1 Corinthians 4-9

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0:00 But the text I want to look at for this morning, we've been following the dictionary and I'd like to look at the New Testament reading that they have a sign for us today that the church has signed. And that's in First Corinthians. So all the reports are back in the New Testament, multimodity John, after all in the First and Second Corinthians. And the reading they give us in First Corinthians verse 4 through 9. And remember that this is a letter

0:34 that Paul writes to the church in Corinth and he's writing back to a group of people that he knows and he talked about it before. But in our scriptures there's a first and a second Corinthians, but most scholars have agreed that there were several letters back to the church in Corinth. And the church in Corinth became kind of a hub for the region. Corinth was an important and prayed city. There was a lot of money in Corinth and then there was some blue collar work because they're unloading all the tradeships and things and then there's people making money off of it. And this becomes a problem in

1:07 Corinth. The church in Corinth is separated. It's a lot of problems with divisions. And in the letter that he writes this letter that is grouped together at the first Corinthians, he's addressing a lot of the problems of the divisions. And it seems like they use a couple ways to mask the divisions that might be mostly monetary or socioeconomic, but they talk about different theologies, different followers, people they follow, they call Paul or Jesus. Then they talk

1:38 about different spiritual gifts, the better spiritual gifts. And Paul writes the letters trying to pull them together under the banner of credit positioning. I say it's okay if we have these divisions, some of them, but the bed rock for us is the person that writes in. He kicked it off in this letter here at the very beginning, trying to set the context for that. And I'll just read it and then we kind of will unpack a couple parts of it. First Corinthians chapter chapter four, Paul says, I give thanks to my God, all the news for you. He says,

2:14 of the grace of God, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ's evil. That in every way you were enriched in Him and all speech and all knowledge, even a testimony about Christ was confirmed among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gifts as your ways of revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ who will sustain you to the end. The guiltless and the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is faithful by who you were called into fellowship, into the fellowship of the Son Jesus Christ. Our

2:48 role. I'll send the support, we're saying again, Paul must be some sort of genius, right? He writes these letters and they endure through all sorts of sins. I was thinking about this like, well, it's compelling to me that Paul on the run most of the time and under persecution often writes these letters and gets them

3:21 out. They're not intercepted or destroyed. They get to their end points and letters that Paul writes. Though he's been a flawed, he's been stoned, he's been run out of town, he's been sipped left. He still is able under house arrest and others to have conversations with the church that he starts, write letters back to them and the letters get to their intended audience and then they grow there, right? He writes one letter but the reason that we still have copies of the letters that Paul wrote it because they made handwritten copies and passed

3:56 them around. In 300 AD when the church got together at the order of constantly to figure out what is the teaching of the church, they looked around and said, what letters are we all using? In 300, there were so many copies of the letters to the Corinthians that they said we're all using this as a definition of what it means to how we live out the face of the church. And when they then codified it as the New Testament in the 300, they made more copies yet still. And then later as they came under persecution in Rome, rather

4:32 than give up the copies of paying a death or burn them as Rome was requiring, the church preserved them yet, that's paying a death. And that it made its way through translation after translation after this translation after this application to get to it still today, there's something in these letters beyond just the genius of Paul. See, Oesop was a genius, Shakespeare was a genius, right? But Paul's letters

5:06 mobilized and animate movements of people in every nation, under every ruler, in every form of governance and every age of the world. This little introduction to other parries, mystical truth that for whatever reason has enlivened and emboldened people from one generation to the next. In extent, let's look at it. I

5:42 guess thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was giving you insight. Jesus, that was still nice. I don't know if you had influential spiritual leader in your life. But if you had that, when they if they were to come back and say, I have been praying and thanking God for just you. When I was in college, I had this one woman who was I was like in my early 20s. So she was

6:21 probably in her 60s, but she was little and seemed like she was probably in her age. I know she wasn't because she lived too long. But she seemed like just this little old lady. And she prayed all the time. She was like the anim in in singing and write. She just looked like this little very sweet lady praying all the time and her and God was hiding intimate conversations and she would come and we just really got along. And she would pray for me when I was very

6:54 college often. I would just need to get coffee with her or we would meet and pray together. And that church was really influential for us. It was there that mentioned I met and he was a grove and running the past of that church. But but this week, maybe she was always thankful and I was when I left the last in seminary program the four years, I came back for just awesome seminary. So maybe five years later after I had been gone, a college student moving through

