Paul the Spiritual Father | Sermon 11/24/2024

There we go, praise the

Lord, praise God. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to 1

Corinthians chapter four. We're gonna finish out chapter four today, verses 14 through 21.

While you're navigating in your Bibles to there, I also wanted to make an announcement, church, that with some wise counsel and some prayer, we have decided that besides just continuing in 1

Corinthians for the rest of the year and next week hitting incest and sexual immorality through December and church discipline through the rest of the month, which are really needed things to go over, we're gonna wait to go over those in the new year.

And by God's grace, he has helped me to come up with a preaching schedule for the rest of the year.

We're gonna really be digging into the advent, the first advent of Christ. So next week, there's gonna be some changes even in our songs.

There's gonna be changes in the text that I'm preaching. We're gonna be looking at Isaiah, the child who is to be born unto us, and we'll be moving on.

And on December 22nd, the Lord's day before Christmas, we'll be going over Matthew chapter one, the birth of Christ.

So anyways, I'm really excited about that. You all know that we are a regulative principle, regulative principle of worship church.

We derive how we worship God from the Bible. And it's so wonderful that we can kind of leave our series for a little bit and come to other parts of the

Bible, especially during this time when we're all thinking about the incarnation, right? And I've heard some of you say, and I know

I can get this feeling during the year sometimes as well, do you ever feel like it goes by so fast that you miss celebrating the incarnation?

I don't know if you ever feel that way. So I'm excited that we'll be starting that and going through that next week. But once again, we're gonna be in verses 14 through 21.

So starting in verse 14 of the first letter to the Corinthians chapter four, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

God. I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers.

For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel. Therefore, I exhort you, be imitators of me.

For this reason, I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the

Lord. And he will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.

Now, some have become arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you soon if the

Lord wills. And I shall find out not the words of those who are arrogant, but their power.

For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power. What do you desire?

Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?

That sends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray once more as we look at the text today.

Lord, we thank you for your word this morning. We thank you,

God, how clearly it speaks to us and how you've given us your spirit that we may ascertain it and understand it.

Lord, we pray that you would do that for us today. Lord, thank you for your precious word.

Show us these things, not just to inform us, but transform us. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.

So as I said, we're gonna complete chapter four today. And by doing so, we will finally see

Paul finish his first objective for this letter, which was the exhortation against division and factions.

It's taken him four chapters to really cover all that he wanted to say about that. And still, he's gonna hint at it later on.

As you heard in the reading of the word, he's going to appeal to them right now like a father would to his child.

But also like a father, he will do and say the hard things.

That's often what fathers have to do. And it reminded me of when I was a child. And I don't know if I was maybe 10 or 11 years old.

And my dad was out of town for a few days on business. And me and my older brother and my younger sister were often a handful for my mom.

But believe it or not, I especially was like, gosh, I was the cause of so much grief for my mother.

I was the middle child, always pulling pranks and getting in trouble.

And I bet you could never imagine that, right? It's not like I like jokes and all those things.

And in those days, when I was 10 or 11, I was already taller than my older brother. I was a big kid.

And there was not much that the, we called it the spanking spoon. There was not much the spanking spoon could accomplish wielded by the hands of my mother at that age.

She needed to bring out the big guns. How are we gonna actually get this kid disciplined? And some of you know the most dreaded words then, if the spanking spoon doesn't work is,

I'm gonna have to tell your father. And I'm like, oh no, oh no,

Lord help me. And she did it. She called my father. She talked to him.

And before my father departed on his plane, he called me from the payphone at the airport when they had him.

And she told him how I had been such a rebel those few days. And I don't remember if I could just hear him through the receiver or if she handed it to me.

But he was like, Wade, I'll be home soon. And it sounds like we need to talk.

And I'm telling you, you guys, that is one of the scariest things as a kid.

I don't know if you ever had that as well. It's like, oh man, dad's gonna talk to me. What's gonna happen? He's gonna spank me so good.

