Well, good evening, everyone. How's everybody doing? Yes, good.
All right. Well, tonight we're beginning 1 Corinthians.
And I want to do… mentioned how great of a job Mike Harris did in the introduction that we did. Unfortunately, there's been some time that's elapsed between his introduction and the start of this book, but I'm just going to rely on the fact that you were there and had listened to it, so I won't go into too much detail about that.
Let's open our books, our Bibles, to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to look at the first nine verses today.
1 and 2 Corinthians I mean, all the books of the Bible are fascinating, but these are two fascinating books that deal with a broad range of topics, certainly.
Anybody that is anybody that doing church needs to know these books very well, I think.
So in the book of 1 Corinthians, we're going to begin a contrast in the book between the wisdom of the world, or fool's wisdom and the wisdom of God.
In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18, Paul says this, and I have the New King James.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.
But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.
And then in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 25, he says this.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men. So it's God's wisdom as opposed to the world's wisdom that we are discovering here in the book of 1 Corinthians.
Let's open in a word of prayer then. Our Father, we just come before you in Jesus's name. We're so grateful, Lord.
For the relationship that we have with you. Based on the finished work of Jesus Christ.
We're grateful that we can study the Bible, that it gives us guidance in this world.
We are so grateful, Lord, for grateful for the Holy Spirit who allows us who unlocks the scriptures for us, everything that we know about God.
Is the result of the Holy Spirit unlocking these things in the Scriptures to us. Thank you for the guidance and for Fellowship with like-minded believers and we give you thanks now as you guide us in Jesus's name.
Amen. So I wanted to entitle The first nine verses, the portion we're doing tonight.
As this Thanksgiving for a troubled church. Paul was thankful for the believers in Corinth, even though they weren't perfect. He was giving thanks for them.
We're going to see that in this first nine verses that we're going to take a look at. So thanksgiving for a troubled church.
And… I want to talk about Madonna now, the famous singer.
Maybe you have her CDs. No, I'm just kidding. She told the Toronto Sun that she wears a grill that is a mouth covering.
Because their teeth aren't very good. She describes this. As something that hides her less than perfect teeth. She also got very upset with a major fashion magazine that photoshopped the gap in her teeth.
And when she said the fashion magazine was, you know, I'm too far in my career. I've made too much money to put up with this. I want you to remove the photoshopped gap that you filled in and they did that. They backed down.
So we find examples throughout this world of people covering up things, trying to pursue perfection and such, but it's the story of Oliver Cromwell When he was having his portrait painted that When the portrait was painted, he took a look at it and he said, where are my warts?
And the painter said, well, I thought you'd be glad that when I painted you, I took your warts off the painting and that's when Oliver Cromwell made his famous statement. He said, a portrait should include warts and all.
So if I were having my portrait painted, I would say, you know.
Fix me up filling some of the craters on my face.
Made me look better than I am. And if you can include the warts and all, right?
And I say this because that's exactly what we have in 1 Corinthians. We have a church in Corinth presented, warts and all.
Paul paints a portrait of the church at Corinth and he includes all the words. David Cloud said this.
God is not afraid to trash his biblical characters. He presents them as they are.
Why? Because it's not the biblical characters themselves. It's God working through them to accomplish his purposes.
In the case of the Corinthian church. Paul writing these things lets us know some of the problems in this church and they're significant. He was their spiritual father.
And he deals with these problems head on. So the church at Corinth was a troubled church.
Frankly, as an elder, I'm glad I wasn't eldering there. Because these are some tough issues.
The first issue that comes up is the problem of division. This is a divided church.
Let's look at chapter 1, verses 10 and 11. Paul says this.
Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you.
But that you all be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Verse 11, for it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, that those of Chloe's household by those of Chloe's household that there are contentions. Contentions, the word contention is defined as heated arguments, especially about trivial items among those who are usually
On good terms. So he says there have been contentions among you.
Paul is writing to the Corinthians because some came from the household of Chloe and told him about the problems in the church at Corinth. And so number one.
They were a divided church. I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos. I'm of Peter. I am of Christ Wow. So we're going to talk about that problem of division a little bit later on.
And of course, he could say, well, what's the big deal about the church in Corinth?
Corinth is the equivalent of what would be probably Las Vegas today.
Every kind of vice, every kind of sin, every kind of pleasure could be found in the city of Corinth.
