beginning in verse number 10. Paul says, Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing. and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas. Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other, for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." I'm convinced one of the reasons that God has blessed Calvary Baptist Church for more than 50 years is because of the unity, the sweet unity that we've experienced as a church through those years. You hear of trouble down at the church. There was trouble down at the church in Corinth. Let it not be said of us that there is trouble down at the church. Don't let that be said of us. I thought about this, that unity of the Spirit, what God the Holy Spirit gives, that unity that comes to the people of God is very fragile. It's easily lost. I can't keep this church together. You can't keep this church together. But yet together, as we yield ourselves to our God, we can experience the unity of the Spirit, and He keeps us together. That's how it works. And this church was fractured. Paul worded, come to Paul by the household of Chloe, of the division that was in this church. It had been declared to him. It was first-hand knowledge. Paul wasn't repeating gossip or hearsay. The church had been divided up into little factious groups, little divisions that were at odds with one another. No doubt there were services that if you attended the church at Corinth, the tension would be so thick you could probably cut it with a knife. And instead of the church being a battleground where God's people were going to battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil, instead of it being a place where God's people were experiencing glorious victories in the power of the Holy Spirit, the church had become, as someone put it, a playground where spoiled Christians fought over petty trivialities. And the church was splintered and ready to split. The truth is there was trouble in this church. I want you to note the cause of it, could we? the cause of it, the cause of division in this church. And we want to see again in verse number 10, Paul says, now. It's interesting, the first nine verses, he's sort of been laying a foundation. He has been greeting the church, loving on the church, saying positive things about this church. But now he comes to verse number 10 and he gets down to business. He's not going to tiptoe through the tulips. He's going to courageously confront the problem in Corinth. Notice he said, Now I beseech you. He doesn't try to clean out the spider webs. I'll tell you what Paul's getting ready to do. He's going to kill the spider. Notice he said, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, no schisms. It was a picture of a garment that had been rent or torn. torn into the seamless garment of unity had been ripped to shreds in the church at Corinth. And there was some root causes. He's going to lay out the causes. First of all was personality cliques. He's going to mention that in verse number 12. They had become man followers. Do you know what I believe one of the greatest problems In churches today, even among preachers, if we're not careful, we become followers of men rather than followers of Christ. And that's the problem. Instead of following Christ, they began to follow men. There was the proud pupils of Paul. I mean, he was such a theologian. I mean, he took you into the deep things of God. He was the meat of the Word. They were the feed-me crowd. We're Paul. Look what they say. Verse number 12, Now this I say, every one of you saith, I am of Paul. And then there was these adoring admirers of Apollos. Oh, what an orator! He was eloquent. The Bible tells us he was eloquent. He was cultured. He was the kind of preacher that would take you into the glories. I mean, he was the move-me crowd. This group, the feed-me crowd, we're of Paul. The move-me crowd, we're of Apollos. But then you had this one person called it the chummy cult of Cephas. They were the followers of Peter. I mean, he could shuck the corn. I mean, he was just an old fisherman. I mean, there was a sense of adventure every time that Peter got in the pulpit, because you didn't know what to expect in a service. And this was the thrill me crowd. Where is Peter? And then there was that group there. Notice what he said, "...and I of Cephas, and I of Christ, the faithful followers of Christ." But that would be in a sarcastic way. This is the pious crowd. You can sense the air of their spiritual superiority. You see the halos and the wings. This is we've arrived crowd. Oh, we're of Paul, we're of Apollos, we're of Cephas, we're of Christ. And they were all divided up and following these groups and they were quarreling amongst themselves. And probably who was the most spiritual? Who was right? Who ought to be in charge? And you know what? The sad fact is there are churches in our land that are no different today. They are sick. And you say, preacher, what do you mean by that? There is schism within that church because of personality cliques where people are following men rather than Christ. It could be an individual, a couple of individuals, maybe families that are feuding, maybe someone who maybe had been there the longest and somehow or another they thought because they had been there the longest or maybe they were a charter member that they had a little more clout than maybe somebody else. And they failed to recognize that it wasn't their church, it's the Lord's church. It belongs to Him. Let's not follow me and let's follow the Master. But then there was petty carnality