The Inevitability of Faithfulness

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Sermon by Josh Rice from 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.

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Please follow along with me as I read from God's Holy Word, 1st
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Corinthians, sorry, we had a visitor. Paul, called an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Susthenes, our brother, to the church of God, which at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all who in every place call on the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace to you, and peace from God our
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Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all word and all knowledge, even as the witness about Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gifts, eagerly awaiting the revelation of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, beyond reproach in the day of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. Let us pray. Dear gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you,
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Lord. We know that it is all of you, Lord, that you are the one that gives us the gifts, that opens our eyes, gives us the ability to see, the ability to hear,
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Lord. You've taken us from death and from bondage into your marvelous life, and you give great gifts to your people,
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Lord. We pray for this church, for this body, that you would continue to bless us, Lord, that we would be able to put into practice the things that you teach us in your word.
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But we ask that you would continue to bless this body, Lord, that in all things that you would use us for the glory of the name of Jesus Christ.
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And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. It's always fun to start a new series, and this is one that has been in the works for about three years for me.
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I think this book is maligned, and more than that, I think the church at Corinth is very maligned.
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And that's why I think that to preach this introduction is really important, because what we hear from Paul in the introduction is a letter to a people that are very important, people that he loves, people that he knows that their end is going to be in faith, that they're going to be an effective witness to the dark place where they are.
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And I think you'll hear things today in the church where we engage in just full -fledged presentism, where we think that anyone who came before us was complete morons, that they didn't know anything.
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We know everything. And we look at Corinth, and you'll hear things like, the church gone wild. And the reality is they're better than us.
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They really are. Imagine, if you will, a church that had no spiritual fathers. They are in the first century.
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The canon, the text that they have is limited. And they are trying to figure this faith out, that they have been taken by a whirlwind as the gospel goes into Corinth, this huge city, a city that was bigger than Athens, a trade hub, all kinds of commerce going on, and the gospel comes in, and it comes into the heart of the synagogue, and it starts causing trouble.
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And there is tremendous conflict that goes on, and this church starts, and it begins to bloom, and it grows, and it grows, and it grows.
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And there's a bunch of immature Christians, baby Christians, who find their way into this church, and they're trying to serve rightly, and things get out of order.
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And this church would be one that if you would go in on a normal Sunday, you would hear and you would see miraculous manifestations of the
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Holy Spirit in this church. The Spirit poured out in power on the church at Corinth.
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Do we see that in the Reformed church today? I ask you, have we learned very much?
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That's really the question as I go through this, and I try to look at Corinth, and I respect them for what they were, and I respect that we have a letter.
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There were four letters written to them. Two of them find their way into Scripture. It's number two and number four.
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So 1 Corinthians is the second letter we know of that was written to the church at Corinth. There were some misunderstandings after the first letter, and so we get this one, and this is the lengthiest of Paul's epistles.
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It is still a pastoral epistle. He is trying to put the church in order at Corinth, and he gives us in the midst of that just a doctrinal extravaganza that deals with marriage, that deals with church discipline, that deals with communion, that deals with baptism, that deals with the heart of the gospel, the power of the resurrection, the wisdom and folly in the cross, the ways of legalism, so on and so forth.
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Just so much in this book that we're going to get to look at. But to start with, we do have to set a historical context, and this sets the groundwork for where we're going.
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As I mentioned, Corinth was a huge city. It was one of the major cities in the
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Roman Empire and in Greece, and it was a new city because in the year 146
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B .C. the city was destroyed. It was leveled to the ground, and it lay in ruins for 100 years until the
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Romans saw the benefit of building a soldiery outpost, and about 100 years after, they began to build it.
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Julius Caesar made it an official Roman colony in 44 B .C. It was rebuilt on the ruins, and it became a huge trade hub with a massive amount of wealthy people by the time the church was planted in about A .D.
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50. So in this town, the goddess Aphrodite was worshipped with temple prostitution, and she was claimed to be the mother of the imperial family.
