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First Corinthians, chapter 16.
We are finishing First Corinthians today. There we go. Chase that feedback out of the
system. First Corinthians, chapter 16, verses 12 to 24. This is the word of God. Now
concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit
you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will
to come now. He will come when he has opportunity.
Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act
like men. Be strong. Let all that you do
be done in love. Now I urge you, brothers, you
know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia,
and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints.
Be subject to such as these and to every fellow worker and laborer. I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas
and Fortunatus and Achaus, because they have made up for your absence,
for they refresh my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition
to such people. The churches of Asia send you
greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with
the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. All the brothers send you greetings.
Greet one another with a holy kiss. I, Paul, write this greeting
with my own hand. If anyone has no love for the
Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come. The grace of
the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ
Jesus. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the
powerful truth of your word, for the encouragement, for the
comfort, for the correction that it brings to us. Write this word
upon our hearts this morning, Father, by the power of your
Holy Spirit at work within us. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. You may be seated. Well, we come this morning to
the end of First Corinthians, a series we began a year and
a half ago. And it's fitting that since we
began the series in this room, set up like this, that we get
to end the series in this room, set up like this. And so I'm
thankful for that. Just to remind you, our plan
is we will be in the Psalms this summer. We'll be in the Psalms
of the sons of Korah. If you want to get a start reading
on those, 42 through 49 is the first set that I'll be preaching
through, including Psalm 46 that we used for our worship service
this morning and Psalm 42 and 43 we used last week. It's a
wonderful set of psalms. On Thursday, I had lunch with
Bruce Feil. And Bruce has preached here a
few times, although it's been a few years. He's going to be
preaching in my absence in two weeks. So next week I'll start
the summer series on the Psalms and then my family and I are
going on vacation. So Bruce will be here. And it's fitting because
as I was having lunch with Bruce on Thursday, I was reminded that
he was the one who gave me the guidance for how I'm doing summers
in the Psalms. Bruce is a wonderful man of God. He's probably about 80 now. Um... I wanna say he's 73, but I can't
say that, because I've known him for years, and he was 73
years ago, so he doesn't stay the same age. But anyway, so
Bruce is a wonderful, godly man, very experienced pastor, and
when I told him, I said, I really wanna preach summers in the Psalms. I think that would be a great
way to do the Psalms, just have them in the summers, and summer's
a time when people miss here and there, and you can do a series
on the Psalms. You don't feel like you've got
a big gap if you happen to miss one. And plus, I can spread it
out over like 15 summers or so and preach all the Psalms. And
he said, that's great. I think that's a great idea.
I recommend that you put together a series for each summer rather
than just starting at one and going all the way to 150. He
said, make a series that's topical or thematic or whatever. And
so that's kind of how I've done it. And that was under Bruce's
advice. So he'll be here in two weeks
time to preach for you. And then I'll be back Lord willing,
on Father's Day, June 20th, which is also our 23rd wedding anniversary,
to pick up with Psalm 44. So, but today we're finishing
1 Corinthians. And we come to the end. And endings are really
important in anything written or in any movie or anything.
If you really want to know what's important to an author, I teach
this when I teach students, I say, look at what they say at the
beginning. Look at what they spend the most amount of time
on, and then look at what they say at the end. Because that'll
tell you what is first and foremost in the author's mind. And for
Paul, in Corinth, he's dealing with a church that, frankly,
as we've seen over the past year and a half, is a bit of a mess,
right? This church has got people who
are showing up early to the Lord's Supper feasts and getting drunk. and eating all the food before
anybody comes. And so people who have to come
a little bit late, they come and there's no more wine and
there's no more food because the other people who got there
early ate all the food and drank all the wine and are sort of
passed out drunk. Like that's not a healthy church. They're
taking one another to court and they're suing each other. They
were tolerating a man who was sleeping with his stepmother. This is a really mixed up church
and they had a whole group of people who were going around
the church teaching that there was no resurrection of the dead.
