WWUTT 1408 Called Into the Fellowship of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:6-9)

The Apostle Paul expresses Thanksgiving for these Corinthians, but it's not a Thanksgiving because, hey, they're just such great people. It's Thanksgiving because God has called them into his greatness when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing. And if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Paul’s Thanksgiving for the Corinthians and Their Calling in Christ

Thank you, Becky. We come back to this study in 1 Corinthians and this wonderful expression of thanks that Paul gives for this church in 1 Corinthians 1, verses four through nine. 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 all 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. Such an exalting expression of thanks here, giving glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, but expressing an appreciation to this church that came to faith through the sharing of the gospel to them.

And Paul says, I give thanks to my God always for you. Always, not just on your good days and especially not on your bad days, but always Paul is thankful for them. And his thanks is not conditional upon them.

It's a thanksgiving that he has to God because he called this group of people out of the darkness that they were in, in the city of Corinth. How sexually depraved and idolatrous a culture this is. And yet through the gospel, there's a people who have given up their idol worship and come to the Lord Christ.

And they've now become a testimony to all who are in Achaia and Macedonia. They've heard about how the people in Corinth, Corinth, in idolatrous Corinth, have turned from idol worship to worship the one true God.

And so though there are problems in this church that Paul is next going to confront, that's where he's going right after this expression of thanksgiving, turns right around and starts addressing the divisions that are among them.

Though he's got things to rebuke, he wants them to know he's always thankful for them. It's not him saying, I'm thankful to God when I hear good news about you, but right now, man, I just don't know. Make yourself a people that I can be thankful for again.

That's not what Paul is instructing them in here. He's thankful to God always for them. But because they are growing in sanctification, because they need to mature in their holiness and spiritualness according to the gospel through which they were called in Christ Jesus, because they need to mature in these things, Paul brings them these instructions he's going to bring.

Very pointed, very sharp, sharp as a two-edged sword, because it comes from the word of God. It's gonna be convicting. It's gonna be painful for some of them. Some of them, because of the way they're behaving, have even gotten sick and died, which we'll talk about when we get to chapter 11.

So it's very serious. Some of the things that they have wandered into, not wandered away into, it's not that they've left the faith. There are some among them that are surely quite faithful, but many others who are allowing themselves to be divided by worldly things, by jealousy, by things that we were formerly in when we were in our flesh, but we should give up when we put on Christ.

The old is gone and the new has come. So no longer walk in those old ways, as Paul had instructed with the Colossians and with the Ephesians, and he does so also with the Corinthians. But first of all, an expression of thanks.

I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. Again, it's not conditional upon them. It's because of the goodness that God has shown them, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge.

Now, one of the things that Paul means by that when he is telling them, in every way you've been enriched in all speech and all knowledge, what he's saying to them is, you know some of these things that I'm about to tell you.

You have been so equipped with the apostolic teaching that I gave you when I was there. Because remember, Paul was there for over a year and a half. You've heard it, you've learned it, and the spirit is among you, that you may know these things and know how to apply them and correct these things.

So Paul is writing to them from afar. He doesn't have to be there with them for them to know what it is he's going to tell them and put these things into effect. Make these corrections, practice church discipline, teach sound doctrine.

Don't wander off into anything beyond what is written. That's another instruction he gives to the Corinthians here. So they've been enriched by the spirit of God that has been given to them, by the testimony that was shared with them when Paul was with them.

In every way you've been enriched, in him, in all speech and all knowledge. So that as they receive these instructions Paul is going to give, they are perfectly capable of putting these things into effect.

They have the power of the spirit of God among them in this church. Christ is with them. Verse six, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, it was confirmed. How was it confirmed? Because once again, they turn from their idolatry and rampant sexuality and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and they were changed.

As Paul is gonna say later on in chapter six, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. So they have heard, they have received, they have been changed.

This testimony has been confirmed among you. You've shown it by turning from your idolatry, your sexuality, your thieving, your lying, your drunkenness, all these other worldly things that you were in, you've turned from that, you've been transformed and changed because you've been washed by the Holy Spirit.

