First Corinthians 1:4-12

Today, we're going to talk about the problem of divisions in the Corinthian church. And I'd like to go back and look at and kind of bear with me here. In advancing the slides, there's a delay, and I'm not too very patient sometimes. So I press a button, and I have to wait and wait. OK, I'm going to go to the next slide, I think. Hey, today's outline. I use Macaulay, as most of you know.

So the first points are here that verses 1-9 Macaulay-Kahn labels as a salutation to the Corinthian church. And Mike went through this, it's a beautiful section. It talks about Paul's greeting. Then it talks about this verses 4-9 which are just a wonderful resume of what a Christian has, what the Corinthians have.

And then we'll kind of dig into the part here about the first discussion of dissensions or divisions in the Corinthian church. So the problem of divisions are covered in verses 10 through 12. There was correction needed. And we're going to define that and what the divisions were about. And then the following weeks, we're going to talk about the problem answered.

And the problem, as you might guess, is centered in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's one Christ, one cross, and one baptism. So let's just kind of jump in here. I'm just going to repeat. And these three verses that Mike covered, you know, the introduction that Paul brings forth. I'm not going to spend much time on this.

It's certainly Paul was called an apostle by the will of God. And it was to the churches in Corinth. And several phrases there, if you look at that. To those who have been sanctified or set apart in Christ Jesus, they're saints by calling. And at the very end it has all who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. And in my mind that was kind of like a trademark or a definition, if you will, of those who put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. They called upon Him for their salvation and hopefully they're calling upon Him for their life in Christ.

And then he ends the section with a very familiar phrase that he uses in a lot of his writings. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the introduction part. And then we go on to the next section. Which I'm calling the Corinthians resume. And actually it's our resume too as believers in the Lord Jesus. So we start off here.

I thank my God always concerning you. And it's Corinthians. He's thanking God for the Corinthians and people have often looked at if you read the whole book of first Corinthians, you'll see that Paul spends most of his time talking about the issues they had But amazingly enough he starts off with who they are in Christ their position in Christ and it's a marvelous position as it is with every believer and he says for for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus something I noticed in this there are five verbs that are used in these four and four through nine verses four through nine and they they give us a definition of what Christ has done to us in the past and what our future hope is so this one says for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus and that for is epi And this is the basis upon which he's giving thanks. For the grace having been given to you, so it's a past point event. All Corinthian believers are recipients of God's grace the moment they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This grace is in our living union with our Savior. So we're going to trace through it, and if you notice I have a little 1 next to the... that's the first verb, I'm going to track through these 4 verbs. Most of them are a past point fact, they're something that was accomplished by God for a believer, and in this case particularly for the Corinthians believers. And verse 5a says that everywhere you were enriched or made rich in Him, And again, this is a past point fact. It's something that's true of the Corinthian believers and true of us. And God did it. He made them rich. So how was a believer made rich?

It says, first of all, these are God's riches, not man's riches. Don't look for a new Ferrari outside your door once you become a believer. You can talk to almost any Christian. They didn't receive a fancy new car when they believed. God gave them his marvelous riches, but they're They're God's riches and they're in the spiritual domain. And again, if you notice, the phraseology is that they're in Him. They're not in man, but they're in our Savior.

And here he talks about being in all speech and all knowledge. So in all speech talks about, there's a verse in John 6, 68 that says, Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life. A believer the Lord Jesus has the words of eternal life, and as believers we have the privilege of giving those words out to men and women. So Christ had the words of eternal life, and as we share them with other people, we then have the words of eternal life. So God has given us that wonderful privilege, and we are made rich by that.

And then secondly, in knowledge And I really like this passage in Romans 11.33, Oh the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, how unfathomable are his ways. So God's riches are eternal and we have the privilege of looking into those riches and pondering those riches and expressing and communicating those riches. And that's something that we were made rich in.

