Christian Unity

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca. Well, good afternoon everyone.

Christian Unity and the Need for Humble Hearing

Welcome back to Grace Fellowship Church. It's great to see everybody. Welcome and thank you for joining us again as we trek through the book of 1 Corinthians. Again, Shane opened last week with 1 Corinthians, and as we started to look at 1 Corinthians, again, if we remember what the church in Corinth was, this is a very young church.

If you remember the context of which the letter was written to the church in Corinth, this is a very young church, around 50 AD, and it's a church that Paul had planted. And again, being a young church, there are many things that were a blessing to the area, but we get to see as we go further in today's passage that there were many issues in the church in Corinth.

Looking at the first few verses that I remember that Shane preached upon last week, this is Thanksgiving. There's a lot of hope that was built up in the church. And the message that, as Paul opens up his letter, this is a brilliant letter meant for any new church, because it has so much applicability and application in how we are going to conduct our lives and how we are going to live as Christ-centered disciples of Christ.

But again, with as much hope that Paul builds upon, we get to see we get very quickly into the correction that Paul has in mind as he addresses this new church, a church that he is well invested in, in which he is emotionally invested in.

He's done planting of his own, but we get to see that correction live out in full force this morning, or this afternoon. Before we get into it, I want us to just bear in mind that the text that we're addressing this morning or this afternoon has to do with divisions and unity.

When we look at passages like the one that Jason just read, so verses 10 to 17 in 1 Corinthians, we need to look at we need to ask ourselves this question. Why is it that we have this passage to begin with?

We need to think about why it's written in the way that it is. And when we're honest students of the Bible, when we're studious students, we have to understand that it's not that oftentimes things in the Bible aren't written because they're easy, or because they come to us naturally.

If it isn't clear, it's not our main disposition to be united. It's not our main disposition that we would come to one another and come in perfect harmony and come to see one another without any quarrels.

That's not our natural disposition. Actually, rather, our main disposition and our natural desire is to divide. It's to bicker. It's to come to one another with our own preconceptions and our own issues and to divide over them.

That's what we naturally are disposed to. That's what we want to do. So when we look and study today's passage, we need to come with a sense of humility. We need to come to an understanding that as we learn about unity, well, we study more about division, but more specifically unity, that is what we need to strive for.

But it is difficult because we are carnal creatures. But we need to have an understanding that these things are written, that we might follow them with the right interpretation in mind. So before we even get to the passage that was read earlier, I don't know if you guys are familiar, anyone with an astute eye who's been going to church for a couple of years or keeping an astute eye in kind of church history issues and even modern church history issues will know that there are many more issues to divide over than perhaps unite.

In one sense, if you're keeping a discerning eye into the news, into what discussions are coming up regarding the church, oftentimes you'll find issues of division that come up more than issues that unite us.

Why, that's not by accident. I mean, that's a very implicit ploy by the world to rob us of our hope, to look upon the bride of Christ and to say, look at the quarreling that is happening in this place or that place or in this denomination or look at these people over here, look what's happening here.

This is an intentional method that the world rains upon our joy. It seeks to take it away from us, but we need to have an understanding, a very humble understanding that this is something that we need to understand with Christlike eyes.

These things are for us to study and to come to an understanding that it is, again, not our disposition to unite, but to divide. If you guys have been paying attention, there's been a lot of divisions over many things over the past couple of years.

One of the ones that, and this is not to beat upon any one denomination because there's many, this is but one story of many with the Methodist Church in the United States. There was a big splintering, what you call a schism, a schism in doctrine that arose in March of 2020.

And they've postponed, and the reason for the division is issues of doctrine, is to say these issues on complementarianism, who shall preach, and who is allowed on the pulpit, and issues of gender and sexuality.

And this schism that has now divided this church, just for reference, this is the third biggest denomination in the United States, so you have to understand there's millions of members of this church, of this flock, that are now in limbo, that are now looking towards this schism, this division that is building within their congregations over issues of doctrine, over issues of any and all things.

But primarily, they're having these issues that are coming up that are going to divide them. And again, this is just one example. You could look at all throughout church history, even modern church history, even within the last 50 years, you see all these divisions take place.

And again, we need to have an understanding that it isn't our natural disposition to come to unite. That isn't something that I think we all, something I think we all understand, but we need to be really aware of.

That true unity comes only in Christ, and we come to see that in this passage, as Paul really digs in and plants his feet and addresses and corrects concerns in this young church in Corinth. So with that in mind, again, that should be a sobering thought to us, that we are no better than this church in Corinth.

