Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 11, 2022 | 1 Corinthians - No Teams but Jesus

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September 11, 2022 | 1 Corinthians - No Teams but Jesus · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be back.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to see everybody today.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are starting a brand new series, and um got a little technology here that I guarantee I'm going to mess up this morning.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're gonna be going through the book of 1 Corinthians together, and uh this little thing is going to make it so that I can, you know, draw smiley faces for all of you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um glad to be with you though today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've been gone the last two weeks here.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've been hanging out with this little guy, and um Daniel's doing great.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing great, he's eating a lot, he's sleeping a lot, he's doing other things a lot, and um we are we're really thankful for him.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um he's uh surely a blessing from the Lord.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we are starting a new series today, and uh to be honest with you, I've been I've been excited to take this on for a couple months now.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my favorite thing is going through books of the Bible.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh though I also love when we get to do uh series like retold and going through things like that, there's nothing that I enjoy more than digging deep into God's Word, like we're going to do here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this series in 1 Corinthians, not only because of what we can do up on the screen, but also just the time that we're going to take to walk through this, uh, we're gonna be in 1 Corinthians for a while.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would encourage you to sort of walk with us through this process as we're reading it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um in your emails, you this past week you received a reading guide, a PDF.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you can also go to our website, discovertbc.com.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's a button right there where you can find the same reading list, or here's a secret, we're going through it like bit by bit.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So just read beyond where we covered the previous week and you will have it covered.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um as we go through 1 Corinthians, though, uh one thing that you'll notice here is that we're starting in chapter 1, verse 4.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's because uh the first three verses, Paul is kind of giving this introduction.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have Paul, who is writing this letter to a church in Corinth, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can see here we're in Greece, and um the church at Corinth, right there, is uh in between these two bodies of water.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can see the uh the Adriatic Sea on one side and the Aegean Sea on the other.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Corinth, to make a long story short, it's a very wealthy city.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's this there's this tiny little isthmus which connects this larger landmass to uh the tiny little bit that extends out into the Mediterranean Sea.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, there's a lot of naval traffic going back and forth through here, and so that has created this city that is a melting pot.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's also created a very wealthy city.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is a Roman-controlled Greek community, and there are a whole lot of other things about it, but if you listen to our September Extra Extra podcast, actually explained, kind of gave a quick dive into what it was like to live in Corinth during this time.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're actually not going to look too much at that today.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to save as much time as possible for the message itself.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, Paul is writing, though, this letter to this church that he planted in Corinth.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he loves the church at Corinth, he cares for it, he deeply desires to have them understand what it looks like to be a church.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's gonna be one of our main focuses as we walk through this series together is what does it look like to be a church that follows Christ?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like to be a Christian that follows after Christ?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians covers a whole lot of different topics.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about church discipline, money, we're gonna talk about marriage, singleness, love, we're gonna talk about uh, I mean, today we're talking about divisions.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of different topics we're going to discover, but all of it is coming together where everybody is focused on what it means to follow after Christ.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, with that, we'll go ahead and kind of bring us into our text for this morning.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, the first three verses, Paul was basically introducing himself, who he was writing, he was giving a greeting, and now he's beginning to address his letter specifically to the Corinthians.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I always thank God for you, because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: In this way the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly await for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: God is faithful.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You were called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, when we begin looking at this passage here, one of the first things we have to recognize, that we'll also you'll hear me mention a couple times today, Paul is going to introduce themes that we'll be discussing for the next couple months.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is the beginning of his letter, and one of those things is that the motivation for why we should be doing any of this stuff is because of Christ.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is not because it's easy, it's not because it makes things more convenient, it is not because it's pleasurable to us necessarily or specifically because of that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not some kind of organizational chart.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying you should be doing these things because you are following after Christ.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we can see that here in the very beginning, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: We can see five times Christ Jesus, the testimony about Christ.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: We hear Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, and the Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the first couple verses here, Paul is just hitting them over the head with this idea.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: We are doing this because of Christ.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul also says in the beginning, I always thank my God for you.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: See, there's going to be, unlike some of the other letters that Paul has written, he and the Corinthians don't get along that well.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: There have been some other churches, like the Philippians, for instance, where Paul says, You bring me so much joy to know you and to think of you.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Corinth isn't doing that for Paul.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily, their actions don't bring him joy, but Paul is still thankful for them.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul here is practicing something that he is going to later reinforce and instruct people to do, which is over and above any of the differences, any of the turmoil, any of the trouble, any of the disagreements and divisions.