So Paul had a lot of things that he had to deal with with this
Corinthian church. But what's interesting is what
he deals with first and spends the longest amount of time on
is the issue of divisions and factions within the church, the
lack of unity. And then that relates to probably
the most famous chapter in 1 Corinthians, which is 1 Corinthians 13, where
he's addressing the lack of love in the church by giving them
this compelling positive portrayal of love. And then at the end,
we see him again returning to these same themes in the final
instructions that he gives to the church. And so we can see
that for the Apostle Paul, yes, there are many problems in the
church in Corinth, but the root is that they are not united in
love. And he longs to see them united
and strong and acting in love. And so that's where the emphasis
falls on these final words for the church. Paul talks about
Apollos in verse 12. And that's significant because
Apollos was the guy that was heralded by some people within
the Corinthian church as kind of a rival to the Apostle Paul. Just to remind you of the story
that we told a year and a half ago, Paul was the one who started
the church at Corinth. He came and he brought the gospel
to them for the first time. And the household of Stephanas
were the first converts in all of Achaia, that is all of Greece.
They were the first ones to come to the Lord. And Crispus and
Gaius and some other key influential leaders came to know the Lord
under Paul's ministry. Paul was there for about a year
and a half. But Paul intentionally, coming to Corinth, which he knew
to be a very Greek, influenced city was very intentional in
that he was not going to use any of his rhetorical training
Earlier in Acts 17, he had been in Athens, and he used some of
his rhetorical training there. But when he gets to Corinth,
he resolves. He says, I was resolved to know nothing among you except
for Christ and Him crucified, so that your faith would not
rest on human wisdom and eloquence, but on the power of God through
the cross of Jesus Christ. So he was very deliberate. I'm
going to preach Jesus, I'm going to preach Jesus crucified, I'm
going to preach the gospel, and I'm not going to wander from
that. I'm not going to get into rhetorical displays of wisdom. Well, he leaves after a year
and a half, and about a year or so after he leaves, Apollos
comes. And Apollos is a man who is also
very committed to Christ, very committed to the same gospel,
but he's also a very well-trained, powerful speaker in the wisdom
and eloquence of the Greeks. And so he comes as a very dynamic,
eloquent, wise, and powerful speaker. And there were many
people who were rather unimpressed by the Apostle Paul who were
really impressed by Apollos. And they started to say, we follow
Apollos. And those who had been the original
converts in the first part of the church, they said, no, no,
no, we follow Paul. And then, as you know, later
on, some people came in who probably came from the Jerusalem area
and were Jewish from background. And they said, well, we follow
Cephas, Peter, the rock, the original. And then the super
spiritual people in the church decided to counter all of these
factions and say, we follow Christ. We're the really spiritual ones.
So it's not by accident that in his closing, he comes back
to Apollos. And then we'll see what's very
interesting is he also speaks to them in a way that's very
much like Peter would speak to them in verses 13 and 14, particularly
in 13. So he talks about Apollos. And
he says, now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him
to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not his will to come
now. He will come when he has the opportunity. Now, what's
interesting to me is that Paul is not trying to control or order
Apollos around, but he's allowing Apollos to make up his own mind
about where the Lord is leading him in ministry. This is a bit
of an answer to those who believe that there should be some hierarchical
structure to the church. Because if there's a hierarchical
structure to the church with bishops and archbishops and cardinals
and a pope, well then Paul as an apostle had all the authority
to say, Apollos, go to Corinth. And Apollos would have had to
go. But that's not how it works. These are equals, they're brothers,
they're fellow elders within the church. And so Paul urges
him, hey Apollos, I think it would be a good idea for you
to go to Corinth. Now think, Apollos is Paul's main rival
in Corinth. No, he's not. Paul's making that
very clear. He said earlier in chapter three,
verses five to nine, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants
through whom we believed, literally slaves. We're just slaves of
Christ through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither
he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who
gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters
are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building."
The fact that Paul was urging Apollos to go shows that Paul
had no envy of Apollos, no fear of Apollos, no concern that if
Apollos goes back to Corinth he's gonna wow everyone with
his rhetorical gifts again and people won't think very much
of Paul. Paul doesn't care about any of that stuff. He wants unity
in the church. And he knows that Apollos is
a man of God who loves the Lord and who's faithful to the gospel
and he'll go to Corinth and he'll bring the same message of unity
in the gospel and love for one another that Paul himself would
bring. But he's also content to trust Apollos to follow the
Lord's leading. And just as Paul himself wrote
earlier that he's not going to come to them, he's gonna stay
at Ephesus because he has a wide door for effective ministry.
