Thanking God For Sinful Saints? - [1 Corinthians 1:3-9]

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

0 views

0 comments

00:00
Please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 1, and I have an introductory question to ask you as you're turning your
00:07
Bibles there. By the way, if you're a visitor, you should find a black Bible in front of you, maybe in the seat pocket, directly in front of you.
00:13
You'll need one of those today. My question is this. When was the last time you said to God, God, thank you for Bethlehem Bible Church?
00:23
God, thank you for Bethlehem Bible Church. Thanks for the saints at Bethlehem Bible Church. Let me approach it a different way.
00:31
Has anybody here at Bethlehem Bible Church ever let you down? Has anybody ever sinned against you, done something that you think was not right or not good?
00:42
Has anybody here ever disappointed you? The fact is Christians regularly get burned.
00:51
Christians are sinned against by other Christians. Leadership gets burned by other
00:57
Christians. The fact is Christians don't always act like Christians.
01:05
We may be glorified in heaven, but now although God thinks of us as sinless because of Christ's work, in our practical life we still sin.
01:17
So how can you be thankful for a group of people when they're still sinful? When was the last time you said,
01:24
Lord, thank you for the people at Bethlehem Bible Church? Let's make it more specific. How about those five or six people that you least like here at the church, that give you the least, and you say,
01:35
I don't even have the list until now. Now I've got the list. But those that you least line up with, maybe you've had a few scrapes and skirmishes as we live our lives, and you say, those particular people, when was the last time you said,
01:51
Lord, thank you for those people? Thank you for your goodness. Did you know that the
01:59
Apostle Paul thanked God every time he thought about it for the church at Corinth?
02:10
That is shocking to me. It should be shocking to you. How could Paul thank God for Corinth? And my premise today is going to be very simple.
02:19
We should be able to learn from Paul's example as he prays for a more sinful people, so that when we think of the people around us who are less than perfect, who are less than glorified, that instead of falling into the grumbling, complaining, pessimistic, you don't know what these people do, we don't fall into that.
02:42
We fall instead into the right perspective and thinking about things from God's perspective, not from our own likes and dislikes.
02:51
It's a very challenging message. Some people, especially in leadership, get so burned by other
02:58
Christians, they don't even want to corporately gather anymore. They just as soon have house church, because Christians burn other
03:07
Christians. And especially if you're a leader, you know what? Sheep bite. Problem is, if a sheep bit me,
03:13
I'd kick the sheep. But if they're the sheep of God, I can't kick you, because you're
03:20
God's sheep. It might be fine to kick a regular sheep. I remember once we went to my sister's farm, and I'm just buttering you up before I put the knife in.
03:33
That's why I get you to laugh, so you're like, oh, oh, oh. My sister said,
03:43
Luke was really little. She said, now be careful, those chickens, they kind of poke you.
03:50
Luke just runs over. I think you were probably four years old at the time, and maybe you were so little that you just were still waddling over to try to catch the chickens.
03:58
And one of those chickens jumped on top of Luke's head and started poking him with the thing. And I wanted to go get that chicken, chop its head off, and let it see it run around a little bit.
04:11
That's what I wanted. We still are less than perfect.
04:18
And if you're married, you understand what it's like to live with another sinner. If you have children, then you just multiply more sin in a family, and you have to realize how do we reconcile with each other?
04:31
How do we forgive one another? How do we live together as a family? Much more so, too, in the church, there are more people here.
04:39
So how can we be thankful to God for people who are sinful? Now we're not thanking God that they're still sinful, but we're thanking
04:46
God for what He has done in these people. And that's exactly what we're going to learn about today. Thanking God for a group of people who are far less than practically perfect.
05:01
You need to love this church. If you're a member or a regular attender, you need to love this church.
05:09
God hasn't said He's going to bless the Elks Club, the Moose Lodge, the
05:14
Girl Scouts, or any other organization that could serve a very, very good purpose. For that matter, the
05:20
American Cancer Society. I'm glad for many organizations. I'm not slamming them.
05:25
But I am saying at the list, at the top of the list, there is the local church.
05:32
And if you're not careful, your flesh, maybe energized by Satan, is going to want you to look at the church in a negative fashion, in a way that's less honoring than Christ would have you look at the church.
05:45
You're to look at the church as, there's all kinds of metaphors, the bride of Christ, the body, the temple, all kinds of ways you could look at it, but you are never to look at it with disgust, disdain, or disfavor, even though people sin against you.
06:05
Leadership especially struggles with this because we know more about the sin, and we know more about the people.
