1 Corinthians 1:10-17 (A House Divided)

Good morning again. I trust that this is loud enough, I think. I have to turn on, for those who don't know much about audio equipment, I don't either, but I have to turn up the volume about ten levels higher than Kendall does for this particular microphone.

He is just getting one of those strong voices, so nevertheless. Thank you, Medium, for helping us there with the music. It was truly beautiful, more beautiful than I think I expected, even not because of Medium, but just the lack of musical accompaniment, just not used to that, and so it really was such a pleasure to be able to hear that, especially being in the front to be able to hear everyone singing.

It was really, really beautiful, so thank you. Well now, as we will hear the Word of God preached this morning, we're going to be in 1 Corinthians again. This is the book that, in the times that I've preached, we've been making our way through, and as I say, making our way through, we're really right at the beginning.

It's our third message within this particular book, and I'm really glad that we were able to read in our reading today Acts chapter 18, because we saw the beginnings of the church in Corinth in that particular chapter, so a really beautiful bit of providence there to be reminded of the beginnings of this church, but let's begin our time this morning by reading our text that we're going to consider, and that's going to be again chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians verses 10 through 17.

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.

Now I mean this, that each of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. The word of the Lord, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, Lord, and we again thank you for this opportunity that we have here this morning to gather here around it.

Lord, your word is the truth. May you, in our time here this morning, sanctify us in the truth as you have promised to do, or may your spirit move powerfully within each of us to awaken us, Lord, to see the great light, the great truth, the great majesty of your word.

Lord, as we consider this text here in 1 Corinthians this morning, may you help the things that you would want us to take away from this passage. May you help those things to be the loudest things, Lord, in our hearts here this morning.

Those would be the things we would walk away with, Lord, and the things that may be of myself, may you subdue those things, Father. Ultimately, we pray that you are glorified here this morning, and no one else, no man, woman, anyone, Lord, but that you are glorified in our time, and as we consider your word to us.

We pray for clarity, for discernment as we listen, Lord, and again we pray for your glory in this time. In Christ's name, amen. Now if you do remember in any of our previous two visits to this great letter from the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, this church was drowning under the weight of prideful arrogance.

The Corinthians culturally were an egotistical people, and we talked about this previously, and this sinful attitude had become pervasive in their church. And so Paul, in order to humble them, has made an effort in this letter and in the first nine verses even to point over and over again to the supremacy and centrality of Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours, to their faith and to their life.

And we see this effort on display when we consider that Paul, in the first nine verses, the nine opening verses of the letter, he invokes the name of the Lord Jesus Christ nine different times to convey that great and ultimate authority that Christ has over them.

And then to open our text here this morning in verse 10, we see the tenth time in as many verses that Paul calls upon the authority of God by the name of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he does this to make a very important point on the subject that we're going to be considering this morning, unity and division, something we see far too often in the church today.

And with that in mind, I want us to keep at the forefront of our minds, the forefront of our consideration, the authority of Christ as we consider these important topics. We're going to start, we're going to look at the characteristics of the division in Corinth that I think are definitely applicable as we look throughout church history and even today, the foolishness of this type of division.

And then finally, we'll close with the cure for this type of division that Paul prescribes in the text. Now in the spirit of the moment of history, the moment of time that we're living in, with an important election in American politics coming to an end just a few days from now, hopefully, I thought it would be only fitting to start today's message with a poll.

Americans love polls. I think all people do. I don't want to just generalize about Americans, but we love seeing what the commonly held views are. We like to see them almost every day. Some of you may have even looked at the latest polls this morning before you came here to church.

But the poll I want us to consider this morning for a moment has nothing to do with politics, but instead it was a recent poll conducted by a Christian ministry called Ligonier Ministries. It was done back in March, and it surveyed adult professing evangelicals in America.

In this poll, there was a series of statements that were read to the respondents, and people answered on a scale. They said that they either strongly agreed with the statement, they somewhat agreed with the statement, they weren't really sure what they thought about the statement, or they somewhat disagreed or strongly disagreed.

