1 Corinthians 12-07-09

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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.

Well, it is literally good to be here today, alive and preaching. If you have your

Bibles, why don't you turn to 1 Corinthians, the letter of 1 Corinthians. As you're turning there,

I don't know if you've been to many rededication services. You go to a service and you're struggling in your life and so you rededicate yourself to Christ Jesus.

Oftentimes, you would go to maybe a campfire when you were in youth group or something like that and everyone was given a stick and you would have to go to the campfire itself and you'd take the stick and that stick would symbolize you and you would toss the stick in the fire dedicating you to God.

One man I know went and he put his, he wasn't a man then, but he was a boy, and he put his watch in the fire and he was dedicating all his time to God.

Another man said that was just bad stewardship, he had to buy a new watch. We all struggle with sin, we all struggle with holiness, and so is there a real way we can rededicate our lives?

And I think the answer is yes, although it's a different way than you would normally think. Too often, rededication services, rededication prayers focus on who we are and we have to just try harder, we have to do better, the focus is on sinful, frail man.

I found one website that talked about rededication services, reconfirming our faith, and it said you're to pray this prayer and God will take you back.

Oh Lord, I had you with me and I strayed, I turned my back on you and went away, but now

I see the error of my ways and now I want to turn again to you. And then the response from loveallpeople .org

is, congratulations, he is with you once again. Blessings to you in Jesus Christ, our

Lord. Now I like prayer for rededication, I like that we would go ask

God for rededication, but I think too often we want a formula, we want something that's just easy and then we say

I'm rededicated. As we turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, this is lesson 2, or sermon 2 in 1

Corinthians, Luke my 13 year old said to me this morning, he said, Dad I think when you finish 1 Corinthians I'll have my driver's license.

I thought oh, well that may or may not be the case. But Paul is going to write to this church who needs to be truly rededicated to following their

Lord. And you're going to see that in the introduction he doesn't talk about self -sufficiency, self -righteousness, moralistic, do better, try harder.

He's going to take the biblical approach, the real approach, and that is to show these saints at Corinth who

Christ Jesus is. And actually when we have our own lives, like the church of Corinth, a struggle in them regarding sin, this will help us as well today.

When I come to introductions like this, because chapter 1 verses 1 through 9 is basically an introduction, too often

I say to myself, well it's just an introduction, let's get to the good stuff. But if we miss the first nine verses, we're going to miss a lot to this book.

There's a reason, I think you'd agree with me, that verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are here and that's just not for a quick introduction and then we move on.

We're going to see today that this is the way that God, the Holy Spirit, through Paul the

Apostle, frames this rededication, this renewing for the church of Corinth to say, yes,

I want to follow the Lord. How would you approach it if someone came to you and said, I'd like to renew my relationship with the

Lord, I'm bound and determined now to excel for Him, what would you say? Where would you go in the

Scriptures? How would you approach this kind of person? And the answer is, what Paul does is shows them who

Jesus Christ is. And if you would with me, just to glance through this to start, look how many times in verses 1 through 9, you see the words

God, Jesus, Christ, Christ, Jesus, and the

Lord, Jesus Christ. Everything in here is about God. Let me just highlight these things for you.

Verse 1, Jesus Christ by the will of God. Verse 2, the church of God sanctified in Christ Jesus, who in every place call in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 3, God our Father and the

Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 4, my God, grace of God, which was given you in Christ Jesus.

Verse 5, in Him, talking about in Christ Jesus. Verse 6, concerning Christ.

Verse 7, Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 8, Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 9,

God is faithful, and then into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our

Lord. Everything Paul does is put the focus back on now, not themselves, but on the

Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, this isn't just some title. His first name's

Lord, His middle name's Jesus, and His last name's Christ. There's a reason why all these are here.

And so, Christ this Messiah, the one that Israel was looking for. Jesus, His first name,

God who saves, Joshua, Yeshua, and the Lord Jesus Christ. They're acting like Jesus isn't the

Savior, like He's not the Messiah, and that they themselves, the church of Corinth, are their own lords.

Now last week, we looked at the big picture, and the big picture was this. Why don't you turn with me to chapter 5, verse 9?