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As it is when there are religious overtones in a society, the governing class is quick to jump on to the religious thing to grab it for their own, and so they claim that the imperial family was descended directly from Aphrodite, and so not only was this worship accepted, it was also how you got to be into the halls of power.
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You joined the imperial cult to be anything in Corinth, and so the church obviously could not engage in that and stood in contrast to this type of pagan worship.
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There would have been social pressure out the wazoo with commerce, with entertainment, to bow to this worship of Aphrodite, or to at least be quiet about it.
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So Paul planted this church, and the details around him planting the church in 50 are recorded in Acts chapter 18.
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Paul stayed in Corinth for 18 months, and in the midst of his stay, amazing things were happening.
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Paul was preaching in the synagogue, as was his custom. He would go straight into the Jewish synagogue, and he preached in there, and what they did was they resisted him, and they blasphemed him at Corinth, and they were really mad because something very interesting happened.
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As he went into the synagogue, the leader of the synagogue, Crispus, was saved, and his whole household believed and were baptized,
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Acts 18 to 8. So the leader of the synagogue gets taken out, taken out of the domain of darkness, of Judaizing, and into the domain of light with Christianity, and the
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Jewish synagogue took that sitting down, right? No, they did not. They got very angry, very, very angry.
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They blasphemed Paul, they resisted him, they were making moves against him, to where Paul wrote, Your blood be on your own hands.
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I am clean. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And we struggle in our modern age to understand
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Romans 11. We're not going there right now, but one of the things that you have to understand is that the influx of the
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Gentiles was an end and a punishment to the Judaizing. It was the end of that religion, the lights were out on it, and in AD 70, officially, the lights were turned out on it.
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So Paul went to the synagogue, to his countrymen, to preach the gospel. They resisted him, they blasphemed him.
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He said, Your blood is on your own hands. He left, Crispus is saved, and in the midst of this,
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Paul is discouraged because his own people have denied him. His own people are trying to get him in trouble with the
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Roman magistrate. And the word of the Lord came to Paul in Acts 18, verses 9 and 10, and I think this is critical to understand, to understand this letter.
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The Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid, but go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no man will lay a hand on you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.
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That is the dirty, dark city of Corinth. That really, I've heard it compared to Las Vegas, something along those lines.
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There would have been just tremendous debauchery in the city, but the Lord had many people in this city.
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And where there is evil, there is also the work of the Lord going on. And so the apostle himself was discouraged by the resistance, but he was strengthened because the
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Lord will have a church in Corinth, and he already had a man selected to do this job. And that man was
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Paul, to start that church by preaching the gospel, and then to step out and let the leaders take it.
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So what we have to understand today, and this is central to us, Paul was discouraged in the planting of this church, and planting and establishing a church amidst opposition can be discouraging.
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I know that well. But here's the thing. If the Lord is on your side, it's the most exhilarating thing in the world.
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And so it's been. And I can see it in Paul as he addresses them like children.
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And he will say that in chapter 4, as they are a people that don't have many fathers, and they are like children to him.
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He writes them not to strike them down, but to admonish them, to discipline them like a child, like a father disciplines.
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So this letter is about a church planter protecting his spiritual children. We need a lot more of that in our day.
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We need elders who take care of their congregants, who protect their congregants.
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How will we ever accomplish anything if elders are the first one with the knife stabbing you in the back when you try to do anything?
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That has typified our culture for too long. And so Paul is the opposite of that.
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And what we have to understand, and I want you to put it in this context, if you've read this book before, you know what's coming, right?
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There's all kinds of admonishing going on. And I want you to imagine sitting in church where you sing some songs and you pray, and then the elder stands behind or up on the lectern, and he looks at the people and he says,
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We've had a letter from Paul. I'm going to read it to you today.
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And he reads this. That's the context. That's where we're at.
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There would have for sure been some puckering going on in the seats. Especially when we get to chapters, as they know, everyone knows who he's talking about.
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When he talks about a man sleeping with his mother -in -law, everyone knew. When he sees people showboating with the spiritual gifts, they all know who's doing that.