06:11
And if you're not careful, you can get into a trap of thinking unbiblical thoughts, and I think it will be good for your soul today, leadership or no leadership, to say,
06:20
Lord, let me have the view of Bethlehem Bible Church that Paul the Apostle had of crazy
06:27
Corinth. Wouldn't that be a good thing? So when you say to yourself, somebody has hurt me or burned me,
06:34
I don't want to be so flippant to say, join the club. If you think you've gotten burned, you should see how many times
06:41
I've gotten burned and I'm still here. I don't want to do that, although maybe I do. We all kind of want to one -up people, but I want you to say there's a way to think about saints from God's perspective so that you'll be more thankful.
06:55
So like with the trial, instead of looking low, looking horizontally, you say, I think
07:01
I'm thinking about things the wrong way. I'm thinking about work the wrong way. I'm thinking about child raising the wrong way.
07:08
I'm thinking about neighbors the wrong way. I'm thinking about relationships between husbands and wives the wrong way because I'm thinking about horizontal issues only and I'm not thinking, you know what,
07:19
I should start with God and work my way down. That's exactly what Paul did. So 1 Corinthians 1, verses 4 -9 will help us understand how to be more thankful by the word of God energized by His Spirit so that you'll be more positive when it comes to the local church.
07:43
If Paul could be thankful for carnal Corinth, we ought to be thankful for us because we're much less carnal than Corinth.
07:52
Now before we get to verses 4 -9, let me just finish up. We ended at the end of verse 2 last time.
07:58
If you're new to the church, we're in the book of 1 Corinthians and we're on our way to wrap things up speed -wise.
08:03
We've covered chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 in the last 14 weeks and we're almost ready to kind of dive in.
08:09
I hope to cover about 5 or 6 verses today. As we look at the introduction, I want to say this from the start.
08:16
This is not just an introduction because he's following Hellenistic Greek introductions and you just need to say, dear sirs, or sincerely and kind of write that out.
08:26
It is an introduction, yes, but it's an introduction with a purpose. And the purpose is littered with all kinds of ideas.
08:33
It's layered with thoughts about who God is and how to think about Him. For instance, as I showed you a couple of weeks ago, how many times do you find
08:41
Lord Jesus Christ mentioned in verses 1 -10?
08:47
You'll find it very often and very regularly. Why? Because Paul is trying to tell the church of Corinth, you need to recognize
08:55
Jesus as Lord because you're not living up to His Lordship. So you see in verse 2,
09:01
Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 3, Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 7,
09:07
Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 8, Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 9, Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse 10,
09:13
Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul has reasons for what he does, it's just not filler.
09:20
When you study 1 Corinthians, just don't jump down to verse 10 and go, let's get into that division part because that's more interesting.
09:27
He has a reason why he goes through these things and so part of the greeting that he gives is found in verse 3.
09:33
But there's a reason for the greeting, grace to you and peace from God our
09:38
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what you don't know, salutations in the
09:44
Greek back in those days used to be in third person. Paul makes it more personal, Paul makes it more intimate,
09:50
Paul brings it together a little bit more and he says in second person, grace to you.
09:56
Here's this apostle who spent 18 months at Corinth, he knows the people and he could almost imagine those different saints as he says grace to you and he gives this twofold blessing, both grace and peace.
10:10
Notice though before we go too fast, the source from God our Father and the
10:15
Lord Jesus Christ. One preposition from Apo, one preposition yet we have
10:23
God the Father and God the Son. Links the Father and the Son together as the common source of grace and peace.
10:32
There's God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, the Father isn't the Spirit, the Spirit isn't the
10:37
Son and the Son is not the Father. There is one God and God gives grace and peace from the
10:43
Father and through the Son. This is an interesting way to talk about the deity of Christ and two members of the
10:49
Trinity. This is a very regular thing. Keep your finger on 1 Corinthians and turn with me to 1
10:54
Thessalonians. No, let's go to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians farther to the right in your
11:00
Bible. I don't want you to miss this because we just assume at the church that you believe one
11:06
God manifest in three persons, that when Jesus was getting baptized, the
11:11
Son was getting baptized, the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased and then the
11:18
Spirit descends on him like a dove. Jesus was not using ventriloquism. He was hearing from the
11:23
Father. One God, three persons and you see in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 2, the same grace and peace from the
11:34
Father and Jesus, not from the Father and from Jesus but one single source.