Apparently wherever Apollos is, he has a wide door for effective
ministry, so he's not willing to go at this time. So we can
see the humility. of giving people space to make
their own decisions and follow the Lord as the Lord leads, but
we also see this absolute refusal to get caught up in some sort
of cult of personality and to try to compete with one another
for the following of the church. The church belongs to Jesus,
it doesn't belong to any man. And there should absolutely be
no rivalry for trying to compete for followers. That should have
nothing to do with the church of Jesus Christ. Then Paul gives
the Corinthians his final set of commands. And they're urgent,
and they're clear, and they're direct. And he gives them four
in one verse, and then a fifth that really ties them all together.
This is verses 13 and 14. Be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act
like men. Be strong. Let all that you do
be done in love. So verse 13 is very direct and
very clear. It's very urgent. The tone in
the Greek is even more so, because for the most part, these commands
are just one word in the Greek. So watchful, firm in the faith,
manly, strengthened. It's that sense of urgency. And what's interesting about
this verse is that it sounds very much like something Peter
would say, like something Peter did say, which I don't think
is a coincidence. Peter is the other one who was
kind of a rival in the factions in Corinth. And this is what
Peter wrote in 1 Peter chapter five. Be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary the
devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
Resist him. Firm in the faith. Sound familiar? knowing that the same kinds of
suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout
the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the
God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ,
will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever
and ever. Amen." We see the exact same
four commands. Be watchful, Stand firm in your
faith, right? Be courageous, really is what
be manly means, is to be courageous together, and then God himself
will strengthen you. So first be watchful, or be on
the alert. It's a call to be actively alert
and watching for danger. It's easy for us to get into
a pattern in our daily lives where we think We're just living
our own lives. We're just following our own
ideas. We're just watching our own choice of television shows. We're just reading our own choice
of books. We're just sort of doing our
own thing, right? And not be aware of the fact
that there is an enemy who never stops working. Peter says he
roams about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Our
adversary, the devil, is a restless enemy who never stops prowling
around and working. And what does a lion do when
he wants to attack a flock, a herd, a group of animals that are prey? What does he do? He sneaks in,
and he does, he will divide Right? And then he will pursue the isolated
ones. That's what he does. He divides
the herd, and then he will go after the slower and the weaker,
the ones that are all by themselves. Because the lion knows that if
the herd stays together, he can't really get at the ones that are
suitable prey for him. But if he can get them to divide
and to scatter, and he can get some alone, He can pick off the
ones that are young or weak or sick or otherwise slow. And this
helps us understand why in a church that has so many problems, Paul
spends so much of his time focused on unity, that the church has
to stand together in love for one another. We have to have
each other's back because there's a lion. So the only way for us
to be safe is to be united under Christ, our good shepherd, staying
together, following him, so that we can resist the prowling lion
who's seeking to divide and devour. Leaving the flock and going out
on your own or gathering up rival factions within the flock is
a sure recipe for inviting Satan into our midst to devour. We
must be watchful. We must maintain our unity and
our diligence against the enemy, and that requires humility. The
quickest way that we get divided is when we're all convinced that
we're right, and they're wrong, and we need to go this way, and
who cares what they think? And I can be guilty of that.
and it's wrong. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4,
he says, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk
in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one
another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace. How do we keep that unity? with
humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another
in love. God has called different types
of people together in his church. We don't all think the same.
We don't all like the same things. Yesterday at a graduation party
for some of the graduates, We were sitting around a table with
the Rossi family, and Beth was sitting next to me, and Rob was
sitting next to Lynn. And Rob and I were talking sports,
right? And Lynn says, Rob, can you and
Beth switch seats, because I want to talk to Beth, and neither
one of us want to talk about sports. So they switched, and
we could talk about sports, and they could talk about the things
they wanted to talk about. And so that's, you know, we're not
all the same, right? But we're all called to be together.
