1 Corinthians 1 02-22-10

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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

If you'll open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we are just marching verse by verse through this book. We pick a book and we go through it because we want

God to speak to us. It's one thing to speak to God in prayer. It's another thing to sing praises to God.

And it's quite another then to hear Him speak to us. We are men and women who have been captivated by the loveliness and goodness of Christ Jesus.

And when that happens, when God captures you, you respond with many things, but one for sure thing is this.

You respond with a desire that says, I love your Word. You respond with an attitude that says,

I used to think this was a bunch of hogwash, but now I realize this is divinely inspired.

It's God breathe and God speak to me through your Word. If you study old books, maybe you study

Chaucer or someone else, maybe Shakespeare, there's something to be said for learning about literature of another generation.

Maybe you learn about the culture a little bit back then, but wouldn't you agree that when it comes to studying the Bible, it has its application for Corinth when it was written.

When Paul wrote to Corinth, he said, this is for you. And we say, yes, it is a historical document, but isn't it great that the

Bible is living and active? It is transcultural, trans chronological.

It transcends time and space, and then it is able to speak to us today. What other literature does that?

No other literature, because this is not just a book written by the apostles and prophets. This is a book written and inspired by God as he uses those men to write the

Word. Well, first Corinthians, we're going to talk today about unity. As Paul appealed to the church of Corinth to not be divided any longer,

I think this book still will speak to us today to make sure that we stay unified.

Paul's problem as he looked at Corinth, Paul's analysis of the problem rather, is you're fractured, you're rife with divisions and factiousness, and he then clears it up.

But for today, my prayer is that the Lord will keep these warnings for Corinth in our minds so that we don't become like Corinth.

It doesn't take very long to think back to 10 years ago when we probably were

Corinth, and the divisions and the factiousness and the quarrels and the controversies that were in this church.

Now that we're farther down the line in our maturity, for those that were here those days,

I would venture to say this, you probably don't want to go back to those days, do you? I don't.

I'm glad for those days in the sense of maturity and learning, but we want to make sure we listen to what

God says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, specifically verses 10 through 17.

Paul's going to be talking about unity. If you're a young person and you're having a little tick mark today for every key word, the key word is unity.

I will say unity over and over and over. Now as I looked on the internet, there's all kinds of words for unity and slogans for unity.

United we stand, divided we fall, all for one and one for all.

Workers of the world unite, people united to save humanity, that was a 1980s slogan.

United States of America, United Nations, Union of South Africa, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, United Auto Workers.

There's a whole litany of words, a veritable sea of words that are in the English language that talk about unity.

I just picked up a few, alliance, association, belonging, brotherhood, coalition, commonwealth, community, confederation, cooperation, federation, fraternity, organization, partnership, sisterhood, sorority.

The list goes on and on and on, Corinth needed every one of those. And if Jesus is one, if God is one, if his bride is one, we need to make sure we continue to strive for that oneness.

Well let's just take a look at an overview again of the introduction before we get down to verse 10. First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 1,

Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ the saving messiah of Israel by the will of God and Sophonies our brother.

That's who wrote it, and he wrote it to verse 2, the church of God, it's God's church, which is at this local place called

Corinth, right in a place we would call today Greece. To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, who, excuse me, with all who in every place call in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ their Lord and ours. Paul is writing the book of 1

Corinthians for what reasons? As we take a little step back before we dive into verses 10 and following, why did

Paul write 1 Corinthians? It's good to know that because then it'll help you understand what is going on in our particular passage.

You have to know why a letter was written to kind of pick through the details of a certain passage.

And so Paul says, I've got this letter to write to you, I've been with you for 18 months, and you've written me a letter and I've written you back, but the message didn't get through on your end, so let me write this letter called 1

Corinthians. There were problems, there were divisions in the church, Paul addressed that. Chloe's people said there's not only divisions in the church, but there are people in the church who are immoral.

There are people in the church who sue each other. And Paul was dealing with those questions.

There are people in the church who don't think the body that we've been given should be sanctified.

And then they had some other questions. In the second half of the book, chapters 7 through 16, Paul answers a variety of questions.

So we're here at the very beginning, Paul deals with the first issue, and that is of divisions.

And I love 1 Corinthians because it handles things like this. Tell me another book in the

Bible that discusses divisions. Or you can find them, but they don't talk about it like Paul does.