in this church. Look over, if you would, chapter 3. Paul's going to talk about this over in chapter 3 and verse number 1, because he's going to use this word divisions again. And he said, And I, brethren, cannot speak unto you as spiritual. I wanted to talk to you as spiritual Christians, but I couldn't do that. But as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ, I fed you with milk, and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able for ye are yet carnal. For where is there among you envying and strife and divisions? Are you not carnal and walk as men?" You want to see what I would say is the symptoms, the hallmarks of a carnal church. It's filled with envy, jealousy, strife within that congregation, and division. He said, you're carnal. You say, what's a carnal Christian? That's a Christian who's governed by their fleshly desires, their sinful nature, rather than by the Spirit of God. Can I just say we're going to come to pride in a moment? I don't want to get ahead of myself too far, but can I tell you that probably one of the most subtle of sins is spiritual pride? Well, if you've prayed like I pray, If you know God like I know God. If you've been where I've been. Did you catch the problem with every statement that I just made? I. They were caught up with themselves. Paul likened them unto babes in Christ. They had failed to progress spiritually in their Christian life. Can I just say something to a new Christian? It's okay to be a baby Christian. Everybody was a baby Christian at one point. Did you know that? And we needed to grow. But here's the problem. It's okay to be a baby. Alright? There's mamas here and you have babies. It's okay to be a baby. But you don't want them to stay. Well, maybe you do. But you know that's not what's going to happen. Those little sweet babies that you're hugging and pulling up close to you, one day they're going to grow up, and you know that. And you know this, I've talked to moms in our church, and we've got a lot of them, praise the Lord. And you have these little babies, and I'll see them, and mama's holding them, they're carrying them in their little... I don't know, that little carrier thing. It's been so long since I had a baby, I forgot what, in our home, we forgot what you even call them. But anyway, they've got that little carrier or whatever, you know, they're carrying them around and all this. And maybe it's a, it maybe doubles as a car seat. I don't know. I mean, things are so different. I don't know about y'all, but I mean, we had wind-up swings that we put our kids in. Did y'all have those? Anybody know what I'm talking about? On Sunday, now, this one, you know, it wasn't on, it was on its last legs, okay? And it had a little bit of a warp to it when it moved, but Emily was in it, and it was sturdy. We'd wind that thing up, you know, and she would rock, and we'd jump into bed real quick on Sunday afternoon and get a nap, you know. And that thing would last as long, and then suddenly where you wound it up, it would wind down and stop, and then there it would go. I mean, you know, you're jumping up, and I'd say, it's your turn to wind it. She'd say, no, it's your turn. I wound it the last time. Now it's just all automatic, you know. It's just so different. But you ever notice that that little baby doesn't stay a baby long? That baby stage, it's just brief. You ever notice that? And that's the way it ought to be in a Christian life. It ought to be brief. But what happened here, here was a church that they had been saved long enough to have matured spiritually, to maybe move into spiritual adolescence in their lives. It's okay to be a baby, but it's not okay to stay a baby. There's something wrong there. And the characteristics of a baby Christian or a carnal Christian, someone that should have grown up but hasn't grown up, is they're filled with jealousy of other people. Strife follows them. And they're always in a squabble or a division or something. It's just an evidence of a lack of spirituality. And by the way, this thing of spirituality is not what we look like on the outside. Anybody can dress the part. It's who we are on the inside. And as I'm getting ready to say, in a moment, the moment you and I think we're spiritual, do you know what? We're not. It's sort of like humility. The moment you think you're humble, you just lost it. And the same is true of spirituality. Somebody told me, he said, I don't know if I'm spiritual. And I said, well, let me tell you this. If you did know, you wouldn't be anymore. Because the moment you think you are, pride has set in. And you've arrived. They burned with jealousy. There was contentious rivalry in this church. There was squirreling in this church. There was division. There was a wedge between them. And Paul's going to talk about these factions again. Look at verse 4. While one saith, I am of Paul, another, I am of Paulus. Are you not carnal? Are you not carnal? You know what? Here's the sad thing. I go to preacher's meetings. I go to meetings. These men in our church that have pastored for years, they know exactly what I'm talking about. And they'll divide up in little camps. And sometimes it's based on where they went to college, or what they view about this, or what they view about that. And they begin to divide up in camps. And you know what? It's a bunch of carnal preachers that haven't grown up spiritually that are following men rather than the Master. And that leads us to the problem of pride. We find that over in verse number 12 of chapter 1. He said, that every one of you saith, I am, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ, I, only by pride cometh contention. Our motto shouldn't be I, it should be not I, but Christ. That should be it. Not I. John the Baptist put it this way. He must increase, but I must decrease. Can I tell you that spirituality consists of Jesus ever increasing in our lives and we ever decreasing in our lives? The Corinthians were guilty of making personalities into parties in mountains, molehills in the mountains. There was a cause of the division. These are things that you and I should guard ourselves against because we can fall into these traps. It doesn't matter how long we've been saved. It doesn't matter how spiritual we are. You and I can be tempted over certain situations or circumstances and myself included to fall into these traps to be jealous or envious quarrelsome or whatever it might be, without following the biblical principles of solving conflict within a local church. Jesus has already told us how to do that. You say, preacher, what is it? Go to the person you've got the problem with. Don't talk about them. Pray for them. Settle it between brothers and sisters in the Lord. That's what He says. You know, there's no reason why two people filled with the Holy Ghost can't get anything that's wrong between them right. There's the cause of division, but then notice the consequence of it. What had happened, and I'm just going to give you a few tonight. First of all, they had dishonored the name of Christ. Do you realize that in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians that the Lord Jesus is mentioned 15 times in its 31 verses? It's one of the most Christ-centered chapters in all of the New Testament. And it reminds us of the union that we have in Him. Look at verse 13. Is Christ divided? Of course, we know the answer to that. No. There is a union that we have with Him. And if you go to the great high priestly prayer of John 17, his prayer was, Father, that they may be one as we are one. That there might be a union and a communion among the people of God. A oneness that mirrors the oneness that we have in Him. That's what He's saying. That they may be as one as we are one. One of the hallmarks of the Lord's disciples is not that they carry a great big King James Bible. It's not that they can sing, O how I love Jesus, top of their lungs. It's not that they can quote the Romans' road backwards. Jesus said, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. When we fail to love each other, church, I can tell you what's going to happen. Division will set in. It'll hurt our testimony in the community. Do you know that there's churches in a community that have no impact, they have no influence, they're dying, they're sick, and they're dying because they really have no genuine love for one another in that church? Oh, they love the individual families in that church. But they don't love each other as a church. That's one of the things that especially churches, community, country churches battle with because families come there and they have deep roots in these churches and the families can become cliquish and they can feud with one another. And they love each other. There's a familial, there's a family love, but there's not a church, there's not a family of God love. They don't love each other. Can I help you understand something? The bond that we have as believers goes deeper than the bond we have with our natural family. It does. That's hard for many to fathom if you have a really close family, but it's true. Jesus, when they said to Him, Your sisters, Your mother and Your sisters are without dispute, He said, Who is My family? But they that hear the Word of God and keep it. Because he knew something. He knew that there could come a time in spiritual ways that natural family could turn against you, but that ought not be true of the family of God. Isn't that right? That doesn't mean that there's no such thing as church discipline. It does not mean that there's times that things don't have to be confronted and dealt with. But there ought to be a deep, deep love that when people walk through this church, they sense they're walking into a place where the love of Christ is present. I remember when my grandfather died who was probably... I mean, he was like a father in my life. And by the way, can I just say thank you for praying for my dad? He has seen some improvement. Many of you ask me and I thank you for being concerned about my family. And this last stint that he had, that short stint that he had in the nursing home and then with the physical therapy, it's gotten to where he's able to be more mobile can get in and out of bed without my mom. He hadn't fallen but one time in the last probably week and a half, which was huge. He was falling like five times a week or more, sometimes multiple times a day. And so he has improved and I thank you for that. But when I was little, my dad wasn't really there. My grandfather filled that void. My dad and I had a wonderful relationship after I was a grown man. When I was a child, he was still a child. I mean, it's just a fact. I'm not making anything up. I mean, he played softball on three different teams. He was gone all the time. We never seen him. If we wanted to see our dad, we went to the ballpark because he's either at work or he's playing softball. My mom pretty much raised us like a single mom that was married. My grandfather filled that void in my life. By the way, that'll be a lesson to us dads. Don't let the peripherals keep you from the main thing in your life. That's very important. Now