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And so Paul pulls no punches. But where he starts is something that you guys would probably know is a little bit more difficult to me, and that is
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I want you to feel the warm blanket of encouragement this morning. And I'm going to be tested and see if I can do that and reveal
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God's Word in that way because this is the thing. I have titled this sermon The Inevitability of Faithfulness because as bad as it looked in Corinth, as bad as it looked inside of that church,
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Paul had absolute certainty that his people, that God's people in this church were going to be faithful.
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And the reason for that is our faithfulness does not depend on our effort. It is a destination that God has already laid out for you, and He is propelling your works to that end, both good and bad.
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Even the stupid, sinful things you do are progressing God's purpose, and He will discipline you as a father disciplines a child.
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He will not withhold the rod of discipline, and He will push you towards that way that you are going.
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So the question for us is are you going to fight Him, or are you going to walk by faith? You're going there anyway.
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Don't you want to go further? And then it gets weird, right? Can you really go further? He's already ordained where you're going.
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So here's what we do. We relax and we work hard, and that is a paradox. But it's one that is the
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Christian life. So let's look at the first three verses. The calling of God. I want you to see this word over and over in the first three verses.
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He talks about two things. On this church there is a calling, which is God's decree, but there is also a making sanctified.
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So God has called and He has made. He has decreed it, purposed it, and it has happened.
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He said it, and He did it. See, the reason that our faithfulness is an inevitability is because God is faithful, and He has promised for us to be faithful, and it cannot be otherwise.
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So Paul called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all who are in every place, call on the name of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our
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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a couple of things I want to draw your attention to. One is, only here and in the book of Romans, which is why we read that in the call to worship this morning, only here and in the book of Romans does
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Paul claim to be the chosen apostle. And that is what this means in the Greek.
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He is the chosen messenger. His authority will be challenged in this church.
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If you read 2 Corinthians, you see the real particular way that he is challenged by what's called the super apostles.
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His authority is going to be challenged, but he lets them know that he is chosen by the will of God, and they have seen the power of the
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Holy Spirit working through him. And this is the thing, to be against Paul is to be against God.
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Now, I will make a brief aside. There are many people in our day today, even inside the church, who are against Paul.
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They will say things like, Paul wrote that, not Jesus. Especially when it comes to the gods of our age, the biggest one being the god of egalitarianism.
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The god of, we're all the same, smash down every distinctive, rip down every hierarchy.
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The former president of the Southern Baptist Convention said that one. We need to tear down every hierarchy. And what happens is, when we do that,
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Paul says things that just cannot go along with that. Like he's going to say in 1 Corinthians, women should be silent.
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He says in Timothy that he does not allow a woman to hold authority over a man. And that is disgusting to our culture.
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And so people will try to separate Paul out, just like they did in the first century at the church of Corinth.
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So to be against Paul is to be against God, because he is God's chosen apostle. Also, we see in this letter,
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I call it kind of a, it's an encouraging thing, but it's almost like a humble brag. He just slides us in there.
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He says, as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, and he goes on.
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Now, this Sosthenes, this is a crazy thing. Because when Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, becomes a
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Christian, that makes the Jews in the synagogue hopping mad, and they have a new leader come up, and this new leader is a man by the name of Sosthenes.
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This Sosthenes. So what happened is, Sosthenes, and he grabs up the whole synagogue, and they bring
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Paul in front of the Roman magistrate, and they say, we want him stopped. And the
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Roman magistrate basically says, what are these Jewish laws to me? I don't care about that. I don't care about any of your stuff.
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And so a mob takes Sosthenes and beats him. And the
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Roman magistrate looks and he says, I don't care about that. In fact, he was probably happy, because they were not great lovers of the
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Jews themselves at that time. And so he was probably happy that the beating happened. But this Sosthenes, then
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I think what we can do by inference, is that Sosthenes, as he is beaten in the street by this mob, that he repents of his sins, and he becomes part of the church.
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And so Paul introduces him in this letter, because it would be a huge encouragement to the church at Corinth, that this man who was my persecutor is now my brother.
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Do we have a vision for that today, church? Because that really is what we're about, right? Is that the people who are our enemies today, and rightfully our enemies.