So they answered somewhere of those five answers on a scale. The results of the survey were really pretty incredible, and I think provide a pretty grim and stark outlook for the professing Christian church in America.

One statement really stood out to me and was of particular interest as I was thinking through this particular message. This was the statement. It says that God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

And now as Bible-believing Christians, the answer here should be an immediate and resounding strongly disagree. Because this statement ignores the words of Christ that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father but by Him, and that God tells us that we should have no other gods before Him.

God doesn't accept any worship unless it's offered in spirit and truth. We've been learning that in the Gospel of John. And this worship in spirit and truth is worship that approaches the one true God through the only way, Jesus Christ, the mediator.

It seems pretty simple, you would think. But according to this survey, 63 of professing evangelicals in America at least somewhat agree that God accepts the worship of all religions, and 42 even strongly agree with the statement.

It's a very sad and strange time that we live in in the American church. I bring this survey up here this morning, not that we're going to be focusing on the exclusivity of Christ, but for this reason, that as we talk about division, and how dangerous it is, how toxic it is, how much it is to be avoided, I want to be really clear that there are some things that are worth dividing over.

And not only that, there are some things that we must divide over. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 10 verse 34 that He didn't come to bring peace but a sword, and that even households would be divided over this sword, and this is the sword of truth.

We can't have fellowship with everyone. We can't claim that all roads lead to God and sacrificing the truth in the name of unity. J .C. Ryle says it very succinctly, he says, unity without the gospel is a worthless unity.

It is the very unity of hell. As Spurgeon says, to pursue union at the expense of truth is treason to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now according to this poll, most, again 63 of professing evangelicals in America today have pursued unity with the world and all her false idols at the expense of the truth of the gospel, and thus committing treason against the Lord Jesus Christ by uniting themselves with hell.

And this is obviously a very grievous error, and again a reminder to us to keep in mind the authority in the Lordship of Christ over us as we consider the importance of unity. It's not something to hold as an idol before us.

Something to be pursued, but it is not the ultimate end of our faith. So again, let's look at the text with these things in mind, and we'll look at verses 10 through 12 quickly. By invoking the name of the Lord, Paul here is calling on his Corinthian brethren to submit themselves to Christ's authority in this area where strife is popping up.

So again, starting in verse 10. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree in that there be no divisions among you, but that you may be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.

For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.

Now the word translated as divisions here in verse 10 is the Greek word schismata, which should be pretty familiar. It's where we get the word schism, which would indicate a full divide, a break. But the context here doesn't point us to any formal divide, so much as it indicates to us that the issue at hand is not something that calls for a formal and complete separation, as the word division might indicate.

Other translations use words like split, which I think is probably more appropriate in this case, because Paul is calling them, we see in verse 10 as well, he's calling them to be made complete again.

So we know it must not be a major theological controversy that's causing this strife to pop up, but rather it's more likely something like a power struggle happening within the church, within the power-hungry Corinthian church.

And further, if the split being confronted here were something doctrinal, we could probably expect that Paul would end up siding with the people who said that they are of Paul, since they would be agreeing with him.

But he does not do anything like that, as we'll see as we consider further in the text. And so again, the reasonable conclusion here is that the issue at hand is not one worthy of divide. That's the problem here.

It's not an issue that causes, that's any reason to divide over, not like the poll results that we were talking about earlier. This is something that the group should be able to come together on. And that unity, according to Paul, as we see again in verse 10, is that all agree, right?

It's important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean that everyone in the church has to agree with everyone on everything, but rather, as a very common expression, agree to disagree. And in a sense, that's what Paul is saying here, is that in your disagreements on the lesser matters, trivial matters, who would be in power, agree that it's more important that we be united together in the same mind and same judgment.

Because if we are united in the same mind and same judgment, who is in power is not that important. As much as it is, this is the person that God has appointed to be in power, to be leading the church.

