You can leave your Bibles open to 1 Corinthians 1. This will be our text this morning. We're beginning a new series in the book of 1 Corinthians. I've entitled this series, How the Message of the Cross Confronts Selfishness and Worldliness in the Church. And we need to hear the book of 1 Corinthians, brothers and sisters, because we still struggle with selfishness and worldliness even here in our own church. And I want to begin this morning by introducing the book to you, by spending at least a few minutes introducing the series to you. And so I'm going to engage in a little bit of instruction. We have some concepts and ideas that we need to lay down before we get to chapter one this morning that will be helpful for us. We need to talk about what we mean when we say the cross. We need to talk about what we mean when we talk about the message of the cross. And I'm going to maybe take this in a little bit of a different direction than what we're expecting. Of course, we believe the cross is the great work that Jesus did in paying for our sins. and fulfilling the righteous requirements of God's law so that in Jesus Christ we have the forgiveness of sins, we have righteousness given to us as a free gift, and therefore the hope of eternal life. But how does this message of atonement apply to our daily Christian lives? That's really the big question that 1 Corinthians is dealing with. And so that's how we need to be thinking about the cross. We need to be thinking about what it means practically speaking. So we have to lay down some groundwork We have to lay down some conceptual framework, some theological ideas. When we say the cross of Jesus Christ or the message of the cross, we're thinking about two ideas, two main ideas. We're thinking about Christ's death and his resurrection. We're thinking about both Jesus and his crucifixion on the Roman cross, counted as a criminal, a sin offering. But we're also thinking about Christ's victory over death. We're thinking about Christ's resurrection. When Paul speaks about the cross in the books of 1 Corinthians, he's thinking about both concepts and both ideas, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So we have to have both ideas and concepts in our mind. When we think of Christ's crucifixion, we are thinking about his brutal, painful, agonizing, self-denying, and willing death on the cross. Willing to put himself to open shame. Willingly denying himself to be counted as a criminal, although he was the holy son of God and he had never sinned once in his life. Offering himself as a sin offering for the sins of those who would trust in him. We're thinking about Christ's self-denying death. When we think of Christ's resurrection, we're thinking about His glorious, eternal, and ever flowing life in the power of God. Death and resurrection, crucifixion and resurrection, both of these concepts are vital to you to be thinking about in your Christian life. Jesus Christ's death, his crucifixion teaches us as his followers to deny ourselves, to follow Christ and to imitate him. This is why I picked the unison reading that I picked. To die to ourselves, to die to this world for the sake of his glory, for the sake of his church. Christ's resurrection teaches us to live life anew, to live life in a new way, not for this world, but for the world to come. Christ's death helps us to crucify our selfishness. His resurrection liberates us from the tyranny and influence of this world. And so the message of the cross confronts us in both regards, our selfishness and our worldliness. And this is really what the book of 1 Corinthians is all about. All 16 chapters in one way or another, Paul is applying to the Corinthians this message of the cross and how it puts to death their selfishness and how it liberates them from the tyranny and the influence of this world. It's really an application. You can think of First Corinthians as an application of the unison reading that I picked for you, especially chapter 16, verse 25, where Jesus says that if you were to gain your life in this world and if you were to gain yourself in this world, you'll lose it. But if you lose your life, if you lose your life in this world, if you lose your life living for yourself, for His sake, that's for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of His church, then brothers and sisters, you will gain your life. And the book of 1 Corinthians is really Paul just working that whole idea out across a number of practical issues that we face in the church. And it's a profound message, isn't it? What Jesus is teaching in Matthew 16, verse 25, and what Paul is applying to the Corinthians throughout the whole book of 1 Corinthians 1-16, is really this message, that as long as you're living for yourself, as long as you're living for this world, you are dead while you live. You are not living at all. You have lost yourself. But as long as you're dying to yourself and as long as you're dying to this world for Jesus Christ and for his glory and for the well-being of his church, then you truly live. Or we could put it like this. To live is to die. To live for Christ, to live for his glory is a life of death to self and death to this world. It's a glorious paradox. It's a glorious tension. We could put it a different way. We could say that to follow Christ is to die for something. We could put it like this. What Paul is trying to say to the Corinthians is you have a choice. You can live for nothing. You can live for yourself and live for this world, which is all passing away. Or you can die for something. You can die for the Lord Jesus Christ and die for His church. Well, we need to hear this message ourselves, brothers and sisters. It wasn't just the Corinthians who struggled with selfishness and worldliness in the church. We also struggle with these two things. And we're constantly in danger of turning away from the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the struggle. I know the struggle. So I don't have to elaborate upon this too much. We are always in danger of turning away from him, turning away from the way of the cross. falling right back into self-indulgence, self-pleasure, self-service, falling right back into loving the things of this world and being influenced by the teachings and the ideas of this world, which are ever shifting. We need to hear this message to keep us aligned, to keep us focused on the cross of Christ, not just in its theological implications and atonement, but in its practical implications and how they work themselves out in our life, in this life that we call a life of self-denial. We need to hear this message. The Corinthian church was a mess. They struggled with many sins. They struggled with disorder in the church, division in the church, gross immorality in the church. The Corinthians struggled with theological and practical incompetence. They struggled with a lack of love. They were a selfish and a worldly people. The Corinthians were so bad that if you were to, as it were, look up