11:41
Grace to you and peace, 1 Thessalonians 1, 2 from God the Father and the
11:47
Lord Jesus Christ. Look with me at verse 12 of the same chapter, 2
11:52
Thessalonians 1 verse 12, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our
12:01
God and not our Lord but one source to the grace of our
12:07
God and the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father is God, God the Son is
12:12
God and God the Spirit is God. One more selection, 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 16 please.
12:21
This is just the way Paul writes and he doesn't just throw it out there. You must believe that there's one
12:27
God manifest in three persons. If you don't, I don't know how you explain this that you say, well
12:33
Jesus is somehow lesser than the Father. Well that can't be because how can grace and peace come from someone less than the
12:40
Father? 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 16, now may our
12:45
Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.
13:00
God the Father is God, God the Son is God. So back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, both grace and peace together in this introduction with a profoundly theological meaning,
13:14
Paul says that's what I want for you. It's just not hello, it's just not greetings but he says I want grace and peace to be given to you by God.
13:25
What's grace? We're just going to look at this from a very simple perspective today. Not many people understand grace like they ought to.
13:33
I look at all the words in our society when we think of grace. When I used to trip at home, my father would say, way to go grace.
13:41
I was graceless. Say grace before your meals. The first name of girls,
13:51
Grace Abendron. There's a more theological meaning here.
13:58
Sometimes we get so close to it we forget. It's like climbing up some Mount Everest and once you get past 25 ,000 feet in the death zone, you don't really remember what you know to be true at a lower level.
14:09
What is grace? I used to think to myself it is unmerited favor. But Sinclair Ferguson is much better in his explanation.
14:18
It is demerited favor. Certainly Paul isn't saying,
14:24
God give them what they deserve. Is he? He's saying, I want
14:29
God to grace you. I want God to give what you don't deserve to him. I mean, what you don't deserve to you.
14:36
And then he says, grace to you in what? These are never switched around.
14:42
It's always grace and then peace. What does it mean peace? Now, sometimes peace can mean this feeling.
14:49
Remember if you're anxious in Philippians 4 and you pray, and you pray to God, he will grant you what?
14:56
The peace that passes all understanding. It's a subjective feeling where you're anxious, you have every right in the world almost to be anxious except you have a father and the father knows everything and so you have a feeling of peace.
15:09
There's also the peace in the Bible that's objective. We as unbelievers were at war with God.
15:15
He was at war with us. We were enemies. We were fighting. God hates all those who do iniquity.
15:22
Psalm 5 -5, we hear this in today's society. God loves the sinner but he hates the sin.
15:30
Friends, you can't somehow say, well, I'm the person and outside of me over here is my buddy named sin.
15:36
No, you are who you are, one whole thought, mind, soul, strength, everything that you are and God says, you're my enemy and he hates his enemies.
15:47
They are at war with him. And so there's hostility between the two and then
15:52
God says, based on my son's work of making peace, lay down your arms, lay down your weapons and the only way there can be peace between these two enemies is through a mediator or through someone who can represent men,
16:08
Jesus Christ the God -man, and who can also feel and absorb the wrath of God that was due people.
16:19
And so you've got different ways to think of peace. It can be a peaceful feeling generated by the
16:25
Holy Spirit, Galatians 5. The fruit of the Spirit is what? Love, joy, peace.
16:31
Or it could be the cessation of animosity between two people.
16:37
There can be peace. Romans chapter 5 says we have peace now with God, very objective.
16:43
Or here, it's more of a greeting. This is right out of Hebrew greeting. If you are greeted by someone in Israel today, if you go with us in 2011,
16:54
I think that's where we're going, how would you greet someone in Israel today? Shalom.
17:00
What does that mean? Peace, good. That's a trick question.
17:06
It means peace, but we sometimes think peace is... How would
17:14
I describe it? When all else fails, look at your notes, right? Sometimes we think peace is the absence of something.
17:24
You say, well, I have peace with my wife, means, well, we have no more fighting. We're not fighting anymore, we're not discussing heatedly.
17:30
It's an absence of something. But here, shalom, in this greeting, the
17:37
Hebrew transport to this is what? A presence of something.
17:43
Have a well -rounded life. Have a full life. Have all the goodness of God that flows out of grace.
17:50
And so, there's a kind of peace that's a feeling peace. There's a kind of peace that means you're not at war with God anymore.
17:55
And there's a peace that it's like saying, greetings, have peace, have well -roundedness, shalom.
18:02
That's what Paul is saying. That's what he wants for these saints there. Now, he moves into this prayer of thanksgiving, verses four through nine.
18:11
And that's where I really want to focus in on today. That's what I want to focus in on today. Is this prayer of thanksgiving to God that you can learn from Paul so that you can be thankful for Bethlehem Bible Church.