And he didn't say, like Paul did, you want me to come with the rod or you want me to come with the spirit of gentleness?

And even if he said, I'm gonna come with the spirit of gentleness, I would have thought that it was a trick, right? I was scared.

Nothing subdues a disobedient child like waiting for dad to come home to discipline you, nothing.

The seconds turned to minutes. The minutes grow to hours. There was an understanding that this man started this family.

He cared for this family. He protected this family and kept order in this family.

Will the Corinthians think similarly about the Apostle Paul?

Will they accept his correction? Will they do what he says to do?

We're gonna see what he hopes for them to do in our passage today, but before we exegete verse 14, let me give a quick recap, okay?

The Apostle Paul has just said the Corinthians are acting like royalty. If you remember, they're seeking honor above others at the expense of others, that they're strong at the cost of his weakness.

He tells them the work isn't done. Christ hasn't returned yet. The kingdom of God is just in its infancy stage.

Believers don't reign yet, and Paul knows that. How does he know that believers don't reign yet?

He says to this very moment, him and his team have suffered. Those who have been the most faithful have been afflicted the most, just like Christ.

The Corinthians have been satiated, he said. They're well -clothed, and they have it so well in the persecution department that they can even fight over who the best leaders are and make factions.

Paul's team doesn't have the luxury of jealousy and strife. They are on the battlefield.

There's no time to even think about those things. They are spectacles, while the

Corinthians have become spectators, watching the faithful on the world's stage in front of men and angels.

Paul says, the apostles have become the scum of the world. They're the leftover trash after the garbage has been picked up.

They're the blood and guts crusted on the bottom of the altar. They're men doomed to die. They're at this moment, they're hungry, they're thirsty, they're persecuted, and what we talked about last week is loyalty to the gospel of Christ can cost you in this life.

It can cost one their very life, in fact, but Paul sees that as a small price to pay for eternal life.

What a small price to pay considering what Jesus paid with his own life. Now, if you think about this, if you think about this letter and how it was delivered and the elders of the church gathered, everyone, we're gonna read the letter from Paul.

Everyone, listen up, let's read it, and they've been reading this letter aloud in front of the entire congregation.

They read the initial greeting, and it's like, wow, he loves us. Paul loves us, and their faces then went to maybe smiles, to some frowns, went to fear, maybe considering the day of fire, and now it's a bit on humiliation, but that wasn't

Paul's intent. Look at verse 14. Paul says, I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

According to Scripture, shame can be a good tool of sanctification when used wisely.

Healthy shame causes one to avoid certain actions so they don't incur public or divine disapproval, but the word shame here means to turn in.

It's a visual word. It means to turn your head down in shame, and he doesn't want that.

He doesn't want them to have to turn their head down and look inward, unable to look up. He doesn't want this kind of shame that would hurt more than it would help.

His intent is to admonish them as his own beloved children.

Admonish is the Greek word, nutheteo. It means to counsel.

It means to warn. It means to instruct someone that they would stop an improper course of action or conduct and come back to the right way.

Stop doing this and do this instead. This is the right way. It's where we get the term nuthetic counseling.

It literally means admonishment, admonishment from scripture, and you can kind of imagine that word in the father -son sense, you know, like a father who sees his boy at the park edging towards the parking lot or the roadway as rushing cars are going by, and the father calls out, probably yells a little bit, admonishes, hey, son, get away from the road.

Get away from over there. Stop the way that you're going. You're gonna get hurt. Come back and do the right thing, and that's kind of an image we have with that.

That's a no -brainer, of course, that kind of admonishment. Save a child from the street, easy, but what about admonishing a peer who is doing something that is wrong or will take them away from the right thing, and you see it, you see it.

Will you speak up? And if you do speak up, will you do it as Paul did with scripture?

Will you do it with love? In this case, will you do it the way the father does with his children, with love?

The fathers are not often liked for the admonishment they give, but they do what is necessary for the sake of their family.