Church power is a bad word, but to be leading the church in this particular moment. If we're united in the same mind and same judgment, this isn't as much of a concern. And so this manifests itself in that there are no quarrels among the church publicly, right?

And this is a good word for us to hear as well, I think, today. That though there may be disagreements among a group of elders, that they would present a unified front to the church, nothing disingenuous, but that they would be together.

Though there may be disagreements between elders and members, that they're still committed to one another, they love one another, they submit to one another, and they work and they strive together towards consensus, right?

While remaining united through the disagreement, especially when it comes to the onlooking crowds that would look into the church, that they would know us by our love. And we know this wasn't happening in Corinth because Chloe's people saw the dissension and the infighting and reported it back to Paul.

And we wouldn't probably need anyone like Chloe to report things back to Paul on any of us. We could just look at probably social media today, right? And we'd see people not only disagreeing with their elders, their churches, their decisions, but also disagreeing with their brothers and sisters in very harsh ways, criticizing and belittling them for responses to COVID shutdowns or to the political climate, to social justice.

The list could go on and on where people have really turned against one another. And these splits within the churches that were happening in Corinth and that we kind of see happening right before our very eyes today, they're rooted in the same spirit that we see in Corinth of prideful arrogance and competition, right, between one another.

Everyone wanted to hold the top spot. Everyone wanted to be the decision maker, to have the authority, have the power. And that's the problem, again, that Paul's dealing with here today, quarreling because of a desire for power over each other.

That's why we see in verse 12 that Paul says, each one of them is saying, I am of Paul and I have Apollos and I have Cephas and I have Christ. These are people beginning, in a sense, political parties to gain power within their own midst.

Throughout the church, this logically fallacious appeal to authority, we see it happen all the time throughout history. It's rampant. And it was all done in an effort to exert power over the group. There's a great example, if we consider the Roman Catholic Church.

As Protestants, again, we're of the Catholic tradition in that the historic teachings of the church pre-Middle Ages were largely, for the most part, faithful to the apostolic fathers. It wasn't really until Rome began teaching that one was justified by faith plus their own obedience plus their commitment to completing the sacraments that the Protestant Reformation began, again, 503 years ago today.

What a special thing. Martin Luther nailing 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, 503 years ago today. And that's when the Reformation became necessary, when the doctrine, the true doctrinal, the core doctrinal split began.

But that divide began not in the time of Martin Luther in 1517. That really began with the party spirit that was undergirding the Roman Catholic Church for centuries before that. It finds its roots even all the way back with Leo I in the 400s.

He elevated his office when he became Bishop of Rome. He elevated the office of Bishop of Rome over every other bishop in the church because he appealed to Peter's station as the first Bishop of Rome and saying even that it was the blessed Apostle Peter in whose chair his power, Leo's power, lives on and his authority shines forth.

So true and necessary division became necessary between the Roman Catholic Church and what became the Protestant branch of Christianity. When party spirits that were positioning themselves for power weren't dealt with in biblical ways, when people like Leo I are able to consolidate power to themselves by fallaciously appealing to the authority of Peter and that's not dealt with in proper ways, biblical ways, those things begin to fester and we see the ultimate result about a thousand years later when the church has the great split.

And that's exactly what Paul is angling to do here. Corinthians, all in an effort to place themselves over their brothers and sisters, are claiming the authority of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas, and Cephas is Peter, Cephas is just the Aramaic name of Peter.

And then even of Christ, there's a party of Christ and in the church today we've changed the names but we do the very same thing. This party spirit still exists. We do it denominationally of course and that's why we have over 30 ,000 Protestant denominations.

We do it politically. Again, even within the church we do it politically over what are basically policy disagreements that lead ultimately to churches splitting into entirely separate entities along political lines which does what?