We're all called to be together. And we need to do so in a spirit
of watchfulness, a unity and watchfulness, keeping our eyes
together fixed on the good shepherd, King Jesus. Jesus told us in
Matthew 26, 41, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. We need
to be praying on our own. And we need to be gathering together
to pray, which is why our prayer gathering next Sunday morning
during the Sunday school hour is really important. We're not
just going to jump right into Sunday school. We need to gather
the church to pray. And so I want to encourage you
to please be here at 930 if you can, so that we can gather together
the church to pray. We need to watch and pray because
we need the Lord's blessing and protection as we return to normal. Yes, kids, in the 1900s, we got
married. We got married and someone gave
us a Family Life Marriage Conference gift certificate. as a wedding
present. And I actually worked for what's
now Shine FM, WRBS at the time. And I knew Family Life, and I
knew Dennis Rainey, and I thought it was great ministry. And I
listened to the program regularly. And I thought, oh, that's so
nice. They gave us a Family Life marriage conference. We don't
really need this. But maybe we'll go sometime. By August, I was like, where's
that Family Life Marriage Conference certificate? And it was first weekend of November,
and we went. Six months into our marriage,
we were there. And one of the things that we were taught, and
it seemed kind of silly at the time, but after we did it three
or four times, I realized, yes, this is actually very helpful.
And that is, the guy who was the speaker, I can't remember
his name, but he said, all of you, We're gonna say it out loud
together. My mate is not my enemy. My mate is not my enemy, right? And 23 years of marriage later,
sometimes I still have to remind myself, my mate is not my enemy. We have an enemy, but it's not
the person who's next to you in bed at night, right? In the
church, we have an enemy, but it's not the person sitting in
the chairs next to you. We are the flock of God, we're the people
of God, we're the children of God, the family of God, the household
of faith. We have an enemy. We need to
know who our enemy is so that we can take our stand against
him. Second, we need to realize that no soldier ever stands firm
alone. If you understand Roman warfare
and the Roman armor, you understand that it is designed for people
to be together. One of the things that many people
have noted is there's no armor for your backside in the Roman
system. You have a breastplate, but you
have nothing to cover your back. And of course, one of the things
that people will say is, that's because you're never supposed
to turn your back on the enemy. Well, yes, but it's also because you're
never supposed to go into battle alone. You have each other's
back. The shields that the Romans carried
in a battle were designed to interlock so that they could
form an impenetrable barrier to the enemy. And then you could
fight with the sword as you extended your shield out to cover your
fellow soldier to your left and you could swing with your right
knowing that your soldier to your right was covering you with
their shield. So the shields were actually designed to protect
the person next to you so that you could swing and they could
swing. And that's the third thing is that the way we fight, is
by taking up the Word of God in prayer. Those are the offensive
weapons that God has given to us. The sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God, praying, he says right in the context
of that, take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
of God, praying at all times with all supplication for all
the saints. So we take up the Word of God and we pray, and
that's how we fight. There's a lot more we could talk
about, but the armor of Christ, the armor of God itself, is really
a way of talking about putting on Christ daily. Because who
is our salvation? Helmet of our salvation, who
is our salvation? Jesus. The belt of truth, who is the
truth? Jesus. Breastplate of righteousness,
who is our righteousness? Jesus. The shield of faith, who
is our faith to be in? Jesus. The sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God, who is the word of God incarnate?
Jesus, right? So it really is a way of saying
we need Jesus every day. We need Jesus and we need each
other if we're gonna stand firm. That really is what that passage
is driving home. Now third, we're gonna get sexist
here. Paul commands the Corinthians
to act like men. Some other modern translations
have tried to soften this up a little bit and say be courageous
or have courage. And that is the gist of what
Paul means, but the word he uses is actually just the word for
male or man, and he turns it into a command form. So maybe
the best way to translate this is man up. It's literally probably
the best way to translate it. So be watchful, stand firm in
the faith, man up. What does that mean? Well, it
does mean that we need courage. That is really what Paul is getting
at. Life is warfare, and warfare requires not only being watchful
and standing firm, but also having courage in the battle. It is
so easy to lose heart. I love what Tim pointed out earlier
from A Mighty Fortress is our God. One little word shall fell
him. That will give us courage, right? It's so easy to lose heart. Courage,
the idea of courage comes from the French word for cour which
is heart, right? It's to take heart. It's to have
heart in the battle. And it's so easy to lose heart,
right? We see the way some of our fellow
Christians act. We're confronted by the way we
continue to act. We look at the culture around
us and it just seems like we're losing the battle for any sense
of righteousness or decency. It's just really understandable
that we would lose heart. But God's word never fails. Christ's kingdom is unshakable. Hebrews tells us we are receiving
a kingdom that cannot be shaken. It's not shaken by the election
cycle. It's not shaken by cultural trends. It's not shaken by the
filth that's put out there for entertainment. It's not shaken
by our own sinful disobedience to the Lord. The kingdom we are
receiving is unshakable. Our king is enthroned in the
heavens and he is never going to be dethroned. When he gets
up from that throne, it will be to come again and to take
us to be with him forever. Fourth command is to be strong.