He's comprehensive, he's interesting, he's personal, he's direct, and he's simple.

Anybody can get this. If you can understand English, you can understand this passage today. You can understand 1

Corinthians. Paul wants Christ Jesus' glory in this church, and Christ Jesus' glory is not going to be manifested very well in a fissured, fractured, factious church.

Hey, that was alliteration, wasn't it? Southern Baptist in me. It's one thing to have the town meeting full of people who are up in arms against each other.

It's one thing for a political organization to say, well, we've got some different factions in the group.

It's one thing and acceptable if the Moose Lodge has people, you know, some power plays going on in the

Moose Lodge. Has anybody here ever been to a Moose Lodge? It's one thing if the Oprah Book Club has a couple of strong -willed women driving that thing and they're in conflict.

Actually our society knows that conflict sells the firing line, the

McLaughlin group. I don't know if that's still around or not, but I used to watch it. It makes good TV.

But splits and quarrels and contentions should never be in a local church.

So for me today, I'm not trying to say to you, BBC, you quit fighting.

But this is, we have unity. Years ago I prayed for unity. And we have unity at the leadership team.

We have unity in our church body. Now, there may be a few who like to walk out of step here and there, but overall, we have unity.

And so we're going to look at Paul's message to Corinth and then we're going to say to ourselves, and I want the

Spirit of God to say through the Word, let's keep what we have. And isn't there room for improvement in this church?

For more unification? Absolutely. So that's what we're after, the unity in the local church.

If you've been around long enough in evangelicalism, you've seen church splits, fights, dissensions, and the bloodletting that goes on in the local church of all places.

Don't people know they're fighting with and contending with something that's not even theirs?

The bride of Christ? I guess there's only one positive thing when there are church splits, is you can't split dead wood.

So there must be some life in the church. What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?

James says, is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and you have not, so you commit murder, and you're envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

Doesn't that wreck our testimony? Are we less credible when people say, yeah, Bethlehem Bible Church, that's that church that goes around and hands out

Bibles on Saturdays, and on Sundays it is, you know, WWF.

You know, and you think, yeah, these Awana circles are really, you know, for the cage match fighting that goes on later after the service.

You say, well, we're too sophisticated for cage fighting, but in reality, what goes on behind the scenes with our words and with our mouths?

We want to be unifiers. We want to be someone who doesn't divide the church and speak down upon Christ's bride.

And Paul began to think about this because it's tied into verse 9. Verse 9 goes with verse 10.

In verse 9, we saw last week, God is faithful. He's always faithful. Literally, in the Greek, faithful is

God, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our

Lord. This faithful God takes sinners, He declares them righteous,

He makes them born again, and He creates a fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the

Spirit, and we are in fellowship with Him. And then Paul says, and now when I think about you,

Corinth, there's a problem with your fellowship. And Paul deals with church division in the rest of chapter 1, all of chapter 2, all of chapter 3, and all of chapter 4.

Do you think it was a big deal? If it was just me, I'd say, stop being, you know, why are we fighting? Quit fighting.

And he deals with it thoroughly and personally. So today we want to talk about unity, a positive exhortation to maintain unity.

And then the second I say that, I'm wrong. It's not an exhortation at all. How does

Paul talk to them? Let's take a look at this before we get into the outline. Now I exhort you.

Now I exhort you. You see it in verse 10, brethren, you say, well, that is an exhortation. But friends, the

Greek word is parakaleo. We call the Holy Spirit the paraclete.

And paraclete means this, one that comes alongside of. If I teach my kids how to play pool, billiards, and they've got the cue stick, and they kind of, you know, you ever seen a four -year -old kid try to play pool?

And you just think, oh, the tip of that cue stick to the green top of the billiard table. And you can just see ahead of time when that four -year -old gets a stick.

They're just going to jab it right in there. Marked for life with that big tear. So what do you do?

Well, you go to your friend's house with a nice table. No, that's not what you do. What do you do? You come alongside.

So the kid's here, and you come alongside and wrap your arm around and put your hand here and there over their hands.

And you show them how to actually hit the stick, right? You come alongside.

And so Paul says he could say sternly, like he did at the Church of Galatia, who has bewitched you?