the definition of how not to do church, or the definition of how to not live the Christian life, you'd find a picture of the Corinthian church right next to the definition. They were the perfect example of how not to live the Christian life, how not to think about and to apply the cross in their life. But then they become a very helpful example to us. And the book of First Corinthians becomes very useful for us as it helps us to see ourselves and see where we're failing and to help us to get back on track in dying to self and dying to this world so that we might live to Christ and his resurrection power for the glory of God. Well, we can break the book of First Corinthians down into two sections, chapters one through six. That's what we'll be covering over the next six weeks leading right up to the Christmas holidays. And then we'll have Brent preaching for us. Chapters one through six is Chloe's report. which deals with some of the terrible disorder and the gross sins that the church was dealing with. And we'll be looking at those over the next six weeks, one chapter each week. Today we'll be looking at chapter 1. Let me encourage you, church, let me encourage you, brothers and sisters, read along with me as we go through this series together. Be reading this next week. 1 Corinthians 2, and then chapter 3, read it privately. Men, especially, lead your families in reading this together in family worship, so that we're reading this together as a church, and we're going through this together as a whole church. I'm just encouraging you in that. And then in the new year, when we come back together, at least when I'm preaching to you again, filling the pulpit, chapters 7 through 16, where Paul answers the Corinthians questions. And we will do the same thing then, one chapter, one week. Well, we can summarize the meaning of these two sections of the book essentially like this. There's a little bit of overlap. I'm being a little overly simplistic here, but it captures the essence of the meaning of the book. Chapters one through six is all about dying to self with Christ so that we might truly live with him. Chapter seven through 16 is all about living for Christ now, free of the influence of the world. Or we could summarize it like this, chapters 1 through 6 is life through death, true life in Christ through death to self and death to the world. Chapters 7 through 16 is death to self and death to the world unto everlasting life. Let me just say a few more things then. Let me up the ante here a little bit as we think of the conceptual framework of what we're about to be looking at. We need to say a few more things about this glorious paradox that exists, this tension that exists between crucifixion and resurrection, or death and resurrection, or we could think of it across a number of different paradigms. Glory and suffering, life and death, gain and loss, resurrection and crucifixion. There's a tension between these two ideas. And I want you to be thinking about this pattern according to a certain formula. And I have to credit Derek Thomas for this formula. Here's the formula I want you to be thinking about. As you think about the relationship of glory and suffering or death and resurrection, I want you to be thinking about it in these terms. I want you to be thinking of glory through suffering. Glory through suffering, that's the message of 1 Corinthians. Life through death. Resurrection through crucifixion. Gain through loss. I want you to be thinking about this formula. And the reason I want you to be thinking about this formula is that I have found in my studies that sometimes people like to separate these two concepts to an extreme and we want to avoid that extreme. We want to understand these two things in tension. We want to understand these two things and their relationship to one another. It's important that we think of death and resurrection as fitting together a certain way. And we need to be thinking of it as resurrection through crucifixion. We do not want to separate these. There are many people who want to teach that we have death. in this life, and we have resurrection in the next life. But you need to understand, brothers, that it is more interesting than that in the Christian life, and that there's a couple of important theological truths that are at stake here. There's two theological truths that are at stake here that'll help us to stay on the right track in understanding the relationship between death and resurrection. And those two concepts are these. Number one, our union with Christ, and number two, the incarnation. Our union with Christ in the Incarnation. Our union with Christ is at stake here. Brothers and sisters, you are united to the whole Christ. You are not united to half of a Savior. You are not united to Jesus only in His death in this life, with the hope that maybe you'll be united with Him in the life to come. You are united to the whole Christ and your Savior has both died and He has risen again. He has both been crucified and He has been resurrected. And He sits at His Father's right hand and He is ruling and reigning in power by His Holy Spirit. And you are united to this Jesus. You are united to Him in His death. You are united to Him in His life. And you will be sharing with him in his victory one day. So there is an element of this that is a not yet. But brothers in this life, you are united to him in both his death and his resurrection. That means that both his death and his wretched, both his glory and his sufferings, both his gain and his loss are a big part of your daily life. They are active and at work in you, in your Christian life. And it's important in that you understand the two of them, and you keep them in tension, and you understand that their relationship with each other. If you fail to understand this, if you get into the mindset that you're united with Christ and His death, and you're waiting to be united with Him in His life, you will not persevere in the Christian life. You will not find the strength that you need to deny yourself. You will not find the resources that you need to participate with Him in His death. You will give up. You will fail. You will lose heart. You will lose faith. You will lose hope. You need the resurrection power of Christ that lies within you to live the Christian life, to deny yourself, If you get stuck on one side or the other, whether it's death or resurrection, you're going to fall right back into selfishness and worldliness. So you've got to keep the tension together. I'm just I'm belaboring this point because it's so important. It's glory through suffering. It's death. I'm sorry. Life through death. Gain through loss. So it's union with Christ that's at stake here. Also, the incarnation is at stake here. Now, think about the incarnation with me for just a minute. I don't know how often you think of the incarnation. It is a wonderful doctrine. It is a interesting doctrine. It's somewhat of a difficult doctrine, but it is a really helpful