And of all four of these commands, this is the only one that's put
in the passive voice, which means be strengthened. And it's a reminder
to us that we don't produce our own strength. We don't have any
strength of our own. It parallels with what Paul says
in Ephesians 6.10, be strong in the Lord and in the strength
of his might. We need to be strengthened by
the Lord if we're going to stand firm and have courage. And then
finally, all this watching and standing and courage and strength
and warfare language can maybe lead us to misunderstand the
nature of our warfare, and we can forget that we are not called
to a life of anger or hatred, even though we're in a battle.
The way we fight in the battle is with love. And so verse 14
says, let all that you do be done in love. And here Jesus
is of course our great example. Christ won the warfare of his
life when he laid down his life in love for his own. He won by
losing all in humble obedience to his father and in love for
his own. The whole life of Christ was
a successful, brave, strong battle, and the whole life of Christ
was a life of love. That's what we're called to be
doing. How can we be watchful? How can we stand firm? How can
we man up? How can we be strengthened? By doing everything we do in
love. For the Father, for how much
he's loved us, and love for one another because of how much Christ
has called us and given us to one another as well. Well, if
you're gonna live like this, we're gonna need good role models
to follow. Examples of brothers and sisters who themselves are
being watchful, who are standing firm in the faith, who are acting
like men, who are being strong in the Lord, and who are letting
all that they do be done in love. Of course, nobody does this perfectly
except Jesus, and that's why Jesus is our ultimate example.
But Paul takes time here to commend to the Corinthians, their local
church leaders, for their obedience and for their recognition. There was no camp in the church
in Corinth that said, I follow Stephanus, or I follow Fortunatus. And those were the leaders that
God had given them in their local church. Instead, believe it or
not, they were caught up in a celebrity culture, you know, celebrity
pastor mindset that detracted them from actually following
the leaders of their local church. So Paul says, now I urge you,
brothers, you know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts
in Achaia, and they've devoted themselves to the service of
the saints. Be subject to such as these, and to every fellow
worker and laborer. I rejoice at the coming of Stephanus
and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for
your absence, for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give
recognition to such people. It's two main attributes that
make these men, these kinds of leaders within the church, particularly
worthy of our obedience, that we would follow them, and of
our honor, that we would recognize them. The first is that they
devote themselves to the service of the saints. This is what Paul
says particularly about the household of Stephanas. They've devoted
themselves to the service of the saints. The word devoted
is such a strong word. It reflects a fixed and unwavering
commitment that your flag is planted and you're not going
to cede that ground. In fact, the King James translates
this as they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.
They will not stop serving the saints. Some people are firmly
and zealously committed to work hard for the church, to serve
their fellow saints in the household of faith, and these kinds of
leaders are priceless to a church, and they should receive the full
support and encouragement from the congregation. We should cooperate
with them, and we should make their devoted service more enjoyable
and easier by having our full cooperation. And Paul says, give
recognition to such people. And so I would like to do that.
The household of Ryber has been devoted, addicted to ministry
to the saints. the household of Troutman, the
household of Wilson. You guys have people here who
are dedicated servants to the church. They show up every week
and they do what's asked of them. Every Saturday night, Sean sits
down and spends the better part of an hour putting together the
live stream so that it works when it goes out. And then Jason
Wood, who's sick today, sits there every week and runs it. Joel comes every week and supervises
the setup. And Gabe is here every week,
and that's a sacrifice to their families. And what the work that
Lori has done with the nursery and the childcare and the help
that she's had, we can't function as a church without people like
this who just step up and do. And they do it tirelessly, and
they do it thanklessly. And we should give recognition
to such as these. And of course, one of the dangers
of giving recognition is that you'll forget people. But you
know who they are, right? Larry's always here. They're
just faithful. And they show up, and they do.
