Through the Bible - 1 Corinthians - Part 1 — Zac Poonen

The Church Influencing the City

Let's turn to the Word of God. We'll turn now to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Again, let's look at the first verse to see, first couple of verses to see what the subject of this letter is. There's a little phrase here, which I'd like you to look at, which I think describes the subject and theme of this letter.

Verse two, to the church of God, which is at Corinth. The subject of this letter is the functioning of the local church, the church in a city or a town or a village. And what we see in this letter is that the city of Corinth, the spirit in that city had got into the church.

See these two expressions here? The church of God and the city of Corinth. And the spirit in that city had got inside the church instead of the church influencing the city. And that happens in many, many churches where the spirit in the world around influences the church instead of the church influencing society.

And the believers in the church get influenced by the spirit of the world instead of them influencing their relatives and people around them. So that's what Paul is writing about in this letter. But he has a lot of things to criticize in the Corinthians because there were so many terrible things going wrong in that church.

Appreciation Before Correction

But in spite of all that, he begins with a note of thanksgiving. And that's a very good example for us that even in believers in whom you may see a hundred and one wrong things, there may be one or two things you can find which you can appreciate.

And I always say, don't criticize a brother whom you have never appreciated. Did you hear that? Don't ever criticize a brother whom you have never appreciated. Many people try to help others by criticism and they cannot help them because in the time before that brother did something wrong, when he was doing some good things, they never appreciated it.

I've used this example of a blackboard. If I have a blackboard here and I have a piece of chalk, I can write on that blackboard and you can see what I'm writing. But if I don't have a blackboard and I have only a piece of chalk and I write correct things, I'm writing on air, you can't see anything.

The blackboard is appreciation. When you have appreciated a person, then you take the white chalk of criticism and you write it. He can see clearly what you're writing. But if you have never in your life appreciated him, there is no blackboard.

And then you criticize. All your criticism may be correct, but you're writing on thin air. He can't see a thing and he's not helped. Most believers are writing on thin air. And that's why they accomplish nothing.

Shall I show you a more excellent way? Love that person. And when you see something good, appreciate it. Show him that you love him. And then even one word of criticism that you write on the board, he can see it clearly, it'll go home to his heart and he'll do something about it.

So Paul begins like that. I thank God, verse 4, for you. Always. I thank God, because there are so many good things in you. First of all, for the grace of God which you received, that you fellows are born again.

And in everything, verse 5, you have been enriched in him. Praise the Lord for that. And you fellows can share God's word so wonderfully. Your speech, your knowledge. I appreciate your Bible knowledge.

The way you speak about God and the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you all. I thank God for that. I thank God, verse 7, that you are all so zealous about spiritual gifts. And not like so many other believers who don't care for spiritual gifts, you people in Corinth are eager to have spiritual gifts.

And you have all the gifts, because you sought for them. You're not lacking, verse 7, in any gift. And you're eagerly awaiting the coming of Jesus Christ, who will confirm you, blameless. God is faithful, verse 9, through whom you were called into fellowship with his son.

You can't believe that this is a church which has got so many wrong things, as you read in the remaining chapters. We can really learn a lesson from the Apostle Paul. In many of the letters he writes, he begins with, do you know, fellows, I'm praying for you.

And the first thing I do when I think of all of you is I really thank God that you chaps have come to Christ out of heathenism. You've accepted the Lord. I know you're not perfect, but there's so many good things in you I appreciate.

I want to teach all of you young people a lesson. Learn to appreciate. Have you heard that story of the teacher who kept a white sheet on the wall with a small dot, black dot in a corner, and told all the students to write down, write down carefully what you see.

And everybody wrote, I can see a black dot in the corner. And then the teacher collected all the papers and said, none of you wrote, I can see a white paper. All you wrote was, I can see a black dot. He said, that's our nature.

So much of white, less than 1 of black, and that's the only thing you see, and that's the only thing you write. That's our human nature. We're like that. We're like that when we look at one another.