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Our enemies are authorities and principalities, but the means of those authorities and principalities is wicked men.
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And wicked men are our enemies. And the way we fight our enemies is that we preach the gospel to them and try to win them over to light, and we pray to God to destroy their plans.
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That's how it works. So Sosthenes continually, he is an example of something that God has continually done through history, and that we in the
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American church have lost vision of. And that is this, God continually saves sons of disobedience, and he makes them sons of light.
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That is the miracle of the gospel. See, this was also a shot against God's enemies in Corinth.
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His biggest enemies are not the Roman magistrates. They are the synagogue, and they are the biggest enemies of most of the
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New Testament, because they made a new religion, right? They did not believe in Christ the
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Messiah. They made a new religion. So we should take note of the power of God being displayed in Corinth through this church.
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This is God's plan for saving people in Corinth. One more thing I want to draw your attention to, and it's going to be good to remember this in the future, right?
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The church at Corinth is made holy and called as Holy Ones. We will see these brothers and sisters one day, and it's going to be a glorious thing.
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And we are going to get to tell them with joy about how the letters that might have been so hard to them have been so encouraging to the church for the thousands of years that have happened after this time.
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It's an amazing thing. Now, I want you to see something else in these verses. It is that Corinth is the church of God.
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Corinth is the church of God, just as all are who call on the name of the
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Lord. Do you see that? The church of God, all who call on the name of the
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Lord. So there is an idea here, and Paul is playing with the prophecy of Joel 2. And that was the revelation of Pentecost, but then the afterwards, and we rarely read the afterwards.
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So let me take us through this. There are momentous events that have caused this church at Corinth to take root. Joel 2, 28 and 29.
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You've heard this one before. And it will be afterwards that I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.
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Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. Even on the male slaves and female slaves,
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I will in those days pour out my Spirit. And Corinth sees this manifest. The Spirit of God has been poured out on this church, and we saw it at Pentecost, which really established the church proper and the church
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Catholic, where God has His men everywhere, and the churches are sprouting out across the
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Roman Empire. But then Joel continued, and we don't see this as often. It says, And I will put wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
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Now, we've just been there in Mark 13. That should recall familiar language, right? The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the
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Lord comes. And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.
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For on Mount Zion and Jerusalem, there will be those who escape, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the
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Lord calls. So here's the idea. The world is changing. The lights are going out.
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The moon will be blood red, and the old that was in place is going to go out, and then out of that there will come a remnant.
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There will come a people, and that people is going to be a class that is calling on the name of the Lord. They will be survivors.
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And what we know about survivors is survivors are tough. And so the tough survivors at Corinth are the ones who are proclaiming the gospel.
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And Paul in this is stressing the unity of the church already, which is going to be a huge theme of this letter.
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This church is in factions. And we see right away that Paul, in appealing to the catholicity of the church, that all who call on the name of the
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Lord are part of the church. But here in this local expression, they are the church of God at Corinth.
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A very important thing for us to remember, and especially in our tribe, where what we do is we naturally hole off into islands, and that is not the mission of the church.
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We are outposts who work together towards common purpose as the church of God.
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And today the church at Covenant Baptist Church is also the church of God, established by God in the midst of opposition, established by God with elders to do a purpose, and that purpose is going to be to be joined with other churches who call on the name of the
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Lord to win souls, and to make disciples. And it will be done.
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It will be done. Unity is grounded on holiness. A church that is holy is a church that's united.
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A church that is holy is one that has the conviction of the Holy Spirit, because even our holiness, and especially our holiness, is dependent completely on the faithfulness of God.
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You will not repent without the Holy Spirit convicting you and causing you to repent.
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Repentance is a gift that's elusive in our day. As we see church leader after church leader double down, pivot, rebrand, that is the name of the day when repentance is like cold water on a hot day.
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Don't you love it? Don't you love it when repentance happens? It hurts in the moment, but it's so sweet to know that God has taken that sin and he has put it as far from you as the east is from the west.