Corinth was a Greek city, as Mike had mentioned. And you don't have to look at this. But basically.
If you looked at a map, you have southern Greece in an area called Achaia.
And then you have the northern part called Macedonia. In the south, there's this, as Mike had described, this little round area on the map of Greece connecting northern and southern Greece.
Little narrow stretch of land. It's an isthmus. And there's C on both sides.
And they cut a canal through it, as Mike had mentioned.
It's called the Corinthian Canal. So it's way up high and there was this great canal that was cut through it.
But also in the city of Corinth, there was the temple of Aphrodite.
The goddess of love. And in this temple they had a thousand prostitutes.
Religious prostitutes, part of the worship of Aphrodite involved prostitution. So there they were.
And at night, the prostitutes were going to Corinth and do their thing.
And it was on a major trade route from north to southeast to west. It was a sailor's kind of town. Sailors had money to spend.
They came in. It was a party town, the modern equivalent of probably Las Vegas.
So Paul is writing to these believers that had let the world come into the church. And the application for today is we can find the same thing in churches today. Now, people can go on a screed about this and go on and on, but basically I think we do find the church, I'm sorry, the world has come into
Churches. And we can see these things. I can think of a particular church in Wisconsin where the deacons in the church were fighting with the city over property taxes.
That's just something that shouldn't be done. The city was simply saying these are the regulations. We can't do anything about it, and they just continue to fight and fight and fight.
These are not things that churches should be known for. So basically the way that the book could be outlined very simply is from Chapters 1 through 6, Paul is going to be dealing with specific problems. And then from chapters 7 through 16, he's going to be answering questions.
So chapters one through six, he deals with problems in the church Then chapter 7 through 16 is going to be dealing with the questions that were asked of him.
But let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 1 verses 1 through 9, and there are two divisions in this section, verses 1 through 9.
Verses 1 through 3 are Paul's greeting. And then verses four through nine is Paul's gratitude.
One of the things about studying books is that there is a tendency, I think, to skip over greetings, to just kind of get to the meat of the material or the salutations in the end of a book, but they contain a lot of
Very good information. So let's take a look at verse 1 here.
It says Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother.
Verse 2, to the church of God which is at Corinth to those who are sanctified in Jesus Christ, call to be saints.
With all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.
Verse 3, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So Paul says three things about himself. Number one, that he's an apostle.
Number two, he said he was called. And number three, he's an apostle by the will of God.
And you were looking at 1 Corinthians 1 verses 1 through 9.
Corinthians, 1 Corinthians is a person, 2 Corinthians written by Paul, written by Paul in his third missionary journey from the city of Ephesus.
And really, Corinth was actually founded as a church on a second missionary journey. And you can go back and look at Acts 18 to see some of the details there.
If you're going to Acts chapter 18 and you read the chapter, you get the story about the beginning of the church in Corinth But Paul was an apostle, one commissioned, one who was sent out.
And he was called… He was an apostle that was called. He wasn't self-appointed, and it was by the will of God. So he uses this full title because his apostleship is going to come under attack or has come under attack.
It's being questioned. If you look at 2 Corinthians. 10 through 12, Paul is… has to defend himself And he uses various ways of doing that. One of the ways was talking about his resume, what he has endured as an apostle for Christ. And it's a pretty brutal resume. Beatings, shipwrecks.
Just generally being mistreated. In fact, the whole image that Paul says as he's looking at the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians and dealing with divisions is that We are like slaves.
Following in the train of Jesus Christ. And we're the off scouring of the world. We don't use that word very often. We're like garbage. The way that we are treated. Not that it is… a testimony of our work but just the way that we're treated. And he makes this comparison to the Corinthians, as Mike had pointed out. The Corinthians who were so enamored with
Oratory and the display of their gift and all of this. He says.
Look at me and look at yourselves. Look at me as the pattern. This is what I've endured on behalf of the church, filling myself up with the sufferings of the church in order to advance it. And so he makes some very powerful arguments.
In verse 2, he includes the name of a man by the name of Sosthenes. We don't know for sure who this man is. He's mentioned in Acts chapter 18, verse 17.
Again, we don't know if this is the same Sosthenes, but if he's mentioned, if this is the one mentioned in Acts 18, He's mentioned along with Paul's name.