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying, I am thankful for you, because you are in Christ, and I am in Christ, and therefore we are united in purpose.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is overlooking what is going to be a fairly contentious letter to the church at Corinth, brought about from a number of people who came to Paul with concerns about this church, and he starts out by saying, I'm thankful for you.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he also says that in, here we go, he says, You were enriched in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: You were enriched in every way.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not literally that they had everything they could ask for.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about here is the same way you might say, you invited every single person to your party.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, you didn't invite literally every single person to your party, but you invited a whole lot of people to your party.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians are extremely blessed.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the two ways that Paul sort of points out that they are inordinately blessed above other people and in comparison is in their speech and in their knowledge.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Two things that mean a whole lot to people in the Greek community, that they can speak well and that they have great ideas.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is giving them this commendation, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Recognizing that it is Christ who has brought it to them, though later on he is going to end up criticizing them because they have overvalued these things, and it has led to some of their divisions.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, they have been blessed by God in speech and in knowledge.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: In this way he says the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's the testimony of Christ?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well it's the gospel.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is saying, in your church, in this city of Corinth, this Roman-controlled Greek community, where is a whole melting pot of cultures and religions and ideas and thoughts and fancies, that in that space, when you exercise the gifts that God has given to you, you are confirming the testimony of the gospel.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: As people are learning more about Jesus and coming into these little house churches that would have been spread around the city of Corinth, and as they're using these amazing gifts that God has given to them, they're using them, they are simultaneously confirming the fact that the gospel rests with them and that they are telling people about Jesus, who's confirmed among you.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians, it's 2,000 years ago, but they're in the same situation we are.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're waiting for Jesus.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's resurrected, and God has blessed his people as they are waiting.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible uses this concept of Jesus coming over the horizon like this rising sun, and that we're sort of in the darkness.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: We see these the fingers of light as they're being casted across the land, and we can see that it's coming, but it is not yet here.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so they have been strengthened and they are encouraged and they've been given gifts to be able to endure this time and to be able to be strengthened during this time as they eagerly anticipate Jesus coming.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is building up all of these ideas for them because he says, you do not lack any of these spiritual gifts, and you will also be strengthened if you feel weak.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: You will be strengthened to the end, so that you will be blameless, as he says, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're not blameless because they're perfect.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're blameless for the same reason that you and I are blameless if we trust in Christ.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Hey, a day is coming when Jesus is going to bring all things to account.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've been strengthened into that time, you've been gifted until that time, and when that time comes, you will be seen as blameless.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But not because you are perfect, Corinth.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's because you have Christ.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can see Paul here is building up all of these things.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And to his final point here in verse 9, we're doing this because God is faithful.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you were called by him into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The word fellowship there, it's a word that means a lot to us here at TBC because the Greek word is koinanea.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the group that's meeting right beneath our feet here in Mulvaine at this moment.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Koinonia means fellowship, right?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it is more than just getting together.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, all of these things have come about.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is doing all of these things for you.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have been blessed, you have been strengthened, you are awaiting God.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: He has brought you to this point, and now you have been called into fellowship with Christ.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not like you and Jesus are at the same mixer at different ends of the party, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is that you have a relationship with Christ.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things that you have been called to do.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when we keep all of this in mind, right?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is just his, like his opening salvo here.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, when you keep all of these things in mind that you have been called to Christ, he's pointing them to their North Star.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because what he's about to do is challenge the way that they are living and acting within the church.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the only reason that they should be changing is because they are to have fellowship with Christ.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is the reason for the change.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is the reason that they should address these different things that are going on.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: God is faithful, you are called by him into fellowship with his son, Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So as we take these things and we walk forward, we get a small picture of the church at Corinth.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: They are richly blessed.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: They've been strengthened.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are, at least on the surface, united in Christ.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: But under the surface, under the waves, there's something going on that isn't right.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's something going on where people are not acting in fellowship with Jesus.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're not acting with fellowship towards each other.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's something suspicious here.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: You might be familiar with Lance Armstrong, sports icon of yesteryear.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: From 99 to 05, he won seven straight Tours de France championships as a professional cyclist until it was revealed that he was basically the figurehead of a wide-ranging doping conspiracy, and all of those titles were stripped from him.