There's so many good things in those brothers, in those believers. You don't see that. We don't see it. We need to train our eyes to see as God sees. Okay. We move on. One of the things he finds fault with them, he says, all of you are quarreling.

Divisions Around Preachers

Once he's put up the blackboard, now we can write on it. He says, each of you are saying, I'm a Paul, I'm a Paulus, I'm a Cephas, I'm a Christ. See, they were divided into what we would call denominations sitting in the same churches.

My favorite preacher is Paul and my favorite preacher is a Paulist. My favorite preacher is Peter. And then there was the people who felt they were holier than everybody else. He says, we belong only to Christ.

Now, do you think the people who said, I am of Christ, were actually more spiritual than others? No. I think they were probably the biggest troublemakers. The people who looked down on others, saying, you belong to Peter, you belong to Paul, you belong to Paulus.

You know who we belong to? We belong to Jesus. So, that means we are holier than the whole lot of you. So, they also belong to Jesus. You need to appreciate that. Even though that fellow may have a denominational name, he may be born again.

Value him as a brother in Christ. Don't think that because you belong to an assembly which does not have a denominational name, therefore, you alone belong to Christ. Some of the people who belong to non-denominational assemblies can be the most arrogant, conceited, spiritually proud people you ever meet.

And some of those people who are born again in those denominational churches may be very humble people. But they have a denominational label. So, Paul says, has Christ been divided? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Again, he's on this theme of accept everyone who is born again. Don't bring divisions on the basis of preachers. And Paul himself avoided baptizing people, verse 16, because he didn't want anybody to say that I got baptized by Paul.

I didn't get baptized by some ordinary believer. In verse 18, he speaks about the subject, which I would say goes right through Corinthians. The word of the cross. The solution for a carnal church like Corinth.

What is the solution for a carnal church with all its problems? The word of the cross. That's the solution. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who perish. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

What is the word of the cross? Christ crucified. In the last chapter of 2 Corinthians, also he speaks about it. This is the answer in both letters that Paul writes to the Corinthians. He speaks about the word of the cross, the gospel of the cross, of weakness, of rejection by the world, of misunderstanding, of not retaliating, of humbling ourselves, of not having anything to glory in from a human standpoint.

That's what he goes on to speak about, verse 26. Consider this, my brothers. There are not many wise people among you, not many noble, not many mighty. And here is the word of the cross, verse 27. God has chosen foolish people to shame the wise.

God Uses the Weak and Unlearned

When Jesus chose his first apostles, he chose unlearned fishermen to put to shame the great Bible scholars of his day. Gamaliel was a professor. Annas, Caiaphas were all bishops. And what was Peter? Peter was a fisherman.

And God picked him up. What was James? What was John? Fishermen. You know what fishermen are like? Go down to the coast of Kerala and you'll see what fishermen are like, if you want to know what type of people Jesus picked up.

Unlearned, uncultured, Jesus picked them up. But hardworking, sincere, with an open heart, Jesus picked them up to shame all these clever people in the religious society of his time. He's doing the same thing today.

He doesn't say that he doesn't choose any wise person. He says, not many. Most of the people God picks up are foolish, weak, verse 27. Verse 28, the base things of the world, the things, verse 28, that are considered as nothing.

And brother, sister, if you feel that you fall into this category, that you're one of the nobodies, that's why God picked you up. God has great delight in using nobodies. And if you look at the history of India and the men who have, the men of God through the centuries, who have influenced India for Christ and proclaimed his word, you'll find they were not great scholars.

They were simple people, very simple people, not highly educated and who were sincere, just like in the first century. God picked them up, anointed them with the Holy Spirit and gave them a ministry. And that's something which we must remember.

Why? Because if a man serves God with all his scholarly ability and knowledge, he will think that because I'm such an intelligent scholar, God used me and he will be proud of it. But God does things in such a way, verse 29, that no one will be able to boast in his presence.

The ultimate purpose is that no human being will ever be able to boast. You know, the new song when we stand before the Lord is, Thou alone art worthy, O Lamb of God. Thou art worthy, O God. Thou art worthy, O Lamb.

