is the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul's letter to the Corinthians. And I'm reading the first chapter because this morning we're going to begin a new series of messages through this letter of 1 Corinthians. I'm sure that I've preached through in the past 1 Corinthians. I can't remember if I've done so at this church or not, but maybe you will remember maybe years ago. But at any rate, if I can't remember preaching through it, we'd probably better do it again, right? So here we go. Here is God's word, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother, Sosthenes, to the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace. from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you're not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. 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. For it's been reported to me by Chloe's people that there's quarreling among you, my brothers." What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. For it's written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who's wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 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. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus. who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. And there is the word of God, and we are to receive it as such. So Kevin, the one song, that's got to be the theme song of our study through 1 Corinthians. I don't know what you do with a theme song. Maybe you sing it every week. But it will reinforce, but certainly that's a good one for us to sing often. All my boast is in Jesus. Is that right? Because it really summarizes. As you're going to see as we proceed through 1 Corinthians, this thing of pride and boasting, we need to really get a handle on it. All of us do. And it is a major theme, if not in some ways, besides that of Christ and boasting in him. This whole matter of boasting is, I'd say, you could virtually say it's the theme of this letter. Because that was the problem at Corinth, you see. All right, then. Let me get. organized here. Kevin, did I say we need to build a new podium here? We need a big one here, too. Got it. We'll have to do that. All that you can buy that I can see without spending $2,000 is one made out of sawdust pressed together. It's going to fall apart. So anyway, well, here we are then. Hey, we've got the Apostles' Creed there once again in your handout. Let's recite it together. And maybe at some point, we'll even have it memorized. But I still have to read it. Here we go, you ready? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven. and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there, he shall come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. All right, then, 1 Corinthians. You're always trying to give a new title to the series. Some of you might, as we go along, think of a better one. But certainly, this does summarize the book, The Wisdom of God and the Foolishness of Man. The Wisdom of God and the Foolishness of Man. And in this first part, we'll begin to talk about, as Paul talks about, saints or holy ones by calling, yet acting like mere men. Well, let's come to some background information on this letter and how it came about that the Apostle Paul then wrote it. So a couple thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul and his missionary journeys went to the city of Corinth, then you remember, you recognize that the Book of Acts in the New Testament, the Book of Acts, the Acts and the Apostles, it records the history of events in the New Testament, missionary travels, these kinds of things. But it's kind of like, in a way, the skeleton upon which the flesh of the other New Testament epistles hang. They hang on it. Like Paul was in Ephesus here at this point. You read about that missionary journey and act. And it's while he's at Ephesus, he's writing to the church at Corinth. And so that's that sort of a thing. So he travels to this city. It's called Corinth. He preaches the gospel there. God, in his sovereignty, calls his elect to salvation. And a church was formed there. Paul was there for 18 months. That's something to keep in mind as we go through here. 18 months is a long time to have the Apostle Paul there teaching. Surely nothing could go wrong after that, right? Well, we'll see. So he left then, and when he's writing this letter, he is actually in Ephesus. He's across the Aegean Sea, so like if Greece is over here, the Aegean Sea is here, and then here's Ephesus. Ephesus is located in that Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey, okay? So he's across the waters from them. And he writes this letter to them from Ephesus. The purpose of this letter is largely, as we're going to see, to deal with problems in the church at Corinth, which had been reported to him by three men from Corinth who had traveled over to him and given him a report. How's things going in the church at Corinth? There's some trouble there, Paul. They also brought a gift to Paul, probably monetary or something, to help in his support from the church then at Corinth. Let's look at a number of verses here. I've printed them out for you from 1 Corinthians that you can see from the epistle itself much of the setting in which Paul wrote it and his relationship to the church at Corinth. So first of all, we see that Paul, from 1 Corinthians 2, when he came there, he preached the gospel. He preached Jesus Christ to them. And he emphasizes that he did so in humility, all right? So here's what we read, beginning in verse 1. And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. And similarly, 1 Corinthians 15, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Now, the content of his preaching to them was, as he's going to remind them from 1 Corinthians 3, it was the gospel, but it was the basics of the gospel, the ABCs of the gospel. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not able to receive it. And then here's his admonishment. Indeed, even now, you're not yet able. You see, we seem to be the problems here. at Corinth. We also see 1 Corinthians 4 that Paul is going to send Timothy, Timothy's with him over there in Ephesus, and Paul's going to send Timothy to Corinth in order to teach them further. And then afterward, Paul intends to come to Corinth himself once more. So here we are, 1 Corinthians 4, verse 17 and following. For this reason, I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. And he will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church. Now some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out not the words of those who are arrogant, but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in words, but in power. What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?" You see the problems there that existed, and notice how much as we go through this, you'll see the words boasting, arrogant, pride. There's the root of the problem. Also, we see from 1 Corinthians 5 and other places in the letter that 1 Corinthians is actually probably 2 Corinthians. There is an unknown 1 Corinthians letter that wasn't preserved. a decree that it would be preserved. So our First Corinthians really isn't First Corinthians as such. So Paul writes here, I wrote to you in my letter. You see it then, his earlier letter, not to associate with immoral people. I didn't at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or idolaters, for then you'd have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother. he's an immoral person, or covetous, or idolater, or reviler, or drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. And then we see that the Corinthians themselves had written a letter to Paul, probably delivered by that party of three people from Corinth, asking him to advise them concerning several issues. So for example, chapter 7, verse 1, now, concerning the things about which you wrote, it's good for a man not to touch a woman. So they asked him some things then about marriage. As we're going to see, you see, that sounds commendable and humble. that they're asking him for more instruction. But really, it's not. Really, what we're going to see is these guys, since Paul had left, and it had been about three years since he'd been there, in that period of time, for numbers of reasons, they had developed an attitude. You see, they had developed an attitude. And they were at odds with the apostle who had actually founded the church there. You see, that was the real problem. Paul, we see, chapter 16, is in Ephesus for the winter. He wants to remain in Corinth for an extended time when he comes there again. He'd already been with him an extended time, but he says, these guys are going to need more of my time. So chapter 16, I will come to you after I go through Macedonia. For I'm going through Macedonia, and perhaps I'll stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go. For I do not wish to see you now, just in passing. For I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits. But I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective service is open to me, and there are many adversaries. work, as also I am. So let no one despise him, so that he may come to me, for I expect him with the brethren." And that tells you a whole lot then about this problem at Corinth. Admonish them, warn them to be kind to Timothy. You see the problem there. A delegation from Corinth, we see, also in chapter 16, had come to Ephesus with a report on the church and brought a gift to Paul. I rejoice over the coming of, oh, here's their names, Stephanus and Fortunatus and Achias. I didn't say that right. a caicus, I guess we'll say, because they have supplied what was lacking on your part. For they've refreshed my spirit in yours, therefore acknowledge such men. So there were a few there still at Corinth that were faithful to Paul. Also, just by way of note here, over there in Ephesus, Paul is with, and we've seen these people in the Book of Acts, Aquila and Prisca, or Priscilla. He's with Timothy. And he's with Apollos over there as well. Chapter 16, the churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Prisca greet you heartily in the Lord with the church that is in their house. So they had a house church that they were leading there in Ephesus. So there is information on the situation taken directly from Paul's letter. And we're going to be able to find out some other facts about the state of the church at Corinth as we go through the epistle. Now, it's important for us also to have some background on the city of Corinth itself, because this will really help us understand with more clarity what Paul has to say. A really good commentary on 1 Corinthians is written by Gordon