In fact, this stands as much true today in 21st century Edmonton, Alberta, as it did in 1st century Corinth. We need to really look at this and have an understanding that it is in Christ, it's in Christ alone that unity is found, that we cannot find unity in any other means.

And Paul gets right to the issue in this text. So let's just go to the Lord in prayer. Father, Lord, make us a humble people, Lord. Father, I ask that, Lord, that you'd prepare our hearts to study this text, Father, and that we would come with a mind, Lord, to truly unite, Father, that we would find unity in Christ.

Lord, tend the soil of our hearts, Father, that the seed, Lord, that you would plant, Father, would grow and bear fruit, Lord, that would not be an issue of division, Lord, that we would come to an understanding today, Lord, that it is in Christ and Christ alone that any unity can be found anywhere.

Lord, we are carnal creatures, Lord. We are too carnal still, Father. We are not spiritual enough. We do not seek you as we ought to, Lord. But I ask, Father, that we would take one step further today, becoming more and more like Christ, Lord, that we would be humble.

Lord, seeking to glorify Him, Father, and be united as a church, loving one another, Father. I ask, Lord, that you would build up our minds, Father, right now in this moment. Father, you'd make it fruitful, Lord, that we would come away edified and ready to learn what it is, what applied to first century Corinth, Lord, and what applies to us today.

So I pray this all in the precious and loving name of Jesus Christ. So looking at today's text, we're looking at seven verses here. Jason was gracious enough to read it for us in the beginning. And it breaks up beautifully into a couple sections that we're going to look at more clearly.

The Authority of Christ in the Appeal for Unity

But where we're going to stop right first is verse 10. And I'm going to read it right now. And I want us to really listen and to understand some of the brilliance of the text of the way Paul writes. But not just the brilliance, but the authority from which he writes.

So reading verse 10, it says, I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and there be no divisions among you, but that you would be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Looking at all the verses leading up to and including verse 10, we have to understand that Paul is addressing to an authority. If you guys remember what the Greek word apostle means, it's apostolos in Greek.

It means he that is sent. Paul, looking very clearly at the text, knows and understands his position as an apostle. Look at, if we remember even our first verse of this book, it says, Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes.

He then understands full well that he is one that is sent, a sent one from the King, from our Lord Jesus. So he doesn't come to this church in Corinth claiming apostleship, which he does later, but he understands that his apostleship comes on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And if you look at verse 10, amazingly, if you keep a running count in your mind, up to and including verse 10, Paul has made reference to the Lord Jesus Christ 10 times. That's 10 verses, essentially.

In each verse that he's written up until this point, there are 10 references to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul's made very clear that it is Jesus Christ that is our authority. And look how beautifully he writes at the end of this verse, which by some commentators, verse 10 is also still part of the introduction, but this is where it ends.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there is no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. This is the ending of Paul's introduction, and he's about to get into the issues and corrections that he needs to address.

But this is still part of the introduction, and we need to look at that and say, we need to keep a mind about us, the same mind and same judgment. Looking at this verse, we have an understanding that Paul, if you guys know the history of Corinth, he was one of the main church bunches.

If we look back in the book of Acts, you see that Paul is very well invested in this church. He knows his people there. He has his brother Sostenes, to whom he's referring to. And you see that there are people and brother in there that he loves dearly.

He loves his church dearly, and no doubt he is troubled by what he's hearing. If you remember, Paul, knowing his apostleship, calls himself an apostle to the Gentiles. In Romans 11 .13, he says, I'm an apostle to the Gentiles.

And further on in the book of Ephesians, he says, even prisoner. He says, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ on behalf of you Gentiles. Again, Paul, wherever he went throughout Asia, he expounded the name of Christ.

He proclaimed his name, and he was planting churches in the name of Christ. But, just as easily, and again, if we've ever come to this text and come to understand it, one question that might have come up is, well, he could have easily just as said, could have relied on his apostleship, could have relied on the good graces and the effort and the relationship that he would have built with this church in Corinth.

No doubt he would have met brothers and sisters, and he would have labored alongside them and built a healthy relationship, and he could have called upon those things. When you look at the natural disposition, again, and we're looking at the carnal man,.

It is easy.

It looks to something for us to do that as well. I've earned this, or I've earned this amount of respect. I am an apostle. I've labored alongside you. And Paul does continually, throughout the book of 1 Corinthians, continue to reestablish his authority.

