00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
But we live in a culture that
has made it clear that it embraces all manner of evil. With the
redefinition of marriage just 10 years ago, the promotion of
sexual immorality in schools, the funding of the slaughter
of children in the womb, And much more, this culture has proven
that it is trying to move away from God. And even as people
stand up and try to speak up, as we have seen this week with
the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, people do not want to hear
Christian truth. They do not want to hear the
truth of the Bible applied to our society. Now, it didn't used
to be this way. In fact, in our country and Western
society as a whole, we were founded on the bedrock principles of
scripture and the wisdom that arose from the Protestant Reformation. It's only as our societal house
has shifted off of the foundation laid for us over time that we've
begun to demote the role of church in society and promote evil and
wickedness everywhere we turn. Sadly, Not only are we seeing
that in society, we are seeing that inside the church as well. This worldly thinking has seeped
into our seminaries, and from the seminaries, it has then emerged
in many pulpits. More voices that used to proclaim
truth now promote compromise. There are major denominations
that no longer believe the Bible, but they will preach the social
cause of the day. Rather than being an influence
on society, the church instead has become enculturated. Now, as grievous as all of that
is, there is one thing that we can say. This isn't new. And in fact, the Bible talks
about this. Christians have always struggled with one of two things. Either they've struggled with
bringing in worldly notions into the church, or they've adopted
ideas from the world after coming into Christ, after coming to
Christ, and then they brought into the church. This was true, for instance,
of the Christians in Corinth. The city of Corinth was a city
of great sin. We'll talk a bit about that today.
Even the pagans negatively referred to certain Corinthianized behaviors. But Christians in the church
brought some of these behaviors with them into the church, and
that prompted Paul to write these letters. Now, as we read these
letters, we are wrestling with something that we also struggle
with. Because here's the truth, we
all struggle, all Christians suffer from certain worldly and
sinful notions. And we need to change for the
glory of God. We don't always live up to the
standard that we should, and that's the sad reality of life. But we do have hope of change
in this life. And that change comes in Jesus
Christ. This is why Paul writes, not
to wag a finger, but to show them that they can change, they
can grow, and that they have what they need in Christ to change
and to grow. This is what we need to see as
well, as we want to have holiness arise from our messes. And so as we consider the Corinthian
church, we can see something of ourselves in that church in
four ways. And we see that here in these
two verses. First, the Corinthians had problems. And we all have some problems,
amen? If you can't say amen, you can
say ouch. We all have some problems. Second, we see that the Corinthians
also had something else. They had sanctification. That's something that we don't
always think about. That's not something that is
always at the forefront of our minds, but it's true. They had
sanctification, and we need to also consider that as well. Third,
the Corinthians had communion. Ah, again, when we see divisions
in the church, when we see factions and cliques and different schisms
within the church, we need to remember that we have communion
with Christ and with one another. And here's the fourth thing. The Corinthians had divine grace
and peace. They had peace and grace that
only comes from God. And that's something that we
have as well. We can change for the glory of God. And let's see
that as we examine these Corinthianized saints. First, the Corinthians
had problems. The Corinthians had problems,
and we will consider that as we just look at the opening words
of verse two, to the church of God, which is at Corinth. Now,
this is more than just a standard line of address. In fact, there's
a little bit of a punch here, especially as we understand the
context in which Paul is writing. We may not live in that day and
in that world, but we can read and understand where they were,
and anyone who saw this would understand, okay, he's writing
to a group of people in court. They're gonna have some problems.
This was expected. Let's break it down. First, let's
think first about that word church. Church, because we are a church
and they are a church. What does that mean? Well, the
word comes from the Greek word ekklesia, which just means assembly. It is a gathering of people together
for a purpose. And that's interesting because
When we think of church today, we often think of it in terms
of a building, a place you go to, but that's not the meaning
that is used in scripture. In fact, as one commentary says
here, in scripture, believers are not said to go to church.
Instead, they meet with the church. The church regularly gathers
to worship God and edify each other through preaching the Bible,
performing baptisms, celebrating the Lord's Supper, and practicing
church discipline. And so the church is a gathering
that, yes, takes place somewhere, By the grace of God, we can actually
still have the freedom to buy buildings and have a place where
we can gather together and worship. But it could be anywhere. The
church is not just a building. It is a gathering of people.