It's a common name. It could have been another guy, but… If it's the same individual that was there in Corinth during the time when Paul ministered to them.
Then Sosthenes is actually the chief ruler of a synagogue in Corinth.
And he was beaten by the Greeks before the proconsul. Galileo.
Before his judgment seat, if you read Acts 18 verses 1 through 17, And let's take a look at this for a second. I think this is an interesting way of dealing with court cases. Acts 18.
Starting in verse 11, it says this.
And he, Paul, continued there in Corinth a year and six months teaching the Word of God among them.
Galio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat.
Saying, this fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.
And when Paul was about to open his mouth. Galio said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crimes, O Jews.
There would be a reason why I should bear with you. But if it's a question of words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves, for I do not want to be a judge of such matters.
And he drove them from the judgment seat. Then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat, but Galileo took no notice of these things. So that's a way of dismissing a case.
He's going to let him be beat up and take no notice of it. So if this is Sosthenes.
This situation that he went through could have been the reason why he came to salvation.
So… Whatever the case is.
Paul is known as Third Journey in Ephesus, and he joins his name writing to the Corinthians because no doubt they knew who he was and he calls Sassanhes a brother.
Then notice, Paul, how he greets the church in verses 2 and 3.
Under the Church of God, which is at Corinth, he says.
So I just thank God that in this, or I should say as we observe this, we can thank God in this wicked city, this dark city, there was a church.
No city is too dark, too corrupt, too decayed, too defiled for God to have a witness.
And no city is too wicked for God to establish a church.
And believe it or not, there was a church that was established here. And so just like the description Paul uses of Cretans and Titus.
Along the same lines, I don't know if you know this, but the phrase Corinthian actually became a synonym for anyone who was drunk or debauched on the Greek stage.
Whenever an actor in the Greek stage was depicted as a Corinthian, he was always depicted to be drunk or intoxicated. If you really wanted to insult somebody, really cut them down to size, you'd say, you Corinthian you.
Because it meant you're just debased. You're just a drunk. You're nothing else. You, Corinthian, you.
But in this Corinthian cesspool, God saved souls. And just like you and me, God reaches into the pit and pulls out men.
Amen? Amen. So… In verses 2 and 3, he calls them sanctified. He calls them saints. He calls them saints or holy ones who are sanctified. And thirdly, they share the same position And Lord is believers in every place. So no matter where you come from, God puts you in that kind of position.
Notice in verse 2 he says that He mentions with all that call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.
Now, because we're covering the beginning of this book, I don't have to go into a lot of depth here, but he calls them sanctified, which means they're set apart.
And we begin to be set apart when the Holy Spirit convicts us of our need for Jesus and then he converts us. He regenerates us.
He starts the work of the process of making you like Jesus.
And then one day when you go to heaven, you'll be perfectly fit to be there just like Jesus Christ. Not God's, but just like Jesus Christ with… a glorified body.
So the Corinthians were called saints, which is amazing, certainly. And as Jesus Christ… called us all, we have this example of this church with called believers forming this church and glorifying the Lord in the midst of this wicked town.
If we look at verses 4 through 9, We have the gratitude that Paul has for the Corinthians, Paul's gratitude here.
So first in his grading. And now he's grateful that Paul actually is thankful for this Corinthian church. And let's read these verses here.
Starting in verse 4, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Jesus Christ.
That you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and in all knowledge.
Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. Verse 7, So that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful. By whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Again, the amazing lesson here is that Paul wasn't critical. He didn't give up on them. He didn't say, forget you guys. I'm going to find another church. In spite of the problems and the faults, he lists the things that he was grateful for and thankful for.
You know. I think we probably all hear a lot of criticisms about the But the bottom line is that it's a hospital for sinners.
We're not expecting perfection. We're expecting to gather together with people of different maturities and were to work through the issues that come up as we glorify him.
The church is the apple of God's eye. He gave his life for it. He died for it. We should be thankful for the church with all its flaws and its warts.
And thankful for this church. Paul is very thankful for this church, and I'm thankful to be here at WBC also. Is this church perfect? No.
If I came here, it can't be perfect. But we are saints and we've been sanctified.
So… Paul isn't discouraged, but he begins to list six things that Paul was thankful for. I broke it into six because I think this is worth taking a look at here.