doctrine, it's the kind of doctrine that will feed your soul. Think about the incarnation. In the incarnation, we believe that God becomes flesh. Think about what we're saying when we say that God becomes flesh, that when God unites Himself to the human nature, what we're saying is that the glorious God has revealed His glory in a corpse. He who is infinite and eternal. He who is the source of life. He who is the definition of love and bliss and glory and happiness. He who the scriptures say is the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity. He who is king, majestic in his authority, majestic in his power. He who is creator and sustainer of all things. has chosen to reveal his glory in this earth in a corpse through his son, the Lord Jesus in the flesh on the cross. He has put himself, our God, our glorious God has humbled himself. He has revealed the glory of his humility in the cross. It's a glorious message. And I say glorious, I just mean it's wonderful. It's mind-blowing. It's a wonderful mystery. It's worshipful. The glorious God has revealed Himself on the cross, in the person of His Son, in the flesh. He has allowed Himself to be counted as a sinner. God has made Himself the sin offering for the world. And I'm laughing because it's wonderful. But our glorious God has revealed Himself in humility and in shame. Now think about what this means a little bit. This is just the broad concept. Let's narrow it down a little bit. God has taken upon Himself your weaknesses. He has taken upon Himself your sicknesses. He's taken upon Himself your foolishness. He's taken upon himself your sins if you're in Christ. He's taken upon himself your shame, your guilt, your condemnation. He's taken upon himself your death. That's the incarnation. That's the message of the gospel. It's a wonderful mystery. The glorious God. has brought glory to Himself through your weaknesses, your foolishness, your sin, your condemnation, and even your death. Now this is comforting to us, brothers and sisters, because typically we think of the incarnation and then we think of God carrying all these things for us and we know that He swallows them all up so that we live through Him. And in Him, He takes our sins and it becomes our righteousness. He takes our death, it becomes our life and resurrection and our hope. He takes our weaknesses and He becomes our strength. But here's something else to think about that we tend to miss. This is the other side of the coin, and it's an important part of what 1 Corinthians is all about in the message that we have, is that when God takes on all of these things, not only is He taking them away from you, so to speak, or carrying them on your behalf, but brothers, He's crowning your weaknesses with His glory. He's bestowing upon your death, your sicknesses, your sufferings, His divine glory. So that there is no glory for us apart from our weaknesses and apart from our sufferings. God has revealed himself, the glory of his humility. In the offense of the cross, God, who is life himself, has revealed himself as a corpse, a sin offering for his people, an object lesson for our holiness. Well, what a wonderful mystery that is, but here's the great challenge. This is the challenge that first Corinthians is addressing because we think to ourself, how do we sort this all out? That's a wonderful idea that God has crowned our weaknesses and even our death with the dignity of his own son, the dignity of his own glory. How do we apply both principles? How do I apply the principles of resurrection in my life? How do I apply the principles of death in my life? And again, the book of 1 Corinthians is so helpful for us because we have in the Corinthians an example of exactly how not to apply those principles in our life. In other words, we have an example with the Corinthians about how to get it all wrong and to mess it all up. What the Corinthians are essentially doing and what Paul's having to address is they're applying glory where they should be applying suffering and they're applying suffering where they should be applying glory. They're getting everything mixed up. And the result is is that they're an incredibly selfish and worldly people. And so one of the benefits of the book of 1 Corinthians is that it helps teach us how to apply the cross of Christ and his death and his resurrection to our Christian life. It helps sort out some of the complicated questions. It's a profound book. It's filled with profound theological and practical insights into the meaning of the cross of Christ and how it works in our life. It gets right to the heart of what the Christian life is really all about in this world, a life of self-denial empowered by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, that's the introduction to the book. Let's get into chapter one. Let's get into the main part of the sermon today. We begin our series by looking at chapter one. In chapter one, Paul calls the Corinthians to consider again their calling in Christ. to remember again that they had not been called to a life of self-indulgence and worldliness because they had not been called by a message of the flesh or a message of this world. But they have been called to a life of self-denial and humility for the glory of God because they've been called by the message of Jesus Christ, the one who denied himself and who died for their sins and for their salvation and who lives again forever for their hope. Paul calls on them to remember their calling. Chapter one, verse 26, consider your calling brothers. Now that's what we're going to do for the rest of our time together this morning. We're going to consider our calling. Chapter one is all about the calling of the Corinthians. This is where Paul begins with them. He wants them to consider the glory of their calling, the unity of their calling, and the true wisdom and power of their calling. Paul is going to begin with the resurrection glory of their calling. He is going to appeal to them to walk worthy of the unity of their calling because they have failed to do so, and He is going to correct them by reminding them of the true wisdom and power of their calling, which is the message of the cross. The true wisdom and power of their calling is that God called them in humility, and He has called them to a life of humility, a life of self-denial. Well, let's look at these three things, the glory of their calling, the resurrection glory of their calling. Paul begins his letter by focusing the attention of the church on his own calling. You can see that in verse one. He's focusing their attention on his calling as an apostle. Remember, an apostle is a resurrection gift to the church. What applies to his apostleship applies to their salvation. Verse 1, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosodes. It's by the will of God that Paul was an apostle. And it's by the will of God, brothers and sisters, that you are Christians, that you have been called by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was