Now it is more than just that. It is also a gathering of the
universal saints as well as the local ones. And let's think about
that. Universal Church encompasses
all of believers all through time and all through space. What does that mean? That may
sound strange to you. Well, let's put it in this way.
The Corinthians, the Corinthian Christians that Paul wrote to,
they lived a really long time ago. obviously, and they live
really far away from where we live today. And yet they are
just as much a part of the universal church of God in Christ as we
are today. This is true of any other church
that is meeting in the name of Christ, calling upon the name
of the Lord today. We are all part of this universal
gathering. We'll talk more about that in
a little while. But there's also a local expression
of that universal gathering, and that is a visible gathering
of saints. That's y'all. That's us. We are
a visible gathering of the universal church. And Paul's address reminds the
Corinthian assembly here that it is part of something larger
and yet it exists in a very troubled locale. He also reminds them that they,
as a church, belong to God. It is the church of God. And
I don't mean that as the denomination, of course, because there is a
church of God denomination. This is defining ownership. This is a divine ownership. This
is a church that belongs to God, that has been bought by God,
that has been assembled by God, and by God it should assemble. It should do what God commands.
Let's put this a different way. Paul does not write to the Corinthians
and say, the church of Paul, Ooh, right? It's not Paul's church. He does not say the Corinthian
church of y'all. Of course, if he had good Southern
diction, he would say y'all sometimes. But it is not the gathering of
y'all. It's the gathering of God, right?
The Corinthians don't own the church. Paul doesn't own the
church. Apollos doesn't own the church. Peter doesn't own the
church, so we're gonna talk about that. Some people don't like
that. Peter's not in charge of the
church. This is the church of God. This
is the church of God. And that already provides a corrective
to some of the problems in Corinth, as well as some problems elsewhere.
Because if we're honest, there are some problems when people
think that the church exists to serve them. In fact, as one writer notes
here, we often speak too loosely of my church or our church. This is a healthy corrective.
To know Paul's example, many problems in a church, in fact,
revolve around a selfish possessiveness by pastor and congregation toward
its life and activities. Sometimes a pastor can build
a church around himself, and it can become almost a cult of
personality. Maybe he doesn't even realize
he's doing it, but it does become that. And sometimes it's the
opposite problem, I guess you could say it's the opposite problem,
where the church makes it about them. And maybe they're trying
to protect against the cult of personality, but they say, this
is our church, not your church. Those are two errors, those are
two ditches to fall into. This is Christ's church, this
is God's church. That's how we're supposed to
see it. That's how the Corinthians are supposed to see it as well. And for all true churches around
the world, they must have this set of them. They are God's church,
and so are we, and so are we. Now, I've been saying that the
Corinthians had problems. Why am I saying that? Well, because
we have to consider Corinth itself. Corinth was a hotbed of immorality
and worldliness. And we noted last time how it's
situated. We said that it was situated
on that little isthmus that connected the mainland to Greece. It's kind of hard to see there,
but here you can see Acacia and you can see just that little
piece of land right there And right in between Athens and Sparta
This is Corinth right there And we see an illustration of
what the city may look like or may have looked like back then
and Corinth itself was a bustling
seaport city with two harbors that facilitated trade from east
to west. Its location made it a melting
pot of sorts for culture with population of 150 to 300,000
Roman citizens and about 460,000 slaves. As one source describes, Corinth
was, quote, known for its banking industry and incredible wealth. Shrines to deities of Greek,
Roman, and even Egyptian gods have been discovered, and cult
prostitution was common. And on that note, the Temple
of Aphrodite housed a thousand prostitute
priestesses who, quote, plied their trades in the street. Worship of Apollo in Corinth
encouraged homosexual practices. And then they had the biannual
Isthmian Games, second only to the Olympics, which drew crowds
and celebrated Poseidon, adding to the city's pagan festivities. Now Corinth not only had all
of this idolatry going on and immorality, it had so much of
it going on that it became proverbial in the ancient world. To the
pagans, to Corinthianize meant to engage in gross immorality
and drunkenness. So even unbelievers were condemning
this. As one commentary notes, Corinth
valued impressive public speakers, status, greed, immoral sex, personal rights,
and idolatry. And it was a combination of New
York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Now you might wonder, given all
that, why would the apostle Paul go to such a place? Well, here's
the answer. They need Jesus too. Right? They need Jesus too. You might remember that while
Paul was on his second missionary journey, he had a vision. This
is recorded in Acts 16. Acts 16.9, specifically, we read
about a man of Macedonia who was standing and appealing to
Paul and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. He saw that vision and that transformed
the rest of his missionary journey. He decided to make a change to
his plans. And from there, he decided to
go to Philippi, Thessalonica, to Athens, And he eventually
came to Corinth. We read about that in Acts 18.