They do. The small and fleeting hurt from correction is much, much better than the large and lasting hurt from someone continuing in sin.

Paul says all of this to soften their hearts, soften their hearts so that their hearts can be molded by the word of truth.

He doesn't want the Corinthians' hearts hard. Then they wouldn't be able to receive his words, so he's saying, I haven't come to shame you.

I've come to admonish you, like a father would to his children.

It's what a spiritual father would do. In fact, look what verse 15 says. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

He's trying to get them to recall how they first met, how he first came to them.

The time that Paul spent with them was 18 months, a year and a half, and he was giving the life -changing gospel of Christ, learning their names, probably, meeting their needs, getting to know their families, answering their questions, teaching them from the scriptures, helping maybe even people come out of poverty, helping prostitutes to leave idle temples, come to faith in Christ, appointing elders at his departure, and all the multitude of prayers that he's spoken with and without them for them.

Remember, remember who I am to you, my beloved children. I came with the regenerating gospel of Christ, and you were born again.

I am like a father to you. And he says, even if you had countless tutors in Christ, it wouldn't be the same.

Tutors here is paidagogos. It could be like a teacher, but it could also be, these were

Greek guardians. These were Greek guardians in the household who would walk the children to school.

They would assist the teachers. They would sometimes be tutors to the children, these paidagogos, but they would also be individuals who would carry out the rod of discipline.

It wasn't always the father for the Greeks. It was the paidagogos, the tutor, but these individuals often overstepped the boundary of acting like a parent.

Why? Because this child isn't their blood. They love them, and some of them would love these children they would serve, but they wouldn't love them like a parent.

And so they could take the rod and often go too far. They were mocked in Greek plays as ones who are always carrying sticks to whack children.

This analogy then is like, even if there were 10 ,000 of these individuals, even if there were 10 ,000 tutors with discipline rods to watch you, even if I sent a teacher to fill you up with right theology every day, every week, every month or year, not one of them could lay claim to my identity in this church.

He says, for in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel. And Paul doesn't mean that in simply an authority sense.

Disciplinarians with rods come and go. The tutors don't have that same bond.

He's like a father. It's a spiritual bond. It's the new family that we have as Christians.

It's wrapped up in real love for him, real love towards them.

And he sees himself in this parent position also because he was the first church planter.

He was the first evangelist to give the gospel in Corinth. There is a sense of duty that Paul feels towards them, a responsibility as the architect who laid the foundation of Christ crucified and it's building, they're building on it.

And these people will have to give an account for how they're building on what he started. And I know this feeling.

Pastor Andrew and I know this feeling. I know how I can get when there have been attacks on our church.

I know how I can get when people have criticized the people in our church, when there have been enemy infiltrations and there have.

We also get this feeling because we are a spiritual family and we will act like a family sometimes.

There's gonna be conflicts. There have been conflicts between some of us. There have been some of you who are in need.

There has been suffering, great suffering even sometimes in our church. And so Pastor Andrew and I know this fatherly feeling in this church, in the roles that we have.

There's this sort of protection and care and love and even correction and admonishment and all of it, all of it goes together.

And I truly believe as Pastor Zach Morgan told me before I left, he said, get ready for it.

When you finally plant that church and you get started, God will put a love in you as an under shepherd for the sheep that he puts in front of you.

It's a supernatural thing, he said. And I just couldn't conceptualize it in that moment, but I know it now.

I know it deeply and it truly is there. Just something that God places in the leaders of a church.

And when they steer away from that, it's horrible. It's horrible. And so just as your children should emulate a parent, just as your children should emulate you,

Paul wants the same for the Corinthians. He says in verse 16, look at this, therefore,

I exhort you, be imitators of me. The Corinthians didn't have a long line of pastors or planters before the

Apostle Paul. He didn't walk into an existing church who followed the example of other men.

He is in this fatherly role because God used him to start this church.

