1 Corinthians 1 04-05-10

No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

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.

Divisions are always sinful. Again, I don't think this is a huge problem, but I think it's in all of our hearts to maybe do it.

And when we hear, the 97 % of you that hear those things, you just need to say, oh, you must not be saying these things.

Let's go talk to the elder board and then we will deal with it. Appeal number five,

Christians should never follow men ultimately. And that we are going to see in verses 11 through 16.

You ought never to follow Mike, Dave, Paul, MacArthur, Piper, the list goes on and on.

Let's take a look at the text. Verse 11, for I have been informed concerning you, my brethren. See there it is again, my brethren, my friends, my comrades,

I've been informed. This is not hearsay. This isn't gossip. This is an established fact.

Paul's not saying, well, I've just kind of overheard through the grapevine, through the prayer line, through the gossip line.

I haven't, not all prayer lines are gossip lines, but sometimes they turn into that. I've heard this.

I've been informed. I've received this report, my brethren, by Chloe's people. There are quarrels among you.

In the original language, this report is used for legal, official, documented things.

This is a, basically, I just got a legal document from Chloe's people. And you're fighting. Why are you fighting?

Why are you quarreling? Now, people kill thousands of trees trying to figure out who Chloe is, who's

Chloe's people. Most people think she was a wealthy slave who got saved and freed, and then she had slaves.

She had interests at Corinth and Ephesus. We don't necessarily know who Chloe is, but do you think the church at Corinth knew?

They knew. Only mention here, those of chlore.

I call it chlore. That's where we get the Greek word chlorine. See how easy that is? He says,

I hear there are sinful, strife, quarreling, contentions among you. It's a documented fact.

This isn't hearsay. I know that they're there. I've heard about these wrangling, hot -tempered things.

When you think of that word strife or dissension or quarrel in the text there in the New American Standard, it means something hot, heated.

Have you ever seen an argument that's gotten over the top and you call it what? Man, they really got heated.

That's the kind of idea here. This isn't some kind of minor disagreement. This is emotional flames running high.

And by the way, this is the kind of quarrel that makes the church vulnerable to outside attacks.

I don't mind the outside attacks at Bethlehem Bible Church because we're bound to get them.

We're bound to get them when we stand up and say, the Bible's true, Jesus is the only way, the exclusivity of the cross, you're born sinners and you need a savior and there's only one, the only one who's alive and his name's

Jesus and you must be born again. And those who follow other religions and all those who follow other religions will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And do you think the world's going to go right on? Way to go. We like that. No, the world is going to shoot at us.

I don't mind that, but when we're quarreling and when we're not unified and when we're having these kind of problems, we become easier prey, don't we?

We don't want that. These wranglings were leading to schisms. He gives the general statement in verse 11.

Now look at the particulars in verse 12 and look at all the I's here. The church of Corinth, one man said, has eye disease.

Not the E -I -E, E -Y -E rather, E -I -E -I -O. Reminds me of the story.

Bruce, can I tell the story? Too late now and pastor does that, you're in big trouble.

Bruce was, somebody's trying to teach him how to speak in tongues years ago when he didn't realize it was an unknown, it was a known language that he never learned.

And so they said, well, just go to the front, begin to say some things, just start saying some words and God will kick in and get the thing going.

And Bruce was like, you know, what, what do I actually say? Just start saying some consonants or something, some kind of sounds.

And so you meet Bruce one time and you see how much scripture he's memorized and how God has taken a man whose brain was blown out by drugs and now is a man who's got a mind who is captured by the spirit of God and probably has more verses memorized than you do, than I do.

But Bruce didn't know what a consonant was, so he just came up to the front for the speaking in tongues and just started saying,

A -E -I -O -U, A -E -I -O -U, A -E -I -O -U, thought it was a vowel, a consonant, no big deal. So the eye disease is a

E -I -E, no, it's E -Y -E, I -I -I -I, verse 12.

Now I mean this, from general to specific, that each of you, notice that language there,

I don't think there's just a little segment of the church. At BBC we'd have just a minor segment. Here this is the church spirit, each of you,

I mean this, that each of you, you can kind of hear the father language and you know the kids are all fighting and you bring the kids into the room, every one of you is saying, here comes the eye disease,

I am of Paul, and I am of Paulus, I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ.

He says, now I mean this, let's get down to brass tacks, let's talk about this issue.