So next, 6a says, so we have our third verb here in 6a. Even as a testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. And this is kind of interesting. And we kind of know it was confirmed or was proved in you. Again, it's something that we have the moment we put our faith and trust in Christ. It's a past point fact and God did it. The idea here is that this is a divinely revealed truth about Christ. Its reality is verified, made real among us.

And it reminded me of the passage in 2 Corinthians. It says, You are a letter written in our hearts, known and read by all men. When we know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, we have something to share. There's something, a message we have to share. And this has been made real in our lives. And that's what he's talking about here, was confirmed in you, or made real in you. And then, it brings it across as, inasmuch as the testimony concerning Christ was proved to be divinely related truth, its reality was verified among you.

So that, you Corinthians are not lacking in any gift. You know, the Corinthians were, spiritual gifts were a big thing for the Corinthians, and Paul spends a long time kind of showing them that spiritual gifts, yes, they can be valuable to the body, but what's one of the most valuable things for the body? And as he talks about here toward the end of this letter, he says, so also, you Corinthians, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek to abound for edification of the church. So he says, you know, spiritual gifts are wonderful, but seek to abound, or desire, or strive to abound in edifying the body. And how do we edify the body?

By sharing God's Word, by preaching God's Word. That's the focus. That's the focus of our ministry. Spiritual gifts can help in that, but they're not to be the focus. Awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He kind of wraps it up. Here's something you should really get excited about. Eagerly awaiting. Then Constable shares, the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ to his saints at the rapture would be the greatest gift given to them. And that is one of the greatest gifts. We look forward to that wonderful gift of our Savior returning at the rapture.

Okay? Kind of clicking through these. Now let's go to verse 8. Here's our fourth verb. We'll also confirm in you to the end And this is a promise. He's making a promise here. I think this is an interesting promise. He says, He will make you steadfast and constant. It's a future tense.

So some believers, and maybe it's more than some, many believers are worried about somehow not being ready for the Lord's return. I've got to do something. My life has to be in order. I have to have all my ducks in a row, so to speak. But God says, in a sense, not to worry. He says, you know, I saved you by your faith and trust in me. I'm going to carry you to the end. It reminds me of that verse, he who has begun a good work will see it to the day of Christ Jesus. Very similar idea. He's confirmed us. He's made us steadfast. And we're blameless in the day of Christ Jesus our Lord. Interesting word, blameless. It implies not merely acquittal, but the absence of even a charge or accusation against a person. That's from Vine. And the last verse in this segment is verse 9.

God is faithful. You know, that's just one of His many wonderful attributes. He's holy and righteous and just. God is faithful. Isn't that wonderful? We don't have to worry that tomorrow we're going to learn something and, well, I didn't cover that situation. Well, no, God is faithful. He started a good thing and He'll complete it.

Through whom you were called, that's the fifth verb here in this segment, and select a pass point fact, passive voice, every believer has been called, every believer, and that's not to say that, so people get all kind of wrapped around the axle saying, well, if you're a believer, you've been called, what about the people who haven't been called? Well, God doesn't look at it that way. He makes two parallel statements.

He says, every believer has been called, and they realize that when they trust in Him. And every unbeliever, whosoever will may come. Salvation is available to every man. Once you trust in Him, then you move into that you've been elect. How you figure that out, how you connect that up, men have debated that for many years, much more brilliant than I am. But I see them as two parallel truths. God's not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. And we can glory in the fact that we're God's elect. He called us into fellowship with his son. Every believer has shared. This is a past reality of that fellowship. We share in his death. When he died, we died. When he was buried, we were buried. When he was resurrected, we were resurrected.

Then the ascension the seating and so on just a marvelous truth about every single believer. We share that as entrance into our life in Christ and then we share his very life as we live our as we live our life and Then I like the passage in first John 3 the last part our fellowship is with a father and with his son Jesus Christ we have this wonderful fellowship that probably Most people think it's impossible.

How can you have fellowship with God? How can you have a sharing in common? That seems like an impossible... God is up here and we're down here. How can I have... that's how we see it. Well no, he says you can have fellowship with me because you put your faith and trust in my son and you have his very life. He has made us able to have fellowship with him.