And he's saying once again, remember who I am. There was no one else. Like a child that is adopted at birth and doesn't know any other parent besides the one in front of them, he says, that's how

I am to you. I became your father. You are like my children. Remember who

I am. Paul is that figure. They know no one else.

His instruction and teaching are what they know, just like a child before their mother or their father.

Now, we know, don't we, that your children will follow both the good and bad things that you've done, do they not?

Or they'll at least observe it. They'll observe it and they'll see you say what you wish you would do or what they ought to do.

Then they see you and I sometimes act differently. You know, it puts a sort of pressure on us, doesn't it?

As parents, we have to not only speak what is right, but we have to model what is right.

Otherwise, we become hypocrites. You know, in fact, I'll be honest with you. Even a few weeks ago,

I had to confess to my daughter, I'm being, you know what, I'm being a hypocrite here. I confessed to the

Lord and I confessed to her. That's a powerful thing. That's a freeing thing. Do that sometimes.

If you need to, bring your kids in front of you and say, I want you to know that I'm with you and I'm looking at Scripture as the model of what to do.

I'm looking at Christ's example and I want you to know that in his example,

I'm saying what I ought to do and what you ought to do, but I failed here. Forgive me.

And I explained what a hypocrite was, someone who speaks one thing but does another.

And I think that's powerful. Do that as parents when you need to. But Paul here is completely different.

He can tell the Corinthians to imitate him with confidence, not because he's egotistical, not because he's perfect like Christ, not because he wants them to sin, but because he is showing them how to not sin.

And it's rooted in what he says in chapter 11. He says this again in this letter. He says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

When I follow Christ rightly, follow my example.

And he says the same sort of thing, I would say on half a dozen occasions through the rest of the

New Testament. He tells the Philippians this, the Thessalonians this. In Philippians 3 .17,

he says, brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern that you have in us.

Look at our example, follow it, see the way that we walk, see our conduct and go in the same way as us.

Second Thessalonians 3 .7, for you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example.

He says, walk onto the battlefield with us. Join us in faithfulness to Christ, even if it means you go hungry, naked or homeless.

Be a spectacle with us. He says, stop spectating, stop the factions, stop the pursuit of worldly wisdom, stop elevating certain men in the church and get to work with the gospel like we are, even if it means you suffer.

Do what I do, he says, when you're reviled, bless. When you're persecuted, endure.

When you're slandered, conciliate. Think of yourselves like servants, like I said.

Consider yourselves as just farmhands on a field, God's field. Work together.

Be ready for the day of judgment when fire will test your works. Do what we apostles do.

Follow my example. Like a son does what his father does.

Like a daughter that does what her mother does. And this either speaks to the ignorance of the apostle

Paul, that he is actually not a quality model to follow, or it speaks to some confidence, great confidence, that he is indeed a model of someone who faithfully follows and loves

Jesus. And we know it's the second one. What a place to be. What a place to be to be able to say imitate me in scripture.

Can you say that? Can you say imitate me? Maybe in some things. We should all strive for that status.

We should. Your life's pursuit for God's sanctification should be the ability to say one day imitate me, but that's like, that's holiness level 3000, right?

That's up there. But God's doing that in you and me. It may be not be, it might not be at the same level of the apostle

Paul, but he's doing that for you and I. So now as a good father of the church, as a loving church planter,

Paul will put action to his words. He will make accommodations to help the Corinthians to imitate him.

Look at verse 17, I'm sorry. Verse 17, for this reason,

I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, and he will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church.

Paul says, I've sent my son, my son in the Lord as an emissary and ambassador, a representative in my stead.

And they might go, but Paul, it's not you. It's not you. And he goes, that's okay. I love

Timothy and Timothy is faithful. He's coming to you. And what he says, take as though they are my words and do what

Timothy does as though they are what I would do. Timothy has full authority here.

He is the oldest son in charge while the father is away. He is, as Paul says, one of my beloved children, but he is the model child.

You can follow Timothy's example like you do of me, and Timothy will remind you of my ways.