18:21
Let me give you five reasons every Christian here can be thankful for your church.
18:27
Maybe you're listening on tape. Maybe you're just visiting and you go back to your church and you say, I don't really,
18:33
I'm not at the best church. I'm not at the perfect church. Well, you can still be thankful to God.
18:38
And by the way, when you get rid of the complaining and the grumbling and all that stuff with thanksgiving, your life will be much more honoring to God and practice and you'll just get rid of this.
18:50
It's easy to complain. How does the Bible approach complaining? It doesn't just say quit complaining.
18:56
It says don't complain and then do what? Something positive. So what do you tell a thief?
19:02
Stop stealing. And work, what do you tell a liar? Stop lying and tell the truth.
19:11
So here, Paul says, I want you to be thankful. And we all have it in our hearts to just be complaining, grumbling.
19:18
The people did such and such. The elders do such and such. When I meet those kind of people, when I meet me,
19:23
I know I'm not been I haven't been thankful like I ought to show me a grumbling person. I'll show you someone who needs a good dose of today.
19:31
I'll never forget as long as I live. I think it was 12 years ago I preached a sermon and we were having a bunch of things going on at the church and a lot of growth and you pray for growth.
19:41
You pray for rain and then there's mud. And we had all these people and I was preaching through James and I preached on complaining.
19:47
And I said, if you complain and you're convicted by it, join the club. I mean, we all complain to our shame.
19:55
And we really are complaining against God's sovereign, providential working. You complain about the wife.
20:01
You're really complaining that God gave you this wife. You're complaining about the wife that you don't have. You're really complaining to God about him not giving you the wife, et cetera, et cetera.
20:08
And I preached from James five and I said, if you're a complainer that is going to be unrepentant, make this the last
20:14
Sunday you come to Bethlehem Bible Church. They all did what you're doing right now.
20:24
Then I was greeting people at the door and somebody came up and complained about the sermon. Oh, it is
20:34
God's will for your life not to complain. So what do you replace it with? We replace it with Thanksgiving.
20:41
Let me show you five reasons that if you're here today as a Christian, you can be thankful to God for a less than perfect church, because if Paul could thank
20:49
God for Corinth, can't you thank God for Bethlehem Bible Church? Number one, you could be thankful for the people at Bethlehem Bible Church because God has graciously saved them.
21:03
Because God has graciously giving them saving faith, that'd be a good way to thank God, wouldn't it?
21:09
God, thank you, because they're saved. Let's take a look at the verse. First Corinthians chapter one, verse four.
21:15
The sermon comes right from the text. An odd thing in today's evangelicalism, but it's true.
21:22
Verse four, there's one main verb in the whole sentence found in verse four.
21:30
What do you see at the end of verse four, comma, at the end of verse five, comma, at the end of verse six, comma, at the end of verse seven, comma, at the end of verse eight, comma, verses four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
21:42
There's one main verb and that verb is thank. I thank my God. Now, Paul isn't commanding you to be thankful, but we're learning from Paul with preaching application that we can follow
21:53
Paul. I thank my God always concerning you, concerning Corinth.
22:00
Concerning you for the grace of God, which was given you in Christ Jesus. The first thing you can be thankful for at Bethlehem Bible Church, a less than perfect churches.
22:10
God has saved people here. God, thank you for saving these people. Salvation by grace alone through faith of loan faith alone.
22:20
The way the language is set up in the Greek is it goes back to something in the past that has been done, that has been accomplished by another
22:26
God. You save them. This isn't sarcasm. This isn't
22:32
Paul in a backhanded way. You guys are all sinful and I'm just thank God for you. No, he really means it.
22:39
He has an attitude of God. You have graciously done in Christ for them what they haven't deserved. And you are to be praised.
22:49
I thank my God always concerning you. The thanking is an ongoing.
22:55
Every time I think about you, Corinth, I say, thank you, God, for their salvation. But it's a tense in the original, an heiress passive, if you'd like it, an error, heiress, passive participle for the grace, which of God, which was given a one time gift given by another salvation grace.
23:19
Paul saying this, I could be thankful because you aren't running around worshiping
23:28
Aphrodite anymore. You're not warning around at worshiping a policy anymore.
23:33
You're not worshiping Zeus. You're not worshiping the Navy God, Melcat, that we learned about before. You're not.
23:39
And if I look at you, I could say, if it wasn't for the grace of God, who would you be worshiping our ancestors in England?