The first thing he's thankful for is that he was thankful for the grace of God given to them As messed up as they were, they had been graced by God. Notice in verse 4 he says this, I thank my God always.
I'm sorry. I had this wrong. Let me look this up.
If somebody's got verse 4, if you could read it out loud.
Thank my God always for serving you. For the grace of God which was given to you.
By Christ Jesus. Okay, so this church had experienced the grace of God. Here is Barnhouse. He says this
Love that reaches up is adoration, love that reaches across his affection.
But love that reaches down is grace. That's great, right, isn't it?
The church. This church, God reached down to them to save them by his grace. And although there were problems, still he saved these people.
And although they were living carnally, their living was better than the previous pagan behavior that they had experienced. So it was a blessing.
The second blessing is found in verse 5. They were enriched.
They had enrichment. He says this in verse 5, that in you you were enriched in everything, or literally you were made rich. And this is very much a parallel to what he says in Ephesians.
And then… He says this as he's writing from Mephesus to the Corinthians.
You were enriched by him that is Jesus Christ in all utterance and all knowledge.
Here the word enrichment means that you were made rich in every way. You were made rich.
To the point of being made full. And when did this happen? The moment that they were born again.
Praise God for that. We were born into God's family. And that riches here, the riches he's talking about are spiritual riches. We're spiritual billionaires in Christ Jesus. And it's through Christ and by his grace that he brings us all of these blessings.
Now, he mentions two areas in which they were enriched in utterance and in knowledge.
In the context of Corinthians, he's probably speaking of the gifts of the Spirit. You're blessed by these gifts.
You have these gifts and it might be the speaking gifts or it might be gifts of administration or healing or tongues or whatever they were engaging in And most likely in the beginning with respect to divisions, it's the preaching of the Word of God. It's a powerful oratory and such.
And he mentions this that they were blessed with utterance or just the general concept that as a Christian.
They were full. God had filled their lives and they actually have something to talk about.
If you notice the world in general and you talk to people, they don't really have a lot to say. I remember Bob Thrall talking about working with soldiers and he said basically, and I've said this before.
They use a lot of profanity. And if you take the profanity out, it's just it.
They and but you know there's not a whole lot that's said But, you know, the world, you know, have a nice day, talk about the weather, see you, okay, bye-bye, whatever it is.
But Christians can talk a lot about things. They can talk about Jesus, about heaven, about the scriptures, about salvation.
What God is doing in their lives. We don't have a lack of topics to discuss with people.
And so… they were given this enrichment in all utterance. And then they had knowledge. God had enriched them not only with speech or the gifting of the Holy Spirit, but also knowledge.
He had given them the word of God. That information, they had knowledge.
We're blessed to have the Bible as a guide in our lives.
And we've been given the ability to read it and to understand it.
It's interesting, you know, if you look at these camping magazines, they have this little light that you can put on your head so that you can see and such.
It's just such a picture of The Word of God is a lamp unto our feet, you know, and a light unto our lives.
We're walking in this dark world with this light of the word of god and fellowship with believers. And so we've been enriched.
Thirdly, Paul was thankful that they had confirmation. He makes an interesting statement in verse 6. Let's just read this verse here. He says.
Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. And so… I think Paul is saying that your life confirms that your conversion is real. And he's talking to them.
The testimony of Christ is confirmed in you. In other words.
Paul is saying that they're changed lives confirmed that Christianity was true in their life.
And we can say the same thing about our own life.
So… It's interesting that he's encouraging them with all of this here, the testimony of Christ confirmed in them, in us.
And he could see that and he was thankful for it.
The fourth thing that he was thankful for was that God had given them gifts. He says in verse 7, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a church especially endowed by the Holy Spirit with charismatic gifts.
Kiri says that you have all the gifts that you're waiting for.
You've got all the gifts that you need as you're waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul says. About Jesus Christ. Now we know in part, we prophecy in part, we see in part.
But then we will know, even as we'll know and we'll see things clearly.
So they've been enriched with all of this gift. And it's just a function of understanding that these gifts have been given by Jesus Christ because of the finished work they accomplished at the cross, his resurrection.
And ascension into heaven. These are the plunders that he's given to the church.
And they come from the Holy Spirit. He dispenses them as he sees fit.
In the measure that he is given. And we're not to be jealous about these things. We're to enjoy the benefits of the gift, the gifting that he's given to the church.