7:28 a church that had a lot of college students moving through it. And I came back to see there was a significant event for our pastor from that church and I walked into the bath of the church and this three old ladies start walking through me and she brings the eyes and she said, Oh my God, I thought you were a vision. I have been praying for you so much that I thought I would see a vision of you walk back there. I can't believe actually you. Right. She came up in jail. And it was so encouraging to have someone who loves me who I know has been

8:00 praying for me to acknowledge that it would be so interesting to be the church in court cared for by Paul to have him say at all. Thank God for you. It's powerful when people of God encourage others. And so maybe you can be an encourager like that. I give thanks to my God always for you. Paul is busy with a lot of things

8:33 but not so busy that he avoids praying for and contemplating those that he loves. Verse three, five, that in every way you were envisioned in all feet and now even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you. And this is where I want to get to three verses. He says that the testimony of Christ was confirmed among you meaning I told you that Christ was a certain sort of thing

9:03 that the Messiah the promise would bring him to come in the person of Jesus and now that's money was confirmed among you. Here's the evidence that that one had come. Right. Here's the evidence that the Messiah has come and is in the person of Jesus of Nazareth so that you are lacking in you are not lacking in any spiritual gift. He touches on this later in the letter significantly in chapter 12

9:37 of 1 Corinthians where he describes that God gives gifts to people but he gives he ties together congregations and makes sure that congregations of the church have all the gifts that they need. And he goes through different ones of them. You will have a teacher and a learner. You'll have a hospitality and prayer. You'll have a well to murder. You'll have a healer and a and a leader. You'll have all the

10:12 gifts that you need. But what was interesting to me is that when you did this analogy of the body that that each person in the church plays a role it was interesting to me that he talks about it in terms of the truth. Like I don't know if you have a concept of the places that you belong or are needed. But Paul says evidence that the Christ has come is that he ties us together as a group of people

10:47 where we all sit together just right. Where when one piece is missing, when one person pulls out, when someone steps up, when people withhold, the body is flashy. But when everyone comes together and is fully themselves, the body has everything that it needs. I don't know if you thought about it. But because Christ has come, you belong to the church. That in some

11:25 possessive way. But in some contributory, collaborative way, your person, your unique character that characteristics, traits and personalities are needed. If the church will be what it is intended to be, I've just come and yet made a place for you. Just for you. Just right. Paul says evidence of the reality of Christ is the way that the church offers.

12:01 I hope that would be true for us. I hope that would be true for you. That you would recognize the leave, understand and operate out of the reality that you belong with. That you fit in and are needed. The evidence of the reality of Christ means that you broken, imperfect, insistent, sometimes well, sometimes needy, sometimes contributory, sometimes taty, sometimes

12:39 collaborative, sometimes selfish. You in all beauty and ugliness, in brokenness and perfection, in glory and in glory, you belong. An evidence of the Christ is that the church can endure amongst all our brokenness and still create place for all of us. Paul says the church is evidence by the fact that you are lacking in those spiritual gifts. He says Christ

13:11 was confirmed among you so that you are not lacking any spiritual gifts. As you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are in these churches, these bodies that have everything that they need for like to journey together towards a coming reality. He says the revealing of Jesus Christ as Lord. I've been hanging these like the banners in the back here and they are these old Christian symbols, right? So on the left is the Cairo, which are the first two letters

13:48 of Christ's Cairo that's a flame for the Holy Spirit and the hand for God the Father. But on the right is the sift and the sift is an ancient symbol of the church. The church is like a sift and it's like navigating the waters of life, finding our way to the other school. That we all pile in, we operate as the bodies where we belong and we head together towards a place. And Paul

14:21 says that you operate as the body of the church against as you await the dee. Let me make sure I say it really because he's part of the me. As you await the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, he talks about this really towards the end of the letter in chapter 15 when he talks about the resurrection of the Christ. The Christ has been revealed because he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared the Jesus and then to the 12th and many

14:54 of you to more than 500 of the brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. I was thinking about this. When Paul writes the letter to the church in Corinth, he's talking about the testimony of Christ is made real first off by the fact that the church exists, but the fact that this work is testimony to the grain of Christ. To now operate together as the people of God until the revealing of Christ. And later in 15, he talks about the pre-entry revealed and he says that you know Christ