If you're here for the first time, we're starting our series of 1 Corinthians, and we're just going to teach every word, every verse, as we ask the

Spirit of God to apply this word to our hearts, so that we never look like Corinth, corporately or individually.

We saw last week, if you look at chapter 5, verse 9, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, or in the

New American Standard, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. And so, most likely, there was a short letter ahead of time, before 1

Corinthians, that wasn't in the canon, that was not biblical. It had biblical advice, but not part of the canon of Scripture.

And the church of Corinth mistakenly thought, this means I'm never to hang out with any people who are immoral, and so I pretty much have to go move to Amish country, or move to some monk, or monkery, or something.

And Paul says, no, let me write you another letter to confirm what I meant that you misread.

And he also gives some instruction on church discipline, civil court cases, purity, and then he answers questions in chapter 7 and following.

This is a book, by the way, as we look at the introduction, for a while, that is very straightforward.

Not many times will we come into a spot here in 1 Corinthians where we'll say, Paul was kind of beating around the proverbial bush.

Paul is direct. It's doctrine applied. It is Paul knowing that he's been there teaching them doctrine, and now he says,

I want you to live it out. Very personal, you see Paul say I a lot of times, and he is comprehensively dealing with problems.

When I went to the Patriots game a month or two ago to open the game, they had the flyover from the

Navy jets. I don't know what kind they were, F -14s, F -16s, I don't know the number, but I do know this.

It was loud, and it was impressive, flying right over so low.

This was done before it started. We just looked around, and it was done. Paul doesn't do that here in this book.

It's impressive, but he deals with these problems in a very comprehensive way, and he asks lots of questions.

He asks questions so many times that start off this way. Do you not know?

Do you not know? The church of Corinth should have what? Known. He had already been there, and he had taught them.

Do you not know? Chapter 3. Chapter 5. Do you not know? Chapter 6. Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know?

Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Chapter 9. Do you not know? Do you not know? Paul is talking to them in a way that is very pastoral, yet very direct.

I think that's a good thing for pastors to be, pastoral, yet direct. And here, if you look at chapter 1, verse 1,

Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sothenes, our brother.

Paul is the author of this book. Paul is the apostolic author, and by the way, there's all kinds of evidence for this fact.

There's really no question in scholastic endeavors that somehow it was someone else beside Paul.

By the way, wouldn't that be something that would be horrendous, that Paul is dealing with the lack of integrity at the

Church of Corinth, and then there's a liar who's writing the book called Paul? No, that wouldn't seem to work.

Even liberals say, quote, they bear so incontestably the character of Pauline originality that there is no conceivable ground for the assertion of critical doubts in their case regarding the

Pauline authorship of the book. So Paul wrote the book, he's got this rededication service, and for our time this morning, for our outline, let me give you some affirmations that you can affirm in your own heart and minds so that you can have the same rededication service in your life, in your heart, a rededication service in your heart bound to change your behavior.

First affirmation, you must affirm the apostolic authority of 1

Corinthians, that this is an apostolic book. You say, this is not really shooting off any bells and whistles.

Oh, that was such a good one, that this is an apostolic book. Well, let's find out what Paul does and how he talks to them about his apostleship.

Paul called an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul did not just go, huh,

I'll be an apostle. I've just read What Color is My Parachute, and I think a apostle sounds good.

And I am a self -made man, and I'll just do what I want, and I can command them. Because remember, there were other people around Corinth who were doing that.

We see that a lot in 2 Corinthians, where these self -made apostles are saying, Paul didn't say that,

God didn't say that, listen to us. And you see the text here, Paul called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of himself, by the board, by the presbytery, by the diocese, by the bishop, by the council, by our pastor.

This is not some career that Paul picked. This is not a five -year career plan. He said, this will be good for my resume.

Paul was an apostle because in Acts chapter 9, Jesus said, you're now my son in the faith, and you are now my apostle.

And Paul is going to say, you need to believe me, because I didn't come up with this myself.

This was given to me by God, therefore you must listen to me. It starts with God's appointment, and it ends with God's appointment, and Paul knew that he was an apostle.

It was not, oops, I think I'm an apostle. He knew it. There was not a vote, there was not a second, there was not

Robert Rules of Order. It was Paul, by divine calling, by sovereign will, you are an apostle.