And here's why the Corinthians can imitate Paul, because Paul isn't the standard.

He's just a human example. He says, my ways are in Christ.

I sent you Timothy and he will remind you of my ways and my ways are in Christ.

That's how you can follow my example. Paul is an apostle of Christ. Christ is the standard.

He is divine authority to make disciples, baptize them, teach them to obey all that Christ has commanded.

And that divine authority will even translate, we see into being a vessel in which sacred scripture came about.

The word of God flowed through the apostle Paul the same way as it came from God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

And Paul says, my ways are in Christ. I have authority from Christ.

We see that on the road to Damascus. And when God made Paul an apostle, his ways are in Christ.

And I remember when I first got saved, my wife and I were living in an apartment in a city called

Mesa in Arizona. And we saw an advertisement on Brown Road for this church on Saturday nights.

They said, parents, come to this Saturday night service, put your kids in our child area.

That's how family ingrained we are. I don't even know how to say the child area. Child area, whatever that is.

And come and watch a service as a couple. And we did that.

It was a massive mega church. And I'm not even kidding. I'm not making this up. When we walked in to the foyer area,

I don't even know if you could call it that. You know, that first area where the double doors are, that's like kind of the foyer area, foyer, if you're

French. But essentially, when we walked in, it looked like a food court. I mean, and there were marble pillars that went to the ceiling.

And it's hard to explain what I'm talking about. There was all this tile and these separate ministry entrances that made it look like a food court, you know, just shiny and full of marble and tile everywhere.

And I remember looking to the right and seeing the children's area. And it looks straight up like a discovery zone.

Who knows what that is anymore? Yeah, it looked like a discovery zone. There were ball pits and things like that.

I'm not even kidding. It was absurd. It was, no wonder the kids could be in there just fine, entertained.

But I remember when we walked in, there were all these ushers, all these people with little name tags.

And there was this female usher. And she said, welcome to our church, you know?

And said, thank you. And she was handing out little programs, little bulletins. And as I looked up,

I realized that there were these like 10 to 20 foot banners of portraits of men and women hanging in this big, as I call it, food court foyer of this church.

And I walked up and it made me just kind of go, I wonder what they teach here. What am I getting into, you know?

And so she hands me the thing, welcomes me. And I said, by the way, what do you guys teach here?

What's your denomination? I was a new believer. I didn't really know how to ask what I was wanting an answer for.

And what she revealed was so telling to me. You know what she said? Said, what do you guys teach here?

Who do you follow? What's your denomination? And she goes, and I look up and she goes, we follow him.

I thought she was talking about God. I'm gonna go, yes, you follow God? And she goes, yeah, but we follow him.

And I look up and it's a big 20 foot, I'm telling you, huge banner, fabric banner of Kenneth Copeland.

She said, we follow him. We follow Kenneth Copeland here at this church. And I was a new believer.

I didn't really know who he was or what he taught. And it was such an odd way to say what they follow.

She points up and goes, we follow him. That's the way she said it. I'm not even kidding. It wasn't

Paul. We imitate Paul. It wasn't we follow Christ. We follow the ways of Kenneth Copeland.

And again, not knowing much about who that was and that he was a false teacher, we reluctantly walked into the service and it was almost pitch black.

It was incredible. I could barely see, but we went in and this preacher came up and I don't even think he opened the

Bible once. It was kind of like a life coaching with tons of jokes. It was like a stand up comedy act almost with Bible themes in it.

It was really a monologue in some ways. And I knew, even as a very new believer,

I knew in my soul that this didn't comport with what my old spirit life filled

Bible NKJV that my grandma had given me in high school that I finally opened up first time in my life.

And I read through it and I reading through that Bible and then listening to this man, I'm like, these don't go together.

And so we decided to leave. We left in the middle of it. Their ways were not in Christ.

And I don't even think I'm being overly harsh. If you were there and you would have heard what this man said and what she said,

I think you would have come to the same conclusion. We had to leave. Their ways were not in Christ.