Okay, so that's kind of a quick summary of what we kind of covered the last couple weeks. And I thought, you know, I talked with Mike and he said, OK, go for it. I was excited about these five verbs. And so, you know, not everybody is excited about five verbs, but they seem pretty cool to me. There are five things we can count upon day by day. into the divisions. So, interesting, you know, Paul spends all this time telling us about their wonderful place in Christ, just, you know, those four through nine.

Now he's going to get down to brass tacks, as you would say. He's going to say, I have something I want to communicate to you. And he's going to start off very lovingly. He's not going to beat him over the head with a hammer. He's going to start very lovingly.

So he starts off here, the problem of divisions. So we're going to start off here and he exhorts them and he exhorts them by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree and there be no divisions among you but you be of the same may complete in the same mind the same judgment for I've been informed concerning you my brother and by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you now I mean this each one of you is saying I'm of Paul I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ. So that's the first major area he's going to talk about, this division over these men. So let's just kind of get down and go through this phrase by phrase.

Now I exhort you. This is an interesting one. I sound like J. Vernon McGee, right? He says, this is the most important verse, the best verse since the last verse I told you. Well, I'm always saying, this is really interesting since the last time I said it was interesting. So anyway, I guess we all, scripture is that way. There's just so many marvelous things to share. OK, here we go. So this word is parakaleo, is to exhort. It's to call to a person's side, to call alongside.

And there's a passage in Philippians 4.21 that says, I urge you to live in harmony in the Lord. But one of the best explanations of this word is given in Philemon chapter 8 and 9 in Philemon.

I'll read it for you here. though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper." So that's verse 8. He just says, you know, in Christ I have enough confidence, I know Christ well enough, I know that I'm in harmony with Christ, that I could order you or command you to do this.

But I don't want to do it that way. And isn't that what we strive for with our children, with any relationship? ordering somebody to do something usually is the last straw and usually you know, in the military you need it because you're going into battle maybe but boy, in personal life you don't need it Paul doesn't want, he says here's what I want to do and verse 9 tells us that yet for love's sake I would rather appeal to you and that's our word exhort I'd rather appeal to you since I am such a person as Paul aged now as a prisoner of Christ he wants to appeal to them so this word exhort which sounds kinda heavy and So he wants to appeal to them. He says, I exhort you, I exhort as an encouragement to make a willing choice. God's Word is not meant to be a club, to be a submission, but rather meant to convince us to make the right choice based upon our understanding of the truth.

So I was thinking about this many times. Many people look at God's Word and they're fearful. Many times, I know as a... I have a story to tell about Hal when we were out at Buckley. I used to walk by the conference room where he held his Bible study. I wasn't a believer.

And I said, boy, I don't want to go in there because basically God's Word is going to beat me up. I'm going to feel bad if I go in there. They're going to tell me all the things that I know. But God's Word, once I became a believer, I realized God's Word doesn't want to do that.

It wants to convince me of His love for me. So, as I was saying, it's not to be a club, it's rather to appeal to us. And that's the whole gist of this. He wants to appeal to these men and women in Corinth. He wants to appeal to them to be of the same mind, to be on the same page. So let's continue on here. To make the right choice.

By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ speaks the totality of who He is, and I thought, I liked what Constable said here, by exhorting his readers in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul was putting what he was about to say on the highest level of authority. The Corinthians were to regard what he was about to say as coming from the Lord himself. So he says, I exhort you, or I appeal to you, and he's going to tell us what he's going to appeal them about. And it comes from the highest level, so to speak. that you all agree, and there's no divisions among you.

So there's really three parts here. The first part, that you all agree, this word, lego, in the original language. It never means, lego never means to, never is mere words. It always refers to putting thoughts into words. Lego is a reflection, verbally, of your mentality. It could be translated as cert, in verse 10, because cert means content.

