's going to be seen in their misunderstanding
40:40
of gender roles in chapter 11. Chapter 11, verse 1 through 16, their abuse of
40:44
the Lord's Supper, chapter 11, verse 17 through 34, through their
40:48
mishandling of their spiritual gifts, chapters 12 through 14.
40:51
And so Paul is going to go through all of that and he says,
40:55
I want you to be one, that there be no divisions, because they were divided
40:58
in each and every one of those particular matters. So here's
41:03
the problem. How do you correct it? Even before
41:07
we get to the individual topics, He tells them how to do
41:10
it. Number 1, be complete. Now,
41:14
how would they do that? How would they be complete?
41:19
All agree, be of the same mind and be of the same judgment. Does that
41:22
mean that we all have to have the same opinions and the same preferences?
41:26
I say the New American Standard Bible is the best.
41:31
Hiram, I don't know, what would you say? The ESV is the best.
41:36
A lot of you would say the New King James is the best. So here's
41:39
what we got to do. We got to be of the same judgment. And so
41:42
nobody can use any other Bible but the New American Standard.
41:45
I don't know, whatever it is. Can't we— can't— is that what he's— is that
41:48
what Paul's saying? That you've got to walk my line?
41:52
We got to be of the same mind? Who determines that? What does Paul mean
41:56
when he says be of the same mind? Whose mind does he have in mind?
42:00
Christ. How do we know that? We're skipping ahead because we
42:04
have the whole letter. Chapter 2, verse 10 through 16, we have
42:07
the mind of Christ. How do we have the mind of Christ? How do you
42:10
know what the mind of Christ is? Well, that's what 2:10 through 16 is
42:14
about. It's about the revelation of the Word. And so we know. And so what
42:18
does it mean to be of the same judgment? How do we get there?
42:21
What if our judgments are different and not in the realm
42:25
of doctrine,
42:34
Okay, I agree with that. We have to read what God's Word has to say,
42:37
but God's Word has a lot to say, but does it
42:41
say, ladies, whether you should have a hat on
42:45
your head or not? What's the
42:48
judgment call? Does it say whether you need to have one One
42:53
cup or several?
42:56
It doesn't matter. But how do we get to the
43:00
same judgment? We use the same mind,
43:03
right? So it's going to form not just where places
43:07
are tied down, but when it's not tied down, it's going to help me to
43:10
know how we navigate that together without being divisive with one another.
43:14
And so that's how we're made complete. We need to see Christ
43:19
correctly, verse 11 through 13. And so he puts Christ in the center,
43:23
and we've got to focus on the gospel and on the cross,
43:27
on the right message and on the right man. So here's the template.
43:32
Maybe this is a good place to stop because starting in chapter 1, verse 18,
43:36
we're going to see the cross as part
43:40
of the solution, at the heart of the solution. When a church has problems,
43:43
what it has not done, it has not sufficiently looked at
43:47
the cross of Calvary. If we will, then we'll resolve a lot
43:51
of the problems that we have. Hiram will talk more about that next week.
43:54
Thank you very much for your attention this morning.