not your will. It doesn't depend upon you. It was a free gift of the will of God. It was by his love for you. It was apart from your works, it was apart from your worth, it was apart from your merits, you were nothing apart from Him. And by His will and by His great love, He called you, just as He called Paul to be an apostle, so He called you to be a Christian, so that God gets all of the glory and you get none of it. And I get none of it, and no flesh gets any of it, but God gets all of the glory. That's really what Paul is saying. I am Paul, the apostle, called by the will of God. All glory to him. It was his will, it was his decision, it was his love. This is your calling, brothers. Consider your calling. It's all for the glory of God. Number two, verse two, Paul addresses the church as those who are called. Consider your calling. He's going to list about four or five things here about their calling. Their calling is a sanctified calling. Their calling is a holy calling. Their calling is a unified calling. It's an effectual calling, and it's a gracious and blessed calling. Look at what he says here in verse two. To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus. To be sanctified is to be set apart. To be sanctified especially is to be separate from the world. You can think of in the Old Testament, the priests were sanctified. They were set apart. They were set apart from the rest of the world for the service of God. You can think in the Old Testament of the kings who were anointed. They were sanctified, the power of the Holy Spirit to serve God, to serve his kingdom. We have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. We have been separated from the world. God has called you out of the world to be sanctified in Christ Jesus, to be his priest and to be his king and to be his servant. To the church of God that is incorrent to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, it's a holy calling called to be saints. To be a saint is to be a holy one. In other words, to be a saint in the New Testament is to be an imitator of Jesus Christ. You've been called by God to be imitators of Jesus Christ and living a life of self-denial. and following Christ, taking up your cross just as Jesus denied himself and lived a life of humility for the glory of God. And that was his holiness and that was his righteousness. So it is yours, brothers and sisters. You've been called by God to be separate from the world. You've been called by God to live a life of self-denial, to be saints, to be Christlike in your humility. You've been called. Brothers, consider your calling. You've been called in a unified calling, a corporate calling. A churchwide calling. Can I say it that way to the Church of God that is in Corinth to those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints together? With all those in every place who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours, it is not an individualistic calling. It is a corporate calling. It's a calling into the church of Jesus Christ. It's a calling into the universal church, and it's a calling in to the particular church. It's not something that God has just done for you. It's not something that God does in a certain in a special way just for you so that your calling is different from the calling of your brothers. It's a unified calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one cross, one message. We've all been called by the same calling. The calling that called you is the calling that called your brother and sister. It's the same calling that will call those here today who are called by God, who are outside of Christ. One call, a unified call. It's a calling to come out of the world, to be living a life of self-denial and holiness. It's a unified call. It's a corporate call. And it's an effectual call. To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints together with those in every place who call upon the name of the Lord. God's calling produces a result. Those who are called by God call back. He called on you, you called on him. To call on God means to put your faith in him and to serve him and to worship him and to give him all of the glory. to live a life for His worship, for His praise, and for His glory. Your calling, brothers, is by the will of God, but it is a sanctified, holy, unified, and effectual calling, and it is a gracious and a blessed calling to those who are called. He says in verse three, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Every blessing in the heavenly places are yours. You've been called out of the world for a life of self-denial and service to the whole church, for the glory of God and for your good and for the good of the church. Brothers, consider your calling. It is a glorious call. It is a life-giving call. And we ought to worship God and we ought to boast in him, boasting God for your call, for all that he's done for you. And worship him and praise him. Take this with you this week. Think about your calling. Think about all that he's done for you in sanctifying you and making you holy and uniting you. And bringing you to life and adding every grace and every blessing to you. And if you're here today and you're outside of Christ, this is the call of God to you today. Call upon the name of the Lord. And here's the promise of God. If you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved. You too will be separate from the world. You too will be called saints. You too will be unified with his people. You too will call upon his name and give him glory and you too will receive every grace and every blessing in his name. Call upon the Lord. But brothers, consider your calling. Then we have more to say. Verse 4 through 9. Paul continues to talk about the resurrection glory of our calling. He gives thanks for your call because it's an abundant life call. It's a fullness of life call. That's how I'm paraphrasing it, at least. Verse four through nine. In verse four, he says, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus. Now, in the context that is When he says the grace of God that was given to you, it means the call of God that has come to you, this effectual call for salvation. I give thanks to God for your call. And he's going to now elaborate on what this call is and why he's given thanks to God for it. And there's three things that he's going to bring out. And I want you to be careful and follow me here. I need you to pay attention because I'm about to say something intentionally shocking. I've been told to be careful about doing this. I'm being really careful about doing this. I love to say shocking things. First of all, verse four through six, it's a Pentecostal call. I'll be explaining that in just a moment. Number two, it's a hope-filled call. And number three, it's an infallible call. Verse four through six, it's a Pentecostal call. Now, just Be careful for just a moment, let me explain what I mean by that. I don't mean that in the denominational sense. It's not a call of false