And he sternly rebukes them. He could command, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ.

But he doesn't do either of those. He comes alongside, and he says, I'm going to encourage you.

I want to appeal to you. I want to come alongside and say, as a fellow co -worker of Christ, here comes the affectionate appeal.

I'm not going to preach commands to you today. I'm going to preach to you appeals. I want to appeal to you to keep what we have that is unity, because that is what

Paul does. The text says exhort, but really it is an entreaty.

He's not really imploring more than he is encouraging. He says, I want to come alongside of you with affection.

This is the father sitting the family down, saying, we're fighting our own family. Now let's have a family conference.

This isn't me over here. I'm not against you. I'm not trying to make myself look better, because I'm not doing it, and you are.

This is all for one right here. We're all as a family. And so Paul says, I'm going to talk to you like I would be a father with affectionate appeal.

One man said, this word draws its force from a relationship of friendship between the writer and addressee.

So Paul says, I'm going to come alongside. He says it over and over and over. It's found a hundred times in the

New Testament. I'm going to come alongside and talk to you. I'm going to appeal. So let me give you a handful of appeals today to keep our unity here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Did I just say Bethlehem? Why did I say that? I hate it when people say that. We're going to Bethlehem.

Excuse me. To keep the unity here at Bethlehem Bible Church, I'm going to give you a handful or several appeals from the text.

So Paul was trying to correct their behavior. I'm trying to keep our unity here.

Appeal number one. I appeal to you, Bethlehem Bible Church, that we all agree, we all must agree, unity is essential because we are family.

That is to say, you ought to say to yourself, we are a family here, so unity is important.

By definition, a family should have unity, at least a functioning family, a good family. So we need to agree.

So I'm appealing to you, since this is a family, let's act like it. And you just see in one small little word that kind of idea.

Not just the word exhort, although that's got family overtones, but look what does he say.

Now, I exhort you fools. I exhort you sinners.

I exhort you back biters. I exhort you problem people.

What does he say? I exhort you brethren. This is amazing.

By the way, this could be men and women, of course. This is gender inclusive. Probably the only time you'll hear me say anything nice about gender inclusivity.

But this is gender inclusive. And did you know, this is interesting, especially you students here, you seminary students.

Did you know this word brothers, it's where we get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.

Did you know in all the New Testament books that Paul wrote, 29 % of all the times he said brethren are in this book.

So Paul said brethren 133 times in all his writings.

And did you know 39 are here? You wouldn't think that Paul would talk in brother language.

You would think he'd talk kind of school master. Get the rod out. Get the stick of discipline out.

Get that shepherd's crook out because there's going to be a beating going on here because you guys need it.

That's not how Paul does it. This is an appeal, familial, two kids fighting, a brother and sister fighting.

And what does the parent do? Paul, the parent, as it were, of Corinth, he was there to preach the gospel for those 18 months.

And Jesus births the church at Corinth through Paul's preaching. He talks with family language.

And you go, that's not a big deal. Here it is a big deal. Why? Because did you know in the

Old Testament brothers, the word brothers was only used of fellow

Jews. Jews could call each other brothers. Exodus 2, Deuteronomy 3,

Nehemiah 5. You're a brother. But would you include a Gentile into this family name of brother?

No. Furthermore, did you know when it comes to the Roman culture, nobody called somebody else brother unless they were in their formal family.

And lots of times, I mean, I think Pastor Dave is classic for this. He calls people what? Brother Mike.

Brother Steve. Sometimes I get the email, Bro Mike. With affectionate, appealing persuasion.

He says, why are you fighting? We're family. It's like the classic thing when the

Christian husband and the Christian wife take sides, they're hurting themselves because they're both on the same team.

There's no brownie points to win. There's no score to be settled because if you win your argument, you lose anyway.

You're together. Galatians 4, verses 4 to 6, make it clear.

Listen to these great words. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Because your sons, God has sent forth the spirit of the son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father.

Paul says to Corinth, your brothers act like it. Your sisters act like it. And I say for us, for preventative maintenance purposes.

We want to stay unified. We want to minimize the quarrels and the fighting and the backbiting and the strife and any factiousness that's in our hearts.

Because why? We're a family. And quite literally for some of us here, myself included, you're the only family

I have. At least on this side of the Mississippi. Right? Aren't we family?

