Thankful for an Imperfect Church (1 Corinthians 1)

Hello again, welcome back to our daily Bible reading. My name is Keith Foskey, and I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church. And today we're going to be beginning our new reading in the book of 1 Corinthians.

And so as I said, if you want to read along with us in our daily Bible reading, you can go to our website, sgfcjacks .org, and you can download the PDF of our daily Bible reading. We're taking the New Testament through one chapter a day in chronological order, not chronological from the Matthew, Mark, Luke, John sense, but chronological in the sense of the order in which we believe the books were written.

Reading 1 Corinthians 1 Together

So at this point, we are in the book of 1 Corinthians, and we're gonna read chapter one together, and then I'm gonna make a few comments and pray. 1 Corinthians chapter one begins, Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Verse 10, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, that you may be united in the same mind and the same judgment, for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? 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 may say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many of you were powerful. Not many of you were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

And that ends the reading of 1 Corinthians chapter one. And because of the time, I try to keep these devotional videos to a relatively short time. I'm not gonna be able to say a whole lot of what I would like to say about this chapter because this chapter is just so full of good and useful information for us as a church.

Why 1 Corinthians Is a Church With Problems

So I would encourage you, if you want to know more about this, go to our sermon audio page and look up the series that I taught just a few years ago on 1 Corinthians. I did a verse by verse sermon series on 1 Corinthians and you can find it.

And the title of that series was A Church With Problems. And that's what I wanted to mention today. The thing that I find most interesting about chapter one, and like I said, there's so much to say about chapter one of 1 Corinthians.

The thing that I find most interesting about chapter one actually comes to us in the earliest part of it in verse four, where Paul says, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.

You say, well, why would that be the verse? There's so many other verses. I mean, later he talks about the cross, his foolishness to those who do not believe in those things. Why would this be the verse that really stands out to you?

Well, it stands out to me because of this. This is a church with problems. This is a church that we're going to see in the days to come as we read through this book, we're going to see that this church deals with ungodly divisions.

It deals with hero worship. It deals with immoral behavior. It deals with legal battles, marital problems, accusations of adultery, regulation of spiritual gifts and uncertainty regarding life and death.

There were even people in the church who didn't believe in the resurrection. We see that later on in chapter 15. And so this is legitimately a church with problems and yet Paul can say, I give thanks to God for you.

There is no such thing as a perfect church. In fact, as it has often been said, and I believe R .C. Sproul said it, if you find a perfect church, please don't join it because you'll ruin it. But churches are not made up of perfect people.

Churches are made up of people who are in Christ made perfect because of the perfect righteousness of Christ, but who still fight a battle with the flesh. And therefore, because we live in the flesh and we fight the battle with the flesh, we often have to deal with things in the church that we wish we didn't.

But the church is made up of imperfect people. And therefore, the visible church in the world is imperfect in many ways. But at the same time, we can still love the church in all of its imperfection. As Charles Spurgeon said, even though it is imperfect, it's still the place that he loved the most.

And so I would encourage you today, like the Apostle Paul who said, I give thanks to my God for you, to give thanks for your church, though it be imperfect. Give thanks to God for giving you a place to gather with the saints.

And even though right now, we are not able to physically gather together because of the restrictions that we have because of the virus, it's important to be reminded of just how valuable the church is, not only in the world, but in the life of every believer.

And there's been a lot said recently about the church. Well, the church has left the building and the church, you know, it shows us that we don't need the building. The building isn't the church, that's true.

But the gathering of the saints is a precious thing. Yes, it's a gathering of imperfect people, but it's still the gathering of God's people. It's the gathering to worship. And I wanna tell you just how much I miss gathering with my church family at Sovereign Grace.

Yes, we are an imperfect church, but I give thanks to my God for you, church. I give thanks to God because I love you and because God has brought us together. I look forward to the day when we can all meet together again.

And until that day, I pray for you. And I say, may God be with you. Let me pray for us now. Father in heaven, may you be with us, Sovereign Grace Family Church, may we be with other churches that are at this time not meeting.

But Lord, may you, by your Holy Spirit, remind us that we are knitted together by our mutual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And though we be imperfect, we serve a perfect Savior. And though we still fight a battle, Lord, we know that ultimately he has overcome the battle because he is the one who is Lord over all.

He has conquered sin, he has conquered death, and he has done so in our place. And though that may be foolishness to the world, Lord, it is all the world to us. Jesus is all the world to me. And so Lord, may it be that we be reminded of that daily and help us, Lord, to love you and to love your church, that for which Jesus gave himself.

And it's in his name we pray, amen. Well, again, may the Lord bless you and watch over you. And if you have a need, please reach out to us at Sovereign Grace, amen.