But the authority comes from Jesus Christ. He doesn't do so on the backs of his good works and his good labors. Because he understands that it's not in the carnality of man that he is laying down this argument.

Because to do so, to put all his eggs in his basket, as it were, to essentially call in all his favors and cash in all the good relationships that he would have done, which he would have no doubt made would have been to fall just as much into the sin that plagued the church of Corinth, would be to appeal to the carnality of man.

Or to appeal to the same sense that has gotten them into this problem thus far. So keeping this in mind, keeping verse 10 in mind, we have to understand that Paul is making the appeal, in the name of our Lord Jesus.

No divisions. They'd be all united. But we'd be united in the same mind and judgment. To have the same mind and judgment of Jesus Christ is We tend to look at passages like this one and almost overlook them.

We would read this and we would say, well, we understand that he's making the appeal of Jesus Christ as the authority. And oftentimes, I mean, maybe I'll count myself as this, I would look at a passage like this and maybe breeze over this and say, okay, I understand what that means and I'm going to move on.

But if we really stop to think about what it would look like, or what it means to have the same mind and judgment of Jesus Christ, and to really meditate on that, that thought is almost overwhelming. Think about having the same mind of our Savior, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, to have that same mind and judgment to make decisions based on His judgment and His mind, His power.

If we really stop to meditate on that for just a second, and we look at all the issues that are going to plague this church in Corinth, there is no other way that we are going to deal with any of these issues, unless it is on the shoulders of Jesus Christ.

Again, just to highlight, just the authority of Jesus Christ. I've often cited this one, Matthew 28, the Great Commission.

I'll just turn there real quickly.

As you turn there, the Great Commission is cited often, but one of the defining features of this passage is that if you were going to say something to a group of people, and it was the last thing you were ever going to say, well, the last thing you were going to say to them in the physical sense, you would make sure that it would be something that would really matter, that would really stick.

You'd want them to remember this. This is the Great Commission that Jesus Christ issued to His apostles before ascending into heaven and before the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the apostles. And you read the beginning of Acts.

This is right before that moment. He says this, and we'll pick it up in verse 18.

He says,.

And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Think about that authority, that same mind like it says in verse 10 here, 1 Corinthians. The same mind and judgment.

All authority, verse 18, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus Christ, the authority, says this. And then He says in verse 19, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. That same mind is with us now today, and that same judgment is with us now today as it was in the church in Corinth in the first century. And we have to understand, again, to meditate on this, it's so easy for us to look at verses like 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10, and breeze over it.

But to really meditate on this, it's almost overwhelming. The same mind and judgment of Jesus Christ. That is a big order. And Paul is making his claim on this. He's building his foundation on this rock.

We sang rock of ages earlier. And that is exactly, if I was going to pick a hymn, that is the exact hymn that I would have sung. Because on that rock, we are going to stake our claim. It is on Jesus Christ who is that authority that we are going to build, that the church is going to be built on.

Charles Hodge is a theologian from the 1900s who wrote a commentary on 1 Corinthians. And in many ways, he meditated on this verse for what seemed like he connects this verse with many more verses later on in the book of 1 Corinthians.

And this is one that we should continue to go back to. To have the same mind of Christ and the same judgment is one that we are going to need to have if we are going to address any of these issues or come to understand the issues that plagued the church in Corinth.

He says this of his commentary. And once more, it means mutual activity. What a marvelous thing that is. He accommodating himself to our weakness. Oh no, not becoming weak. He accommodates himself in his government of us, in his goings, to which he calls us fellowship, accommodating himself to our weaknesses.

This is his gentleness. Think about that. He is accommodating himself to our weaknesses. Christ does not need us. But he comes alongside us in gentleness and accommodates his infinite power to our weakness, our burdens.

He lifts us up. And he finishes by saying, and on the other side we are rising to cooperation with his power. That is the secret of greatness in fellowship.

The fellowship of Christ,.

Again, the reason Paul starts it, and we need to think about this, we need to understand that the reason Paul begins his rebuke with the foundation of Christ and the same mind and judgment is to say that we need to lean on his power to correct the divisions that are popping up all over the church in Corinth.

To do it any other way would be folly, would be futile, and there's no way that it could ever be done. So Paul makes this emphatic, and again, he ends his introduction, as it were, with this verse. So we need to keep that in mind.

That reminds me, in one sense, I don't know if you guys are familiar, but I worked in construction for a season, for a couple months, and it was difficult work.