signs and wonders. It's not a call of fanaticism and zeal and dancing in the aisles and beating the tambourines and hooping and hollering and all those things that you see on TV and in those kinds of churches. I don't mean to offend anybody, but that's not what I mean by Pentecostal. What I do mean by Pentecostal is the biblical and theological sense of the word that we find all over the book of Acts. And this is why I'm using this term. It's a good term. It's a Pentecostal call. If you don't like the term Pentecostal, you could say it's an end times power of the age to come call. But I thought that was a little awkward. I thought Pentecostal would be easier to digest. Pentecostal call. In Acts chapter two, we see the Pentecost. We see the Holy Spirit being poured out. And how is the Holy Spirit being poured out? What is Pentecost? Pentecost is when the apostolic word is preached, believers receive it in faith by the power of God, and churches are gathered and built up and edified. That's Pentecost. The preaching of the gospel, the believing of the gospel, and the gathering of churches. That's Pentecost. It's the work of the Holy Spirit, the New Testament. Acts chapter 2. Again and again and again in the book of Acts, Pentecost occurs again and again. Over and over. It's not a one-time act. It happens the first time, Acts chapter 2. We call it Pentecost. But again and again, the Spirit is poured out. Again and again, the apostolic word is preached. Believers believe, and churches are gathered. all throughout the book. The whole book of Acts is a record of the Pentecostal pouring out of the Holy Spirit in power. The resurrected Christ pouring out his Holy Spirit for the building up of the church. Pentecostal. It happens in Jerusalem in Acts 2. It happens again in Samaria. It happens into the other parts of the earth. And over and over again in the book of Acts, the author of the book of Acts is linking these all back to the similarity it has to what happened in Jerusalem in Acts 2. Well, Paul is saying that this Pentecostal work, this pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the gospel, the believing and receiving of the gospel and the consequent gathering and edification of the church is exactly what happened to the Corinthians. and they knew it because it was confirmed by the sign gifts that were active at that time. In those days, Pentecost was and the Pentecostal power of the Spirit was confirmed by signs. This is what Paul means in verse five when he says in every way you were enriched in him in speech and knowledge that's in tongues and in prophecies and these sign gifts that were poured out at that time. But notice verse six, those sign gifts were only confirmations of the work of the Spirit Verse six, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, those gifts were to confirm the testimony. They were to confirm that Pentecost had come to Corinth. That Christ resurrection, spirit and power had come to them and that what had happened to them in the preaching of the gospel and the receiving of the gospel and the gathering of their church and its edification was not an accident of history. It wasn't a fad. It wasn't a movement. It wasn't a work of a spirit or of a devil, but it was, in fact, the work of God. It was, in fact, a work of the resurrected Christ and the power of his Holy Spirit. It was genuine. And you see, in the early church, there were signed gifts in order to confirm this. That's what the signed gifts were for. And so we want to be careful that we don't confuse the sign gifts with the testimony. We want to make sure that we're not confusing Pentecost with the signs. Pentecost doesn't have anything to do with the signs. Pentecost has to do with the powering out of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel and the receiving of the gospel and the building up of churches. And this is what Paul is saying to them. I give thanks to God that Pentecost has come to you. That the resurrected ascended Lord is at work in you. But brothers, let's make application of this just very briefly. You see, the signs have ceased, but the Spirit's work has not. The signs have ceased because it's already been confirmed that the preaching of the gospel and the receiving of the gospel and the gathering of churches is, in fact, the work of the resurrected Christ. It's already been done. We have the record of it in the New Testament. And it's written down for us to go read. We don't need any more signs. We don't need any more confirmation. But brothers and sisters, though the signs have ceased, the pouring out of the spirit has not. Christ is still on his throne. The gospel is going to the ends of the earth. He's pouring out his spirit on all flesh. The elect are being gathered in and believing and churches are being gathered and formed and planted. And that's the work of the spirit. And that work has not ceased. And so, brothers and sisters, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have called upon his name, Pentecost has come to you. The resurrected Lord Jesus has poured out his Holy Spirit and given you new life. And your calling is a Pentecostal call. It's a resurrection call. And the Lord Jesus will continue this wonderful work throughout the nations until the end of the age. But what it means for us then is that our boast is not in men, it's not in experiences, but in the Pentecostal resurrection power of God through the message preached. And where Paul is going with this is that the message that was preached to you, the message that came with such power, with such resurrection power, is in fact the message of Christ's death on the cross, of his humility, of his shame, of his self-denial for your sake as a sin offering. and as a paradigm for your Christian life. But brothers, consider your calling. It's all these wonderful things. It's by the will of God. It's sanctified. It's it's holy calling. It's a corporate calling. It's an effectual calling. It's a gracious and a blessed calling. It's a Pentecostal calling. It comes in the power of the spirit. Verse seven through eight. It's a hopeful call. It's a hope for Christ's return. It's a call to wait for Jesus Christ with hope. We are all called by God and Jesus Christ and the gospel to eagerly wait for His return We saw this as we studied 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. It's fundamental to what it means to be a Christian and a follower of Christ that we are waiting for him to be revealed. And if we remember what we looked at from 1st and 2nd Corinthians, when we think of the Lord Jesus being revealed, we think of him being seated at the Father's right hand in resurrection and ascended glory even now, and the powers of the age to come with all the angelic hosts and all the souls of the saints that have passed. Yet to be reunited to their bodies sitting at the foot of the throne of God and the heavenly realities that we see revealed to us in the scriptures as a present reality. And the only reason that we can't see it