Kenneth Copeland and the man on stage weren't worthy to imitate. They weren't worthy to imitate.

Paul, however, preached the true unmanipulated life giving gospel of Jesus Christ without error.

And the God given formula of the great commission, which was make disciples, baptize them and teach them to obey all that Jesus commanded is what he utilized everywhere.

Paul didn't give a different package to this city or to this city. He didn't go to this city and go, wow, these people have more status.

These people have more money. I'm going to change the package. Paul didn't come here and said, well, they're a little bit poorer.

And so I'm gonna package it this way. He says right here at the end of this verse, he says, just as I teach everywhere in every church that I've gone, at every church, he gives them the same thing.

He won't change anything for anyone because it's the ways of Christ.

It's the ways of Christ always for him. And so after announcing the arrival of Timothy, his beloved son in the faith, the apostle returns to his admonishment.

Look at verses 18 through 20. Now some have become arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you soon if the

Lord wills and I shall find out. Not the words of those who are arrogant, but their power for the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power.

And there's that word puffed up again. First, he warned that they could be puffed up if they went beyond what is written, if they opposed sola scriptura.

Now he knows some of them are puffed up about him being absent from the church.

Some of the Corinthians, maybe even the faction leaders are walking around saying, brethren, it's been two and a half, it's been three years since Paul left us.

Let's just go our way. Let's go in the way that we think is best. Yeah, he laid the foundation, but you need to follow what we think is best now.

Maybe they're forgetting Paul's ways as Paul's ways were in Christ. Now, some have said that what he's saying in this verse is that the faction leaders went so far as to make insurrection and say,

Paul, you have no authority here. You're not a leader here anymore. This is our church, not yours,

Paul. I don't believe that rebellion to the apostles or to Christ is what really is the sin here.

But if you remember, he said, be careful on how you build on the foundation I built.

Watch out, don't find yourself trying to destroy God's temple, the church. And so the sin here,

I believe is pride. It's pride. And it's like my introduction. The father is coming home soon.

The father will arrive shortly. Will the father find his house in order?

Have the children forgotten the example of mom and dad?

The babysitter lets them get away with whatever sometimes. Have they forgotten what mom and dad expect of them?

And he says, but I will come to you soon if the Lord wills it. I'm sending

Timothy. Timothy is coming. You're gonna follow his example, but I'm coming to you soon if the

Lord wills it. And some of them have been arrogant. They've been presumptuous, but not Paul. He defers to the

Lord's will. His coming to them is dependent on God's will. If he doesn't come, it won't be because of them or because of him for that matter.

It will be because of God. Now, if he does come to them, he will find out.

He will find the arrogant ones, and he will see not their words, but what their power is.

Is their power fleshly or worldly, or is it truly spirit wrought?

What kind of power do these people have who are arrogant, who are the faction leaders?

Because fleshly talk is just air. It's gas. It's nothing. The Corinthians' pride has caused them to shout war cries from the battle line as if they're in the battle, but they're just standing there.

They're never really doing what Paul did. There's no power. We would say that they're all talk and no action.

They're all sizzle and no steak, right? The apostle wants the word to not just inform them words, but transform them, change them.

What kind of power do you have? You say you're one of the smartest churches in the kingdom of God, Corinth?

You just have words. What is your power? I'm coming, and I will examine your power.

Where is it? It's from the world, or is it from God? For the reign of God doesn't consist in word, but in power.

People have called the gospel just words before. How can just words save me? How can if I say the right words, how can that save me?

That's what they say. Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

Jew first, and also to the Greek. It is the power of God. The kingdom of God consists of what he says is dunamis.

That's where we get the word dynamite. The kingdom of God is filled with power. Earlier, he acknowledged that they've wanted to reign.

They've wanted to reign right now. And it's true that Christ brought his kingdom, and Christ has started his reign.

