Goodbye Corinth (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

Saying Goodbye to 1 Corinthians and Introducing Six Questions

Well, it's a sad day. We have to say goodbye to an old friend. Please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. After a three-year pilgrimage in 1 Corinthians, verse by verse, phrase by phrase, we'll finish today the book of 1 Corinthians found in the New Testament.

My home church back in Los Angeles, we would identify with one another by saying things like this. Well, how long have you been at the church? Well, I got at the church when they started 1 Thessalonians.

Oh, I was at the church when Pastor John began Ephesians. And so some of you got here when I started 1 Corinthians, and when I start Romans in a couple weeks, you'll probably say, oh yeah, I got there right about the times when Romans started.

And so today we have a feast and a banquet in these last few exhortations, final instructions from Paul. Paul had been writing to this church. He loves people that Christ redeemed, even though they had problems.

And so he writes to them answering questions that they had about all kinds of things. So we don't have their letter with questions, but we do have Paul's answer and it's 1 Corinthians. So lots of Q &A.

What about this? What about that? What about the other? So today in light of that, let me give you for an outline, six questions that Paul, six questions that I'll give you designed for you to help you understand Paul's final exhortations and final grave sayings.

The sermon will start off fairly light this morning, and then it'll go to some heavy issues found in the passage that probably will push your finer sensibilities as we see these verses. But what we do at this church is whatever the text says, that's what we preach.

And we want to preach to you the full counsel of God. So let me give you the six questions designed to help you respond to the gospel of Christ Jesus with Holy Spirit driven obedience. Question one, are you addicted to ministry?

Are you addicted to ministry? Let's look at verses 15 and 16 and we'll see that that's exactly what's happening here. It's hard to give you these commands by Paul. He didn't say, are you addicted to ministry?

But in these final exhortations, I at least want to preach it this way. Look at verse 15 and 16, now I urge you brothers, see how he's got a kind, a gentle heart here at the end. He's urging these Corinthians who have a bad track record in many things.

You know that the household of Stavonis, this is the family that was baptized in chapter one, were the first converts, our first fruits. They were the best, the cream of the crop, the initial converts, and the first converts in Achaia and that they devoted themselves to the servants of the saints.

Be subject to such as these and to every fellow worker and laborer. When you take a look at that word devoted, it means, well the Greek is taso, and it means addicted. These people were addicted to ministry.

Now most of the time we think addiction is something bad and there's a bad side of addiction. But these people in light of the cross and in light of God's sacrificial gift of the cross, determined in eternity past to send the son to die for sinners, like these people, like you people, like me.

What's the response to a redeemed life? Service, serving all the time. And that's exactly what these people were doing and that's why Paul commends them. They've devoted themselves to the service of the saints.

And since Jesus isn't there to be served physically, he's physically in heaven, then let's serve the body of Christ, let's serve Christians, and that's exactly what they did. Day in, day out, perpetually serving.

I think of addiction and I think negatively. It could be strong habits, compulsion to do something. One man said, I'm sure that had these people tried to take it easy and relax for any length of time, they would have had severe withdrawal symptoms.

Service, because if it's guilt that we're rescued from by the grace of God found in the person and work of the son, then our response is gratitude, right? If you've been saved, then you will serve, especially when the model servant is the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are Christians, we are like Christ, and we serve. And Jesus was a servant. You can think of John 13, when Jesus kneels down and serves the men and washes their feet. The old adage goes, only one life, it will soon be passed.

Only what is done for Christ will last. For the risen Savior to serve, and Paul commends these people as, here's a good example. There are a lot of bad examples at Corinth, but boy, these people are good examples.

All for the risen Savior. The Greek word there is to toil, to sweat, kapiao, to just serve so much, you're tired at night. But it was all for the King. It was all for the risen Savior. One man said, many work, but few toil.

How about you? That's one of the ways you should have great assurance that you're a Christian, is because you realize you're not saved by service, you're not saved by ministry, you're not saved by any of those things, but it shows that you are saved when you want to pour out and be poured out for the gospel and for the people of God.

Following Christlike Servants and Recognizing Unity in the Church

Question two, have you found examples of Christ-like service to follow here at Bethlehem Bible Church? I could put it this way, do you recognize there are servant leaders here and do you follow them?