by our sight, the only reason that we can't experience it with our touch is because the form of this world is veiling it. So that when Christ returns again, we shouldn't think of it as a physical movement of Jesus Christ from one place to the next. But we should think of the coming of Jesus Christ as a peeling back of the form of this world, a dissolving by fire of the form of this world and all the things that veil and cloud and mist and block our view from the eschatological end times reality of the throne room of God that is present so near. And we're waiting for that moment. We're waiting for that moment when the trumpet blast will sound. And the form of this world will fall away. And the works of men will be exposed. And behold, we will see the throne. And behold, we will see Jesus Christ. And he will judge the world in righteousness. But brothers, we are looking forward to this day. We are hoping for this day. We are those who have turned from idols to await the son from heaven. And we do so in hope because Jesus died on the cross for our sins. And all of God's wrath has been removed from us for that reason. And so we can say with the Thessalonians or with Paul, when he wrote to the Thessalonians in first Thessalonians chapter five, verse nine, that we are not destined for God's wrath. We look forward to that day, and we're hoping for that day, and we're praying for that day, because by the call of God, by the cross of Jesus Christ, we have not been destined for wrath, but we have been destined to obtain glory and salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is your calling, brothers. It's a calling full of hope, and hope breathes life It's a Pentecostal call, it's a hopeful call, it's an infallible call, verse 9. It depends upon God's faithfulness. It does not depend upon your faithfulness. It doesn't depend upon your righteousness. It doesn't depend upon your holiness. It doesn't depend upon the degree of your self-denial or your progress in sanctification. It depends upon God's faithfulness. It's a work that God does for you in your life. He is faithful. He will do it. He works in and through you, and we know that. But it's an infallible call. It will come to pass. It is irrevocable. It cannot fail. It depends upon God. Verse nine, God is faithful by whom you were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. This is Paul's way of telling the Corinthians, you are a mess. You are in disorder. You are tolerating gross sin. You have almost no knowledge of Christian liberty or the other issues that we have to deal with. You're very selfish and a worldly people, but I have confidence in you, Corinth. Because your salvation doesn't rest upon you and your calling doesn't rest upon you. It doesn't rest upon the flesh. It rests upon God and God is faithful and God's at work in you. And that must have been very encouraging to the Corinthians as they were struggling with selfishness and worldliness to remember that it was God who was at work in them. and that he was faithful, and that he had called them into fellowship with his son. To be called into the fellowship with Jesus Christ means to participate with him in his death and in his resurrection. And so Paul was confident that they would share with Christ in his self-denial by the grace of God, that God was faithful to work that in them, and that they would share in Christ's resurrection life and power in this life, in faith, and in the life to come. by sight and in reality and in the flesh. So brothers, consider your calling. What a gift it is. It is a glorious calling. It's a calling that comes with resurrection power and resurrection life, and it's a free gift. It's the work of Almighty God in you. Take that with you. You've been called by God. to a glorious call, and although you are not worthy of it, you're no different than the Corinthians. Selfish and worldly, a complete mess if I'm allowed to use that language, but called by God in grace and mercy. Praise the Lord. Okay, secondly then, verse 10 through 17, Paul moves on now to confront the Corinthians because he set up this, here they are, they're called by God. They're called to this, and he's gonna focus on the unity of their call. They're called to this unified call and all the other things that we've mentioned, this glorious resurrection call, but they're not living worthy of their calling. And they're especially not living worthy according to the unity of their calling. They're thinking of their calling incorrectly. They don't really have a deep, sound understanding of the theological implications of their calling. They don't really appreciate it, and they're not living as if they understand what he has just said to them. They're living not worthy of their calling. They were thinking of their calling in selfish and worldly terms. They were thinking of it in terms of the flesh. and the measures of this world. They were not thinking of it spiritually. They were not thinking of it in its proper terms in light of the cross of Jesus Christ. They were very arrogant and they were very proud. And they were boasting in the flesh. They were dividing among one another against each other like the world does, and they were boasting in the flesh like self does. And so in verse 10, Paul issues a strong apostolic appeal to address the problem. I appeal to you brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's Paul bringing to bear the authority and the majesty of Jesus Christ, who is King. In the church, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment because there's squabbling among them. They were boasting in men. They were really boasting in themselves. They were fighting over who had the superior calling. The whole issue is their calling. They had imagined that the men who preached to them were the ones that called them. That they were followers of Paul or Apollos or Cephas or of even Christ. And I'll explain that in just a minute. This is what he says like at verse 11. They were fighting over this. It has been reported to me by Chloe's people that you're quarreling among you brothers. You're at each other's throat. Why? What does he mean? What do I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Christ. When he says, I follow Christ, I know that there's a couple of different ways to take that. What I think is happening is that there were Christians in Corinth who had sat under Jesus' ministry, his earthly ministry. You can disagree with me on that, but I think that that's what's happening. So, likely, in Corinth, there were people who were there when Jesus fed the 5,000. Or maybe they were there when He healed somebody. They were part of His earthly ministry, and their problem isn't that they're saying Christ. Their problem is that they're thinking of Christ in His flesh. They're not thinking theologically about their calling from Christ. They're thinking about the experience that they had with the man Jesus Christ at His earthly ministry. Well, here's what's happening then. Corinthians