So what he's saying here, in this little bullet, Paul is saying, I want you Corinthians to be together, mentally, and have harmony in your viewpoint. And isn't that way, you know, when you're talking with people, many times, if you're in the workplace, other places, they'll be difference of opinion, and you want people to understand the background and come together and agree, yeah, that's the best course of action. And Paul's saying, I want you to come along and agree with me that this is what is right. And then this last statement by McCauley says, unity was to be achieved by doctrinal agreement, not by doctrinal compromise.

We see that too often. The world wants to Get all the churches together and we'll all come up with a common set of beliefs. Well, some churches shouldn't be called churches. I could spend a lot of time. But anyway, God wants us to agree with Him about His Word. And how do we agree with Him by His Word? By reading it, by studying it, by contemplating it. And then we can come together as men and women in the body of Christ and be in agreement. And that's what Paul's seeking there in Corinth. That they would agree on what God has said. through the Apostle Paul.

The second point is, there'll be no divisions among you. This is the word schisms. It's a split or tear. And it says in verse 18 there, chapter 11, it says, I hear that there are divisions among you. So Paul, throughout this letter, talks about divisions. So here's an interesting example.

There were divisions when Christ came upon the scene in Israel. And he went out and started his ministry. There were all kinds of different opinions. So this is kind of a snapshot of the opinions about Christ. And you can see where these schisms come to play. So in John 7, verse 40, it says, When they, speaking the Jews, the Israelites, heard these words, when they, Jews, Israel, heard these words, were saying, certainly, Certainly, as a prophet, others were saying, this is the Christ. Still others were saying, surely Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is he?

So a division occurred in the crowd because of him. If you see here, they had different opinions. Some were wrong, some were misinterpreted, misapprehension. So divisions occurred because they didn't They didn't understand who Christ was. They doubted Him. They didn't believe who He was. So Paul is saying, I don't want schisms to be part of this Corinthian church. That you be made complete. The third thought here is you be made complete.

To mend nets, what is broken, to bring it together. in the same mind. I'm just going to go down to the bottom here. Two aspects in the same mind and in the same judgment. Kind of similar ideas, but there's some differences. The same mind is the idea, and I like this verse in Romans 12, 16. In fact, it's very close to where Courtney's at. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associated with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.

You know, I was often thought As we come to a church, a body of believers, it's so important to come with the idea that I want to learn. I don't want to come to tell people what I know. I want to come to learn and then we can discuss that. If I come with, I got all the answers, it's probably not going to work out at that church.

The Lord wants people to come and be of the same mind. And how do you come of the same mind? You look at the same book. The Holy Spirit shows you the things of Christ and you can agree upon those. This is all about these body of believers at Corinth being of the same mind. The same judgment, kind of a similar idea. Consent, understanding. In Philemon it says, talking about the slave Onesimus but it has been my wish to do nothing about him without first, he didn't want to send Onesimus back to them he wanted to first consult with them and get your consent how important in just life and certainly in the body of Christ to be together, not to assume that everybody understands everything but to explain it, take the time to explain things and so everybody will be quoting the same page and understand what's going on.

That was Paul's heart here in these verses. Okay, so now he's going to kind of shift gears in verse 11. He's going to talk about how he got this information. I'm just going to go down and put them all on here because it's so hard to... Okay, so here's this chart.

It talks about this person named Chloe, Chloe's people. And we don't know who Chloe was exactly. This is the only place in Scripture... I think it's a she. I don't know. Actually, I didn't look that up. Whatever. It's a person. This person related to Paul. And it's kind of interesting that this person... Paul says he informed them. He informed them in a way that if you look at some of the original writings in the papyri, you'll see it's something that could hold up in court. So it wasn't just like a casual whisper.

Did you know what I heard about the church in Corinth? It was more than that. believe what he was told about the church in Corinth so much so that he wrote this letter and he wrote other letters, 2 Corinthians and there's even another letter that possibly is in there that we'll talk about when we get into the other part of Corinthians that there be no quarrels among you no strife and isn't it interesting this word strife we've seen this guy before Mike spent that whole message in Galatians chapter 5 about those 15, 15 deeds of the flesh, and guess what? Strife was one of those guys. So, where do you think these Corinthians were at?