And there he ministered for at least 18 months, sharing the
gospel in the synagogues. People were coming to Christ
and the young church of Corinth was planted there. God worked
out the gospel success that he had in these cities. And so this
was all according to the plan of God. But here's the sad thing that
a lot of Christians can attest to, maybe you can attest to it.
I can attest to it as well. Coming to Christ doesn't mean
that you don't have your own cultural and sinful challenges
to overcome. There still are going to be problems. Problems that Christ has to overcome,
and that happens over time. The sins that Paul addresses
in this letter, idolatry, sexual immorality, divisions, lawsuits,
misuse of spiritual gifts, all of these mirrored the Corinthian
culture. That's why Paul needed so many
contacts with the Corinthian congregation. We noted last time
that he wrote not one, not two, but four letters to the Corinthians,
two of which were lost. And then he visited them a total
of at least three times. We'll note also in this letter
that Chloe's people, and this is in verse 11 of chapter one,
Chloe's people reported that there were divisions in the church,
and then he got another delegation who brought questions, that's
in 1 Corinthians 7, 1. And so he had to write, and he
wrote. And then he had to visit them,
and that followed 1 Corinthians, a painful visit. And then he
had to write them another severe letter that was carried by Titus.
That letter has been lost. But the good news is that Titus
was able to return after that with a favorable report, and
that's what triggers Paul writing 2 Corinthians. And so that's
why there's such a difference in tone between 1 and 2 Corinthians. But through all this, Paul is
addressing them not as just sinners who are rotten, who just don't
get it. What is wrong with you people? I should just wash my
hands of you. He instead addresses them in
this way. You are the church of God. You are the church of God. This reminds us that problems
don't disqualify us from God's ownership. Problems don't disqualify you
from God's ownership. As we consider the history of
the church, we'll also see that it's possible
to overcome our problems in Christ. We can recognize and correct
problems when we remember whose we are. And that brings us to
the next point. Not only did the Corinthians
have problems, they had sanctification. They had sanctification. Verse
two again. He not only writes to the church
of God, which is at Corinth, he further defines them in this
way, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints,
called as saints. We have a word here you might
have heard if you've been in church for a while, but maybe
you don't know what it means. Sanctification. Sanctification. I don't know if everyone knows
what it means. I don't know if Carly knows what it means. Sanctification. What does it mean? Well, it means
this. To be sanctified means to be set apart as holy. To be set apart as holy. To be made holy. To be made holy. Think about how the vessels were
made and consecrated for use in the tabernacle and later the
temple. They were sanctified, they were
set apart, right? For use, for God, for his purposes,
in his ways. Well, it's not just talking about
vessels, it's talking about people here. And the Lord sanctifies
people. Just like the brazen labor was
sanctified, well, the Lord sanctifies and washes us and prepares us
for his service. Now, when I use the word sanctification,
and I say that the Lord sanctifies, there are three ways in which
we could be referring to this. How are we made holy? But the
Lord could sanctify us first in the past. And this is through
the finished work of Christ. In other words, we have been
sanctified in Christ on the cross. That's past sanctification. Present sanctification is a little
different. This is how we are gradually
being sanctified. We are being made even more whole.