Fee, the New International Commentary. on the New Testament, and so I'm taking some quotes in this section from him. He says, as much for any other book in the New Testament, and more so than for most, the various sociological, economic, and religious factors that made up the environment of the city of Corinth have a profound impact on our understanding of Paul's letters, 1 and 2 Corinthians, to the church there. So understanding some of the history and what's going on in the city of Corinth. By the way, if you, and I hope that your printout's not extremely small, smaller than you can read, but I included in your handout a little map there. Most of you have good color maps in the front or in the back of your Bible there. But I circled the city of Corinth there on your handout. And I don't know how clearly you can see it or not. But Corinth itself is located on what's called an isthmus. And it's a land bridge that lies between the two bigger parts of the continent there. And we'll see why that's important in a few moments. The big bulk there to the left, that'd be down to the southwest of Corinth, is called the Peloponnese, the Peloponnese. I think that just means peninsula. It's a big chunk there. And then there's this little land bridge that Corinth is located on that connects the Peloponnese to the mainland, all right? So we'll have more about that geography then in a few minutes. So you see then it's in a very strategic location located on that natural land bridge. Everybody from that big chunk called the Peloponnese has got to come right across that little, you've got to go through Corinth if you're going to go up to the, I guess Athens is up to the north there. And so there's all this traffic going back and forth. by the city. It also, that little isthmus, that little land bridge that connected these two big areas of the continent, it also separated to the north and to the south then two bodies of ocean there, right? So what happens is, I think Gordon Fee is going to say this in a minute, but what happens is, ships and so forth that wanted to go from one side, say a ship is coming from the southeast over here on the Aegean Sea, and it's coming up kind of to the northwest. Now, if it turns left, it's got to go clear around that Peloponnese, which is a pretty big piece of land. It's got to go clear around there if it's going to come back So what would happen is, if I understand it right, is these ships would come up to buy Corinth on this narrow strip of land. They didn't have a version of the Panama Canal there, right? So they transport their goods overland across this small isthmus and then either put it on another boat or something, another ship on the other side. And it was a shortcut. That's what I'm trying to say. Corinth lay right. on a shortcut. And so it's in an extremely strategic position, good and bad, as we're going to see. I think Gordon Fee goes on here. He says, the Greek city of Athens enjoyed golden years, the golden years of Athens, right, around 400 BC. Paul's writing in about 50 AD, something like that. Corinth flourished at that time. However, that must have been maybe the era back in those old guys, you know, Plato, Socrates stuff. I don't know. I never studied them that much, but that's old Corinth. Old Corinth, though, was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. And it was a ghost town. It was a pile of rubble for over 100 years, for over a century. Then along comes Julius Caesar. And he decides to rebuild it as a Roman colony. And he did that in 44 BC. So this Corinth wasn't all that old that Paul is writing to, maybe 80 to 90 years old. The new Corinth, it's the same location, it had the necessary ingredients for an economic boom. It was a happening place. It had natural water. And by the way, that map in your hand out there, That's a contemporary map if I'm reading it right. Corinth is still there. That city is still there. You can double check me on that, but if I'm reading the map right, that is the case. The city of Corinth had natural water supply, pretty important. It was in a natural defensive location. It had the backing of Rome. It was, as we've seen, the master of two harbors. And they had something called the Isthmian Games. It's like the Olympian Games. The Olympian Games were a step above in importance, but not far. The Isthmian Games were quite important. And Paul then, see, that sheds some light on 1 Corinthians 9. Paul says, if you're paraphrasing here, You've got to run the race. He uses athletic pictures for the Christian life. They're something that the Corinthians could relate to. So they enjoyed economic success almost immediately. Gordon Fee, he's kind of comical, but it's true. He says, money attracts people like dead meat attracts flies. And so Corinth is seeing, as it's founded, an influx of people from East, from Asia, from Egypt. Rome conquered Greece. Rome conquered Alexander. But the culture of Greece persisted. Hellenism, it's called. It persisted. By the way, that's largely why your New Testament was written in Koine Greek, you see. It was the culture of Greece and the worldview of Greece, the Grecian philosophers and so forth, that persisted. And Corinth was no exception. This was largely the worldview of the Corinthians. You had the religions of the Roman Empire there, but there were the religion and philosophy and arts of