But they, those at Corinth, have started to reign as if Christ already returned, as if all is complete.

They want to reign for selfish and prideful reasons. He says you just have words.

You don't have power. You need real power to make an effect in the kingdom of God.

You know, we're gonna use words. You and I are gonna use words.

We're gonna use words up here. We're gonna use words in our singing. We're gonna use words when we evangelize and give the gospel.

But the power or the efficacy isn't in the words themselves. They're in the spirit of God, the spirit of God behind those words.

You know, a lot of preachers give words. That day that I went to that megachurch and heard that guy, he gave words.

But there was no power. There was no power. Finally, Paul, the returning father, contrasts the tutor with the rod and himself with love.

Look at our final verse for today, verse 21. What do you desire?

Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?

And it's not that a father can't use a rod. In fact, fathers, you should use the rod. Scripture says so.

It says to do it righteously, not in anger, not in abuse, not wickedly, but the

Bible says so. But right now, it's not time for punishment. Right now,

Paul doesn't need to use force. He can persuade with power because they're actually believers.

He won't need to rail on them with enforcement. Yes, we need punishments in the world.

We need punishment and discipline in this world. We need it in the family government. The Bible says in Romans 13 in Peter's letter, we need discipline and punishment in the civil government.

We even need ways, according to 1 Corinthians 5 and Matthew 18, ways to discipline in the church government because there's sin in the world.

But there is an acknowledgement here that though we should legislate righteousness, which is like don't murder people, don't let people rape others, don't let people do evil, we should legislate righteousness, we should.

And we must punish those who go against those things with the government. That's the government is what

Paul says, the diakonos, the servant of God, the one who carries a sword.

Though that is all true, it is also true that by enforcement, we cannot change the murderer.

We cannot change the rapist and the evildoers with law. We can get them to stop doing it.

But if someone is a murderer in their heart, they will continue to be so. We need those things, but they don't change someone's heart.

To change someone's heart, you have to give the cross. We give the gospel.

We come with a power of love and a spirit of gentleness found in Christ. That's how the apostles hope to see this young church changed for the better.

He says, I could come with the rod, I could come with punishment, or I could come with a spirit of gentleness and love.

And that's what he's gonna do. And he's not done. The father's not done sending correction.

I'm afraid that we're only just getting started with what the Corinthians need for correction.

And we'll see that next time, at the end of the year, at the start of 2025, when we go back to this letter of the

Corinthians. The church father will continue.

But as we wrap up today, I can't help but think of fathers and adoption.

It's something we even talked briefly about at the 1689 night, and the roles and attributes of the father and the trinity.

And one of the roles and attributes of the father and the trinity is that he adopts.

He adopts us. Go to Galatians chapter four in your Bibles, or grab your printout from your bulletin.

I want you to see this with your own eyes together with me, Galatians chapter four. Look at what has happened for us.

Galatians four, verses four through seven. It says this, but when the fullness of time came,

God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

There it is. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying,

Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.

It's an amazing passage. You know, it's true. Just like Paul is dealing with the

Corinthians, God sometimes deals with us this way, the way that Paul is with them.

Hebrews 12 says that the Lord loves those whom he disciplines. Sometimes he has to discipline us.

In fact, Hebrews chapter 12, the author says, if you don't ever receive the discipline of the heavenly father, he says you might be an illegitimate child.

We can expect to receive it sometimes because we are now his son, his daughter.

But more than discipline, more than correction, our adoption as sons and daughters through Christ demonstrates

God's love for us. God didn't adopt you just so he could discipline you.

God adopted you because he loves you. He sent forth his son to make us sons.

And after that, he sent forth the spirit, it says, into our hearts.

And now our hearts cry out, Abba, father. You know, some have said that that word

Abba was just used by infants. It was just by babies.

Babies would cry out Abba, crying something out like daddy, daddy, dada.

I don't exactly agree with that completely. Maybe some of the sentiment, but this title

Abba was used even by adult children. Those who loved their father, some would have their father pass away.