It's difficult work.

But you learn quite quickly what having a good foundation looks like, what it looks like when you're working in construction. The simple principles of physics and understanding weight-bearing and all those things, that is the literal, it's the literal difference between life and death, in many ways, if you're working in construction, because you have to have an understanding of the physics of a proper foundation, because you need to have an understanding that what is below you is going to sustain your weight and the weight of everything above you.

When you're framing, I only framed houses for a time, but you learn quite quickly that you have to learn to trust the foundation if you're going to build upon it. If you don't have any trust in that foundation, you're going to quickly come to find out that you can't build very much on it, especially when you're up 30 to 40 feet.

I remember learning, being on the ladders for the first time, 30 to 40 feet up in the air with nails and wood and lumber, and you're building a home. You're building the foundations that will eventually become the home of someone that's going to move in there.

But if you don't have any trust in your ladder that is going to sustain you, if you don't have trust in the foundation on which the house is being built, you cannot work confidently or efficiently. In other words, that foundation has to sustain the weight of everything that is above it.

To have anything that is faulty or a cracked foundation or faulty in any sense is quite literally the difference between life and death. In a spiritual sense, that applies even more to Jesus Christ. To not have that foundation on Jesus Christ is the difference between spiritual life and spiritual death.

So again,.

I really just want us to understand that it is paramount that we understand that Paul ends his introduction still with this in mind, that he is appealing to the brothers and sisters to have the same mind and judgment in Christ.

So again,.

If you're taking notes, this is again the appeal to Jesus Christ. This is the authority of Christ. So looking further into our text, we need to look at

Again,.

Just as we continue to break down the text, we start picking up again at verse 11.

It says, Again,.

If we take a step back and remember what Shane preached about last week, if you guys are familiar with the geography of Corinth and just the location and how everything was in first century Asia, when you look at the map, you would see that it's almost like the Central America.

It's analogous. That you have two connecting bodies and you have Corinth, which sat kind of in the middle of this almost peninsula, this land mass that connects both the north and south. And for this reason,.

It was open to

It was a mercantile area.

So for those who don't know.

What mercantile means, it's just there was a lot of merchants. There was a lot of commerce. There was boats and big dock that would come in. And as a result, it was a busy area. It would be no different than, for example, big airports.

You're seeing big airports in the United States, for example, in the LAX or in Houston, all these places. Wherever you see a big meeting of movement,.

Of commerce,.

You're seeing a lot of different people. You're seeing a lot of different things. So I have maybe just a question for maybe the kids. If you were to try to maybe put your mind in first century Corinth,.

Maybe I'll ask the kids this.

So if you were going to imagine yourself in first century Corinth, what would you guys imagine these boats? Like what would you guys imagine is on these boats?

People?

Yeah, people. Yeah, that's a big one. What else would you see?

Girls?

Pardon me?

Girls?

Yeah, you're seeing goods. You're seeing commerce. You're seeing... What else would you see? Imagine all these boats that are coming into this port as they're being... Shane explained that they would be rolled essentially, I think, five or six miles across the land stream because they were trying to get to the other side.

But in this time, they're waiting, right? They're waiting. So what else are you seeing in this port town? What are you guys imagining? Yeah, there's a lot of... There's cannons. There's a lot of different things.

Would you believe it? Well, you would.

If I told you that this was also a way.

That they communicated. This is a way that some of the postage work back in first century Corinth. If you think about all these ships and all the way that information and all these things that we're bringing to this area, you would see that there was a lot of commerce.

You would see a lot of boat ships. You see a lot of people. And then what you would find is that there's a lot of exchange of information. There's a lot of information that is being talked about. People would gather and disclose ideas to one another.

They would debate. But then they would leave and then those ideas would flow into different parts of the Greco-Roman world. There's a lot of commerce happening. It's no different than what you see today, but it's a much...

It's a face-to-face livelier perhaps way of doing it. And one way we come to understand is that the Lord redeemed this. The Lord redeemed this. In Acts chapter... If we could turn quickly to Acts chapter 17, you get to see what that looks like played out in the 1st century Corinth and the 1st century Greco-Roman world.

As you're turning there, this is the story of Paul in Athens. And we get to see in the book of Acts recounts what it looks like, what it would have looked like to share information in this world at this time.

So looking at Acts chapter 17, verse 16, we see Paul in Athens. And you see him in the Areopagus or as he makes his way to his Areopagus. In verse 16, it says, Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city was full of idols.