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: But if you were around and care what was going on, you couldn't even really avoid it.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody had their live strong bracelets and were supporting what was going on during that period of time.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And on the outside, everything was great.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Raising money, he was doing fantastic, he was unbeatable, until we realized there was something sick underneath there.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: People lost a lot of respect for him, and the message that he was trying to convey lost a lot of its power, too.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of the space that we're heading into here.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as we walk forward in Corinthians, we're going to see that they have been called to this great thing.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And like all of us, they are not perfect.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are imperfect people who are desiring to honor God.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul is going to point out some really painful things that are showing that what is on the outside is just this facade.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is on the inside is very troublesome.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we get to our main text for this morning.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we'll spend the rest of our time.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now Paul's going to take the argument and turn it a little bit.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You've just been told all of the ways in which, if you're in Corinth, you're hearing this letter being read aloud, you've just heard all of the ways in which God has blessed you, how he has been faithful, how he has been good to you, are you to have fellowship with him?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now Paul says, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of that same God, of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then he lists three things that are all basically the same.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: They are highlighted by this idea that there be no divisions among you.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: No divisions among you.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Greek word here is schisma, and it's used again in 1 Corinthians 11 and 12 to describe a body being torn apart limb by limb.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says, there are divisions among you right now, and even though this body, as he'll develop later on in the letter, this body, this church, is supposed to be together, is supposed to work together, and there are many ways in which it functions like a human body.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, right now, he's not even worried about that.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's just trying to stop the bleeding.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, there are divisions among you, and it is tantamount to somebody ripping the arm off of a body.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: That is what it is like when divisions happen within the church.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says that you must be united in the same understanding and the same conviction.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, in Corinth, we've mentioned it was it was a big melting pot.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was very wealthy, a lot of different kinds of people, a lot of different backgrounds.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: As we're going to see a lot of different opinions, too, about who was greatest and who were involved so much in the culture, that Greek culture that valued prestige, that valued sort of eloquent speech, that valued wisdom, that they were beginning to use those things to influence and to divide the church that was supposed to be marked by unity.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of the other way around, which is that the unity brought by Christ, the togetherness, the sameness of purpose, rather than having that influence their world, the world was influencing the church.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters, by members of Chloe's people, oh, that there is rivalry among you.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Chloe's a snitch, right?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not really.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: We'll actually talk about that later too.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: That Chloe is doing what all good Christians should do, which is she's caring for her or her people were caring for their brothers and sisters in Corinth.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they went to the person who would be able to help them most.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because they cared not about their reputation here necessarily, what Corinth might say about come on, Chloe, like I thought we were close.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Chloe's saying, I am close to you, and I care about you, and that's why I'm telling Paul what's going on here.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: See, uh, there were some serious problems, as we've already alluded to, in Corinth.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, about uh 40 years after this letter was written, a church father named Clement wrote about the church in Corinth and said that it was experiencing dissensions, divisions, and war.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's a continual problem or something that cropped up again, there was something about Corinth that was a breeding ground for people bringing in all of these ideas and dividing up the body of Christ.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's this rivalry about then?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is Paul so frustrated with these divisions?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't in one accord, they were not agreeing in what they were saying.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: What was this rivalry about?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: What could people possibly be competing about when it came to church?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 12.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: What I am saying is this one of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, because they started playing favorites.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what's going on here.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: These are all people who, and I'll talk about this more in the podcast this week, what each of these four groups might have represented as people have tried to suss that out.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But really what you need to take away from this is that there was rivalry, there was dissension over foolish things, and it was tearing the church apart.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: They were picking these different leaders who had come in at various times and were following after them.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's uh really good evidence to suggest that even the group here that says, I belong to Christ, is sort of this fringe group that probably doesn't have the healthiest theology.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: There are all of these different people, and you can see how this would be uh like festering in this community where people were in these different house churches, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: They don't meet in one big space like we do here, but they were meeting in people's homes.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so some people might be lifting up this one person, let it be Paul, or another one, let it be Apollos.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Paul will dig into that later on, because maybe one of them was better at speech, maybe one of them was more intentional, one of them looked better, but they were starting to play favorites.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they were picking favorites and dividing the Church of God over things that had nothing to do with the gospel.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Paul comments by asking three rhetorical questions.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the most dramatic one is when he says, Is Christ divided?