Nobody else, not Paul. Paul is not worthy. Peter is not worthy. Mr. X and Miss Y, none of them are worthy. Lord Jesus, you alone are worthy. No man will be able to boast in God's presence in that day.

And because rich people and clever people and intelligent people tend to think that God is using them because of their cleverness and intelligence and their wealth or something like that, that my wealth is spreading the gospel or because I'm such an intelligent person, God picked me up and used me.

I'll never forget more than 20 years ago, or was it 25 years ago, I was asked to speak at the graduation ceremony of a Bible seminary. And during the time I was there, I spoke to a young student who came first in the outgoing class.

He got the prize for topping number of subjects, came first in his class. He wanted to talk to me. And when I talked to him, he said, he says, I'm thoroughly defeated by sin. All those years of accumulating Bible knowledge did not deliver him from dirty thoughts and the lust of the eyes.

I told him how sad that is. And he said, actually, after four years here, I'm worse off than I was before in my life. I said, what is all this Bible knowledge doing for you then? You're going to be a pastor in a few years.

And what are you going to tell people? Are you going to tell them about Hebrew words and Greek verbs and things like that? Those fellows don't need to know about all that. They need to know how to overcome the lust of the eyes and how to overcome dirty thoughts.

And you don't have that. What are you going to teach them? That's the tragedy in Christendom today. Scholars who are teaching all types of things which are not helping those people over there. It's like people, you know, the man's got an injury here and they're putting the medicine somewhere else.

He doesn't need a medicine there. He needs it over here, brother. He doesn't need all your Hebrew words and Greek verbs and all that. He needs to know how to overcome sin. And if you don't learn that, what are you going to help people?

I never forget that when I met this young chap and I felt very sad for him because he was a Hindu convert. He had come to the Lord and I think he just ended up his life, wasting his life. OK, so I want to encourage you to think more seriously about your life.

That's more important. And don't boast about your family background or cleverness. Anything that makes you boast will hinder God from fulfilling his purpose in your life. And then Paul says, let me give you my own example.

But you know, Paul was from a very wealthy family. Tarsus. He was Saul of Tarsus. Tarsus is a town where only rich Jewish businessmen would go. I'm sure that Saul's father was a very wealthy businessman and Saul came from a very wealthy family.

His father had sent him as a young man to the Bible seminary in Jerusalem, where Gamaliel was the professor, the top seminary of that time. And his father could afford that. In those days, it was a great honor for a man to be a scholar at a young age.

And Paul was a man with a brilliant mind. He was not only from a wealthy family, he was a man with a brilliant mind. I think if Paul had gone into any profession, he would have succeeded. If he had gone into politics, he would have been a success.

If he had gone into business, he would have been a success. If he had been living today, he would have been a top computer programmer. He would have been a success at anything. But he gave it all to Jesus.

Simplicity and the Power of the Cross

But he did not use his cleverness. That's the point he's trying to say. He says, when I came to you, chapter two, verse one, I did not come to you with all the superiority of speech and wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

He says, I did not come to show you what a scholar I am and how much of the Bible I know and all this human cleverness. He says in verse four, my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power.

He says, because if I had preached to you with human cleverness, your faith would have rested on my cleverness and not on the power of God. Those of you who preach the word, let me encourage you and challenge you.

Make your preaching simple. For many, many years that I have preached, I've always asked myself this question. Could the little children in my church understand what I said? Or is it only the highly intellectual people who could understand?

What about multitudes of people who sit in my church for whom English is a second language? They don't know all these high English words. Did they understand what I said? That's enough. If the children and the people with fourth standard pass can understand me, all the rest will understand me.

But if only the certain clever people can understand me, then ninety percent of the people haven't understood me. Then what have I got at the end of my message? Some honor as a great scholar or speaker.

I don't want that. I want to bless people. When I was a young preacher, the Lord asked me a question. Do you want to impress people or do you want to help them? I said, Lord, I want to help them. Then the Lord said, stop trying to impress them.