Don't you meet Christians and go, we're family. We're closer than brothers. I have some people here that I'm closer to than I am actually my own sister.

Although my sister is blood, she's not born again. Aren't you closer to people that are born again more than you are sometimes your own family?

And the answer is yes. So you wouldn't want... I've been to people's houses before and their kids are fighting and you're like,

I just can't wait to get out of this place. This is just chaos. Nobody likes it. What if the church is like that?

So we want to run from that. Paul said we're family. Bickering, infighting, politics.

No. Number two. Here's the second appeal. So you can see Paul. He's got the apostolic authority but he just comes along and says,

I'm going to appeal to you, brethren. And then the second appeal is this. Not that just we're family so we should think unity is important.

But let me give you a second appeal for the unity of Bethlehem Bible Church. We're all followers of Christ Jesus our

Lord. He's the king. He's the master. We're all under Christ Jesus. In other words, this isn't my church.

This isn't the elders' church. This isn't your church. Look at what the text says.

Now I exhort you. He could say because I'm an apostle like he did earlier. But now he's going to exhort them by the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not just saying you ought to think unity is important because I'm an apostle.

He could say that. But you ought to think unity is important because here comes the name of Jesus Christ.

When you say name, it's not, I mean, I was talking to Eric Raymond on the phone for the

No Compromise radio interview on Friday. And he said before I became a Christian, I thought Jesus was his first name.

Christ was his last name. You know, Jesus Christ, Mr. Christ. Why does he put these words here?

Why is by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? By his gentleness, by his meekness, by his wisdom, by his sovereignty, by his power, by his unity, by his solidarity, by who he is.

By that name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's in a name?

All the attributes of God are in his name. When we baptize people in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Spirit. One singular name, three persons. It's not the names of, it's one singular name.

What are we saying? We're baptizing people based on sovereign grace and what they've done, sovereign power in their lives.

Based on who God is, we now baptize. And here he says, based on who Jesus is,

I'm appealing to you, get in line. Stay in line. He's the Lord. You say,

I'm a Christian. Paul says, act like it. True or false? If you're a

Christian, there should be some degree of vitality to your Christian life. That is to say, something vital, something alive.

If you're a Christian, God has made you alive. You will be different and there should be some vitality.

I'll never forget it. Yesterday I was listening to S. Lewis Johnson preach and he said, Some people who come to the local church and are involved in the local church have only this much vitality.

They have enough vitality to get up on Sunday morning on time, get dressed, have breakfast, and sit for an hour and a half in church.

And that's their entire week's worth of vital contribution to the local church. S. Lewis Johnson said that.

I'd never say such a thing. If you have

Jesus as your Lord, He has regenerated you. You are different and by the name, the saving power, the way

God makes people, new creations in Christ Jesus. Before you were a Christian, you might want to go to the town hall and fight with select people and scream out

Robert's rules of order. I couldn't believe it when I first got here, by the way, 13 years ago. And I'll exaggerate just for the sake of emphasis.

It wasn't this bad. But I was told by people here, not necessarily leadership, but people in the church, that I'm not doing things according to Robert's rules of order.

And I thought, I think I missed a seminary class or something. I know

First Timothy. I know Second Timothy. I know Titus. I know Acts. I know the Bible. And I don't know

Robert's rules of order. I guess I'm upside down. Point of order. Point of order.

Every time I go to a meeting where somebody likes to shout out point of order, there's one person that loves to do that more than anybody else.

You guys don't know what I'm talking about, do you? Some don't. So then I'm just going to move on. Point of order.

You're not doing things properly. That's how we acted before Jesus was our Lord. When we were our

Lords, small l, that's how we acted. We wanted to score points to show people,

I know those rules. You can't pull one over on me. I'm in charge now. Paul said,

Jesus is Lord. He's the Lord. If Jesus is the

Lord of Bethlehem Bible Church, third class conditional, he is. How do we act?

Paul says, well, you act like a family and you say, Jesus is Lord. I can't just use lip service anymore.

And I just can't say, well, you know, he's my Savior but not Lord because he's neither. God made him

Lord and Savior. And you have to embrace him as both or you're not a

Christian. Since God has saved us, since the Lord Jesus has saved us, we have new friends, new goals, new eternal destiny, new priorities.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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