The testimony about Christ was confirmed among you. Paul said something similar with the Thessalonians. Consider this in 1 Thessalonians 1, beginning in verse four. For we know, brothers, loved by God, that he has chosen you.

We know, from afar, we know that God has chosen you. How do they know that? Because our gospel came to you, not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

Same sort of testimony that the Thessalonians have. So you see also among the Corinthians that they heard the testimony and it was confirmed among them by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the fact that they were transformed.

With full conviction, they turned from their sin, their worldliness, their godless rebellion, and they became worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse seven now, back in 1 Corinthians 1. So that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God has given us everything that we need for life. Peter talks about this at the beginning of 2 Peter 1. He says, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

So through the Holy Spirit that has been poured into our hearts, when we repented of our sin and put faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has granted to us everything that we need, all that pertains to life and godliness, this side of heaven, that we become partakers in the divine nature, the pursuit of holiness, growing in Christ likeness, that we may escape the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

We escape corruption in a couple of ways. We escape corruption considering that all things have been subjected to futility. This world is decaying. It's wasting away around us. As Paul will later say with the Corinthians, all things this side of heaven are transient.

They are passing away. And we are delivered from that, from the corruption that is in the world because sin has caused this world to be subjected to futility. So that's one way that we're saved from the corruption that is in the world.

The second way, of course, is as it pertains to sinful desire. We're saved from the corruption that all things are decaying and we're saved from the very thing that caused all things to go into decay.

And that is sin itself. We're saved from the corruption of our souls and we're saved from the corruption of our bodies and the wages of that corruption as well, which is death, which is the judgment of God.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are saved from these things. Yeah, we still inhabit bodies that are wasting away. I'm reminded of that daily. Sciatica is bothering me right now. So my left leg is in a lot of pain from one day to the next.

We've got members of our church that we pray for on a daily basis because of physical ailments and things like that. We've got an ongoing list for us as pastors of people who have upcoming surgeries or they're at home because they're ill or recovering from a fall or something like that.

We're always praying for somebody in our church because of something health related. There's those constant reminders all around us that this world has been subjected to futility. Our bodies are coming into decay because of that, because God subjected all things to futility when he cursed creation as a result of man's sin.

So we have reminders of that all around us, yet we're saved from that corruption. Our body will die. We inhabit these bodies that are falling apart. The body is gonna die. It's gonna go into the ground and become dust, but we're saved from that because God has promised us a new body.

We will be rescued out of this world and delivered into his eternal kingdom. The moment we die, our soul goes to be into the presence of God. As it says in Ecclesiastes, the body goes back into the ground and the soul returns to him who gave it, and that is God.

So we go to be in the presence of God and then a day is coming when Christ will return, when all things will be made new and in the process of him doing that, whatever that's gonna look like on that day, our bodies will be resurrected and will be made imperishable.

Right now it's a perishable body. It's perishing even as we live in it. But a day is coming in which, as it says in Philippians chapter three, Christ will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

So we're saved from that corruption. We're still in this body that is coming into decay, but we will receive something brand new that will never decay. And then our souls as well, our souls are not in a continued state of decay.

See, that's the thing about our soul that has been resurrected by the Holy Spirit when we came to faith in Jesus Christ. We had a living body, but a dead soul. And when we came to faith, when we heard the gospel and believed in Jesus, that soul was resurrected unto life.

So the body is still going unto death, but the soul is progressing unto life and it is becoming sanctified. It is growing in holiness. We are being transformed to be like Christ, saved from the corruption that comes by sin.

The corruption of our body because we have the promise of the resurrection of the dead. The corruption of our soul, because even as we live, we are being raised unto Christ so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That day is coming when Christ will be revealed and then we will see him as he is because we will be made to be like him. As it says in 1 John 3, 2, Christ will sustain you to the end. 1 Corinthians 1, 8, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is that sanctification that we are receiving. As it says in Ephesians 5, that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

And how is it that Christ is sanctifying his church? We read it right here. It's by his word. It's not by worldly philosophies. It's not by worldly systems, things like that that are in play to try to transform and change the people into something that is more societally acceptable.