23:45
Maybe we'd be with them worshiping trees. I've been to India and you think, you know, if it wasn't for the grace of God, my
23:52
Indian friends that live in India and even here now, they'd be worshiping a whole variety of horrible gods,
23:59
Ganesh and Saraswati and all these people. But we look around, we don't worship ourselves anymore.
24:06
Now, do we? Is that something to be thankful to God for? I think so. We don't worship. I know I say this in no jest at all, but if you want to laugh, that's fine.
24:13
Laugh. That's fine. We don't worship the Red Sox anymore. Okay. You can laugh.
24:20
Think about it. People worship sports. You were born a worshiper and you will worship something and you'll get all into it and you'll look at it and you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll figure it all out and just consumes your mind, your thoughts, everything.
24:33
It's by the grace of God that you at Bethlehem Bible Church don't worship rock and roll anymore.
24:39
That just sucks people in. Whatever your past idol was, yourself, your wife, your kids, um,
24:49
I don't know, the Virgin Mary, it could be a thousand different things. If you weren't worshiping God and now
24:55
God has saved you from that false worship, you should say about those people, God, thank you that they're not running around kissing trees anymore.
25:02
Worshipping banyan trees instead of, well, you know, these people don't measure up to my standards and the elders don't do such and such and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
25:13
And the list goes on and on and on. Instead, God, thank you. Thank you for saving these people.
25:21
Can you say about Bethlehem Bible Church, can you say to God, I thank my
25:27
God always concerning that God has graced this church, we no longer are thinking to ourselves the way to please
25:41
God is through works. The way to get closer to God is to just do more.
25:48
Haven't we been saved from that nonsense? We don't work by merit, by wages. No. And Paul is big on this because for so long he has been a
25:59
Pharisee and he gets to God through law, through deeds, through action, through tithing, through killing other people who don't agree with him.
26:08
Paul says my whole life is one of merit. And then he says, I thank God that for you,
26:13
Corinthians, you don't believe that anymore. Now, of course, they're not living up to what they believe, but he says at the very beginning, you don't get favor from God because you keep his law and you've been open to that in your mind.
26:29
And it's so good. One man described grace this way, God's utter generosity, unselfish, spontaneous, recklessly prodigal generosity, which acts wholly out of loving concern for his people's need, even if they're completely unworthy of his love and help, which he offers to them.
26:54
That's Bethlehem Bible Church. That is us. We should be thankful to God that he's given us grace.
27:03
And when you get this grace of forgiveness, it's easier to serve others.
27:08
It's easier to forgive others. It's easier to be more thankful. We are not people who have saved ourselves.
27:20
And that should make you say, thankful, I'm thankful. All right, let's keep moving.
27:26
Let's keep moving. Number. No, I don't even, I don't want to keep moving back to the text.
27:33
I at all times give thanks. This doesn't mean that he's praying 24 hours a day.
27:40
He just says, when I think of you, when I pray, I often consider you. And when I do consider you, the first thing
27:45
I think about is God, thank you that they have been redeemed. They are now set apart from pagan immorality and idolatry.
27:56
If you're here at this church, I urge you. I commend you to think about this church from the vertical perspective.
28:04
First, before you begin to say all these things that you don't like, it's just people let you down.
28:10
People have dogged you. The leaders don't understand this and that. Those all may be true.
28:16
Corinth was ungodly, but we have been saved by the grace of God.
28:24
Lutzer said, here's something you can count on. The better you believe yourself to be, the less grace you think you need.
28:31
The more self -confident you are, the more convinced you'll be that you could get by even if God were stingy with grace.
28:38
Sure, you struggle with sin, but that's just a part of the human predicament. All you need is some help from God and a bit of personal determination.
28:48
You can make yourself good enough for God to accept you. You just need to get desperate enough to clean up your act.
28:54
If grace can help you, fine. And Lutzer paints that picture of a grace that's not real grace, a grace that's not good grace, a grace that isn't grace, but really works.
29:07
You should be thankful for the people at Bethlehem Bible Church. Do you know if God loves the people here?
29:13
You should, too. Who picked the people here? You know, besides, I think, Steve Cooley and Janet.
29:19
I didn't pick anybody to come to this church. Did I pick you guys?
29:25
You just all came in. You heard about the church. Our friends brought you some. I inherited, you know, the
29:31
Cranes and the O 'Leary's and the Shepherds and the Pharaohs, et cetera. Did you guys pick me?
29:39
People come to the church and they are by God's perfect wisdom, providentially, we don't pick.