And that every Christian has at least one gift. Maybe you know what your gift is. Maybe you don't.
This is one thing that he was thankful for, that they had gifts.
Fifthly, he was thankful for their preservation. He says this in verse 8.
He says in verse 8, he says, who, or Jesus Christ, will also confirm you.
Here the word confirm means to preserve you. Preservation he's talking about.
Shall confirm you until what? Until the end, verse 8. He'll make you blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was confident that they would be preserved blameless. This doesn't mean sinless.
It doesn't mean perfection. It means blameless is a legal term that means no charge of condemnation or sentencing can be brought against us.
Literally the word means called in. You will not be called in.
In the sense of being called into a courtroom and found guilty.
Because Jesus took the punishment for us. It's our position in Christ. God sees you as a Christian, blameless.
Again, he was reminding them as he's writing to these carnal Christians of their position in Christ Jesus.
And the grace of God should motivate us to holiness. And that's the point that he's making here.
And then finally. Jude says this, unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before his presence with exceeding joy.
In Romans chapter 8, Paul says this, there is no condemnation.
And there's no separation to us who are in Christ Jesus. And we need to be reminded of that.
And then the sixth blessing that he focuses on is in verse 9. He says in verse 9 that he was thankful for God's faithfulness.
He says, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship.
The conunea, the Greek word here. Of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Konaniya means Christian fellowship or communion with God, or more commonly with fellow Christians.
One of my favorite attributes of God is his faithfulness. I like to think about the faithfulness of God. We can preach about the faithfulness of God. We can sing about the faithfulness of God.
Study the faithfulness of God. God is faithful. And Paul's optimism, if you listen carefully to what he's saying.
Concerning the Corinthians is based on God's faithfulness. How is it that he could be so confident that God would present them blameless on the day of Jesus Christ?
The answer is that he knew that God was faithful. To complete what he started Notice in all of these verses that it's all about what God does for us.
Not about what we do for him. God is faithful. He's faithful to save us. He's faithful to keep us.
Faism will watch over us. He's faithful to provide for us.
He's faithful to keep us. God will never abandon you. God will never forsake you.
And Jesus said that he has us in the very palm of his hand.
And he said that no one can pluck you out of my hand. He said, you know.
God is faithful even when we're unfaithful. And we can trust him. We can trust him with our marriage. We can trust him with our children.
We can trust him with our health. We can trust him with our jobs. We can trust him with our wealth, and we can trust him with the entirety of our lives. And I think we should be reminded again and again of that.
God who is here today will be here tomorrow and he'll be here all through eternity.
It'll never change. And so Paul is boasting and grateful and thankful for Jesus Christ in their lives.
And it was the faithfulness of God who called us into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Now, I wanted to point out something as we close here. Paul's focus was on Jesus.
And you might have seen in these first nine verses, and actually if we just bring in verse 10, In 1 Corinthians, nine times he mentions Jesus.
He's mentioned in all of the first 10 verses, nine of them by name.
In all of these verses, they have a reference to or refer to in some way, some shape or some form our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Six times in the first 10 verses, you'll find the word Lord.
And this is a lesson for us. We're to keep our eyes focused on Jesus.
You'll be grateful if you do that. You won't be picking at problems. You'll be thankful for the blessings that he gives you.
Coming from God's grace, God's enrichment, God's confirmation, God's gifts, God's preservation.
And God's faithfulness. Every Christian has all of these.
They're not just for the Corinthians. So if you are Christ, you're a child of God, all six of these blessings are yours tonight.
They're all yours. So we can be thankful for the grace of God as we continue to study in the book of 1 Corinthians, and I think we'll just end there for tonight.
And we'll close with a word of prayer here. Father, we just give you thanks and praise as we delve into these first nine verses and take a look at it.
We'll be looking in depth at some of the additional things coming up in Church in Corinth and all of the issues that Paul addresses.
Whether they're issues of division. Sexual immorality, Christians suing one another, issues of marriage.
Idolatry. Abuse in the Lord's Supper.
Gifts. Love.
Certainly, and then finally resurrection in his closing chapter also, Lord.
Many things to study here. We're grateful for that. And we just thank you and praise you for working in our lives.
And the insight that you give us into your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We give you thanks now.
Amen