I Corinthians, Salutations to the Church

Alright, well I did mention earlier that I wasn't getting a lot of sleep but that did not prevent me from studying here and looking at this and actually the thing that I love about this is that every time I am tasked with teaching a greeting in an epistle I have to dig in because the greetings often look like this, the first few verses almost always look like you could just nearly just read it in Passover and move on.

Like, okay, Paul, the Apostle, grace, blah blah blah, it's the same thing at the beginning of each letter. Well, it's actually not. There are similarities, but there's nuance, and so these first couple verses are are an interesting greeting, and in light of the introduction that we did last week, I think there's actually some interesting elements that Paul brings out right away to reach out to this church in Corinth in this letter. So I'm excited about this introduction, probably more so than I can recall in some of the other letters, because there are some interesting things that are there, as well as Paul presenting some really neat truths to us as believers in verses 4 through 9. So I think this is going to be a great opportunity for us to study this passage, and I hope that you walk away from this half as excited as I am, because we'll have a light step going into the main service.

So, he starts off, he says, Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, to the Church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." So, that's our first three verses we'll take a look at there.

So we have Paul riding from a place of authority and that should be enough, right? Paul an Apostle. Paul an Apostle. And that's good. We need Paul to be an Apostle. But the other thing that's important is we have to remember this is the Corinthians we're talking about and so it needs to be Paul an Apostle who spent time with them and had shown himself to them because for them standing was a big deal. Yes.

I'm thinking of Paul being hyper-religious in the Judaism tradition, and then basically being shook to the core when he got off his high horse, but not by his own will. He could not basically land the truth to him without Jesus doing the talking. Yeah, the apostleship is a really big deal. I'm sorry, the former Judaistic zealotry is a really big deal. We'll get to that in just a second.

Tackling theological issues and problems with the Corinthians would have required a determined person, as you can see. But the body there really needed this to be from a senior member. If it had come from, what would happen if Timothy had written a letter? Now obviously it wouldn't have had apostolic authority, but if Timothy had written a letter, how do you think they would have handled it? It would have been like, ah, it's Timothy, that's the second rung guy. We've got the VP instead of the executive level.

So the Corinthians get this letter from Paul, but it's a deep and caring and loving relationship and commitment that's already been outstanding and been carried on already. So he's writing to them and his authority is not in question, but he's established a relationship with them which is critical for this church in Corinth, maybe compared to some of the other churches. They're not very humble in Corinth. Paul comes in and he's a heavyweight champion, if you will, versus some of the other folks.

Then he says, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and as Tom brought out, this is a pretty big deal. Paul had been called away from his previous Jewish zealotry. with this little subtle event that happened on the road to Damascus. This little tiny thing. So the light shines, and the Lord speaks to him and says, why are you persecuting me?

There in Acts 9, verse 1, the story starts. But if you've got your Bibles, let's go ahead and turn to Acts 9, because I want to highlight a few key verses that took place there. Because if we're going to talk about Paul being called, or Saul, prior to the conversion, being called, that's a pretty substantial event, and we need to see what God did. So we're going to take a look at Acts 9, starting at verse 1, and go all the way to verse 7, and then we'll also take a look at verse 15.

Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city and it will be told you what you must do. The men or what you must do. The men who traveled with him stood speechless hearing the voice, but seeing no one.

So Saul gets the light and the blinding. I have to tell you I said I was sleepless this week and part of that was because I was welding a smoke box for a smoker because I like smoked meats and cheeses and vegetables and whatnot. So the thing about welding is this, when you weld you have to put a mask on to protect your eyes because it will otherwise burn your eyes and cause permanent damage or at least very severe temporary damage if you do it just once. maybe once is enough, but no one else will miss out on the bright light of welding. But in this case, God is revealing himself specifically to Paul, or to Saul, and this bright light blinds him and sends him away without sight.

But if we would take a look again moving forward to verse 15 in this Acts passage, we see, but the Lord said to him, and this is the Lord speaking to Ananias. Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. So Paul is called very specifically to reach out to the Gentiles. So when Paul talks about being called in this letter to the Corinthians, it's not just one of those things where you hear Oh, I have a calling as a profession. This is an explicitly, divinely revealed message from God, calling Paul. That's going to stand out.

I told my daughters on the way to church this morning, actually, I'm accidentally a software developer. I don't have a calling to be a software developer, and I actually went to seminary so that I could go be a pastor and the Lord said this is not for you right now and so I had to scramble and come up with a plan B and I accidentally became a software developer because somebody knew somebody and they had an opening and I was like well I know computers I don't have a calling to be a software developer Paul had a very explicit calling to be an apostle, and it was by the will of God that he went out and did those things. So, he says, this is Paul, I'm called by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother. Now, the thing that I found exciting when I was studying this is that it said Sosthenes our brother, but we only have one other place in the Bible where Sosthenes shows up and that is back in Acts.

This book will probably spend a little bit of time flipping back and forth between Acts and 1 Corinthians here. Acts chapter 18, and if you want to take a look at 1817, Paul and the Christians have been dragged in front of the Roman authorities, Gallio, in verse 12, and Gallio doesn't care. Gallio says, this is your Jewish issues about your Jewish religions and Jewish laws. These do not concern Rome.