And Abba has been seen in ancient inheritance and death records of the

Greeks. They're Abba. It was even spoken at at these ceremonies by a man's adult children, they're

Abba. And so Abba here in the scriptures is not so much about infancy as this title is about intimacy.

Intimacy. Abba is the cry of the heart. It is that God is not the impersonal father that you did not know, but now in Christ as adopted sons and daughters, we can cry out

Abba, father, we are close to you and you are close to us. We rebelled and ran off, but you pursued us.

You're our Abba father. You see for the Jewish man or the

Jewish woman of Jesus's day, they heard it in the prophets. They heard

God say, I was like a father to you, but you went after idols. They had an understanding that God was like a father, but they would only have that fatherly idea of God in a punishment and authority sense.

And so you can imagine when the weight was lifted, when Paul said these words that even those who were

Jewish believers heard it, our father is also our Abba. Our father is not just the one who has justice and authority and wields out punishment.

Our Abba is the one who loves and who gives mercy and grace. We are no longer slaves, he says, but we are sons and we are daughters and therefore we are heirs.

He loves us. And some of us here have lived so long with failing earthly fathers.

And some of us have endured even abusive fathers to the point that continued discipline and hard correction is what is familiar to you.

Think about this, are you someone who always gravitates towards the boss who continues to give you hard feedback?

Are you the person who when you come to church or you listen to a sermon, you always want that sermon to smack you?

You always wanna feel like you're cut by it? You wanna feel conviction by it?

And feedback and correction and being cut to the heart are good things.

They're a necessity in our sanctification, but some of us are drawn to it so much, it's all we want, it's all we know.

Some of us need to really know how truly and deeply how much

God loves us and the terrible anguish his son went through to adopt you and that he is glad that by the word of his son, you and I can cry out

Abba. Listen, if you get close to God your father, you won't be abused.

If you approach your heavenly father at his throne, you can expect grace.

You can let go of the projections of the way that your earthly father failed you.

From your heavenly father, you can let those projections go because every single promise that our father has given us, he will never fail to make good on them.

And that's the truth. We need to stop using the lens of our earthly fathers and what they've done to us when we view our

Abba father. He loves us. And this is really the heart of Paul's admonishment here to the

Corinthians, that he's their spiritual father in Christ. He has love for them.

And in this series, as much as it's called out your sin and this series has called out my sin, and it will continue to call out the

Corinthian sins and even ours as he goes over more topics, as we continue in this, don't forget the father's love.

Don't forget the father's love. Because these epistles, these epistles are needed.

They're necessary. And Paul has been admonishing us from day one, which has been so awesome.

But we have to remember the love of Christ and the love of the father. And it's not the punishment of God that drives you forward.

It's the love of God. It's the grace of God. Grace should be your motivator, church.

Not the day of fire, not the day of judgment for believers. It's what

Christ did. That's the key. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you, God, for this message and God, how your word is just so perfect, speaks to all our needs.

God, we thank you for the example of the apostles and how you divinely inspired them with scripture.

And God, how we can follow what is said here as credible and representative of who

Jesus is and what Jesus taught. And Lord, we pray that as we go through this life and we have people who care for us, people who act as spiritual mothers or fathers in a way,

Lord, that we wouldn't spurn their admonishment. Lord, that we would see the heart of your people behind the necessary feedback and correction that we need sometimes as the apostle

Paul does to them. It says, faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. And sometimes, Lord, whether it be me,

Pastor Andrew, or even one of our members coming to other members or even our members coming to us, let us all have enough humility in Christ to examine ourselves and see where we need correction and to see the love behind it,

Lord, and to not take it personal. To see that this person wants the very best for us.

And Lord, if we have ever corrected anyone with a spirit of arrogance or pride, or if we've been wrong, let us forgive one another and love each other like you do for us.

We thank you, Lord, that your admonishment, though, is perfect. We love you,

God. We thank you for today. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, before we take of the