Again, we talked about those idols last week. But again, we're seeing Greece. And if you guys are familiar with Greece and Greco-Roman mythology, you're looking at all these, the gods and the pantheons.

That existed.

And all these gods that they would create and that they would invest in, that they would manifest. Paul is looking at this and his spirit is moved.

And he's provoked.

He's seeing all these idols and he's seeing all these images and all these things that are being proclaimed and he comes to, and the Holy Spirit moves within him. In verse 17, it continues,. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him.

And some said, What does this babbler wish to say? Others said, He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying,.

May we know.

What this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears and we wish to know, therefore, what these things mean. Now, all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

And that's important for us to understand. The Lord, no doubt, took this opportunity, these platforms, this forum,.

An open forum,.

And redeemed it.

For the gospel,.

For the gospel's sake. The Lord made very well known the name of Jesus Christ. It says so right here in the text that some people were turned on by the idea where their eyes were opened. But oftentimes, we have to come to an honest understanding that the enemy also uses these forums.

Although the Lord redeemed this, it says in verse 21, now all the Athenians and all the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

So again,.

We're looking at,.

Again,.

The church in Corinth, which isn't far off from Athens, which is very close to Athens. And we're seeing that this same mind about them, about studying and idolizing knowledge for the sake of knowledge, is something that was probably.

Well,.

Well familiar.

To the church in Corinth.

So when they would.

Exchange ideas in the commerce and they would exchange letters.

And postage.

And communicate back and forth, often they would be communicating different ideas. You can understand that the gravity of the situation when Paul comes to hear from Chloe and Chloe's people that this is what is happening in Corinth.

Again, the same mind about the Athenians was also in the church in Corinth. The Corinthians also had fallen into the same trap. This is a young church.

With carnal eyes.

Nothing about what Paul has said in the first nine verses of this is incorrect. These are believers. These are brothers and sisters in Christ. But they are carnal believers. They are still too carnal.

And they are too, and they are too fleshward seeking. And they had fallen into this very trap of seeking knowledge for knowledge's sake.

So when it says,.

Interesting note when it says, for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you.

Again,.

We don't get any reference to Chloe other than in this verse or Chloe's people. The King James version.

Has it rendered.

Household,.

So family members.

Have been in communication.

With Paul.

But there is an understanding that Paul was speaking to these believers in Corinth. There was communication. He cared deeply for them, if you remember. And this troubled him. This troubled him dearly and this troubled him quite a bit.

Obviously by the tone of the letter.

As we study,.

You are going to.

Come to understand.

More and more.

That it troubled him a lot, all these issues that were plaguing this church in Corinth. Isaiah 40, 411 says, He tends to his flock.

Like a shepherd.

He gathers the lambs.

In his arms.

And carries them close to his heart. He gently leads the nursing youth. Our Lord is not blind to what was happening in this church. He saw full well on full display.

Again,.

Our sin is not hidden from him. He saw full well what was taking place and he was moved to correct these issues.

Through Paul.

So,.

To see these corrections we are going to have to.

Again,.

Have an understanding that these corrections needed to take place and some of them are going to seem.

Quite harsh.

As we are going to see.

Factions, Carnal Pride, and the Faithful Rebuke of Paul

Picking up in verse 12 it is going to say 1 Corinthians.

It says,.

What I mean is that each one of you says,.

I follow Paul.

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? These are pretty egregious sins and we need to stop and think about what Paul is truly getting at here.

It wasn't,.

Again,.

It wasn't that they weren't receiving some teaching because one question that comes up is.

Well,.

Was it that they were just a young church that didn't have.

The shepherding.

And the guidance?

Actually,.

This is Paul's rebuke that they have honored these teachings higher than the person of whom they are teaching about. This is a pretty large pedigree of people who are familiar in the area. They were familiar.

With Paul, Apollos,.

Who is said.

In the book of Acts he's mighty.

In the scriptures.

Again,.

Very mighty man in the scriptures or Cephas,.

Peter,.

One of the apostles, one of the original apostles.

Again,.

It's not the teaching that is the problem. They have very sound teaching and it's not the teaching that is the issue. They're very privileged and very blessed to be able to hear.

These brothers.

It's not that they were left adrift and they were just left.

Without elders.

Or people to teach or come alongside them. That is not the problem. When Paul asks in verse 13, is Christ divided? It's a rhetorical question and it's one that needs to make us pause for thought. Paul knows this.