Take a look at verses 16 and 17. I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus, I like Fortunatus as a name, it means fortune, it means blessed. It also could mean what? Lucky? Of course we don't believe in luck.

And Achaicus, because they made up for your absence, for they refresh my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to these people. These people made up for your absence. Paul says, I love you warts and all Corinth, but you're not around, but these people came to me and they made up for your absence.

I just as soon would have had you there with me, but these saints, they came, they served. And he says, recognize these kind of people who refresh. By the way, show me Christians that respond to the gospel of grace with service and they are refreshing to be around, aren't they?

Show me people that gripe and complain and the church doesn't do this, the leaders don't do that. Meanwhile, they don't do anything. We will lovingly deal with those people and be around them, but I'm telling you, it's not refreshing.

It's not like taking a big glass of iced tea, drinking it down, going, ah, 95 degree day, that just is cool and refreshing. But being around people that serve, even though they might not have a lot of gifts, they don't have a lot of talent, our talents, but they just serve because they know they've been purchased with the price.

Therefore glorify God with your body. Those kind of people, don't they refresh you? The same word is used in our Lord's words, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you what?

Rest, refreshment. So find someone who's a servant, who serves at Bethlehem Bible Church and watch them and follow them as they follow Christ. Number three, found in verse 19, don't you love how the Holy Spirit knits hearts of Christians together no matter what their ethnic background might be?

Verse 19, now the text doesn't say this, but how do you exposit a greeting? But this is a true application of the text. The text says in verse 19, the churches of Asia send you greetings, Aquila, Priscilla, they make all kinds of cameo appearances in the New Testament, traveled a lot serving together with the church in their house, that's where they met in those days, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.

Forget that some live in Europe, some live in Asia, forget that some are Corinthians, some are Asians. There's just something about it, and again this is the application, this isn't the text. You can go anywhere and find other Christians who are bought by the blood of Christ Jesus and don't you feel that kindred spirit?

Don't you feel that camaraderie? Etched in my mind is standing in Pune, India at a YMCA and it's dusty in there and kind of dirty and it was super hot and I'm with all these Indian people, just a couple white people around and all these Indians and we're singing great is thy faithfulness together.

I'll never forget it as long as I live. These people didn't know me from anyone, but once they realized that God had saved me, God had saved them, the hearts are just knit together. And what knits us together?

Here's our church, Bethlehem Bible Church. We're starting to look more different. The homogeneity of Bethlehem Bible Church is changing. Are you glad? Are you sad? It's the Lord's church. I think he redeems Gentiles and white Anglo-Protestant, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

We are Protestants, that doesn't work I guess. It doesn't matter what color you are, what gender you are, slave or free, there's something about it when God redeems you and you're around another person who's been redeemed, you just love them.

It's one of the signs of being a Christian. Number four, and again these are just questions I'm asking you to try to just let you think through the text in a pastoral way. One more before we get to the main point of the passage.

Question four, do you show proper affection to other Christians? Oh, this is going to be fun. Verse 20, all the brothers send you greetings, greet one another with a holy kiss. Now I have to tell you, after I got done preaching this message for first service, several people kissed me in between services.

What does this mean? The kissing ministry. Some people are saying, yeah, I'd like to serve, and I don't have a service, Christians you just got done saying serve, and so now I'm ready to serve and maybe I'll start the kissing ministry at Bethlehem Bible Church.

Well, I just have a couple things to say, one, get it authorized by the elders. But let's just figure out what's happening here, especially with our culture. Now think this way, think Eastern because we're Western.

Think 2 ,000 years ago because that's when the Bible was written, and Middle Eastern people now, Europeans as well and Asian people, they kiss a lot more than we do. They're a kissing culture. Some of our own people right here at the church, they're kissing people.

If you don't preach verse by verse, you never talk about this. They never said in seminary, wait till you get to that kissing message. Now the cultures back in those days kissed one another as a sign of friendship.

We shake our hands, maybe give a hug or something. Back then they kissed. And it was usually a kiss, kind of an air kiss, maybe with your lips on the cheek on this side and then on that side, maybe more, repeated a few times, one, two, three, or just two.