29:47
I mean, it's interesting to me because if it wasn't for the local church, there are all kinds of things about life
29:52
I wouldn't even know because I wouldn't pick people like you to be in my family. Well, I didn't mean that that way, but that applies to.
30:03
We pick people like ourselves, but God picks people and he brings them in with different gifts and other things, and he's the one who's ordered the family, and he knows what we need.
30:14
And I like it. I remember when we were in Los Angeles, I loved the pot providences we had at our
30:19
Bible study because. We had Cubans, we had Asians, we had
30:25
Indians, we had Mexicans. We had some Anglos there, and it just made good, spicy potlucks.
30:32
OK, pot providence. It's the same thing in the local church. We didn't pick each other, but God picked us and our response should not be,
30:43
I can't believe these people. When you think that way, you should say to yourself, I should repent of that and start thinking about how
30:49
God is putting this church together and how he shows his grace in sinners and then exposes other people to his grace through sinful people.
31:02
First Thessalonians 518. Have you ever considered this verse for thanking God for this church in everything?
31:08
Give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. It is
31:14
God's will for you to thank him for this church because we're perfect. No, because God has granted us salvation.
31:22
We're not worshiping someone besides God anymore. And you say, well, I don't feel like it.
31:28
I can think of people by name and they're still bugging me. They're still rubbing me the wrong way. A man said, you can learn to give thanks even if you don't feel particularly thankful.
31:41
If God gives a command like in First Thessalonians, he expects obedience whether you are in the mood or not.
31:48
Thankfulness like forgiveness is not an emotion. Thankfulness is an intelligent response of gratitude to God.
31:59
The Jews had a proverb and it said, if men thank God for good things, they wouldn't have time to complain about the bad.
32:07
And the Africans would say even the hen lifted her head toward heaven when she swallows her grain.
32:16
Number two, how can I be thankful for people that let me down for sinful people?
32:22
Paul says, I'm thankful to Corinth, number one, because they don't worship pagans anymore. They've been saved by grace alone, through Christ alone, through faith alone.
32:30
Number one. Number two, you can be thankful for people at Bethlehem Bible Church because God has not only given you sound preaching, but an apprehension of it.
32:42
Not only sound preaching, but an apprehension of it. Now, let's see what's said first of Paul to Corinth and then we'll apply the truth.
32:51
Verse five. That in everything, remember, still the same sentence of thanks that in everything you were enriched in him,
32:58
Corinth, in all speech and all knowledge. Corinth says,
33:04
Paul says to Corinth, you are rich, you are bountiful, you are holding all the cards spiritually and they're all found.
33:14
You notice the text enriched in him. If you've got Jesus, you can't get anything more.
33:20
All the riches that we have are found in Christ Jesus. In giving the son, he has given us everything.
33:29
Specifically to Corinth in all speech and in all knowledge. What are these spiritual treasures in Christ?
33:37
All speech and all knowledge. Well, back in these days, of course, there were all kinds of people out there saying,
33:46
I'm speaking for God. Listen to me. No, I speak for God. Listen to me. No, I speak for God.
33:51
Listen to me. And was the canon of scripture, all 66 books complete and people have little Gideon pocket
33:56
Bible walking around? Paul says, when it comes to you,
34:02
Corinth. 60 AD, 62 AD, 64 AD, you understood the preaching of the word.
34:16
A, you had the preaching speech and you understood the preaching, all knowledge.
34:22
So someone would come along and what would happen to Corinth if they didn't have someone who had the spiritual gift of prophecy or couldn't preach the truth to them?
34:32
Well, they would be saved by grace, but they would never grow. And Paul says, when it comes to speech and it comes to knowledge, people came and preached to you the truth.
34:40
Paul, matter of fact, did himself, didn't he? For 18 months. And you could understand it. Those are two things you could thank
34:46
God for. We have biblical preaching. We have biblical prophecy back in those days, and we can understand what's being said and the same goes true for us.
34:55
In every utterance and in all knowledge, you understand the truth.
35:01
You understand concretely who Jesus is, what he did, how he will come back soon.
35:10
Objectively, the truth is preached. Corinth had that subjectively. The truth is understood. Corinth had that now in a different way.
35:18
Don't we have that say, well, now you're just going to be talking about yourself. I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about we have had doctrinally sound preaching.
35:26
Ignore me. Think about the other elders from Steve Lawson to John MacArthur in this pulpit. They are the gift of God.
35:32
And so we say, well, people let me down in the church. Paul says that could be true. But number one, they've been saved by grace alone.
35:38
And number two, they've got real teaching. You know, if it wasn't for the grace of God, I would be up here giving you a bunch of Joyce Meyer mumbo jumbo.