I said, OK. That was a turning point in my life. I want to encourage all of you. When you get up to speak, do you want to impress people or do you want to help them? If you want to impress them, use your scholarly abilities and knowledge.

If you want to help them, be simple. Speak in such a simple way that even the children and the less educated people there can understand. The gospel is very simple. Jesus was a very simple man. When Jesus spoke, children could understand.

When Jesus spoke, everybody could understand. A hundred percent could understand him. But today, when a lot of people preach in Christian circles, very few can understand. So Paul says, even though I have such a brilliant mind, I'm a greater scholar than all of you put together, I could have used my mind to speak in a very scholarly way, better than all of you.

But he says, I didn't do that. I laid it at the feet of Christ. All my ability and knowledge and all that, and I decided to speak in a very simple way with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit could take my words home to your heart.

That's what I wanted. Not that you would be impressed with my cleverness, but that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction in your heart and change your life. That's the word of the cross. That's how the cross works in our life.

Milk for Babes and Wisdom for the Mature

The other thing is, he says that you people were babes, so I couldn't give you anything more than milk. You have to also recognize when you're preaching to people, what is their spiritual level. For example, if you're speaking to mature Christians who are godly men, you speak in one way.

And you speak to people who are just babes in Christ, you have to speak in another way. And Paul recognized that. He said, these Corinthians are still babes. They've been believers for many years, but they haven't grown.

So I must speak to them at their level. He says, I could not give you meat, solid food, verse 2 of chapter 3. I give you milk. But with other people who are more mature, chapter 2 verse 6, he says, we speak wisdom among them.

We can speak about deeper things when we go to them. We can speak about dividing soul and spirit with them. But with these people, we've got to speak about simple things like how to overcome dirty thoughts and how to overcome anger and very elementary things.

We've got to give them milk because that's all they can tolerate. Yet, he says, even when we speak to these mature people, we don't try to speak in a worldly clever way. Chapter 2 verse 6. Not a wisdom of this age, but we speak God's wisdom.

Verse 7. So we must keep that in mind. Now this wisdom of God, it says in verse 9, cannot be seen by the human eye or heard by the human ear or understood by the human heart. But verse 10, it has to be revealed by the Holy Spirit.

See, that's where it makes no difference whether we are clever or not clever, whether we are brilliant minds or not so clever minds. It's revelation by the Holy Spirit. And that's why through the years you find that God has used some very, very simple people and given them an outstanding ministry, brought many, many people to the Lord through people who are not scholars.

And even if you look around India today, what do the great Bible scholars do? They don't go into the villages and bring people to Christ. They go for these big conferences on evangelism and present papers and become directors of big organizations.

Who are the people who are doing the real work in India? The simple people who go into the villages and bring people to Christ, who are filled with the Holy Spirit and go out there and bring people to Christ and establish them in the Lord.

That's the work. That's the real work. So I say let the useless people go to all these conferences and let them sit on the committees and be the directors. You get down and build a church and bring people to the Lord.

That's what I want to do all my life. I don't want to waste my time sitting on committees and presenting papers. I want to bring people to the Lord and establish them in a church. That's our calling. That's what Paul did.

Evangelism, Discipleship, and Cooperation

And so we move on. In chapter 3, he speaks about evangelism and building the church. He says in verse 4, see some of you say I'm of Paul and I'm of Apollos. He says what's the difference? We are both servants.

I planted, chapter 3 verse 6. That means I did evangelism. I went there, dug the ground, planted a seed. That's evangelism. Apollos came after me. He didn't plant any seed. He didn't dig any ground. The seed which I had planted, he watered it.

Now some people get upset if someone else comes along and waters what he has planted. He said why don't you go and plant something yourself? Why you come into my field? I said is this your field or is it the Lord's field?

I thought it was the Lord's field. That's why I came to water it. If it's your field then keep it. See this is the tragedy of a lot of evangelism today. This is my convert and that's why there's so much of duplication of work today.

A lot of people doing the same thing instead of one doing what God has called him to and another doing what God has called him to do. If Paul plants, isn't it good that Apollos comes and doesn't plant but he waters and he nurtures that plant and lets it grow up into a solid tree.