I love my father, and I'm thankful for him, and I believe he loved me, but in that stage of his life he just hadn't grown up yet. My granddaddy filled that void. When he died, it was during a revival meeting, and I remember going back home. I was there when my grandfather went to heaven. I did his funeral. But in between that time, from the day he died to the day the funeral was later in the week, I could have stayed in my hometown. I could have stayed with my natural family. Lori asked me, she said, what do you want to do? I said, we're going to go back to King. We're going to go back to our church family. Because when I came here, I ministered there. This is where I was ministered to. You loved on me and prayed for me, cared for me. That's where I drew my strength. But not only does it dishonor the name of Christ in a community and who He is and what He desires for us, but it discourages the servants of Christ. By the way, you know, I thought about there's times I minister to people of church that grew up in churches that were filled with division. And I minister to them, and many of them I'm trying to get in church and you can't. You know why? Because they think the church is filled with hypocrites. You know why? Because that's all they saw growing up. was infighting, feuding, gossip, no real love of Christ. And they build this resentment, this wall toward what they call church, doing church or institutionalized religion because they were hurt or they saw things or experienced things that hurt them or hurt their family. And as a result of that, they just build this wall to where they really don't want to be a part of it, and they're resistant to it. And you know what? If we're not careful, if we ever have church division, let me tell you who's going to suffer the most. It's the little boys and girls and teenagers, and they're the ones who are going to suffer. The scars, I hear it. They carry from the hurt, the disillusionment. Some just carry on the family business of trying to control the church. And the church never blossoms for God. New believers that are saved and baptized join the church. You know, when you people get saved, there's a little bit of a naivety to them. They just think everybody loves each other and churches because it's such a different... They love everybody. They think all Christians love and get along with one another. And then they're in a church that experiences the tragedy of a church breakup and irreparable damage is done to them spiritually. And many times they get out of church and it's hard to ever get them back in because they become disillusioned, they become hurt, they're let down. And you know what? We have a responsibility to the young Christians in our church that we maintain a love and the unity of the Spirit and a closeness of fellowship where they can thrive spiritually. Jesus said, Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and they were drowned in the depth of the sea. I was preaching last night and I mentioned it here. I don't know that it was a bigger part of the message, but I mentioned the fact that it was ten, and it may have been, ten unbelieving men held back an entire nation. Do you know just a few unbelieving believers can hold back an entire work of God? Because it's contagious. It infects. And our attitude can infect people. It disappoints the Spirit of Christ. The Bible says, Grieve not the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4.30, Whereby you are sealed in the day of redemption. That word grieve is a love word. God wants so much for our church and desires so much for our lives and what He wants to do. And when a church begins to break apart, I believe it breaks the heart of a holy God. It grieves the Holy Spirit. And then it dismantles the work of Christ. The church at Corinth was failing to impact their city. They were so fractured. They were so divided. They had lost their power and they had lost their potential. And they were no longer functioning as the body of Christ in that city and impacting it for the cause of Christ. And so these are warnings to us. As far as I know, we have a unity here that's unparalleled. There's a closeness. Now listen, am I saying that everybody gets along all the time? No. Am I saying that everybody likes everything all the time? No. Am I saying that everything's perfect all the time? No. That wouldn't be true. But what it is true is we see there's a cause bigger than ourselves. That's what we see. Listen, I don't even agree with myself all the time. That's reality. Transparent. I don't get it all right all the time. I do my best as a pastor. This year will mark my 35th year pastoring a local church. My 40th year preaching comes September of this year. I can't believe it. I can't even believe that we're already at the end of first quarter of 2025. Who can believe that? I mean, it's going to be Christmas next week. I'm like, where in the world did it all go? But the reality of it is that, listen, unity is not unanimity. It's not everybody agreeing about everything all the time. It's just realizing that, you know what? There's just something bigger than me. And it's called the cause of Christ. And I may not like this little thing, or I may not like that little thing, but there's something bigger going on. And I can lay this aside because of what God's doing here. Now you know what? If there is deep compromise, that's something totally different. If there's ethical wrong, That's totally different. If there is doctrinal departure, that's totally different. We're not talking about any of those things. We're