It produces politically rooted and politically motivated entities, churches. They find their foundation in the reason why they started that church is for a political reason. So these splits happen. It wouldn't take you long to drive through a town center in Massachusetts and you find at least one historic church building in that town center that's flying a rainbow flag or has a Black Lives Matter sign on its front lawn and this is the result.

These politically activated churches are the result of Christians from decades ago dividing over politics because they lost sight of the ultimate authority which is Christ. Christians focused on political agendas and they pushed their way in and they're even allowed to push themselves into leadership roles and they take the church's eyes off of Christ and they fix it upon a political agenda.

When the moral high ground of the church is no longer Christ's perfect morality it's because power hungry men and women within the church have moved it in an effort to control their brothers and sisters.

When we take our eyes off of Christ, his perfection, his righteousness and set it upon a human agenda we've now set ourselves up over our brothers and sisters and again we see it happen with denominational splits.

We see it happen today obviously very visibly along political party lines and who you vote for determines for you some level of righteousness or unrighteousness. This divisive spirit is alive and well today and we have to be very vigilant to combat it and we do that by looking to Christ and Christ alone, submitting ourselves to him and his ultimate authority over us all which Paul is doing here in this letter because he recognizes the danger of this line of thinking, this party spirit attitude.

But with that in mind there is one thing that I think we do have to be careful of in that effort and that is a false humility that some within the church are guilty of even when they claim an allegiance to Christ and this is one of the parties that Paul confronts here at the end of verse 12.

To say that we are of Paul, that we're of Apollos, that we're of Cephas, those are obviously foolish because we're creating a separation between the church by appealing to the authority of another human being.

So it's obviously pure folly to do something like that, at least I think that we could probably say that now in hindsight, maybe at the time in Corinth it didn't seem as foolish. But Paul says that there are some in Corinth who are even claiming to be of Christ, there's this fourth group that's of Christ and while this might seem to be the group that they must be in the right, these other three groups, they're clearly wrong, the group that's of Christ, this should be the group that we are falling in behind, but Paul clarifies in the context of verse 13 which we're going to discuss further in a few moments that this group was also a part of the problem, but how could that be?

How could the ones who are of Christ be part of the problem? Well, let me ask you a question, have you ever met anyone who will tell you that they don't hold the writings of Paul to the same esteem as the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels because it's Jesus we follow, not Paul, these red-letter Christians, these recall.

How about someone who tells you that, you know, theology is nice but sometimes it just distracts me too much from my spiritual relationship with Jesus? I actually had someone, a Christian, tell me that they don't know what they believe necessarily about God's sovereignty and, you know, Calvinism, Arminianism debates and they're not even really sure that they ever want to really study it too much because they don't want to be distracted from their relationship with Jesus.

Now, while I can understand that sentiment to a degree, let's be really clear about what this person is saying is that theology, the study of God, is too distracting to my relationship with said God. This is the danger that exists in this relationship over religion ideology which is very popular today because it runs the risk of leading you down the road of spiritual mysticism where the feelings and emotions that you get from dim lighting and repetitive music are more important to your Christian faith than who God is and what He's done.

And so Paul here is saying that these types of people are part of the problem and perhaps they're even the worst offenders of all because they are claiming some even greater level of spirituality that has been accomplished in them in order to claim power for themselves in Corinth and they're doing it in the name of Christ.

This is taking the Lord's name in vain. And we know that this was happening in Corinth. I'm not just speculating. We know what was happening when we look ahead to chapters 12 through 14 when Paul begins to talk about spiritual gifts.

Paul mocks in chapter 13 what seems to be an ultra spiritual group in Corinth. He says chapter 13 verse 1 if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love I've become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

People claiming to speak a heavenly language that the others just don't know. This is likely the Christ party that we're reading about here in verse 10 or verse 12 of chapter 1 and they do this because it gives them a greater sense of authority and giving them more power over the group.

Paul knows the insincerity of that. He knows the power grabbing intent of this type of divisiveness. And these are the same people today who who would claim to us that the fuzzy feelings and goosebumps that they get and I don't want to discount these things that God can't encourage us in certain ways emotionally.