Greece. And then you've got to throw in, as Fi notes, the mystery cults of Egypt and Asia. Then you've got the Jews. There were Jews there. The church at Corinth was primarily Gentile, but there was a Jewish synagogue in Corinth. And as, again, Fee notes, he says, here were these Jews present in this city, this mix of religion, and here were these Jews with this crazy religion that said there's only one God. Also, then, like any booming city commerce center like this, you've got among the people there that that are described by that French term, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, the nouveau riche. The nouveau riche, it means the newly rich and what, it's a derogatory term by the way. If somebody says, oh, I see that you are nouveau riche, right? What they mean is, well, here's the definition. It's the characteristic of someone who has risen economically or socially very quickly, but lacks the social skills appropriate for this new position. Old money, old money, you've heard that term, inherited from a long life of wealth and nobility, those kind of people would use this term, nouveau riche, in a derogatory manner for people who had struck it rich, right? They've got the money, they've got all this stuff, but if you were to If you all give you an example, all right, so I've been reading and rules book Stranger beside me. No, that's not right. That's that's her book on on Ted Bundy What is the name of this one that I read? Anyway, it's about a lady poor gal and I I think I hope she was a Christian but She foolishly got drawn into a marriage with an evil guy when she was only like 19 or 20. Happened in Salem. She met him in Salem, Oregon, that way, Salem. And he was even plotting her murder in years later while he was down here gambling at Lincoln City at the casino. But this happened in San Antonio, Texas. His plotting did. And then he had her murdered. He hired some guys to kill her. She had had quadruplets. It's a really sad story. And they were there. And she answered the door. And this guy killed her. And then her 13-year-old daughter came home from school and found this whole thing. But anyway, her ex-husband, Alan, was a nouveau riche. He was a psychopath, full blow. But he could con people left and right. He pulled all kinds of cons down here in Salem and in Texas and Hawaii and all around. But when he finally struck it rich and he established a company right here in Vancouver, Washington, this medical device, see, took off. It took off eventually. He ended up being worth maybe $50 million or so. But he, him and his other wife, they build this house down in a really elite area of San Antonio and really it's old money type of stuff. But what does Alan do? He builds this giant, massive mansion, and it's pink. It's pink. And it's this thing. And his neighbors were like, this guy, he's an idiot. He's got all of this money. Well, he was a nouveau riche, right? A derogatory term. That's what he was. He had a lot of money. And he was a fool. Fortunately, he and his co-conspirators were all convicted. It took three years to convict him. He went to prison. He just knew. You can watch the program on 48 Hours on YouTube. And here he is. He's just bragging, looking in the camera. Did you know people can look you right in the eye and lie so convincingly? If you don't know that, you need to know that. And but he did that. And you can see it. And he just knew. He hired the best lawyers in the nation. He had a whole team of lawyers. Didn't work. Jury convicted him. Saw right through it. Sentenced him to life in prison without parole. 14 years later, he died in prison. Good riddance, right, to him. But that's the nouveau riche. He's a fool. And Corinth had those kind of people. And there's trouble when there are those kinds of people. In addition to that, there would have been thousands of slaves, lots of individual small businesses in the population. They're all benefiting. All of them are benefiting from this economic boom in the city of Corinth. Listen to Gordon Fee again. As often happens in such places, vice and religion flourish side by side. Old Corinth, get this now, this is something. Old Corinth had gained such a reputation for sexual vice that Aristophanes, who lived way back in 450 BC, he coined the term, it's a new word, and the word he coined was Corinthianazo. All right, it's a verb, Corinthian, Corinthiazzo. And it means to act like a Corinthian. That is, and everybody understood, to commit fornication. That's what the term was. You could visit, as I understand it even now, the museum in modern Corinth and see examples there, statues and things, that represent offerings to the gods. pleading for healing from venereal disease, because vice was so, so rampant. Then there was the religions. Paul refers to these oftentimes, the idol temples that were there, and the feasts, and what a problem this was for the new Christians. 