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is our Lord, is he split up into a bunch of different parts?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a little bit for you and a little bit for you, and a little bit for you?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is that how it works?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, our Lord is not divided.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: He brings unity.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Paul then comments on some of the people who were even saying, we follow after Paul, and he's like, Why?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Did I die for you?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was I your savior?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't your savior.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: You should be following after Christ.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Was Paul crucified for you?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or were you baptized in Paul's name?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Were you baptized in Jesus' name?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: You see, Paul is addressing these things now, and he turns on, I mean, he points his guns at them and he says, You need to come to an account of understanding of what is happening in your church.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is Christ divided?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, he is not.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yet some groups were more pleased to have a portion of Christ with disunity than to have all of Christ with unity.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: See, what isn't really spoken about here is the natural human inclination to divide into like groups.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Paul gets that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's a lot smarter than all of us.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul understands that in a church that is built in a community with a whole lot of different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, political positions, status, skills, wealth, he says, I get that there's reasons that you could find to divide up into little groups.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Groups that look the same, sound the same, feel the same, groups that talk the same, that believe the exact same thing, and say, we're gonna have our little bit of Jesus over here.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And hey, those people over there, yeah, we're in the same church.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: We both believe in Christ, but they can stay over there and they can have their little bit of Jesus.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Christ isn't divided.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: We should not be acting in such a way that we are dividing Christ either.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is like tearing a limb from the body.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: So then Paul goes on and he says, I thank God, and this is such a Paul kind of statement, I thank God that I baptize none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say they were baptized in my name.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I did in fact baptize the household of Stephanus.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, I don't recall if I baptized anyone else.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's like, Don't you dare weaponize baptism against me.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you're using this thing and saying somebody's walking around with their pen saying, Well, I don't know if you saw Paul, you know, took the ship.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: He left a couple months ago, but I was baptized while he's here.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got a Paul baptism.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody comes over and they're like, I got an Apollos baptism, what of it?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: These people are waging these things against each other.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is not disagreeing with the practice of baptism itself.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is a good thing.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: What he's disagreeing with is people using it to divide.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the theme here.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, who were Crispus and Gaius?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we aren't positive, but Crispus is probably the leader of the synagogue.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's mentioned in Acts 18 as the one, so the Jewish man who would be leading all the Jewish people in the synagogue at Corinth.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably Crispus.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Gaius is probably mentioned in Romans 18 as another leading individual here.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Stephanus is somebody who is actually, find out in 1 Corinthians 16, is with Paul while he is writing this letter to the church at Corinth.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these people were probably early converts of the church there.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is like, I hit, I got a couple people in the very beginning, but I'm glad, based upon what you guys are doing with this information, that I haven't baptized any more people, because obviously that has become a problem.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then Paul finishes here in 1 Corinthians 1, 17.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied of its effect.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Two things here.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: First, Paul says that he came to preach the gospel.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then he also says that he is doing it so that it will not be emptied of its effect.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to get better at writing lines in a little bit.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Paul comes to preach the gospel.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says, that was my purpose.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't there to get a following.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't there to develop a fan club, sell t-shirts and CDs.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I was there to preach the gospel.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the thing that saves.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the thing that brings unity.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the thing that transforms lives.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I came to preach the gospel.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, as he does elsewhere, I didn't do it with eloquent wisdom.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Paul never ever claims to be somebody who is great with his words.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I didn't do it with eloquent wisdom.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Something you might recall he congratulated the Corinthians for having at the very beginning.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he combined the two of them, right?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: That they were eloquent and they had knowledge.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I didn't come to preach the gospel with those things.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You have them, I don't.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, I was also careful to not do it in such a way that the cross of Christ would be emptied of its effect.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you might be asking the question, how in the world could the cross of Christ ever be emptied of its effect?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's certainly not on God's end that it would be emptied of its effect.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: It has something to do with the way that he is criticizing them for how they are presenting the cross of Christ, right?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's looking at them and he says, Do you want to be known as somebody who knows Christ?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to be somebody who acts like they follow Christ?