We are being made even more set apart for God's purposes. And that's something that's happening
to us in time. And that's something that's happening
to the Corinthians, and that's something that can happen to
us as well. Third, we could be talking about sanctification
in the future, where we will finally be sanctified or transformed
into holiness by Christ's return. Now, which of these is this referring
to? Well, this is referring to the first one, past sanctification,
because if we look, it says, to those who have been sanctified
in Christ Jesus. This is not talking about what's
currently happening. No, he is reminding them of what
they already have. And as believers, we already
have been sanctified. Even though we may say, yeah,
there's still a lot of sanctification that's left to happen inside
my heart. I have already been sanctified
by the Lord as well. It's done. It's finished. Christ has paid it all. And that's
what Hebrews 10 says, that we have been sanctified through
Christ's body, through his body. We have been set apart and this
is something that we have to remember that it's already been
done We've already received this and we've already received something
else here Because this is a state in which all believers come Yes,
we have been set apart. We have been set apart for a
purpose and So what Jesus was talking about in his high priestly
prayer in John 17, we've been set apart for a purpose. We were
unclean, but by the love of God, we've been freed from our uncleanness
and we have been set aside for divine services. We are sanctified in Christ. If we've been made holy in him,
then there's only one word to describe us. that's this word
Saints you say wait a minute wait a
minute I thought Saints were like these uber super spiritual Christians
in the like the Church of Rome right they they've been canonized
they've been officially elected by the Ecclesiastical body right
in no no not right We are all saints. What does the word saint
mean? It means holy ones. If we have been made holy in
Christ, then we are holy ones. And the words in the Greek are
connected. The words in the Greek are connected.
We have been made holy, so now we are holy ones. The Corinthians
were made holy, now they are holy ones. This is how we are
to view ourselves. This is how we are to understand
ourselves. This is how we are to define
ourselves. There are lots of ways that people
can define themselves. They wanna look to some kind
of psychological label, they want to look to an enneagram
or some other dumb worldly thing. No, define yourself by this,
I'm a holy one of God. Wouldn't that change your behavior
if you started thinking of yourself that way? I'm a holy one of God. You might say, I don't know if
I could call myself that. Well, in Christ Jesus, you've
been made holy. Wouldn't it change your behavior,
though, if you started to think of yourself in that way? You'd
say, yeah, I would have to stop doing some things. Uh-huh. And
maybe you wouldn't be a Corinthianized saint. You would just be a godly
saint. That's how we should start to
think of ourselves and that's how they should start to think
of themselves as well. But this is something that they
are to see has been done. The problem isn't that they aren't
holy. The problem is that they are
not living like they're holy. They're not applying the holiness
that they already have in Christ to their lives. They're holy ones living like
unholy ones. This is where our problem is
so often. This is a problem in our country
where we have lots of Christians. Most people in our country claim
to be Christian. Well, maybe not as many today
as used to be, but I can tell you not many people who claim
to be Christian live like a Christian, right? We are holy ones. We need to
start living like it. And this is how Paul is addressing
them. You have sanctification. Believe
it and live like it. Now, how do we know that we're
not just talking about the Corinthians? Maybe they were the super spiritual
ones. Well, you probably, if you ask that question, you probably
haven't read 1 Corinthians, but that's okay, because we're gonna
get through that together. But this says also talking to
us, and this is addressing us, and that brings us to the third
point here. The Corinthians had communion.
The latter part of verse two, he says, with all who in every
place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord
and ours. This is a reference to all believers. This is a reference to all believers. Why? Because believers are the
only ones calling on the name of the Lord. First Corinthians
12.3, take a look there. What does he say? Oh, these pages flip so nicely. I
love it. First Corinthians 12.3. Therefore, I make known to you
that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is cursed,
but here's the important part for us today, and no one can
say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Who are the ones
calling upon the name of the Lord? Those who have the Holy
Spirit. Who are the ones who have the
Holy Spirit? Christians. Christians. We're talking about
all Christians here. And this is, again, a reminder
of the fact that we are owned by the Lord. He is the Lord. He is the Yahweh of the Old Testament. And this is a term for Christians
invoking Jesus' name as Lord in their worship and in their
submission. This connects all of us together
as a universal church. Because it's all believers. It's
all believers in every place, he says. And so the 1689 London
Baptist Confession says this. All persons throughout the world
professing the faith are and may be called visible saints. Going back to what we said a
moment ago. If you are professing the faith, you are and may be
called a saint. We are all connected because
we have communion with Jesus and we have communion with one
another. Now think about how that would
affect the church if they saw that, okay, all these divisions
that happen inside the church, all of these schisms, all of
these factions, perhaps even all of these cliques inside the
church, Maybe we should stop thinking of ourselves as part
of some kind of group inside the church and start to think
of ourselves as part of this holy communion of saints. This
communion that has fellowship with one another and has fellowship
with Christ. This is how the Corinthians were
to view themselves. This is how we're to view ourselves
as well. We are all part of this greater community. greater communion
with one another, greater communion with all the churches in the
valley, through the United States, through the world, and through
time. We are all part of this greater communion. We're bound
together in Christ, so we should act like it, by God's grace. That brings us to our final point.