are saying I was called by so-and-so. So my call is better than yours. I was called by suffering but intelligent Paul. Well, I was called by bold but confident Peter. Well, I was called by eloquent Apollos. Or I was called by Christ. I was called by the sweet, tender, relatable Jesus in all the parables that he taught. Which is really their way of saying, my calling is better than yours. This is how selfish they were. This is how narrow minded they were. This was how ignorant they were of the calling that was theirs that we just reviewed. They're thinking like the world thinks, factions, boasting in men, boasting in the flesh, selfish, seeking what they can to gain for themselves. They're boasting in fleshly differences, and it's an abomination in the sight of God. But the real problem, brothers, the real problem is the theological problem. They failed to understand the unity of their calling, which is another way of saying they failed to understand who it was who was at work when they were called. It wasn't Paul who called them. It wasn't Apollos. It was Jesus Christ, one Christ working through all of these men. who called them, it was by the will of God, affectually, in the power of the Spirit, Pentecostal. It was not Paul, it was not Apollos. They were just instruments of Jesus Christ. But you see, they'd missed this completely. They had failed to understand that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father who is over all, through all, and in all. And so they were divided because they didn't understand that Jesus Christ is the one who speaks in the preaching and ministry of the word. And they were selfish and they were worldly. Well, this is the problem that they have. Brothers, the application to you today is don't boast in your ministers. Don't boast in the flesh. Don't boast in men. We can make application here. This might sound a little silly to you, but this is how I thought to do it. Jared is like Paul. He's weak, but he's intelligent. I'm like Peter. I'm bold and I'm confident. David's like Apollo's eloquent, and I'm not going to compare Larry to Christ, but brothers, we have the same temptation that they do. And it does. It's not just apply to our, our pastors here at heritage. It applies. especially to celebrity preachers and so on out in the world. Brothers, be careful about putting your boast in men. It is Jesus Christ who is at work by the power of his spirit. The resurrected Christ and the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit who's at work saving centers and he uses weak human vessels. We can frail. Broken sticks. Crooked sticks to draw straight lines. So our boast is not in men, it's not in the preaching, it's not in this style or that style or this method or that method, it's in the Lord Jesus Christ who's at work in all of us for his glory and for his praise so that all of our boast is in him. And we all share then the same boast and the same glory, which is Jesus Christ. Okay. So Paul has spoken on the glory of their calling, the unity of their calling, and now he's gonna correct this division and this selfishness and this boasting in men with a word about the real wisdom and power of their calling, which is not in the flesh. It's the message of the cross. They were called by the message of the cross. the glorious calling that they had received, the new life that they have is through the message of Jesus Christ crucified. God put to death in the flesh, in the person of the Son. It's a message of humility, God's own humility. The message of the cross was the message of God's own self-denial. and it had the power to save the Corinthians. It had the power to tear down their selfishness and their worldliness, and it had in part because they believed. And brothers, it's the same power that's at work in you. It's the same message that's been preached to us. The world's message is a message of me, myself, and I, my merits, my works, my rights, my achievements, my way. I deserve, I deserve, I deserve pride, riches, and pleasure of this world. And brothers, we know the bankruptcy of that message. We lived long enough in it. But the message of the gospel is the message of the cross. And when we heard that message, it had divine power to save. It was the message of humility. It was the message of self-denial. It was the message that we in ourselves, because we are sinners, are worthless before God. We have nothing to bring to Him. We have no hope in ourselves. But the Lord Jesus Christ is our everything. He is our hope. He is our wisdom. He is our power. He is our glory. He is our life. And we believed. We saw right through the message of this world when the truth of the gospel came and it persuaded us in the power of the Spirit. And that message with a message that God denied himself, that he chose to receive to reveal his glory in the corpse of Jesus Christ on the cross, counted as a sinner, as a criminal, a blood sacrifice for sins in order to save the proud and the arrogant and the ungrateful of this world. To save people like the Corinthians who could barely understand the implications of what he had done for them. God had come in humility in order to teach proud and arrogant man humility. He denied Himself to teach us to deny ourselves. He had come to crown our weaknesses with His glory so that we might learn to glory in our weaknesses. This is the wisdom and the power of God. And this is the calling by which we were called. But the Corinthians were living contrary to this message. They were living contrary to the calling that they had been called with. They were living as if they had been called in the flesh, in the world, in man's pride. So brothers, again, consider your calling. Paul walks the Corinthians through this in verse 20 through 25. You have not been called by the great, Verse 20, where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Where are the great of this world? Where are they, brothers and sisters? Where are the false religions and the false Christian cults and the scientists, the men who have knowledge, the moralists, the social justice warriors, the conservative talk podcast host, or the pundits on the media, or any other voice that's out there in the world? Where is the debater? Where are the wise? Where is their great message? You and I know, brothers and sisters, that they themselves are in bondage to their sin and their messages are powerless to save. They are filled with the boast of men, self-interest and personal achievement. But the message of the cross is the message of God's humility, self-sacrifice, and pouring out for your sake. You've not been called by the things of this world. Verse 21, the awesome gifts of nature is really what Paul is getting at in verse 21. For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. This is the same idea as saying, brothers, that you weren't called by nature or by science. or what God has revealed about himself in nature. But you've been saved by the preaching of the gospel, by the voice of God in