That's the cooperation they had in the first century. What we have today is not cooperation but competition unfortunately. So don't duplicate another person's work. When you have evangelism and making people disciples and building the church, the way I pictured it in my mind is, supposing a hundred people are carrying a log of wood and ninety nine people are holding one end of it and one person is holding the other end of it.

If you are a sensible person, which end will you go and help? The end where there's only one person. I see in many situations ninety nine people doing evangelism and one person making disciples and building the church.

I say I want to go and help with that end. Not because I'm against the people at the other end. They are also carrying the log but there are too many people there. We got to carry the other end of the log too.

The Mark 16 commission and the Matthew 28 commission. So Paul and Apollos worked together. They were not in competition because their converts were for the Lord. The church was for the Lord. I planted, verse 6, Apollos watered, but God was the one who caused the growth.

So he says all the glory should go to God. And what am I and what is Apollos? Both of us, verse 7, are nobodies. We are nothing. See that's why they could work together. That's the secret. Paul said I'm a nobody.

Apollos said I'm a nobody. And two nobodies can work together wonderfully. But when one fellow thinks I'm a somebody and the other fellow says well if you're a somebody I'm a bigger somebody than you.

Very difficult for them to work together. It's impossible. But if you're a nobody and somebody else is a nobody we can work together wonderfully. You know if you ever build a church in any place let me give you a recommendation.

Build a church of nobodies. Make everybody a nobody and you be a nobody yourself. And you'll have a wonderful church without competition, perfect cooperation. If you can succeed in building a church where every person including yourself is just a zero that will be a wonderful church.

So many zeros. You say they have no value but you put Jesus in front of it a one and suddenly this has got so much value. It's not just zeros. It's one with so many zeros after that. That's how it is.

Don't be a somebody. The reason churches fail, the reason of fighting among believers and leaders is because people want to be somebody. So he goes on to talk about laying a foundation and building. Both are necessary.

He first uses the picture of planting and watering and then he speaks about laying a foundation verse 10 and building on that in verse 12 onwards. The foundation is Christ leading people to salvation, faith in Christ.

That's evangelism. Then he says you got to build on it. Now make sure how you build. What type of church are you building? Is it just a matter of size or quality? Always the big question you're going to face in Christendom is quantity versus quality.

Remember this. He says you're either going to build verse 12 with gold, silver and precious stones or wood, hay and straw. Supposing you are given a hundred thousand rupees to buy either wood, hay and straw or gold, silver and precious stones.

What are you going to buy? If you want to build a huge structure, you will buy wood, hay and straw with that money. If you're concerned about building a structure that will last forever, you'll buy gold, silver and precious stones with that money.

So we have all got a limited amount of time. We don't have thousands and millions of years to live. We may live 60, 70, 80 years and maybe 50 years of usefulness for the Lord in that time. What are you going to do in those 50 years?

Are you going to build something which is big, without quality, which is going to be burnt up in the final day? Or would you rather build something small, which is solid quality of disciples, which even when it goes through the fire, it comes out?

That's the test here. And that's the question. He says, some people build with wood, hay and straw. And with wood, hay and straw, you can build a huge structure. And some others build with gold, silver and precious stones.

They don't build something so big, but it's solid quality of believers, disciples. It's a solid church. One day, the Lord is going to put everything in the fire. And this man's huge structure will be burnt.

And there'll be nothing left of it. But he himself was a born-again person, verse 15. So he saved. And the other man, who spent all his life despised by people, he was despised because his work was not so big.

Oh, how many people in your church? Only so many, is it? I have so many in our church. How many churches have you built? Only so many, is it? You know how many churches we've built. Ok. Let's wait till the judgment seat and see how many of these go through the fire.

That's the test. And when the fire comes and test this and this, you may find that the small work of quality disciples, a few churches go through the fire and come out pure. And that huge structure with thousands of churches, burnt.

What are you going to spend your life doing? Think of eternity. Think of what Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations. Are you producing something that will last forever and ever and ever? That's the question must always be in our mind.