Some people think these were literal parties, you had four parties in the church. And we had the party of Paul, because Paul was the pastor and they got saved underneath Paul's ministry and so they said,

I follow Paul. And some of these same people think that then there's

Apollos, and since Apollos was a rhetorician and he was an eloquent speaker, that some like that better than what

Paul did and so they rallied around Paul and rallied around Apollos. Some say, well you know what,

I kind of like the bent of Jewish background, Paul's got this

Gentile background, Apollos is just a good speaker, Peter's got more of this Jewish background and most people think

Peter somehow made his way to Corinth or they knew of him, so I'll follow Peter, I'm of Cephas, I'm of Peter.

And then you've got the super -duper spiritual ones, I don't follow Paul, I don't follow Apollos, I don't follow

Cephas, I follow Jesus. Now that could be four parties, but I think more than likely this is

Paul using rhetoric, using skill, using these words in caricature, using them almost figuratively.

You say, I don't go for that figurative talk, turn with me if you would just to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, it's not unlike Paul to have this kind of talk.

Paul's going to say, you basically sound stupid, it's as if you talk like babies. And here in 1

Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6, you see how Paul has made allusion that he applies things to himself and others, sometimes figuratively.

1 Corinthians 4 verse 6, now these things brethren I have figuratively applied to myself, and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one another, or against the other rather.

Paul says this, back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, language like, I belong to,

I belong to, I am of, Paul says, isn't that a caricature of what you are and you're acting like, and he says in 1

Corinthians chapter 3, babies, babies talk like that, I am of so and so, I am of so and so,

I am so and so, it's not necessarily that there were really four groups, but all the people had allegiance, not necessarily even to Jesus, Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, but to themselves,

I like to be in this party, I like to be in that party. One man said

Paul heightens the severity and ludicrousness of the situation by using language like this, these people were affected by the world, and the world back in those days said,

I think you'll find it similar to today, radical individuality, radical individuality.

They don't have any theological differences, do they? Because they've all been taught from Paul, they only know of the

Lord Christ Jesus. The entire church starts getting into this ludicrous rivalry like children.

Best example I can think of, I've told this story before, but not for many years, we used to sit around the kitchen table when we lived over in Sterling, and I would ask the kids at night time for dinner, after dinner we're going to have a

Bible story, and sometimes we just go chapter by chapter, in this particular case I said, what would you kids like me to read tonight?

And so I think Haley was probably 7 and Luke was probably 3, and Haley said,

I want to hear about Jesus. Luke said, I want

Moses, I want to hear about Moses, Jesus, Moses, Jesus.

Now all of a sudden we're arguing about the Bible, whose Bible is that, give me that, I'm arguing about the

Bible, Jesus, Moses. And I said, you know, I think we better talk about Jesus tonight, that'll make the decision.

Moses was a wonderful prophet, he talked about the prophet who would come, Jesus, who's greater than he is, but tonight let's talk about Jesus.

And Luke, do you remember what happened? Luke's far removed from this now, Luke said,

I hate Jesus. This kind of language, he knows, at least from a 3 year old and what

I taught him, who Jesus was, and it's not necessarily about the character of Jesus, or the character of Moses, or the character of Paul, Apollos, because both of those men, there's nothing in the text that says,

Paul says, come to me, look at me, Apollos said, talk like I do, Peter said, oh you've got to look at the law this way, there's nothing in the text, it just says they're divided and they run around with these kind of camps, and so Paul says, don't talk about these great leaders like that,

I love Jesus, I love Moses, I hate Jesus, and so, by the way now, listen very carefully, there's an end to this story, it was winter time, and we had a fire in the fireplace, and so I walked over to Luke, and I said,

I walked over to Luke, and I said, Luke, let me give you an illustration of what happens to people if they die hating

Jesus. And so I picked up Luke by the ankle, held him upside down, and walked over to the fireplace, now

I did not hold him over the fire, I did not singe, burn, he didn't smell like smoke, but I walked over close to the fire, enough you can feel the heat, and I said, there's an eternal fire called hell for people who hate

Jesus. And like any three year old theologian, he just began to say,

A E I O U, no he didn't, he said, I love Jesus dad, I love

Jesus, I love Jesus. It's like kids fighting over Moses and Jesus, Peter and Paul, the issue in my mind was not necessarily four real camps, whatever

Paul does, I'm a Paulinian, whatever Apollos does, I'm a Apollinian, whatever

Peter does, I'm a Cephanarian, whatever we want to call it. I don't think it was necessarily that, it was just babies, like in 1

Corinthians chapter 3, you guys are just immature, don't run around with this eye disease. Much better with onward

Christian soldiers, we sing, brothers we are treading where the saints have trod, we are not divided, all one body we, one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

When you talk like this, what's the outcome? You think of an algebraic equation, you've got all the stuff on this side of the equal sign, if you do this and you do this, you're going to end up with a disaster for a local church,

I I I I. And then what I love about Paul, is he does something I would never ever do, and that is use shock treatment from the pulpit.