But it was a kiss kind of on the cheek with the air kiss, lips maybe touching, same thing on the other side. But pagans did that, so why now is Paul saying greet one another with the holy kiss? There's nothing sensual about this or wrong or anything like that.

But here's what it means. When Christians get together, they greet one another in a special way, in a close way, in an intimate way, in a way that says, I'm forgiven, you're forgiven, we're all restored, we have one fellowship here, we're unified together, and it's a pledge of unity.

Justin Martyr writes this shortly after the New Testament was written, that for communion services they'd get together and they would have some intercessory prayers. They would have a time of kissing and then they would have the Lord's Supper.

That's kind of hard to kiss people that you're mad at, that you're angry with. Think what was going on in the New Testament, slaves kissing free, rich kissing poor. It wasn't kissing that's inappropriate, that's reserved for a married couple.

Sadly, the pagans in the second century and third century started saying all kinds of slanderous things about Christians kissing, so the church pretty much stopped kissing. Garland writes, this kiss is more than an extension of social custom since it is identified as holy.

It was a distinctive practice that served as a sign of mutual fellowship among people of mixed social background, nationality, race, and gender who are joined together as a new family in Christ Jesus.

So what do we do here? Well, I'll tell you what I've done over the years and maybe you'll see where I'm coming from now. When I first got to New England, 16 years ago now, almost 16 years, I'd greet people at the door.

There's nothing in the Bible that says greet people at the door or anything like that, but I just thought, you know, that'd be good and I'll greet people at the door. And by the way, if you're a pastor that preaches pretty firmly and pretty straight-edged like and you're fairly tough from the pulpit many times and your style is more preaching, then there'd probably be some other times where you should show some kind affection, don't you think?

Because otherwise, they're going to think that's you here and there and everywhere else. Now, I know I'm very loving and kind and sweet and it's a perpetual Mother's Day as I give the messages that are warm and you feel so filled and I know that's how I do it.

But for those of you that don't, but seriously, if the preaching is forceful and didactic and proclamation and the way it should be, I have a message from God to tell you. Then outside the pulpit too, shouldn't there be this kindness and this warmness?

So what I do is I just hug people. I don't hug ladies in private, but here in the church at the door, if I know you well enough, I'll probably hug you unless you kind of, you have that mental stiff arm look.

I'm just like, okay. But there's a proper way, there's a holy way to show affection. So that's what I try to do and I think you should do the same thing. I have a professor that said, don't hug any ladies even in a church setting.

I just don't know where that's coming from so I haven't done it. So when I first got here, even with the guys, I mainly started with the guys. Guys are like, don't touch me. This is New England and you're some California hippie.

Stay away. But you know what? I would give a guy a hug and what's he to do because I work out and a lot of the guys around here, they don't or they just submit to me because I'm the pastor and to give a guy a big old bear hug, it's a good thing to do.

Just the idea here is there's the way that pagans interact with one another and when Christians get together, they just love each other. Now, nobody has to start the kissing ministry on the lips or anything like that.

MacArthur said in Russia, they take this literally and when you preach at a pastor's conference, he said, even after the 50th kiss on the lips by another man, you still don't get used to it. So I'm not asking for that unless you're one of the guys around here that when I give you a big bear hug, you try to pull away because you're too cool, then I'm going to kiss you.

Then you're getting kissed. One modern commentary said, a counterpart is needed today that offers an effective sign in the public domain that accords with these aims. In other words, Christian people just should have friendly affection towards one another.

If it's a handshake and a smile, if it's a note, if it's a hug, if it's a kiss, interestingly, Peter calls it a kiss of love. But with Paul, the other three times that it's mentioned, kind of things were going on in the church, trouble was going on in the church, issues were going on in the church.

So could it be that Paul said, especially in light of all these things, it should be a very familial, naturally affectionate group of people? Question five, and the laughing now needs to stop. Do you have some love for the Lord Jesus Christ?

That's the real point today. Do you have some love for the Lord Jesus Christ? Now here's the issue, or here's what would happen. Paul would not write the entire book of 1 Corinthians. He would dictate it.