I don't know if societally is a word. I just made that up. But anyway, socially, there we go. And we have all these worldly philosophies trying to change us into something that maybe finally will be more socially acceptable if we follow along with these patterns.

And the church tries to bring it in. They try to bring it in the doors because, hey, we need to go along with this, guys, so that we might become all things to all people, just like Paul said to the Corinthians.

We'll talk about that when we get there. Those kinds of things don't transform the church. They don't sanctify us. We're sanctified by the word of God. The church's commitment needs to be to God's word.

And that is how we are grown in holiness and Christ-likeness in the pursuit of godliness. Jesus said in John 17, 17, Father, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. Worldly systems are never gonna transform us to be more acceptable by the world.

If we're accepted by the world, that's a problem because the Bible expressly says we will not be accepted by the world. And James rebuked the church for trying to be a friend of the world. He said, you adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Boy, we just have to get this. And the Bible tells us so. The Bible tells us the truth, God's word. First John 2, 15, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the father. It is from the world. And the world is passing away. There's that subject of utility thing again.

The world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Oh, that the church in the United States of America, and I'm gonna speak in that context because that's the country in which I live.

Oh, that the church would focus on Christ and exalt him and pursue him. Of course, there are many that call themselves part of the church that really are not. They're not part of the church at all. I think it was earlier this week on the briefing, Dr. Albert Moeller was talking about how the, it is now a minority of people in the United States who are members of any church.

I think it's been that way for a while, but the statistics are finally reflecting it. It's something like 46 of Americans even say now that they're a member of a church or a mosque or a synagogue. That's when you include mosques or synagogues.

So the number is actually much lower than that. Persons who will say that they are a member of a church, that they're committed to that church, that they regularly attend, that they give tithes, that they volunteer, that they help out, attend classes, grow in learning and understanding and brotherly love with one another.

It is now a minority of Americans that are committed to churches, committed to any church in such a way. And that number will most definitely drop in the near future because of everything that has happened as a result of COVID.

People who had been sent home and were watching church online. There are gonna be a lot more people that are gonna say that they don't have a membership to a church and they don't need one. Why do I need a membership to a church to be a Christian?

I think that statistic is revealing who is genuine and who is not. And Paul's gonna talk about that with the Corinthians here. There must be factions among you so that those who are genuine might be revealed.

But it is Christ who sustains us. He sustains us 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.

Remember what we read right at the beginning of the letter. As Paul introduced himself, he said, 1 Corinthians 1, 1, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. And look here, verse nine, it is through God that you were called, you who are followers of Jesus, because you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is not by our work. It is not by our work that we came to salvation in Christ. It is not by our work that we are sustained. He even sustains us to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He is to be exalted. He is to be honored. Oh, that we would fix our eyes on Jesus, look full on his wonderful face. And the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Amen. Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly father, help us to fix our eyes on Christ today. In all that we do, may it be something that is honoring of our God who saved us. You called us to yourself. We heard the gospel and believed it because you poured a spirit into our hearts.

Your holy spirit that we would hear the gospel and be convicted of our sin and understand it and turn from our wicked ways and believe. May we stop looking at the stuff that's in this world with eager eyes, wishing that we could have this stuff.

Can we be reminded of what we were rescued from that this stuff never satisfied us anyway. And the more we clamor for it, the more we're gonna want until we don't want God anymore. We go running back to the stuff of this world.

Help us to be reminded of that which is eternal, looking upon Christ, not being after worldly things, but heavenly things. Sustain us to the end, dear God. Make us guiltless, sanctify us in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We know you were faithful and we have been called into fellowship with you because you gave your son to be the propitiation for our sins. As we live in a godly way today, maybe give us even an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel with somebody else and give us courage to do so.

Not shrinking back, not afraid of what the world might think of us. The Bible already says to us what the world is going to think of us. Let us do what we do in honor of Christ our King. Living unto that great day which we look forward to with eager hearts, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's in his name that we pray, amen.

Closing Prayer and Program Sign-Off

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.