15:28 will be revealed one day as he was because though he was killed, he was raised to life as the scriptures say and he appeared to 500. He says most of whom are still alive. You imagine? This is after Pentecost. They all distributed right back when the first two students started and they realized first two students started and they had to go out and go back to life while they waited for Jesus to come back that they all dispersed in downtown. Can you imagine if you were the church

15:58 in Corinth, maybe you had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Pastor Little before, maybe not, maybe you are a Greek coming into the way of Jesus and there's a dude there who can tell you about the time when he saw the resurrected Christ pop in and out of space and time, appear to 500 and toxins and so. Who is there in that little kind of summer camp around the first Pentecost,

16:31 right, where they held all things in common for a period of time until they went back. It's so fascinating and compelling to allow myself to believe that the day comes when Christ returns for good. Real bodies, flesh and bones, hearts and soul, eyes and arms, real, embodied, in flesh, Savior of the world, returning for others.

17:08 Also the testimony that Christ is real is in the fact that the church works in the real world, he says, he says in the first century the church will work until Christ returns and hello, here we are. All the Greek temples are done, the Roman temples are done, right? We can go visit the temples in Corinth destroyed, see where the oracles sat and yet the church endured waiting for the Christ to be revealed.

17:45 He says that in verse 20 of chapter 15, but in fact Christ has been laid from the dead. The first first of those who have fallen through the resurrection of the dead is coming. Okay, so that you are locked in, he says even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you so that you are locked in and not locked in any spiritual death as you wait for the revealing of Jesus Christ our Lord who will sustain you to the end, guiltness in the day of our Lord Jesus. This is what the

18:18 one, the thing he hit for. In chapter one, just further down in verse 26, he says, for consider your calling because without Jesus calling them and not because they were wise or because they were powerful where they grasped it into the church. But God says when the school of verse 28, God says what is low and deprived in the world so that no human being might boast in the presence

18:51 of God. Verse 30, he is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Why do you belong in the ship that implores until the return of the Christ? What brings you here? Not your fidelity to the commandments, not your wisdom and right answers, not your power and your money, he says, but the will and intent

19:30 of Christ. Relax. You're here. That by the grace of God, you have been brought in to the church that endured to be yourself and offer yourself fully to the group of people in the ship waiting for the redemption of all things. So he says, even as the testimony that Christ was confirmed among you, you are knocking in no spruce again. You belong to everything that you need in the church.

20:05 As you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the return of the Lord to come, who will sustain you to the end. Why do you belong? How do you know you will endure because it is in the prerogative of God, not in your pickle heart and wandering mind, not in your questions or your answers, not in the passion of your confession or the fervor of your

20:39 piety that you endure at the will of Christ, not your physical height or your wandering mind. That's how you are, you're sustained to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, not as faithful, except by whom you were called into the fellowship of the Son Jesus Christ. Just down the verse in verse 17, for Christ did not send me, he says, this is a key for Paul, just in this one little phrase,

21:14 says in verse 17 chapter 1, for Christ did not send me to backlight that the preached gospel and not with words of the worship difference, left the cross of Christ the empty of its power. If we want to know why Paul's words endure, why the church persteth, why the hope of the resurrection is to cure, it's not in wisdom or behavior or in power or in polity, but in the

21:49 person of Christ. This is central to Paul. It's the linking to everything that he calls this plain to us throughout all of his letters about what it means to be alive, fully alive with the fruit of the spirit and the hope of the future is the person of Paul. And so for us today, the injunction of this well-versed first gradium is that the testimony of Christ is true,

22:26 which means you belong and fit into the body that will endure until the return of the Christ, and offer you into forever. And your belonging isn't contingent on your wandering heart or your sickle mind, it is not contingent on your behavior or your answers, but on the prerogative of the Christ who went to the cross through the tomb, came up in the resurrection and is waiting now

23:00 to bring you home to him. Let me pray that we, like the Corinthians, might find faith to believe in the words and the asking of Jesus and Jesus. Hey Lord, thank you for the testimony of Christ, the wisdom of Paul, the fidelity of the Church, the testimony of the Scriptures. May they all work together for our faithful most first morning. Teach us to believe in your goodness and rest

23:42 in your grace this morning. Reality that we belong in your Church together, we await you all this time. Jesus, may we pray.