35:47
Here's the words. They're containers of the truth and you've got to say it. If it wasn't for the grace of God, people like Benny Hinn would be up in this pulpit doing his charade.
35:56
True. Are we better than these people or do we say it's not better? We're sinners.
36:02
But God has graced us like he graced Corinth with truth from the pulpit.
36:08
And as the pulpit goes, so does the church go. How many churches? Just get online and type churches around the area where it's a bunch of.
36:17
It's going to take a deep breath here. It is gruel. It is lowest common denominator.
36:26
It is devoid of trying to say, what did God intend when he wrote this?
36:32
And I better tie the sermon to authorial intent. How many churches can you just type up?
36:38
And maybe it was your old church. Maybe it was two churches ago where you saw maybe somebody, you know, you go visit a church and you sit there and you want to be fed the word of God and you say,
36:47
God, my heart is hardened and I need preaching. That's truth. So you can just jackhammer my heart because I want to have a soft heart for you, a soft heart for my wife.
36:58
God, give me the truth. And somebody stands up here and gives story after platitude, after illustration, after you're really good.
37:06
It's good to be good. It's nice to be nice. God, through Paul. Put it in Paul's heart to say,
37:14
Corin, you might not live up to what you've been taught. But you've got the truth preached and you even understood it.
37:23
Do you not know, Corin? Do you not know, Corin? Do you not know, Corin? Do you not know,
37:29
Corin? Didn't he say that often? Now, it sounds self -serving, but that's not my job to sound self -serving is to tell you the truth.
37:38
So here's the truth. If we have received, and I think we have third class conditional, since we have received the truth of God from the pulpit, from visitors to the elder board we have now.
37:50
You want to say to yourself, God, we have had biblical preaching of this truth. Thank you.
37:57
And you have given us your spirit to illumine our minds so we have understood what's come from the pulpit.
38:07
Isn't that better than so and so deacon doesn't live up to what I expect. So and so elders let me down.
38:13
Friends, I don't want to let anybody down and I'd like to live a more sanctified life. I think we all would.
38:19
But at the end of the day, when I look at this motley group of people here, I could start naming the list of things.
38:25
I asked so and so to do something. They never did it. So and so is a complainer. So and so did such and such.
38:30
So and so, so and so, so and so. And it just feeds on itself, doesn't it? Sinfully, I might add.
38:37
Isn't it better to look and I look at every different kind of race and sex and background and color of skin and I go, you're united for one reason, because the grace of God, like interrupting
38:48
Paul on the way to Damascus, has interrupted you. And you've had good preaching and you've understood it.
38:56
God, thank you. Isn't that a much better way to live? I don't like complainers and I don't like it when
39:01
I complain. It's just the default where you go. If it starts with God, we remember what we deserve and what we've got.
39:11
We don't have Kenneth Hagan preaching from the pulpit and his nonsense. Right, we don't have all these people come walking up and, you know,
39:19
I remember when I was in Los Angeles, I worked out at Gold's Gym and I thought it was quite interesting. That's where I basically learned
39:25
Greek. And some people would come up to me and they'd say, well, what are you studying? I'm studying Greek. Why are you studying
39:30
Greek? New Testament's written in Greek. Why are you studying the New Testament? Well, because I'm a pastor. Why are you? And then it was just like,
39:36
OK, just spot me. All right. And I met a guy and he was a
39:43
Hollywood actor. I mean, I would see Denzel Washington and different bands there and people. And I met a guy and he said, well,
39:49
I was an actor and God has saved me. And, you know, if you're an actor and you've been saved, then you get to preach to five thousand people.
39:56
And, you know, you're a big shot because you used to be an actor. And I said, this is in the promise keepers era.
40:01
There's some kind of men's meeting. I I'm speaking to a thousand people this Saturday. I go, man, that is awesome.
40:09
Well, what are you going to preach? He said, well, I'm waiting for the spirit to move me. And I believe it would be against the
40:15
Holy Spirit to prepare, to bring notes. And I think I'll just get up there and see what happens.
40:21
Friends, do you know how often that happens in local churches? The most downloaded time sermons dot com on the
40:28
Internet is when? Saturday night. Now, if you know me well, you know my faults.
40:40
But God has given me, along with the three other elders, a determination to teach you sound hygienic doctrine, whether the church blows up to five thousand or shrinks down to the elders, wives and kids.
40:54
So help me, God, to death do us part. Yes. And God has put in your heart a love for the truth,
41:02
God has put in your heart an understanding for the truth. And so when you look around at saints that don't live up to your expectations, you say, you know what, but they've been saved by grace alone and God has given them preaching.