Is this the way God wants to build? Is this got Christian principles in it? Am I making disciples who love Jesus more than anything else? Or am I just gathering converts who just say, Lord Jesus, I believe in you.

But they haven't become disciples. So just think of the end of your life, it says in verse 14, all your work is burnt up. How sad you'll feel. Everything that you lived for and did, burnt up. You're saved, you go to heaven, but you live in heaven all eternity with regret that you wasted your one earthly life.

I don't want to have that regret. I want to build with gold, silver, precious stones, quality work today. Okay, let's go to chapter 4. It speaks here about the servants of Christ. In verse 2 it says, the most important thing required of stewards that one be found faithful.

It says in the Living Bible, the most important thing about a servant is that he does just what his master tells him to. It's a very important principle in Christian work that you don't do so many things, you do what your master has told you to do.

You've got to wait upon God and say, Lord, what is your ministry for me? And I'm going to do that. The most important thing about a servant, if I have a servant in my house, I don't want him to run around doing so many things during the day.

I want him to do what I tell him to do. Otherwise, when I want him, he's busy doing something else. This is how a lot of full-time Christian workers are. When the Lord wants them to do something, they've already made their program to do something else.

They have no time to wait on God to find out what is God's will for them. So learn to wait on the Lord. The most important thing about a servant is to hear what his master is saying and to do that. And in chapter four, it speaks about the condition of true apostles, true servants of Christ, who walk the way of the cross, will never be honored.

The apostles are the greatest in God's church. They are the elders of elders in churches. They are the ones who plant churches, establish elders, and are a guide to the elders of churches. How are they considered by the world?

In verse nine, God has exhibited us apostles last of all. In the world's eyes, the apostles are last. They are not honored. We have become a spectacle to the world. Now Paul is comparing himself as an apostle and the other apostles with the Corinthian Christians who were carnal.

He says, you people are filled. Verse eight, you become rich. Verse ten, we are fools, but you are considered very wise. We are considered weak. You are considered strong. You are all distinguished in the world.

We have no honor in this world. Do you know that a true servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, never has any honor in this world? He is not distinguished. It is the carnal Christians who are distinguished in the world.

If you seek to be distinguished in the world, you will end up as a carnal Christian. He says in verse eleven, we are hungry and thirsty, poorly clothed. A true apostle of Christ never becomes rich through preaching the gospel.

Wherever you see a man who has become rich through preaching the gospel, you can be sure he is not an apostle of Christ. A man who has bought houses and lands for himself and his family through preaching the gospel, he is not an apostle.

A man who can buy expensive cars through the money he gets by preaching the gospel, he is not an apostle. No, he is just a carnal Corinthian Christian. Paul could have made a lot of money. He didn't. A true servant of God does not make money through preaching the gospel.

He receives gifts to survive, like Jesus and the apostles did, but does not to become a millionaire. And you see exactly the opposite happening in Christendom in India today. That is why my respect for all these so-called preachers who talk about speaking in tongues and baptism in the Holy Spirit and all, my respect for them is zero.

Zero. I have more respect for some of these Roman Catholic priests who go to North India and live very simply far more than some of these preachers who say they speak in tongues and make money and become wealthy through preaching the gospel and visiting the Gulf and build houses and lands over here.

Look at the apostle Paul. Which one are you going to follow? Are you going to follow a true apostle or are you going to follow all these counterfeits? To this present hour, verse 11, we are hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless.

Apostles, roughly treated, homeless. He says we toil, working with our own hands. He says we support ourselves. We are reviled. People tell all types of false stories about us, but we bless them. We are persecuted wherever we go, verse 12, but we endure.

People tell false stories about us, verse 13, we are slandered. And when we are slandered, we try to conciliate, to bring peace. And we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things. You know in big cities you have a sewage pipe.

The sewage pipe is where when you flush the toilet, all that stuff goes into the sewage pipe. Paul says we apostles are treated like that. Who cares for what flows in the sewage pipe? Do you know that the greatest apostle that lived said this is how apostles are treated.