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And that is what divisions on the church end at, is repentance. If we have grace with each other, if we repent, if we admonish, if we are honest, then we can gather around a common flag.
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Grace and peace be to this church, this church of God at Corinth. The grace of God has appeared and changed everything.
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Therefore, peace, not war, should reign among God's people.
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And it is kind of an extension of Titus last week, is that one of the things that needs to be put into order is that the church of God needs to stop fighting among ourselves.
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And the only way to do that is to stop it. It takes two to fight. Just refuse.
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It's really that simple. Just refuse to fight. This church, I want to look at a second thing.
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So we see, firstly, that they are called by God to be made holy. They are set apart, sanctified by God's decree and by his action.
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But what are they called into? They are called into faithfulness. We see it in verses 4 through 8.
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I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus.
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See, the grace of God that was given is the power behind everything. That in everything you were enriched in him, in all word and all knowledge, even as the witness about Christ was confirmed in you, so that you were not lacking in any gift, eagerly awaiting the revelation of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, beyond reproach, in the day of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And look, this is an astounding thing that Paul says. Because the reason he's writing this letter is because he's had troubling reports.
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There's reports of people getting drunk at communion. There's reports of a man having incest.
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There's reports of people despising marriage and elevating some kind of asceticist monk thing.
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So he has to write that, Hey Corinth, marriage is good. He has to write that.
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But in the midst of all that, look at the economy of God, and look at how God sees sin among his people, and it's this.
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God will confirm you to the end beyond reproach. Beyond reproach.
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It's why David can write that you have rewarded me according to my righteous deeds.
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It's how we can sit and we can see the stain of our sin over time, and we can look and we can go with confidence to the throne of the
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Lord, knowing that he is faithful to forgive our sins, and that we are whiter than snow.
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We want to be treated by God based on our righteous acts. Do you understand that?
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It's a truth not often taught today. But our righteous acts, the source of them is critical.
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Our righteous acts come from faith that God has given us, and so we act.
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And just like David of old, we will be judged by our righteous acts that have been ordained for us in Christ, and all of the sinful acts that we do have been paid for by Christ, and are invisible to God.
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He has turned his back on our sin, just as he turned his back on his son at the cross, because he who knew no sin became sin.
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And when God the Father turned his back on Christ as he was on the cross, same way today, he has seen every sinful act that you have committed, and he turns his back on it.
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It's gone. So we will one day, unbelievably, be in glory beyond reproach, confirmed by the grace of Jesus Christ.
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See, the apostle here, he prays for his people, and he's thankful for what God has done and is doing.
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Paul is thankful that God has opened the storehouses of grace on Corinth.
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It's a rich gift. And understand this, it is the power of any church.
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The grace of Christ Jesus, the grace of God, is the gift that transforms any church into what they have been made and called to be.
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Where we err today is where we do not trust in the grace of Jesus Christ. You are a son or a daughter of light, made unto good works, which you will surely do and surely accomplish, because God is powerful, and he has called you to it, so believe it.
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As the great lion prophet Mufasa said, remember who you are.
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Maybe the truest words ever spoken in a Disney movie. It is the totality of the
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Christian life, really. How do you walk by faith? You remember who you are. Who are you? You are a son called by God, but not only called, not only called, made righteous, made righteous, justified by the one who is the just and the justifier.
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Incredible. See, Paul expresses thanksgiving because Paul will tell them later to imitate me as I imitate
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Christ, and the way that they imitate Christ is by being thankful. Thanksgiving is critical to good works because it acknowledges the source of the works.
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We get in our own way when we try to do good works because our hearts, glory hogs that they are, will always try to take credit for the good works that we do.
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But when we understand the giver of the good work, then we are thankful, and Paul is thankful, even though human eyes would see reasons at Corinth to be bitter, upset, exasperated, and gloomy.
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Can you imagine planning the church and then hearing a report that the church is not only accepting, but priding themselves on having a man committing incest as a member of the church?
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That's what's going on at Corinth. But Paul is thankful for them. He's not exasperated, but he is blunt and to the point.