1 Corinthians 10, now these things happened as example for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also crave. Don't be idolaters, as some of them were. The Israelites, as it's written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did. And 23,000 fell in one day. You begin to see why he has to soberly remind of those things. Gordon Fee says, all of this evidence together suggests that Paul's Corinth was at one and the same time New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas of the ancient world. That's what it was. First, the message of 1 Corinthians starts to sound like, wait a minute, this might be pretty pertinent to the day and age in which we find, then, ourselves. You know, right now, there's, in connection with that, there's, in the matter of relevance, so there's this thing going on, some of you are probably aware of it, where a big deal about, oh, What was the preacher? Alistair Begg. He's a well-known pastor of a church back in Ohio, been there a long time, so forth. And he is broadcasting on all kinds of channels. And one of the main channels that he broadcasts his sermons on canceled him, cut him off, because they realized he was preaching that it was not only OK, but good for Christians to attend a homosexual wedding, if one of the homosexuals or whoever, transvestites, was going to get married, that it's too harsh and judgmental to say, no, I'm not going. You know, if you know somebody there and they're getting married, that you're not, you aren't going to go. So there's been this issue that's cropped up. Should be a no-brainer. Should be a no-brainer. So I noticed that, in fact, I sent it to Mac and maybe a few of you, a friend sent it to me. There's a link right now that Ligonier sent out. It's a really good message. You can read it on this issue. And he's pointing out how Alistair Begg, I don't know that he names him or anything, but that they're misusing, for example, the parable of the prodigal son. I don't know how they're misusing that. The father didn't go join the son in the pig pen, okay, so he didn't do that. So it's a good article that Ligonier put out because of this issue. And then this other pastor that Actually, I kind of knew online. I mean, I communicated with him in years past and so forth of a set of Reforum Church down in Southern California. He's since left that and left the ministry and is doing something else. But he's a Hebrew expert, doing a lot of stuff. But he's preaching the same thing, that we've been just too judgmental on homosexuals and transvestites and so forth, and to not attend a wedding that is to be too judgmental. Anyway, this kind of a thing, you see. So there you have it. If you were living in Corinth, should you go attend some of those things? You know, if you're a Christian, so what should you do and so forth? And I think it's pretty obvious that It doesn't, you don't have to convey hatred to someone that's a homosexual, hatred toward them. But at the same time, you can say, I'm sorry, this is sin. I'm not gonna be coming because I can't endorse this in any way. And of course, as soon as you attend, you are attending, the congregation is there at a wedding to be witnesses. So you are adding your endorsement to what's going on here, you see. And we're just not going to do that. Now, there will be some teaching here that the Apostle Paul has here in 1 Corinthians. It'll be very pertinent then to that subject then. So here you have all these people in this church. Most of them are Gentiles. They were pagans and idolaters. That's what's in their background. and some of the things that they're doing, you know, they have to be instructed that as a Christian, you're called to be holy and shown and haven't explained why. No, no, don't participate in that. Here's a good summary of the church from Gordon Fee. The picture that emerges then is one of a predominantly Gentile community the majority of whom were at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, although there were two or three wealthy families. As former pagans, they brought to the Christian faith a Hellenistic, Greek worldview and attitude toward ethical behavior, and that caused some problems. Although they were the Christian church in Corinth, an inordinate amount of Corinth was still in them. emerging in a number of attitudes and behaviors that required radical surgery without killing the patient. And this is what 1 Corinthians attempts to do. You see, that's what it is about. Why is it important to the church today? Well, I won't read this whole passage, but I printed it out for you here. 2 Corinthians 6, here it is. Don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial, a name for Satan? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. I guess I will read the whole thing. I don't want to drop this. As God said, I will make my temple among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." That passage right there ought to handle the whole homosexual wedding thing pretty in and of itself. Well, what are we seeing today? Are we seeing the church in the world, or are we seeing the world in the church? Increasingly, we're seeing the world in the church. Lloyd-Jones saw it in his day. It's always been a battle. But we are seeing that it's not difficult to find examples of pastors and church members that are just starting to buy up the woke philosophy and all the philosophy and thinking and practices of the world. You can list them all, right? sexual confusion and perversions, acceptance of globalism, right? One world. Endorsement of homosexual marriage, enmeshment in the world's religions, and money. Maybe that's one of the biggest ones. Money. Money as a mark of success in, quote, the Lord's work. That's a worldly mindset of what the church must be. Now, Corinth and the sin of arrogance. Get