And Paul now clears his name, you think you're going to be saying, I'm divided, talking about myself,

I want you to know, that's not because of what I've done, how I've done it, I point to Jesus Christ and then he gives three questions, or three exclamations, we don't know in the

Greek with the punctuation, so it's either a question mark with these three questions in verse 13, it's an exclamation point, or if you want to just put a question mark and an explanation point at the end, because it's got that kind of feel.

Most commentaries, by the way, think it's a question mark. Here they come, bang, bang, bang. Has Christ been divided?

Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Kind of shock treatment is this, Paul says, I'm not like these other leaders who want people to follow me,

I want you to follow Christ Jesus. These rhetorical questions say, it's lunacy, it's full moon kind of behavior to say

Christ is divided. I guess the Corinthians, by the way they acted, were dividing

Christ. He says, look at the head of the body and you won't see any division between head and body,

Christ Jesus and the body of Christ. He asks this other question to amplify, to turn up the volume in the absurdity camp.

Was Paul crucified for you? Was Paul up there, bloody atonement, sacrificial substitute?

And he, Paul said up on the cross, it is finished. No. Third question, were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Go therefore and teach disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of Paul and of his old name Saul and of the holy apostle.

Paul said, do you think I came to you to set up my own religion where I was Messiah, where I was savior, where I made all this stuff up and I'm the leader and I have my own authority comes from me?

No. Ephesians, Paul said, there's one body and one spirit just as you were also called in one hope of your calling, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Paul who is the father over all and through all and in all.

John 17, Jesus prayed that they may all be one even as you father are in me and I in you, that they may be in Paul.

It's just crazy. We don't talk that way. Christ alone is the leader, not only for the church of Corinth, but for us as well.

Let me give you just a couple of principles while I'm thinking about it. Principle number one, we're going to see here in this text really quickly that it doesn't matter who baptizes you as long as you're baptized after conversion.

You say, well, you know, Mike's out of town this week and I don't really know if I want Pastor Steve baptizing me,

I've got to have Mike. By the way, if you think that sounds odd, that was me. Not self -baptism by me, but when

I first got saved and I was in Israel, I thought, by the way, I've got to get baptized in the Jordan because the water in California will work, how much more the

Jordan? And there were two pastors. There were two pastors baptizing people and we all had one line. Two pastors,

Calvary Chapel group, and there was Raul Reese who was my pastor and Ron Wilkins who was the

Long Beach pastor, Calvary Chapel, Long Beach. And I couldn't enjoy myself.

My mom and I were standing in line and it's a line of about, I don't know, 40, 50 people are going to get baptized in Israel and we just kept getting closer and closer and I kept thinking to myself,

Raul, you've got to start hurrying up or Ron, you've got to slow down because I'm going to get to the front and I'm going to look over at Ron and I'm going to go,

I don't want you to baptize me, I want Raul to baptize me because Raul's my leader. We're going to read these next few verses and Paul's going to make sure that when it comes to baptism, although important, he made sure that he didn't baptize a lot of people, which brings me to principle number two.

There's no such thing as baptismal regeneration. If you think you're getting saved because you get baptized and you get original sin taken away when you're a child or when you get dunked later, then

Paul has dropped the ball because why would he say, I barely baptize anyone, I'm not around here to baptize people,

I want to make sure people know I don't baptize a lot of people so they don't think I'm baptizing them in my name.

But you can't say to yourself, Paul who knows the gospel, who proclaims the gospel, somehow thinks you've got to be baptized to be saved because that is a lie.

Principle three, Paul was not after personal prestige, was he? For the elders of Bethlehem Bible Church, for myself, for visitors, for anyone in a leadership position, it is folly for us to try to become popular and famous and high up on the ladder of people's prestige when we need to point to Christ.