Absolutely God has God created emotions he can certainly encourage us through them. But people who would claim that fuzzy feelings and goosebumps are our God's way of telling them something new you know something in my spirit is telling me that this is this is this way or that way.

It's a claim of spiritual authority that's not grounded in the Christ of Scripture but it's grounded in the Christ of their emotions or of their flesh. Pastor Kendall discussed ideologies like this within the church a few weeks back when he mentioned you know woke ism in the woke church which is rampant today.

Many Christians of this woke bent would would claim that their emotions and the emotions of those who have been identified as the oppressed in society they have an intrinsic truth their their emotional response their experiences have some level of intrinsic truth that must be reckoned with.

And this is done at the expense of biblical fidelity in this form of spirituality that calls upon intuition and feelings and emotions as authoritative witnesses of truth is a toxic and a great great danger to Christians and to the church all around the world.

It's all this is Gnosticism and it's plagued the church since its earliest days and we see that Gnostic spirit which which kind of indicates a sort of an inner knowledge this this knowledge that exists that people are being given very in very mystic ways.

It's on display in Corinth here with the of Christ's party and today with what body calls the ethnic Gnosticism of the woke the woke party. And so again we have to be careful we have to be careful not to allow trifle disputes to divide us because that's what's happened that's why these the woke party has grown as it has today.

We've allowed the trifle disputes to separate us so that now when these larger issues come up it's too late. It's too late to deal with it. We've seen too many examples throughout the history of the church to think that it couldn't happen to us and again it's already happening in a lot of ways in the American church and how we do this how we are careful in doing this is by clinging to the authoritative Christ not of our feelings but of the Bible.

That's why Paul starts there in verse 10 is why he started there in this entire letter we cling to the authoritative Christ and so we don't allow the splits that might develop due to these trivial matters or over power grabs to fester we deal with them we deal with them biblically because if they do fester they will devolve into more serious issues in time.

And so Paul is calling us to this because because it is so important to us and he's also calling he's also pointing this out to us because it's a pretty foolish thing for Christians to divide over something like who is in leadership or who is who is in power.

Why is that if the answer is pretty simple and we look at verses 13 through 16 Paul writes has Christ been divided. Paul was not crucified for you was he or were you baptized in the name of Paul. I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.

Now I did baptize also the house the household of Stephanus beyond that I do not know whether I baptized any other. Why is it a problem that people are claiming to be of Paul of a polis of Cephas and of Christ.

Why is that a foolish thing. Why is that foolish for all four of these groups to do this just to consolidate power to themselves because Christ can't be divided he's not ours to divide. It's a foolish thing for Christians to lord power over each other because there is only one Lord Christ and this one Lord can't be divided.

He can't be split apart into factions to be used by opposing groups against each other. We see that happen all the time today. But Christ can't be divided. He can and should never be used for a power grab because all power belongs to Christ.

People claim all the time a spiritual authority over other Christians. And it's you know it's one thing to assert a spiritual authority over the unbelieving world because we do have that. But over Christians it's an entirely different thing in virtue signaling people on how to think how to act how to vote moralizing one another into factions that don't serve to unite the body of Christ but to divide it.

And again there's a permanence to that word divide splits are going to exist. But when those little things cause permanent division that's where the issue comes. And Christians today they do this not based on Christ's authority in Scripture but on their own convictions and own preferences being projected upon the masses being projected upon the people of God.

And yet has Christ been divided. Absolutely not. What we must remember is that while we in others within the church may attempt to claim an authority over each other it is not our authority to grasp the authority belongs to Christ brethren.

Right. Paul says brethren in verse 10. And this is an emotional appeal that he's using. And he uses this appeal 39 times in this letter 1st Corinthians 39 times. That's 20 times more 20 times more 20 more uses not 20 multiplied 20 more uses than any of his other letters 20 39 times.