He would have some stenographer, some secretary, and they would write this out as he would dictate it. Yes, given by the Spirit of God through Paul, but usually at the very end, Paul would pick up his pen and he would take that pen read and then sign something for lots of reasons.

One reason would be everything that's been written, I agree with. Part of it is this is just social custom. My eyes are probably bad and I'm just going to sign it so you know it's from me. Part of it is everything that's been written I agree with and you can be certain that it's the Apostle Paul's.

Sometimes a secretary will write a letter and then the pastor signs it or the executive signs it. So Paul is going to pick up his pen now and write something and it should tell you whatever he says has grave importance, weighty, significant.

Everything else has been left to a scribe, to an amanuensis, to a person receiving dictation from Paul. Tertius wrote the letter of Romans and then Paul signed his name. So Paul's going to pick up the pen, listen up, this is going to be important.

Paul finally says, now I'm going to write something to you in my own hand, pay attention. What does Paul write? What is so important? Verse 21, I, Paul, write this greeting, this verse and the next few verses to the end of the chapter, with my own hand.

The New American Standard says the greeting is in my own hand, Paul. Sylvanus, as an amanuensis, wrote 1 Peter, now here we don't know who's writing this but Paul with solemnity now and with gravity, so you feel the enormity and the importance and the magnitude of it, says something and what does he say?

Verse 22, if anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. New American Standard says if anyone does not love the Lord, he's talking about Jesus, he is to be accursed, it's important. Charles Hodge said, these are words which need no explanation, they carry with them their awful import to every heart.

I'm wondering about you, do you love the Lord? Manifesting God's love in your life with your response of love? Now interestingly, take a look at the Bible here, what does the verse say? No love, well you should be saying as a student of the Bible, what kind of love is this?

Agape, phileo, supreme love, secondary love, a love of supreme self-sacrifice, a love of natural affection? You'd think it would be agape but it's not, it's phileo. Those that have a tender affection should go on to have supreme self-sacrificial love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

But if you don't have the little love, the smaller love, the least significant love of phileo, a tender affection, then you don't have the greater. If you don't have a love for Jesus at the tender affection kind, then you certainly don't have a love that's greater and unless you repent, you're going to be damned.

You can hear Peter and Jesus, the conversation when Jesus finally says after, do you agape me, finally Peter's answer to do you phileo me, I do have some initial love for you, some tender affection. Lenski said Paul's spirit and his hand almost involuntarily react to all the perversions and all the abuses which he is attempting to correct in Corinth by the means of this letter and he records his apostolic verdict regarding all those who may dare to remain obdurant and to continue in their evil course.

He's writing to all these Corinthians, they've got problems with unity and problems with sexual sin and problems with suing each other and problems with spiritual gifts and problems at the Lord's Supper and even though God is long-suffering, even though God is patient, even though God is calling even those who are here today who aren't Christians to repent, at the end of the day Paul says if you won't repent, if you finally won't bow your knee to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith alone and the risen Savior, then you are going straight to hell and you are going to be damned and cursed.

It doesn't mean Paul doesn't love the people, it doesn't mean anything like that, it means at the end of the day there's going to be judgment and for these people at Corinth who are causing divisions and issues and problems and doctrinal sins and moral sins, Paul wants them to do what God graced him to do on Damascus Road, to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ.

But there is a day and that day might be today for you or some day when you stand before the Lord God and then what, you need someone else's righteousness, you need forgiveness. Here Paul says you need to at least have a little bit of liking and affection and a personal attachment to the Lord.

Of course move on past that to supreme agape love but you've got to have at least a little bit of the lowest kind of love. If you are going to persist in your sin then you are going to be damned, that's the point.

Paul picks up his pen for this moment and everyone here, man or woman, boy or girl, eastern, western, old or young, has to hear, are you in or are you out? By faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Paul's not mad, Paul's not flying off the hook, Paul's repeating pretty much what Psalm 2 talks about.

Here's the advice for the enemy of Jesus, kiss the son or he will be angry and you and your ways will be destroyed for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. For those who are in the church and purposely undermine and deliberately attack, if there's no repentance, a curse, anathema.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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