this, there are 29 occurrences of the word boasting in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. In a negative sense, in a rebuke of the Corinthians boasting about themselves, And in a positive sense about, as we sang this morning, that our boast is to be in the Lord, where Paul's instructing them the proper way to boast. But this tells us, you see, 1 Corinthians 4, for who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? And then chapter 5, verse 6, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole loam? So here's this sin of arrogance and pride that Paul has to deal with. And largely, you could say also this is one of the chief themes of 1 and on into 2 Corinthians as well. arrogance, pride in self is a horrible and dangerous sin. It's totally contrary to the gospel of Christ. And it will make the church like the world. It will spread like leaven. It welcomes wolves and counterfeit Christians then into the church. In other words, pride If allowed to spread in ourselves and then on into others, it will destroy a church. It will make a local church not be a true church anymore. The building might be there. There might be crowds and masses of people. But it won't be a true church. The spirit has departed from that. And we're going to see this arrogance in Corinth before we get hardly through the very first few verses of it. The Lord Jesus Christ emptied himself. He emptied himself. And he came into this world as a baby in a barn. A barn. Now, we can think on that for a long, long time. And we can grasp it, kind of. But we still don't get I don't think in this life we can get the full appreciation and picture. When Christ humbled himself, Philippians chapter 2, and he took on the form of a bondservant, and then he went to the cross, you know, he enters Jerusalem mounted on a colt. And it is impossible to follow Christ if we're prideful. It's impossible. The thing can't be done. Jesus said, if you're gonna follow me, You've got to deny yourself. You've got to take up your cross. You've got to die to yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. And if you won't do that, then I won't have you. So pride in a church, in an individual, it leads us away from Christ. And it leads us away from the word of God. And that's what was happening at Corinth. That's why there was this animosity brewing between the Apostle Paul and the Corinthians. That's what's really going on. That's the thing that really produced this letter. That's what's at the root of all of these problems that Paul is going to address. That's what's at the root of it. They became arrogant. They looked at Paul's humility and his refusal to practice great oratory and so forth and to use the wisdom of men like they were used to and so on, to act like some of their philosophers. And if he didn't do that, then he must not be much then uh... anything and so they had all of that kind of thinking brewing around brewing around in them and so do so many local churches today you know this thing it comes in i can say and i won't apologize for it it's true i'm right if you're driving down the road and you see oh well okay i'll give you an example the lady that Anne Rule wrote about in the book that I'm reading that was murdered. I hope she was a Christian. She had a favorite psalm, but then those things in and of themselves don't make you a Christian. But as soon as her and her new husband moved to Sarasota, Florida, so they're down in the South, and if you've been down in the South much at all, that's churchland. It's churchland. I mean, there's these huge brick, massive buildings. If you've not got 500 people in your church, you know, then, I mean, they're all over the place. And so the first thing they did, their girls were baptized there, and they became members of that church. And I hope that it was a faithful place, but they showed a picture of, here's this massive building. And it's new. It's massive on all these grounds. You know, usually they'll refer to those kind of places, refer to their buildings on as a campus. This is the campus. And there's budgets of millions of dollars, sanctuaries that are huge amphitheaters. And when I see that, my mindset is guilty until proven otherwise. Because that's of the world. Virtually inevitably, that is then of the world. It's a danger. But see, that's the thing that appealed to the flesh. That's the thing that was going on in Corinth. In Corinth, if they would see that kind of stuff, big followings of people and so forth, and oh, wow, ooing and awing. Look at the great oratory of this preacher. And that's the stuff that we want. Well, they would have eaten it up. But because Paul shared the character then of humility as the Lord Jesus Christ, they were rejecting him, right? You know what I'm saying? Well, yeah, his letters are weighty and strong. But you know, his personal appearance is not, and his speech, they are not impressive. That's what was going on then at Corinth. You could see the impatience of the apostle Paul. What would you do? I mean, I would be tempted to say, fine. Fine. You guys just have at it then. But he didn't. He's going to go back there. And what he does, what he's going to do is something that I think gets short-circuited nowadays. Because on the one, you know, here's a tension, okay? I'm a pastor. And here's the tension of it. I wrestle with pride, the sin of