his word and his word preached. God has so designed the world that it's impossible to be called by God by the things of this world. In order to be saved, God must speak, and God speaks in the preaching of the word, and God's message that he preaches is the cross of Jesus Christ, his own self-denial, his own sin offering provided of himself in Jesus Christ in the flesh of the Son of God. Brothers, you were not called by the great. You were not called by the things of this world. You were not called by the signs and wonders that you have demanded. You can see this in verse 22 to 23 when it speaks of the Jews. Paul says they demand a sign. This is that they want to be wowed. They want to be impressed. They want God to come down and show them something amazing. They want God to prove himself in that way. which is really a way of saying they want God to come to them on their own terms. And they want God to do something amazing for them that they think is amazing, according to their own worldly and fleshly and selfish standards. But here's the ironic thing, as we think about this, is that God did send a sign. The Jews demand a sign, brothers, and God sent a sign. He did do something amazing. He did do something impressive. He humbled himself as a servant. He came in the flesh. He revealed his glory on the cross. He revealed his glory in a corpse. Counted as a criminal, put to open shame. Although he himself is the holy one, sinless. As a sacrifice for sin, for sinners. That they might be saved. He revealed himself in weakness. But the Jews stumbled all over it because it was not the sign that they wanted. It didn't tickle their ears. You are not called by signs and wonders, and you are not called by your own effort. This is what Paul means in verse 22 to 23 when he speaks about the Greeks, how they seek wisdom. That's the idea that they want to seek God. They want to discover on their own. They want to find Him. Through personal merit or achievement, they want to find life and salvation. And really then what's driving them is they want to do it for their own glory. Again, the ironic thing to the Greeks is that God has revealed his glory through the personal merits and achievements and efforts of man, but not men, but one man, Jesus Christ on the cross. God in the flesh. So that Jesus Christ gets all the glory. And if Christ gets all of the glory, God gets all of the glory. You are not called by the great or the things of this world or signs and wonders or your own effort. You are called by Jesus Christ, verse 24 and 25, who is the wisdom and power of God, disguised in the foolishness and weakness of men. Behold God's wisdom and power, verse 24. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, whatever our background might be, whatever sins we've come out of, Jesus Christ, the power of God, the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. God's power is his ability to incarnate, to take upon himself human flesh, to crown our weaknesses and our unworthiness and even our death in his own life-giving dignity and glory. God's wisdom is his plan to save people, proud and arrogant men who are steeped in their sins as a free gift so that no man may boast. God's foolishness was his willingness to offer himself as a free gift on the cross to his enemies. God's weakness is his willingness to die in humility so that proud and arrogant and sinful men might die with Christ and live lives of humility and be crowned with the glory of God's humility. So that, brothers, if you're going to boast, don't let it be in Paul or Apollos, let it be in Christ. and let it be in God who has called you. Don't let it be in the great or the things of this world or the signs and wonders of your own experience or your own efforts, but in Jesus Christ. And so here we come close to the end of the chapter. Verse 26 through 31 essentially speaks for itself. Here, Paul is being diplomatic with the Corinthians. Here's what he's essentially saying to them. He's saying, look, brothers, you are foolish. Can I be so bold? You're being foolish. You're being weak. You are nothing. In and of yourselves. There's nothing for you to offer. You are unprofitable servants before God at best, but because of your sins, you are a stench to him. But God called you. He sent his son to die on the cross for you. He has become your everything. He's become your righteousness and your sanctification and your redemption. He's become your wisdom. That is God's righteousness for you. He's become your power. That's the sanctifying work of the spirit in your life. He's become your everything, your life redemption. So that your boast and your glory might not be in yourselves. or whoever it is that you claim that you follow, but that your boast might be in one, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father overall in all and through all, that your boast might be in Jesus Christ. So do you see Paul's point in chapter one? He's asking the Corinthians, why are you dividing? You've been called by one calling. One Christ, there's no room for division. And frankly, you're not worth dividing over. That's really what he's saying. You're not worth it. Your petty opinions, they're not worth fighting about or dividing over. Jesus Christ, however, is worth uniting over. Well, this is going to require of the Corinthians self-denial to imitate Christ and his cross, to die to themselves, and to die to the world that has influenced them. So brothers, just in conclusion, consider your calling. You were nothing. You were foolish and weak. You were base. But God became your nothing. He humbled himself. He took it upon himself. He denied himself. He took up his cross for your salvation. And now he has called you into the glory of Christ's life to follow him and taking up your cross and by the power of his calling to die to yourself and to this world in service to one another. Therefore, brothers, believe in Jesus. Take up your cross. Deny yourself so that the whole church together, all of us, under one calling and one banner, with one voice, give our Lord Jesus Christ all of the glory. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your calling. We thank You for the wonderful call that You've called us with. We give You all of the glory. Our boast is in you. We thank you for the Lord Jesus and for his self-sacrifice on our behalf that makes this call possible for us. We pray, Lord, that you would make us to be people who, like our Savior, walk in humility and self-denial, not for ourselves, but for your praise and your glory. We pray, Lord, that you would forgive us when we boast in ourselves. when we live selfishly, when we continue under the influence of this world. Lord, we thank you for the forgiveness that you freely offer in the gospel. We pray that you would help renew our repentance to live godly and self-denying lives in this age. Teach us, Lord, to be like Christ, to deny ourselves, and to be willing to walk in humility. for each other's gain, for your glory. And we pray these.