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See, the witness about Christ was confirmed in Corinth by them lacking no gifts. The problem in Corinth is not that they have gifts.
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The problem... We'll get there. The problem in Corinth is that they have the gifts out of order.
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They're practicing them out of order, and they've forgotten the hierarchy where the first gift is love that's powered by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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As the crescendo of this book will come in chapter 15, we will see that everything, the power of the
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Christian life, is about the foolishness of God on the cross that's made the wisdom of God by the resurrection of Christ in chapter 15.
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It's kind of a bookmark. Chapter 1, the foolishness of God. Chapter 15, the power of God.
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And we're going to see it. These gifts become a main theme. Trace them as you're reading, where Paul immediately, in the introduction, starts talking about the gifts.
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And he says, what do they have? They have all of them. They have been given all the gifts. They have all the tools for righteousness.
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God has given them to the church. Are we any different this morning? Are we any different here?
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Has God given us all the gifts for righteousness? See, Corinth had no fathers. We have hundreds of fathers.
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Thousands of fathers. We have more gifts. More advantage.
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And that is how the kingdom of God grows, is a mustard seed, because today it's not a mustard seed. You realize, at Corinth, the kingdom of God was a mustard seed.
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It was small. It was less than 1 % of the Roman Empire. But in 300 years, it would become the
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Roman Empire. Dominate the Roman Empire. Subjugate and appropriate the
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Roman Empire to its aims. See, these gifts are important in the church. And if we are not possessing the spiritual gifts in the church, then we're just having a social club, and you're listening to a dry lecture.
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Because the power of preaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It's not because I'm smart, and it's definitely not because I'm a rhetorician.
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The gift of preaching is the gift to the church that brings the Word of God and penetrates it into the heart.
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And it's important for me to remember that, but it's important for you to acknowledge it. It's not about me.
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It's about the Holy Spirit. The gifts of administration. The gifts of help. The gifts of wisdom. The gifts of knowledge.
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Dare I say, the gifts of tongues and prophecy. Those are the spiritual gifts that are given by God for His purposes, and we are instructed to use them in proper order.
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It's not about the gifts. It's about the order, and that's what Corinthians get wrong. It's not that they have them that's a problem.
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It's the way they showboat. These gifts result in something. The spiritual gift where the
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Holy Spirit is present and working in the church, you're going to see an eagerness for the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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That's why Joel is used in this passage. Where the Holy Spirit is at work, there's going to be a hunger for the
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Word of God, but also for the work of God. And we accomplish nothing without His powerful arm.
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And, friends, His arm is powerful. The Scripture says that His hand is strong.
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He has a powerful hand. So we await in the knowledge in these gifts, as the
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Corinthians did, that they will be confirmed in the end beyond reproach. The church was growing into this promise by sanctification day by day.
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See, sanctification in you. If you are battling with sin and you feel like you're not set apart, you are probably battling in the flesh that which was begun in the
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Spirit, like the foolish Galatians. But here's the thing. Sanctification is a result of spiritual gifts.
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Do you understand? We've got it all wrong. You don't willpower yourself into holiness. The Holy Spirit makes you holy.
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Sanctification is a result of gifts. And guess what? We're not lacking any of those gifts.
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The prayerful man is the sanctified man. There is no other way. That's why
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Paul prays this prayer for the church of Corinth in the very beginning of this letter. And wouldn't it be encouraging?
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The great apostle, the great evangelist, the great church planter, who says,
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I am thankful for you, that you've been enriched in word and knowledge, that you've been given every gift, that you have been called and set apart, made holy.
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The prayerful man is not only the sanctified man. The prayerful man is the thankful man who can stand and fight with joy.
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And that is the man that we need today. Men, we need you to pray, and we need you to stand up and fight with joy, with a smile on your face, happy for the fight, excited for the battle, the thrill of accomplishing things through the powerful arm of God.
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And now we get to the last verse for today and what I have for you, and that is the title of the sermon, The Inevitability of Faithfulness.
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We've seen Paul grow to it in verse 8, and then he puts an exclamation point on it on verse 9, where it says,
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God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our
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Lord. I want you to take stock of something real quick. It's an important thing as you look back through those nine verses.