pride. And so you, and you know it's sin, I know it's sin, and you want to be humble. You don't want to come across I don't want to come across to people as the dictator, I am the pastor up here, and you are the guys down there, and that sort of a thing. But more and more lately, as I've looked back over pastoral ministry, I think I've made another mistake. And it's because, I think, In seminary, the emphasis was upon, now remember, an Eastern shepherd leads and the sheep follow. You don't lord it over the people. And the Bible says, don't lord it over the flock. That's sin, and it's wrong. But the Bible also says, and you will see it here in 1 Corinthians, that when Paul says things, well, let me back up. I haven't often enough come to terms with the fact that God called me. He called you, too. He called you to salvation, and he's gifted you. But he called me as a pastor to preach the gospel. That's my calling. And with that comes his authority, his authority. And I think I've too often, fortunately, we don't have that going on here now, but I've too often tried to be, think, well, I don't want to exalt myself and so forth. But what can happen is, in doing that, you can let a sinful, arrogant person lord it over and work like a diatrophies and work their way up. And so they're lording it over the church. And pretty soon, everybody's looking to that person. Oh, what would he say? What would he say? And I think there's been times in my ministry when I needed to say then more forcefully, hold on here. I'm the pastor, and you're not. OK, and I think that what you're doing here, this is wrong. That's not what we're supposed to be doing here. Anyway, but Paul knew that he was called. He does it here, lots of his letters. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called as an apostle. And when he needed to, which he preferred to do, he would be humble. and kind and loving and encouraging, but that love and encouragement would also be balanced with, he knew he was an apostle, so he would say things. How do you want me to come to you? You want me to come with a rod? Or do you want me to come humbly? You see what I mean there? And all of us need, not just me as a pastor, but you all, too, need to recognize that when you're born again and God's Spirit abides in you and you have God's word, you have an authority also when you come up against sin or an arrogant person. Here's Gordon Fee on this. He says, the basic stance of my commentary, Gordon Fee says this, here's his book, his commentary, 1 Corinthians, is that the historical situation in Corinth was one of conflict between the church and Paul. You want to understand 1 Corinthians? There it is. There is the problem. That's not to deny that the church was experiencing internal strife and divisions elsewhere. But it is to argue that the greater problem of division, seen here in the church at Corinth, was between Paul and them. And it had to do with the Corinthians' understanding of what it means to be spiritual. and they were becoming boastful. They didn't get it right, you see. So here's this conflict. Let me end with this. Always remember, I use this example. Mack has a relative that attends St. Paul's Lutheran Church, all right? That relative, and I assume that liberal church, named after Paul, doesn't believe Paul. It scoffs. You talk to somebody, he talks to his relative there, and they scoff at what the Apostle Paul wrote. Now think about this. If you reject Paul's letter, who are you really rejecting? It isn't just Paul. It's the Lord. Because Paul is called as an apostle, and what he's preaching and teaching here, this is the word of God. This is the word of God, you see. And I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people who claim to be Christians, have been in the past members of this church, and I tell them, well, look it, here's what 1 Corinthians says you need to do. Don't even eat with such a one. Oh, well, pastor, I just don't agree with you on that. Well, it's not disagreeing with me that you have to worry about. You're disagreeing with God. You're refusing to obey, then, the word of the Lord. You can't reject the apostle Paul as saying, oh, well, that's Paul's view of marriage and so forth or whatever. But and at the same time say, well, I'm a Christian, and God loves me, and everything's OK, when in fact you're rejecting Paul. Well, this is what's going on at Corinth. They're rejecting Paul. And what he's going to show them, you're rejecting Christ. You're rejecting Christ. Because what was delivered to me, I delivered to you. That's what he's saying. And it didn't originate with me, it originated with god it is then the word of god well you can see then that first corinthians is going to serve as a pretty important uh... field of of study and preaching for us father we thank you for your word thank you for this letter from the apostle paul written so long ago and yet it may as well have been written today and father we pray that as we go through it and and study it carefully and that we would believe your word, that we would obey you, and you would use your word to fashion and shape us further into the image of Christ. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Membership, Jason, third Sunday. You have one more Sunday to stop him. or to accept him as a member of the church. That's right. One more. All right.