And I'll tell you this, here's the application. If you don't realize that the apostles wrote and spoke for God, you've missed out on any kind of way for transformation, for a dedication service, to have a proper understanding of apostolic messengers.

When Jesus speaks, it's in red letters, but when the Spirit of God speaks through apostles, it's in what color?

Red letters. You can't just say, well, I just only read the red letter stuff because that's Jesus. Jesus sent his disciples, his apostles, and say, you now speak for me.

Now let me pose the question this way. What would you rather have today? If this were possible,

Jesus coming in here to speak to you today, physically, the

Jesus, the resurrected King, to come in here and preach a sermon to you, or would you rather have me preach from this apostolic messenger book, 1

Corinthians, that I will preach these words to you? Spirit of God applying them.

Which one would you rather have? And, of course, we all default to, I'd rather have Jesus. We're glad Mike's alive and he didn't die in the emergency room, but we would much rather have

Jesus. And we all sing together, I'd rather have Jesus, right? Turn with me to John chapter 14.

I think you're going to be shocked. I want to shock you. Jesus is going to leave the disciples.

Jesus is going to go away from the disciples, and he says, I'm going to give you another. I'm going to give you another one.

I'm going to give you one who is going to be just like me.

Let's turn our Bibles to John chapter 14. John chapter 14.

Now, Jesus is going to be saying that he's going to go. Remember in chapter 14, verse 1, do not let your heart be troubled.

Believe in God. Also believe in me. I'm going to be leaving sometime soon, and don't be disturbed.

Don't be troubled. In my Father's house are many dwelling places.

And he's going to give them a commission. And you look at verse 16 of John chapter 14,

I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper, another of the same kind, that he may be with you forever.

That is, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. And so with the

Spirit of Christ comes to the apostles, and he will lead them and guide them into truth.

And he says, I personally can't be here, but there's going to be another one that will comfort you, that will teach you, that will be me, but it will be me, the

Spirit of God. This is not some kind of, you know, modalistic thing. This is the Holy Spirit he's going to send to them to speak to them, and they ought not to be troubled.

They ought not to say, we'd rather have Jesus here. We don't want to have the Holy Spirit speaking through himself.

We don't want that. Now if you look at John chapter 16, the same kind of thing is said.

John chapter 16, you say, I don't understand, where are you going? Hang in there with me. John chapter 16, but now

I'm going to him, verse 5, who sent me, and none of you asked me, where are you going?

Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. I'm leaving, and you're sorry about that.

Okay, that's what's happening. But I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the

Helper, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.

Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer see me.

And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them.

Pay attention, congregation, verse 13. But when he, the

Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you disciples, you apostles.

He's not talking to a congregation here. He's not talking to us individually. He's talking about the apostles.

He's talking about having them write scripture. He will guide you into all the truth.

For he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears from the Father, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take of mine, and will disclose it to you. All things that the

Father has are mine, therefore I said that he takes of mine, and will disclose it.

Takes that which is mine, and will disclose it to you. All right, here's the picture. Jesus is going to go.

The disciples are anxious. The disciples are dismayed, and Jesus says, but the Spirit of God is going to come, and he's going to move in you, and you are going to speak the word of God.

Back to my original question. Would you rather have me here, or would you rather have the apostolic word here in the

Spirit of God? Well, of course, you'd rather have Jesus. Did I say that? Did I say it right? Would you rather have Jesus here, or would you rather have me here preaching this?

Well, Jesus can't be here, because he's the right hand of the Father. But there is absolutely no difference between Jesus speaking his word, the red letter words, and Jesus speaking through his

Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, with these apostolic letters. If Jesus was here today and spoke some words that weren't in the

Bible, and then I read you Romans chapter 8, it would both be just as authoritative, both just as biblical, and we should sit under both and say, you know, that is the word of God.

So, it's not really a fair scenario. But would you rather have Jesus speak, or would you rather have the apostolic word in 1

Corinthians speak? The answer is, they're both exactly the same, from the same source and authoritative.

Now here's what happens. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. There are lots of people out there who are called apostles.

And I want you to listen to apostles, but I don't want you to listen to strip mall apostles. They're all out there in these apostolic kind of churches.

There's apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic Church. Lots of Pentecostal churches have apostles.