And they do with a committed attitude that allows the rest
of us to be blessed. And what Paul says we should
give them is support, cooperation, help, And then the second attribute
is that these leaders in the local church refresh the spirit. He says this of Stephanus and
Fortunatus and Achaicus. They come to Paul in Ephesus
and they refresh his spirit as well as yours. You know there
are those people that when you spend time with them, you just
walk away smiling and you feel 10 pounds lighter. You just realize
they are an encouragement, they are a blessing. And we have people
like that in this church, and I am so thankful to them. To
have a card arrive in the mail, so a few people will send me
cards from time to time and let me know that they're praying
for me, or they'll speak a word of encouragement when they see
one another on Sunday morning, or they'll invite me over to
their house and we'll just have an encouraging time of meeting
together. This is where the lifeblood of the church happens with those
of us who are here pouring into one another and loving one another
and encouraging one another and serving one another. It's how
the church thrives. It's how the church grows. And
so we should honor those. We should honor those. Verses
19 and 20 remind us that the church's unity and vitality extends
far beyond the local church, and that we're actually connected
to one another in love throughout the world. The churches of Asia
send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with
the church in their house, they were leading the house church
in Ephesus, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. All the brothers
send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy
kiss. So just a little background helps
us understand the context of this. When he says the churches
of Asia, he's talking about the churches of modern day Turkey.
And he's writing to Corinth, which is in modern day Greece.
Now, one thing you should know, if you don't know, there is more
than 3,000 years of bad blood between Greeks and Turks. It
goes all the way back to the Trojan Wars, and the Trojan horse,
and the Iliad, if you remember that in school, all the way back
to 1200, 1300 BC, and it's still there today. There's kind of
this animosity across the Aegean Sea between these two countries,
and it was there in this day. But here's the point, that doesn't
apply to the church. We're not, we're the Greek Christians,
or we're the Asian Christians, and we have a better culture
than you. No, our culture is better than you. It's no, it's
we are brothers and sisters in Christ, we love one another in
the Lord, we greet one another in the Lord. It's any dividing
line that the world wants to draw, should be torn down in
Christ, and we should love one another with a Christ-exalting,
God-honoring love. And that's true of all Christians
around the world. And then the final words from
Paul, verses 21 to 24, he gives a very strong warning, and then
a final blessing, a double blessing. Verse 21, by the way, in case
you're curious about these kind of little things. Verse 21, I,
Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. It's probably the
only part of this letter that was actually written by the Apostle
Paul. And the reason for that is that
Paul probably had failing eyesight. And they didn't have what we
have today with these wonderful exact prescription eyeglasses.
And so as his eyesight failed, he was able to write less and
less himself. He had to write with very large
letters. And so at the end of his letters, though, to make
sure that people knew it really was from him, he would kind of
sign it himself with a few words. In one case, he says, see with
what large letters I write. And so it's his letter. But he
has someone working with him to actually write down the words.