41:14
Preaching does change people and God has given them an understanding. And if it wasn't for God, I'd be getting up here,
41:22
I remember the time right over there, some guy brought his kids to Iwana. Brian Bartlett knows the story. I think I put in my first book and I always ask the questions, the pastor, what books are you preaching through the book?
41:30
What book are you preaching through verse by verse now? And then the pastor goes, well, kind of doing a series out of my, you know, last minute studies or I'm doing some topical thing or this or that.
41:43
I like when the pastor goes, I'm preaching through James verse by verse. Wow. To teach people the whole counsel of God, that is even as a gift.
41:51
So I said, what are you going to preach? What are you preaching through? He said, well, you know, sometimes the spirit of God moves me not to even preach.
41:56
We just worship in song. I thought, I don't know what spirit moved you not to preach, but his name isn't the
42:03
Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit doesn't move you to do anything that he's already commanded because he says, preach the word.
42:13
I really think this is true. And I really think I'm not going to get through my son today. I sat in my study going,
42:20
I don't have enough to talk about. And here we are. Point two, I really believe there'd be almost as many people here next
42:31
Sunday. If I told you no songs, no offering, no baptisms, no communion, no praise choruses, no hymns,
42:44
I'm going to get up and I'm going to preach for an hour and a half next Sunday. And it's going to be a worship service. I think you'd come.
42:53
Why? You think a pastor is thankful for that? God, thank you that you worked at work in the hearts of the people that they would even say,
43:01
I'll just come for preaching. I want to hear from God. It's good to sing. It's right to sing.
43:07
It's good to give, et cetera. But if we have a church here that says, I want preaching more than anything else, it's good to say to God, we praise you for who you are.
43:17
But then I want to hear from God's word. I want to be conformed through his word to be more like Christ. I'm thankful for that.
43:23
Are you thankful? Next time you see somebody, you go, yeah, I remember how they let me down 14 years ago and said they're going to bring a turkey over and never did and all these things.
43:31
And I've always got a grudge. One of you did that to me. No, just kidding. God, you save these people.
43:42
I'm saved, they're saved, they've got good preaching, and I don't mean
43:49
I'm a good preacher. I mean, biblical preaching. There's biblical truth coming from the
43:55
Sunday schools, from IBS, from the book table to the library, to adult Bible studies, to the nursery.
44:02
I've got Bible teaching and God, you've even given me the eyes to see it. Thank you.
44:09
And if you do that, you'll be just like it's a good time of year to talk about Thanksgiving, isn't it?
44:24
It's a good time through the spirit's empowerment. To be thankful like Paul.
44:32
I think probably this week, I'm not a prophet nor a son of a prophet, but when you hear sermons like this, probably somebody is going to rub you the wrong way this week, the next two weeks.
44:43
And the response could either be grumbling, complaining, murmuring. You get on the prayer line or the complaining line and it's like, you know, did you hear?
44:54
How about call those friends that you like to complain to and say, I'm so thankful to God that he'd save us and he would help us understand the word through preaching and illumination.
45:04
How about the next time somebody comes to you and begins to complain to you? You say, you know, I think if I hear this complaining,
45:10
I think I'm going to go in contradiction to the word of God. I don't want to hear complaining. I know we all struggle. How can
45:16
I help pray for you that you won't complain? You could be more thankful to God. But that would be good.
45:22
And I guarantee you when the complaining seeps in, we're going to find ourselves just like first Corinthians verse chapter one, verses 10 and following where the schisms start.
45:34
The good news is I don't think we're there or even close to being there, but I want us to have preventative maintenance.
45:40
So we say, God, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift shown in people.
45:47
Let's pray. Our heavenly father, what a great God you are. How wonderful is your word?
45:54
And I'm thankful, Lord, personally, when I was a member of a congregation, you gave me a church full of redeemed people with awesome
46:04
Bible teaching. And then, Lord, you gave me the ability to understand it by your spirit's illumination.
46:11
So, Lord, now for the people here at Bethlehem Bible Church, I pray that you'd make them thankful.
46:18
I'm thankful that you've enriched them with all things. And I pray that especially this time of year, you would help us to look upon you, to look towards you.
46:29
Lord, I'm thankful that in heaven, there'll be no more complaining, only praising. But Lord, on earth, we need your help.
46:36
We are weak. We are frail. So may your spirit be lavished upon us as we learn to be a more thankful people at Bethlehem Bible Church.