He calls on them with this emotional appeal. Brethren brothers listen. It's by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by his authority. And we're not only to heed this exhortation but to submit in all things to his authority.

Has Paul been crucified for any of us. Apollos Peter. Of course not. They may have been crucified. It wasn't for us. Wasn't the remission of sins. Were any of us baptized in the name of Paul. Apollos Peter.

I hope not. And that's because that's a joke. But that's because there's only one cross of Christ one payment for sin. There's only one baptism. It's not a human hands. It wasn't mine. It wasn't yours.

It's Christ. Paul when he's promoting unity to the church in Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 4 he says in verses 3 through 6. Being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit.

Just as also you were called in one hope of your calling one Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father of all one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And so Paul points us to Christ to reveal how futile the party spirit is in the church of God.

This first letter to the Corinthians gives beautiful detail and we'll cover this in future weeks of the economy of God compared to that of the world. The foolishness of God greater than the wisdom of men.

The weakness of God greater than the strength of men. In the same way this the partisan and power-hungry tendencies of the world have no power over the Lord of all. His authority is greater. No. The world will try to use it and abuse God and his word for their own purposes.

He will never be divided because he is one Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father of all who is over all. The Corinthians tried this this was their this was their effort appealing to church leaders to falsely claim some higher level of authority.

Countless others have done it over the past 2 ,000 years and people are doing it today. We must be careful not to do it within our body because these efforts are futile and they're foolish in the face of God.

And especially now with the scripture that God has given us is where we don't need to look any further to know who the head of the church is. It's Christ. And so we've now considered the character race the characteristics excuse me of the division going on in Corinth as well as this same party spirit that exists in the church today.

And we've looked at how foolish it is for Christians to angle for power over one another and split apart over trivial things. Since we know that Christ cannot be divided. This is not ours to divide. And now as we begin to draw to a close here this morning I want us to close with what Paul prescribes as the cure to this type of foolish spirit within the church.

Looking at verse 17 Paul writes. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel not in cleverness of speech so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Paul says the cure for a foolish party spirit is this preach the gospel.

It's not complicated. We don't even need to really be clever in how we do it. We don't need to be the smartest. They don't need to be well liked by everyone. They don't certainly don't need to give in to the loudest people in the room or online.

The cure for the divide for divide in the church is the gospel. The cure for divide in all the world we know is the gospel. No more than that. No more and no less. And how do we protect our church here the Shepherd's Church right from ever splitting over trivial matters or over power grabs preach the gospel.

How do we protect the marriages in this room preach the gospel. How do we protect relationships with our children with our friends. You preach the gospel. And that's why we strive to preach the simple gospel here every week.

And we sing it. We walk through it in our order of service because we need it. We need to know every week we need to know that Christ died for sinners of which each of us are chief. This gospel is the ultimate bond of unity because it sets us all on level footing no matter our background no matter our accomplishments at the foot of Christ's cross.

We are all sinners desperate for God to apply that payment to our accounts. I saw a great quote from a pastor this week. He said you show me a Christian who says they don't need to hear the gospel anymore.

And I'll show you one who does. How true is that sentiment. The gospel is utterly sufficient and it is utterly necessary for all that we need in faith and in life. We can't add to it because the loudest voices sorry are moralizing us into thinking that we need to do more.

And we can't listen to these voices that make us feel like we need to do more in order to be real Christians. That's adding to the gospel. We're justified by grace through faith in Christ alone. And we can't lose sight of it.

Can't lose sight of this gospel because the world is telling us that truth is relative. Is that survey we started out with. There's only one way. And his name is Jesus Christ. Because if we do if we if we lose sight of it or if we add to it or if we abuse this beautiful gospel we risk making void.

Paul says in verse 17 making void the cross of Christ. Not that the cross is no longer sufficient in paying for sin but that we have forfeited in our witness the power of the cross in our preaching. Because we're relying on ourselves to coerce others into onto our side.