And he tells us at the beginning, it's Sosthenes is the one who
actually wrote out First Corinthians. But Paul puts this in here. I,
Paul, write this greeting with my own hands so that the church
would know it really is coming from him. And it's a setup for
the very last thing he says to them. He wants them to know this
is really coming from him, from his heart. And then he goes to
a very strong warning. If anyone has no love for the
Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come. There is a very
strong warning here that is really aimed at people in the church
who profess to believe in Christ and who attend church and call
themselves Christians, but in the end do not have love for
the Lord Jesus. Those are the kind of people
who do cause divisions within the church. Why would someone
take their Christian brother to court just to publicly humiliate
them? Why would someone show up early
to a fellowship meal just to stuff themselves and get drunk,
not caring if anybody else who comes later has anything? Why? The root of the issue is that
they don't love Jesus. Because if they knew Jesus and
they loved Jesus, their heart, we're all sinners, of course,
but their hearts would not be so hardened against their brothers
and sisters in Christ. And so this is a very strong
warning. You can be in the church, you can profess faith in Christ,
you can be numbered among the saints, but the real question,
the very simple and profound question, this is what I want
to ask you, do you love Jesus? Do you love Jesus? Has His love
so captured your heart that you say, yes, He is my Lord and Savior. I love Him. I am so thankful
for Him. I am so blessed to know Him. You can attend church, you can
give money, you can know the Bible, but do you love Jesus? Paul says if you don't love Jesus,
you're accursed, and those who love Jesus are blessed. And those
who love Jesus have the same heart cry that Paul gives at
the very end of verse 22, our Lord come. It's Maranatha in
the original Greek, our Lord come. That's the heart cry of
one who loves Jesus, right? I, I spent my last summer before
we got married in China. We were engaged already. And
I was gone for eight weeks. And it was hard. And we were
on the other side of the world. And kids, this is long before
the internet. This was the summer of 1997. Yes, we did have telephones back
then. But to place an international call from the United States to
China was very expensive. And Beth was a college student,
and I was freshly out of college, and we didn't have very much
money. So we had a weekly phone call where she would call, and
we would talk for like 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, and that was
it. And it was hard, right? And what we were longing for,
because we loved each other, was to be together again. And
our heart was, toward the end of it, our hearts were just aching
to be back together again. And of course, she was there
at the airport. Can you imagine if I got off the plane and I
walked into the terminal? Where's Beth? Oh, she's not here.
She, you know, she had to get her hair done. She decided she
wanted to go shopping with her sisters. No, she was there, right? And I couldn't wait to see her.
That's the heart cry of someone who loves Jesus. Our Lord, come. I can't wait to see you face
to face. So do you love Jesus? And then the benediction. As
Paul so often does, he ends his letter with a word of blessing.
In this case, it's a double blessing. By the way, that's one of the
reasons why we end our worship service every Sunday morning
with a blessing, a benediction, because Paul ends just about
all of his letters that way, and the reason why he does it
is because that's the way the worship of God's people has been
ended for thousands of years, by the blessing of God to rest
on the people of God as they depart. from worship. He says,
the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you
all in Christ Jesus. Amen. The grace of the Lord Jesus
be with you is Paul's most standard blessing. It's one that's at
the end of just about every one of his letters. And it's powerful
because what more do we need? Right, if we have the grace of
Jesus with us, what more do we need? That's it, right, that
gives us everything. His favor, his kindness with
us, then we are well supplied and that is all we need. But
here Paul adds, my love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Paul's
had some hard things to say to this church. He's had some serious
situations to address. He's had to say some things that
were uncomfortable for him to say, uncomfortable for them to
hear. And so he wants the last thing that they hear from him
to say, I love you, and may my love be with you in Christ always. That's what we come back to as
brothers and sisters. We might not always agree. Sometimes we
have to confront one another and say hard things to each other.
I hope that if you see me out of line or I say something inappropriate
toward you, which I can do, that you will confront me and say,
you know, Jason, I don't know what you were thinking, but when
you said that, that was pretty inappropriate. That hurt my feelings.
I don't know why you would do that. And hopefully, I will say,
you're right. I'm so sorry. I'm still learning,
still growing. Please pray for me. Please forgive
me. but then we're good, like we love one another, because
we're together in the Lord, and that love has to be the final
thing, the love that comes from the grace of the Lord Jesus.
You see, the grace of the Lord Jesus is the source and the strength
of our love for one another, and that's why our love is in
Christ Jesus. His love never fails. And we're
called to persevere in that love and continue to extend that love
to one another always. And so, amen. So be it. Let's pray. Father, what love
you have given to us that we should be called children of
God. What love you have given to us
that we should be called brothers and sisters in Christ. rooted
in the gospel, grounded in your word, saved by your grace, destined
for your glory. You call us to stand firm and
be watchful, to have courage and to show love in all that
we do. We can only do this as your Holy
Spirit fills us and unites us and strengthens us and leads
us. And so lead us, we pray, King Jesus. Amen.
Final Urgent Words for the Church
Series 1 Corinthians Sermons
| Sermon ID | 6121170127386 |
| Duration | 47:17 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 16:12-24 |
| Language | English |
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