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, there were people in Corinth, in ancient Greece, they were called sophists, S-O-P-H-I-S-T.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's based upon the Greek word Sophia, which means wisdom.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And sophists were traveling teachers who would be paid to stand out in the city streets or to teach nobles and things the ways of wisdom.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul's criticizing.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: The people in Corinth would know that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: They would know that there were people who made their living based upon their ability to speak eloquently.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, are they doing it to be heard?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing this to be heard by others?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: That you can be recognized as somebody who can talk about Jesus really well?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Are you doing it?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you using the gifts of God that were confirmed and confirmed the testimony of Christ?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing it so that the gospel might be preached?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because these two things are very different.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of them empties the cross of its effect, and one of them leads to the salvation of others.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is tantamount to dividing the body of Christ, using the gospel to divide against other people, and another one of them is bringing people closer to the cross, to the foot of the cross, where they might understand what it looks like to wait for Jesus until he comes.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is bringing all of these things together, and most of all, he is saying that the gospel is something that should be brought together to unify people.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: That the gospel is the thing that cuts across all of these divisions.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the thing that cuts across all of these boundaries and walls that people might put up.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the gospel is supposed to be marking the church that is focused on Christ.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that people all look the same or sound the same, but it means that they have found unity in being brothers and sisters.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: See, you know, there are some of us who like looking at these pictures where you try and find out, even some of you right now are like, what's the difference between the two pictures?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that 95% of the picture is the same.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: 95% of your picture is the same with somebody else in this church.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And most of all, even if you can't find all of these obvious connections, you are united in Christ.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are going to be differences between you and other people.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna come, TBC is a large church, okay?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't know that.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people who come from different backgrounds, they live in different places in Topeka.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them believe in a different political party.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some people follow different things, have a different theology at times.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: But as long as we're able to focus on Christ, this church should look like a symphony.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've got the violins, you've got the flutes, you've got the clarinets, you've got the brass and the percussion, all these things, and they're following a conductor that is Jesus.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important, though, that you ask yourself this question about when you consider the body of Christ as it stands.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are you looking for the scant differences, or are you trying to develop unity?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what I want to finish with this morning is talking about this.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want our church to be a place that is described, like Clement described Corinth, as one that has war and divisions and dissensions.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want there to be schisma.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want the body of Christ to be being ripped apart because some of us really enjoy certain things and disagree with other people over stuff that is way less important than Jesus.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think a good question to ask ourselves is this.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Fill in the blank.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am a better Christian because blank.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a better Christian than other people because blank.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I know if I like asked for you to give your answer, you're gonna be like, oh, I am not better than other Christians.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: That certainly would not be.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had an answer for the question.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not right that I did.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not right that my brain immediately filled in the blank here when I had my own sort of background saying, oh, I'm better than other Christians because of blank.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the part, right?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the kind of fun part about working with the Holy Spirit and sanctification and growing to look more and more like Jesus Christ, is you get to these uncomfortable parts where you say, boy, I that's not great that I did that.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have the opportunity to overcome it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: For you, you maybe it's probably different for a lot of different people.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: You could have said, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Heaven help us.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've gone to church a long time.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't drink.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I worship a certain way.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I live in a certain part of town.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: My past doesn't involve as much sin as somebody else I know.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've made better choices in my life.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever came to your mind, that is the line you must cross.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is, I mean, it's brought to the front of your mind because that is the thing that you most quickly divide over, is people who don't represent what you do as the better Christian.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And those are the things that we have to intentionally overcome.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the things that we have to intentionally make decisions to change because they are not good.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: We divide ourselves along these partisan lines and we attach God's favor to them.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, I think, perhaps the most destructive part of it, is that we make these divisions and then we attach spiritual superiority to them.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: We say, God likes this group better.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: God likes the way we do things better.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And true, true to form, there are going to be times as we go through the book of 1 Corinthians, especially when we get to church discipline, where there are things that we divide the church over because of their importance, because of sometimes the theology, because of the way the body is behaving, and how when you find that lymph node of cancer, you want to get it out.