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I want you to see how many times the words God, Christ, Jesus, and Lord are used in this greeting.
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Do you think Paul's doing something? What is the solution to the problems at Corinth? The solution is very simple.
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You call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved. See, we think of that verse always in the sense of justification, that we call on the name of the
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Lord and we will be saved, justified, heaven -bound. But also, that is the way sanctification works itself out, because we are saved in sanctification.
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There's three ways that we're saved, and they're all intertwined and you never get one without the other two. We are justified before God.
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We are sanctified and we will be glorified. There is no way to take any one of those pieces.
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If you take any one of those out, you are not saved at all. Is it right to say that we should call on the name of the
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Lord to be saved, meaning sanctified? Yes. Save us from our sin that wearies us.
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God, help take away the blindness. Help me to see what you see, and help me to understand that I am not above your forgiveness at all, that I'm not going to hold my sin in my hand, thinking that I'm so important and my sin is so bad that you'll not forgive me, because he has promised to forgive you.
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You are not that special, my friend, and your sin is not unique.
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There is nothing new under the sun. We have been lying, blaspheming, taking the
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Lord's name in vain, dishonoring our mother and father, stealing, all of that. Hating our brother in our heart, lusting after someone.
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We have been doing that since the very start. And guess what? God turned his back on that. And that means you too.
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The power of the Christian life is in calling on the name of the Lord. And if you call on the name of the
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Lord, you will be saved. See, the answer to the church in Corinth is not self -help.
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It's not eight steps to holiness. What we're going to see is that it is going to be a bracing dose of the cross.
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God, Christ, Jesus, our faithfulness, do not be deceived. The enemy would like to deceive you and make you think that your faithfulness is grounded in self -motivation.
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But if it's grounded in self -motivation, then you're pretty special. Because if you don't sin because of how motivated you are, you might as well be
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God yourself and die for my sins. Because no one can do that. The reality of the situation is that your faithfulness is based on the promises of God.
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It's the calling of God. And if God has called you to be faithful, faithful you will be.
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It is certain. It is more certain than that the sun will come up tomorrow. It's been written before time.
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In God's foreknowledge, he knew you. He predestined to adopt you. There is no condemnation.
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He will make you holy. What he began in you, he will complete. He will perfect you.
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Not sinless perfection on earth, but the perfection of understanding and growing from one degree to another into the likeness of Christ.
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Do you recognize all those words? They are from the pen of Paul in various places. His theology is very consistent.
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Look at what they were called into also. This is where I will leave us. What are they called into?
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Are they called into salvation with their king? Yes, but that's not what he says here, is it? You were called into Koinonia with his son
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Jesus Christ our Lord. Koinonia. You probably know that word. It is a word that would be partnership, participation, benefaction.
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That's what Koinonia means. It's not just being around each other. It's not just being subjects in this country.
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What Koinonia is, is that we are called into participation and partnership with the
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Son of God through the Holy Ghost to the pleasure of the
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Father. He will end on that in chapter 15. Isn't it amazing?
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We've been called and invited into the king's home. Would you be excited? Would you be excited if a letter arrived in the mail inviting you to the
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White House to shake the dawn's hand? I think you would.
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I think you'd be pretty excited. It would be very beautiful. Here's the thing.
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That would be fun if he invited you to dinner, but what if he invited you to be on his cabinet?
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Do you understand what's happened? The king of creation not only invited us into his house, not only adopted us as sons, but also gave us the most important task on earth, equipped us with the power and the authority to do it, and he has put us on our way.
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Church, why are we weak? We shouldn't be weak. We should speak and act with authority, not because we're great, but because Christ is great, and we're his men and women.
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He's called us into that purpose. See, this is the entirety of the strength of the church of God.
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If we believe in the faithfulness of God, we will be faithful. If we believe in the faithfulness of God, then we can rest in the calling and not become crippled navel -gazers.
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How often do you think, like the Puritans, oh, I'm so horrible? It's a problem in our camp, is it not?