Fourth, the Corinthians had divine grace and peace. And so Paul
writes in verse three, grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, he starts a lot
of letters that way. In fact, a lot of letters in
the Greco-Roman world started very similarly to this. But Paul modifies it for these
Christian church. For instance, letters in the
Roman world typically began with a greeting, carine, which means
greetings. So you would say greetings in
the greeting. But Paul uses a gospel word instead, and he writes of
charis, grace. A similar word, but one that
is particularly poignant for believers. Paul wanted his readers
to experience the grace of God. You might say, well, what is
grace? It's favor. It's unmerited favor. Y'all, if the Corinthians had
grace from God, guess what? We can have it too. We can have
it too. This is one of the great things
about reading a letter to some messy saints like this. Hey,
wait, I'm a messy saint too. And if they could have the grace
of God, so can I. How wonderful is that? And we
want to make sure that we have the grace of God. As one ancient
writer wrote, David was in favor with God. Absalom was in favor
with men. What was the end of each? And
which of them gained the most honor? We want to have favor not with
man, but with God. And certainly, as we consider
what's going on in our own culture, if we want favor with man, we
would have to water down the message of the gospel. We would
have to shave off the rough edges of divine truth. We'd have to
say to people, it doesn't really matter that you live that way,
so that they would like us. But what should we strive for
instead? Grace from God, favor from God. And in fact, we already have
it, thankfully. Because of this favor, because
of this grace, we can have our hearts turned on to the fact
that we are sinners in need of salvation. That's grace right
there. And by the grace of God, we can actually begin to overcome
those messes that make us look less holy than we should. That's
what the grace of God does. But we don't just have grace
from God. We also have peace. We have peace
from God. We have peace in the fact that
our warfare with God has ended because Jesus died on the cross
and paid for our sins. So we can have peace with God.
A peace which surpasses understanding, especially as our hearts grow
anxious. Well, what about tomorrow? What if someone came in here
and began to shoot? We may grow anxious over things.
We may grow anxious about our kids. Where are they gonna go? Who are they gonna follow when
they get older? But because of the peace of God,
that comes only from the Prince of Peace, we can trust him for
tomorrow. We can know that whatever happens,
we are in good hands. we can have peace. That's why
Paul specifies here that this is not just grace, not just peace,
but it's grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. And by the way, if you don't
have the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't have the grace and peace
that comes from God the Father. Because it's grace and peace
that comes from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father. But if you have
the Son, you have the Father as well. The Corinthians had this grace
and this peace. Because of that, they could live
differently. And we too, whatever messes that
we face, well, we can face them in the sustaining grace and peace
that comes from above. Let's consider that as we close. Like the Corinthians, we have
problems, especially if you're honest with
yourself. Worldliness, in fact, sometimes
creeps in, but here's the gracious truth. We have sanctification. We don't have to live like the
world anymore. We are set apart as saints so
we can begin to live set apart from the world, from our sins. We have communion with all believers
under our shared Lord. So we don't have to live in division.
And we have divine grace and peace from the Father and the
Son. So our goal should not to live,
should not be to live as Corinthianized saints. Hopefully we are not
living according to all the worst things in our culture. There are good things about America.
There are bad things as well. Hopefully we are not imbibing
in the bad. Our goal should be to live as
sanctified believers, those who are set apart. Our goal should
be to live as those who follow Christ, not culture. And that's possible in the grace
and peace that God grants us in Jesus Christ. By that grace
and peace, we can not only not live like the culture, we can
then, in boldness and in faith, speak to the culture. That's only possible when we
repent of Corinthian ways and pursue the holiness that comes
in Jesus Christ alone. So may we as a church glorify
Christ even in our messes because we are transformed by his power.
"Corinthianized Saints?" (1 Cor. 1:2-3).
Series 1 Cor: Holiness from Messiness
Culture and sin affect us more than we know. Yet, we have what we need in Christ for change.
-Notes: https://pastormarksbury.blogspot.com/2025/09/sermon-corinthianized-saints-1-cor-12-3.html
-Livestream: https://lwbcfruita.org/live
-Donations: https://www.lwbcfruita.org/give
| Sermon ID | 91625172415785 |
| Duration | 41:45 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 1:2-3 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2025 SermonAudio.