You know, by that passage, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the deeds of the flesh? Well, guess what? They had some problems. And as everybody, believe it or not, has. So they were walking in the deeds of the flesh, so to speak. And so that's where Paul's at. He wants to He wants to come alongside and get them on the same page. So now we're going to...

Next verse is the final verse, a couple of charts. And I have a preview of next week. Because next week... What's next week? Yay! Of the five people here in the auditorium. They said Resurrection Sunday or Easter, as the world would say. Anyway, so we'll get a preview of that. So let's look at this verse. So Paul says, Now I mean this, or literally, what I mean is this, and Paul's going to tell us, here's the quarrels, here's the issue, here's the issue before us.

He says, each one of you, each and every one of you, this is not just a small, this is pretty amazing. He says, each and every one of you in this church at Corinth, has this problem. Boy, that's a... How would you like to say, okay congregation, you all got this problem. It might escort you out the door. Anyway, it involves the whole church. Okay, so here it is, without further delay here. So I'm just going to do the whole thing again.

Okay, so apparently they had picked their man. They had picked their man. So some group of believers said, I'm of Paul. And if you look at the phraseology, it's an identification truth. I'm identifying with Paul. And it seems like as a man, I sort of like Paul. He has a cute hairdo or whatever it is. I'm of Apollos. I'm of Cephas. I'm of Christ. The I'm of Christ, I believe, is sort of like, that's the one that said, well, wait a minute, guys. You're all saying, well, I'm of Christ. I've certainly got that right.

So they all had I problems, right? Have you ever had the experience of reading a letter, or read a book, or maybe a blog, and every other word is I, I, I, I, I, I, I? They had eye problems. They were focused on themselves, looking at men, not at the Lord. And that's what he's pointing out. You've got your man, you center it on eye, that's the word ego. They center it on their personalities. But what's amazing was, you go through scripture, what did Paul teach? What did Paul teach? What did Peter or Cephas teach? They all taught solid doctrine. We don't find that they're They said they didn't teach the truth. They taught the truth. So what's the problem? How did they get into this state? The Corinthians got into a state where they were focused on a person rather than upon the Savior.

So that lays the groundwork for next week. It'll be a week from now. A week from now we'll dive in more to this and look more at this and we'll look for what Paul's answer to this is. What's the answer to this eye problem? I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, but I'm of Christ, of course, I must be right. So anyway, okay, so then there's one verse I thought was appropriate for kind of closing this out. I'll just go down here. Okay, in 1 Corinthians, actually we'll come to it here in a couple of months. 1 Corinthians 3, 5 through 7, and it kind of puts it in perspective. So who is Paul? Who is Cephas? Who is Apollos? What then, it says in verse 5, what then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Who are they? They're servants. They're servants. Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one of you. I planted, Paul speaking of himself, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters anything, but God causes the growth.

So we'll carry on in two weeks, but my last little thing here is... Okay, I'll just go ahead and do the rest of them here. Okay, so next week we're going to talk about the empty tomb. Resurrection Sunday. And this is a wonderful verse in Mark. It says... And he, an angel, actually a man in white, said to him, Do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus in Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, here is the place where he laid. He wasn't there. Here's where he was. He's not there.

So, here's some questions that come up almost every Resurrection Sunday. And we'll look at them again. They're just wonderful questions. What proof do we have that Jesus Christ was resurrected? What does erection prove to us about Christ? And then probably most importantly, why is resurrection so critical to our faith in Christ?

So hopefully you bear with us through all these ups and downs and plugs and cords. And thanks for hanging with us. And let's just close in prayer. We thank you, Father, for our time today, Lord. Thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. We pray that His word would go forth and be heard, understood, and men and women would come to know Him as their Savior. In Christ's name, Amen.