Are there apostles today? I ask the question because I want to answer it. If there are apostles, we ought to listen to them as we ought to listen to Jesus.

And if there are no apostles, we ought to say, well, then you're not an apostle. I will bank on what the apostles say written in the

Word. Let me just give you some background about apostles so you can spot easily.

Anyone who says they're an apostle today, you know that they're a fake, a fraud, and a phony. Apostles, number one, were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.

Eyewitnesses to the resurrection. When they were going to pick the apostle to replace Judas, Acts 1 says, it is therefore necessary that the men who have accompanied us all the time that Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up from us, one of these should be a witness with us of his resurrection.

They participated in Jesus' earthly ministry, number one. Number two, they saw the resurrected

Jesus. So I haven't met too many apostles today on earth that say, oh yeah,

I saw Jesus, unless it was because they ate too much salsa at midnight and it was some kind of vision or some kind of dream.

One man said, well, how do we know Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, doesn't show up like he did to Paul on the

Damascus Road? Number two, apostles performed undeniable miracles.

And I don't mean leg lengthening and bad back straightening like these charlatans do down at the

DCU Center and any other place that they put up shop. Apostles saw Jesus resurrected literally and physically, the 12 apostles minus Judas.

Then they had Paul the apostle, the untimely born one, and these apostles also could do miracles.

Listen to this verse, 2 Corinthians 12, 12, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles.

If everybody was doing the miracles, then why would Paul have to write that?

If doing miracles had been common for ordinary Christians, why would Paul say, let me prove to you,

Corinth, I'm an apostle because I do miracles? If everybody does miracles, how can Paul use that to validate his apostleship?

If everybody on TBN who does some kind of fake miracles with a bad hairdo can heal, then we've got a problem.

Let me take that out of the tape. That's from the medicine on Wednesday or Thursday that I had. I have some out.

It's the verse said, I can't remember. We need to listen to apostles, but the real ones.

And Paul says, here's a real apostle. Don't listen to anyone else except the real apostles. They've seen

Jesus raised from the dead and they can do undeniable miracles. Number three, they were around at the foundation of the church 2 ,000 years ago.

Ephesians chapter two, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the cornerstone.

You've got this figure of a church being a temple and you've got the foundation, you've got the cornerstone, and now we're 2 ,000 years later.

So why do we need apostles when the foundation was built 2 ,000 years ago? So we have to be very careful that somehow we don't look at these apostles who say they exist today.

Mark my words, apostles do not exist today. Not the ones that have seen Jesus who do undeniable miracles.

We don't need them. Why is there an apostle necessary today? Because we already have his word. Don't go for anybody that says they're an apostle.

If you meet one, by the way, would you introduce them to me? And I want to go ask him what 1 Corinthians 15 means when

Paul says we have to do baptisms for the dead because he should know the answer. These people that are self -described apostles are control freaks and they have an agenda and they don't have a clue about what the

Bible says a real apostle should do. You have the words of the apostles in red letters.

You don't need anything else. How do you have a rededication service in your heart? Make sure you realize that God can change you through the apostolic messengers as he would say in Hebrews chapter 1.

Number two, number two, we had a little deviation there about apostles but it just burns me as something gets stuck in my craw when people go around saying they're apostles today.

It denigrates what a real apostle is and who a real apostle is and they want to control you.

Maybe lots of people want to control people but I have no control over you outside of this book.

Isn't that the way it should be? Telling you to do things and telling you to send money and telling you to do all kinds of other crazy things?

I have not seen the resurrected Jesus. I cannot do undeniable miracles. Why would

I have to wait until 10 in the morning for the GI lab open to fix my esophagus if I could just fix myself? By the way, these apostles that have no hair and glasses on,

I think they've also got a problem because they can't even fix their own vision. I digress. Let's keep going.

With the apostleship comes authority. That's why they want to say they're apostles because they want to rule you.

They want to tell you what to do outside of the scriptures. Paul is saying don't let these quacks outside of Corinth and in Corinth and around Corinth tell you they're an apostle because they're not an apostle.

We need to make sure we do what Hebrews 1 says and Jesus said God doesn't speak anymore in visions and dreams and anything else.

He speaks through his son, himself and through his apostolic messengers, handpicked people by Jesus.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroff 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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