Paul was a bondservant, he was an under rower, he said, I don't care what happens to me, Christ should be exalted.

Look what he says here in verse 14, I thank God. Who thanks God for something like this?

Southern Baptist Convention, we say, I thank God that we baptized 45 people and got to send it into the rolls.

Paul says, I thank God, counterintuitively, that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius. Crispus, remember, was the chief ruler of the synagogue in Acts chapter 18,

Gaius, Paul used his house there, Romans chapter 16. Why?

Just a few baptisms. He had other people baptize the new converts, he didn't, verse 15, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.

Well, come to think about it, now that I'm thinking about baptism, verse 16, now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas.

Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. I was very happy one day when

I was talking to someone here at Bethlehem Bible Church and I said, do you think you're ever going to get baptized? And the person looked at me like, ha ha, you're so funny.

And I looked at him, I had to kind of play along with the game and I go, what's kind of the funny thing? Oh, you baptized me three years ago, oh,

I just forgot, sorry. I felt good that Paul kind of forgot for a moment too, made me feel good.

Let me give you another principle as I look at this verse. It's a non -principle.

Don't ever say household baptism here will affirm infant baptism.

I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Friends, we don't know about that household. There could be 50 people there.

There could have been slaves, children, geriatric only. By the way, in the Greek, household also can include the word we have in Greek for dog.

So you can't say anybody under my roof got baptized up including dogs. No, you can't do that.

We baptize the household of Stephanas. They believe we baptize them. Baptism for Paul is not essential for the remission of sins or obtaining forgiveness.

And as I close, I want you to turn to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5, we think it's the marriage chapter, but it's the marriage of Christ to his church.

And so I want to appeal to you with my final appeal before we move on to verse 17 next week, is that when you see how much

Jesus loves the church, you ought to say to yourself by the Spirit's grace, I want to love the church like that.

When you see how unified this church is between head and body, you're going to want to strive for the unity at Bethlehem Bible Church for which

I rejoice we have. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25, and I just want you to see here, this is not primarily the verses that we talk to husbands about loving their wives, although it is there, but there's a backdrop.

There was a marriage idea in the mind of God before Genesis 1.

Husbands, love your wives just as... Now, I want you to see how much Jesus loves his bride, the church.

And you'll say, I want to do everything in my power to keep the church together. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

This is the kind of love that says, I will self -sacrifice for the well -being of another.

If Jesus lays down his life and receives the wrath of God for the well -being of another, wouldn't you want to see the well -being of that other as well?

Of course. He gave himself up sacrificially as a substitute for the benefit of someone else.

That's the kind of person that I want to follow in love for the church. He gave himself, not performance -based, not based on what was deserved, not reciprocal.

Who'd want to tear that church? Who'd want to rip that church? Verse 26, three purposes for this love for the bride.

You'll see three that's in verse 26 and 27. That he might sanctify her, not split her.

Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. There's another purpose for Christ's sacrificial death.

That he might present to himself the church in all her quarreling. Having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

And lastly, what was the purpose that Jesus loved his bride? A sanctification that cleansed this church in all her glory in the future.

And, at the very end there, verse 27. But that she would be holy and blameless.

Friends, Jesus loves the church. Jesus loves this church. You ought to love what

Jesus loves. You ought to strive for what Jesus strives for. You ought to say, this is God's program.

Why did Jesus die for the church? To make her sanctified, to make her holy, blameless. Present her in all that great glory.

And Lord, by your power, I will do the same. That's a follower of Christ. The good news and the bad news of Bethlehem Bible Church is...

The bad news is we haven't arrived. The good news is Jesus will one day present us with all our glory.

His glory. Let's pray. Father in heaven, what a good day it is to be under your word.

Help to conform our minds and our hearts and our ambitions around your scriptures.

And Lord, I'm very, very thankful for this church and for the many who serve self -sacrificially.

Who serve with an eye towards unity. And Lord, would you increase those numbers. Would you give us all a desire to serve you knowing that the days are evil.

The times are short. And one day we'll stand before you in your presence. And Lord, we would just ask that you'd give us hearts today.

That really are solidified in mind, unity, faith.

And that you would help us to react to those who come along for whatever reason. And want to subtly question, subtly undermine.

Lord, I pray that you would grant us thankful hearts knowing that could be us without your power.

And that Lord, you would help those people repent and be unified.

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 10 .15 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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