just talking about, I can promise you, as good as we do our best, and I just had another one telling me tonight that they were thrilled about these new chairs that are coming. But somebody's going to sit down in it and you're not going to like it. You're going to want the old chair back, and it's okay. I get it. I get it. I'm like that too. You know, there's just certain things, you know, I want to hang on to, you know, and maybe it just fit us better or whatever. But you know what? It's not a big enough deal to dismantle the work of God over. It's just not. It's just not. And if we can keep that in mind, church, then you know what? We're not going to give opportunity for Satan to slip in and bring division to this ministry in which God is doing so much in this community and in this world. And I'm going to tell you, God's not doing it because we're good and because we're great and there's something special about us. God's doing something special because He's chosen to do something special and He's let you and me in on it. And that's the reality of it. And then there's a cure. I'm not going to give it all to you because I don't have time, but I want you to look at verse number 10. I'm going to look at one phrase. Paul's going to beseech them and then come all the way down where he talks about no divisions among you. We're down in the latter part of verse 10. What's this phrase? That you be perfectly joined together. That's a medical term. It's a term that repairs something that's broken. It's used of setting a broken bone, of putting something right again. The church of Corinth was broken and it needed to be set right. Do you know this same word is used in Matthew 4 verse 21 where James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were mending their fishing nets? They were mending them. They were restoring them to usefulness. The church at Corinth needed to be restored to usefulness. Galatians 6.1, it was used of those who are spiritual. It says, if a brother be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore." That's the same word. Perfectly joined together. Restoring a fallen brother. It is a restorative ministry. We see a brother, a sister overtaken in a fault. They're broken by sin. God said those that are spiritual should restore such and one. in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." What he's saying is, we've not arrived. And wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Hey, you and I, you and I can be overtaken by fault just as easily. Meekness. Paul said, I beseech you. the Corinthian church like a broken bone that needed to be set, a torn net that needed to be mended, a broken fellowship that needed to be restored. And you know what I thought about this? When you preach through books of the Bible, you're going to just deal with subjects to help us. It's called preventative. It's not like I felt like there was a problem and I just ripped this passage of Scripture out and preached on it because I'm lowering the boom. It's not that at all. Because I don't have anybody to lower a boom at. I'm just preaching preventatively to remind us that Satan, if he can't destroy something from without, he'll do everything he can Instead of like a roaring lion, he'll become like a slithering serpent and he'll slip in somewhere and bring division. And you know what? We don't want to give the devil an inch, a crack, because the moment we do, he'll wreak havoc in our lives and in our church. And we can't give place to the devil. Isn't that right? And by the way, let me just say this. The devil can use good people. You say, preacher, what in the world are you talking about? He can. You remember what Jesus said to Peter? Remember what He said? Jesus is talking to Peter and talking to His disciples, and He said, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Do you know what He said? Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, son of John. Flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you, but my Father which is in heaven. The next instant, He begins talking about what Jesus does, going to the cross and sharing with them that He was going to die for the sins of the world. And the next instant, Peter said, Wait a minute, Lord. That's not... No, no, no, no. Not that. Nope. No, you're the King of Israel. You're not going to die. Let's stop this dying stuff. "...and began to rebuke the Son of God." Can you imagine that? Remember what He said to him? "'Get thee behind Me, Satan, for thou savorest not.'" Here was a man, a good man, a godly man, an apostle. One day going to be an apostle. A follower, a disciple of the inner circle of Jesus. And one minute he is blessed of God, and the next minute he's being used by the devil. So don't think that the devil can't use you. And preacher, don't think that the devil can't use me. Because if he gets into our lives in a little area, he can. Because even good people can get caught up. and be used in a wrong way. Isn't that something? Boy, that ought to teach us something tonight, shouldn't it? It did me, and I hope it did you. Let's pray tonight for the unity of our church. Could we do that? Could we pray that God would help us just love each other and be the kind of church we can impact our community that we'd never become like Corinth? You know? And maybe you have a need tonight. You need to bring it to the Lord. You say, preacher, if I come forward tonight, somebody's going to think I'm a troublemaker. No. Nobody's going to think that. You just have a spiritual need. You bring it to the Lord. How about that? Let's pray.