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: There are times where we do excise over those things, but most of all, we are seeking out unity.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: One last example I want to give.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh for anybody who went with Jim uh to Israel a couple weeks ago.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: You'll you visited this.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a floor floor plan, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, uh, which is in Jerusalem, and it is the church that traditionally sits over the place where Jesus was buried, as well as it's grown to be where he was crucified to.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it would be uh this spot right here is supposedly his traditional place of his tomb.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what you see in those colors is within this exact same church, there are at least six different denominations that control particular parts of this church.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it is Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenians, Coptics, uh, and these divisions, if you've ever been there, I had the privilege to go about 10 years ago, um, these divisions are no small thing.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, don't you dare dust my chandelier over in my section?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you dare sweep the floor where this is a dividing line with the irony, within the church that is supposed to be celebrating and reminiscing on the tomb of Christ, it is literally divided.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we have to avoid.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, my final question to you is this.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: How do you bring unity to the body of Christ?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing intentionally to overcome these mental divisions?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and engage in conversation with somebody different?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing to make Topeka Bible church a place where those who want to know more about the gospel feel comfortable learning about the gospel because we desire to be brothers and sisters in Christ together?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Does your friend group at TBC look, act, and sound the exact same?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what are you doing to change that?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with finding people that you like being friends with.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with, in a church this size, finding small groups of people, communities that you do share experiences with.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that, and be expected.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if you just said, I'm gonna be the same kind of friend to a thousand people, you probably wouldn't be getting very far in your community.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: You have to draw close to some.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's not the criticism here.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: But what Paul is saying is don't you dare take these things and then use them to say that those people don't belong at church.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those people shouldn't be here in the same pew sitting next to me or the same chair if you're over in cap.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: That those people shouldn't be here because this is a church where X happens.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if that answer is anything other, we learn and draw closer to Jesus Christ, then we've made a mistake.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my challenge for you.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're gonna be talking about 1 Corinthians for 20 weeks, right?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Take a breather, it's gonna be fine.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about 1 Corinthians for 20 weeks.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to do.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want every single one of you to have a conversation with three people that you don't know very well every week.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want every single person to have a conversation with somebody they don't know very well three times a week.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: The marker that you will know that you have had that level of a conversation is that you walk away with something that you can follow up on on another conversation.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that means you can't just say, How are you doing today?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: You have to say, how was your week?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's something you're looking forward to?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about yourself.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to do that.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: If we all do that, over the course of this 1 Corinthians series, there will be tens of thousands of conversations that are all focused on unity.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want an icebreaker, ask somebody how long they've been going to TBC.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people are really scared of saying, like, I think I've seen them around here before, but I don't know their name or I should have.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have that problem, okay?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: How long have you been coming to TBC?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then have the conversation.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: As we move on from this passage here in 1 Corinthians, I just want you to understand, as Paul does, what the church is supposed to look like and what it should not be recognized as doing.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: We must take away these divisions.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: We must seek unity and know that unity does not happen passively, but it only happens with activity.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: You have to seek these things out.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we desire to be a TBC that is more unified, we all have to take steps to make that happen.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because it does not happen when we just walk in the doors, sit in our seats, and then drive away in our cars.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for Christ.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are faithful.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: You have blessed us as we are waiting for your Son to return.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: God, as we see the sort of sunrise coming, as we wait with anticipation for your return, Lord, we know we're in a bit of darkness.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard at times, God, to walk through this world waiting for you.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, as we do, as you have strengthened us and blessed us for this journey, God, as you have given us everything that we need to carry out your will, God, I pray that you would help us to find unity.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would help us to seek it out.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: God, to be intentional about looking at those areas of our lives that are separating your church, that are dividing your church, that are schisma.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would help us to seek out others.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, people on the fringe.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, people we don't know, but we've seen before.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Father, help us to make this church more unified to your glory.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Father, most of all, we thank you for Jesus Christ, which gives us the power to do all of these things through your Spirit.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in His name we pray.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you do have the challenge, and unless you've knocked out a couple before the service started, it means you've got three.