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And we do two things, right? Total depravity is real. Humanity is dead, but guess what,
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Christian? You are not totally depraved. You're not. You were, but you're not now.
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You are a righteous son, clothed in righteousness. Quit navel -gazing.
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Understand that it is fake humility arrogance to think that God's not forgiving your sin.
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Oh, I'm just going to struggle with this my whole life. Bull! You are not going to struggle with it your whole life.
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That sin is not more powerful than God. His very
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Holy Spirit is working in your heart right now, convicting, revealing, illuminating, empowering.
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Do you realize what you have? Do you realize what you are? Do you realize? I think too often we don't.
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See, if we believe in the faithfulness of God, our sins are forgiven, and we can be zealous for good works without fear.
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That goes back to last week, right? Why does the church not do anything in America? It's because we're infested with sin.
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It's not that hard to figure out. We're infested with sin. And we all have a big hug fest at a small group to be transparent because we think that getting rid of sin is just telling somebody we sinned.
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And what is the normal response to that? Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm in that too. It's ridiculous.
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It's absolutely absurd. What you should get is a good dose of rebuke when you confess sin.
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Hey, that sin is going to kill you. I want you to lay it on the table right now in clear detail about how ugly it is.
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Tell me it all right now, and let's look at it. Because then we'll start to see things for what they are.
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If we do not have sin in our midst, there is no telling what's going to happen here.
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No telling. Because you will have fearless people that are zealous. If we believe in the faithfulness of God, we can be bold in teaching and demanding sound doctrine.
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This will mean good conversations with our friends in the church without exhausting them. Okay? Nobody wants to invite you over and have a three -hour conversation about the ins and outs of amil versus postmil and what are the nephilim.
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Let's start talking about what we're doing. Okay? Let's quit exhausting.
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We do not need another reformed church that's full of theobros. We don't need it. There's plenty of that.
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If you want some of that, go on the Reformed Pub or some other God -forsaken place on the Internet and talk about it until the cows come home.
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We need to do stuff. And we should do stuff. And with God as our side, who can be against us?
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And let me leave you with this as we propel the book forward in 1 Corinthians. If we believe in the faithfulness of God, then we will be unified here.
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And we will not despise the roles and the jobs of other members. There's no room for envy.
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Love does not envy. There's no room for the hand saying to the eye, I don't like you,
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I don't like what's going on. We all have our role to play, and we need everyone to play their role.
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This church is crippled and grotesque when the pinky finger decides it's not going to do the thing.
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Then you don't have a pinky finger, and life gets more difficult. I would imagine.
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I like my pinky finger. We will be unified here if we pray and we believe in the faithfulness of God.
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And unity comes where this becomes a powerful force. That's what I want, and that's what we should pray for.
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So disciple, be zealous for good works, and repent of your sin, and He will forgive it.
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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for this text. Thank you for this book, the beginning of it that shows the course.
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Lord, where you're going to go, you're going to call out the divisions and the factions. You're going to call out the showboating that forgets the power of the cross and exalts in the sign, the outward gifts.
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But Lord, at the same time, I pray that we would not despise the gifts, both inward and outward. But Lord, that instead we would recognize that you give gifts to your people, that we are given every good gift for the purpose of this church, that we don't all have the same gift, but that we are a body knitted together.
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Lord, help us to not despise and envy the gifts of others, but to be grateful and thankful for the gifts that you've given us.
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Lord, help us to use those gifts. Help us to throw aside the sin that ensnares us, that wears us down, that wearies us.
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Lord, and instead to throw that off, to repent and to be zealous for good works and the gifting that you've given us.
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Lord, we thank you for the great comfort it is to know that you have our ticket punched. You are waiting for us in glory.
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You have set the table, you have prepared the number, and there is nothing that can stop it.
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No one can take us out of your hand. Lord, what a promise it is. We can scarce believe it, but we know that even we believe that through the power of the
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Holy Spirit. So Lord, help us to depend on you. Help us to be men and women of prayer.
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Help us to be thankful. Help us to be unified. Help us to not grow weary and to be steadfast.