And has them forcibly sent out from his court And there, right in front of the courthouse of Galileo, the Jews begin beating on Sosthenes. Pardon? The Greeks beat on Sosthenes. Yes, sorry about that. So Sosthenes here is actually a Jewish leader in the synagogue. Or he was, but he's not anymore. Why is he not anymore? He's a believer! So here he goes from a position of authority in Corinth, in front of the Jews, and now he hears the gospel, he knows the scriptures, and he responds.

And so Sosthenes here is responding to the gospel and continues on Paul's missionary journey with him. He knows there's truth, and he knows Paul will teach it to him and disciple him and carry him through. And so why does Paul also reference Sosthenes? Well, he referenced Sosthenes because these Corinthians really love authority, and they really love social standing. So if you're going to send a message, it's going to have to come from Paul. And just in case that's not enough, I've got the heavyweight of Sosthenes, who has a lot of influence in the church there.

So we have these two people. But I think it's fantastic that Sostenes is converted and responds and is traveling with Paul because he knew there was truth and he knew it wasn't worth just getting a little few months time with Paul to learn. He wants the big picture and he's traveling with Paul. I would say to the Sostenes, he was a leader in the I guess you'd say synagogue or what, but he's the one who set up the program that they were teaching on.

Yeah, he definitely had influence there. It's like the Lord converted him, about like he did. Yeah, it was a pretty big radical shift from being a Jewish leader. And when you're in a Jewish position of authority, that's a pretty big deal that you would walk away. Yeah. So yeah, it's pretty key there.

So Sostenes is also throwing his name behind this letter, if you will. So then Paul continues, "...to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours." So it's important to read this letter in light of the fact that nothing in the list of issues that we talked about last week in the introduction and that we're going to go into in detail as we go through this has caused Paul to question the salvation of the believers there.

So how many of you are familiar with the John MacArthur promoted doctrine, and this is certainly not something we promote at Holly Hills, but it's called Lordship Salvation. You've heard of Lordship Salvation maybe? Lordship Salvation is very concerned that you make Jesus Christ your Lord And the only way that they can be sure that you've made Jesus Christ your Lord is that you live a pure life that reflects that He is the Lord of your life. And while we don't teach that at Holly Hills, the Lordship Salvation Principles, that you do that, no one is going to discourage you from living a pure life. You won't find that.

But Paul, when he's writing to the church in Corinth, immediately addresses these people as believers, even though he's going to have to go in and write about these wicked things. And so I think one of the arguments against lordship salvation is simply that Paul is willing to address these people who are walking in rampant sin. Timothy's reported on it, and they've written these letters with questions that indicate that they're having some serious problems. Paul says to the church, He doesn't say, to the people, I thought you were saved. I thought you were saved, but I guess not, because you have these sin issues, he says, to the church. Randy, I think this is a place to point out that this is a critical place where your position in Christ, who you are in Christ, needs to be differentiated from your condition in Christ.

They should align together, but they may not. And that's a key point, because otherwise it can be a jumbled mess. And in fact if you don't understand, that was actually my next point, not only is it a good place, but that's where I was going to put it. Our position is perfected and seated in the heavenlies with Christ, but our condition is obviously something that is dynamic. Our relationship with the Lord is not ruined by sin that is temporary in the name of this earth, but it hinders that fellowship in the moment-by-moment aspect. So position and condition definitely are going to be doctrines that we see in this, because Paul is going to say, listen, this is who you are in Christ, and then this other stuff isn't matching up.

And I think all of us have experienced that in a real way, so I don't think that's a shocker. And in fact, to that point, I'd like to just briefly take a look at Romans 8, 38 and 39, if you're not super familiar with that. It's the song that we've sung upstairs on occasion. He writes, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

So these Corinthians, while he has written this to the Romans, these Corinthians are going to get to see that in verbose, long, written-out format. They're still the church. Their position is secure, but their condition certainly needs some chiropractic work to get things lined up. So even though there's some division there in the Church of Corinth, Paul isn't doubting their salvation.

So then he says, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. So what does sanctified mean? Set apart. I love that Holly Hill has asked that question. And almost in unison, everybody chimed in set apart. Boom. Alright. Set apart unto what? Unto God. Unto holiness. Sometimes the synonym for sanctified is... Uh oh.

It starts with C. I wrote it on my handout here, let me just look at the next page. I'm embarrassed that I just totally... I don't even know why I brought it up. It was on the tip of my tongue and then it was... consecrated, thank you. Alright, so sanctified also meaning consecrated. We'll blame that on the sleep. Yep, it's in perfect tense. So sanctified, set aside in Christ Jesus, It's perfect tense.

It's also passive. What does passive mean? If I take my phone, I can take my phone and throw it across the room. I won't. I prefer not to replace it. But the phone has no say in the matter. The phone is passive. Things that are passive, you have no say in the matter.

Once you're sanctified, you believe and you're saved, you're sanctified, you can't undo it. So, again, if we could doubt the salvation of this church prior to this, we're in verse 2, and we have two good reasons to already not doubt the salvation of this church, despite the carnality that they manifest. So, they're sanctified in Christ Jesus. They're not sanctified of their own accord. They're sanctified because they were placed in Christ. So he says, saints by calling. Now, we just talked about calling. Verse 1, called. Verse 2, saints by calling. Now, the Corinthians loved stature. The Corinthians loved being elevated and having a social standing. And right away, he does something that neutralizes that inside the body. Who isn't called in the body there? No one. Nobody gets out. There's nobody who's not called in the church. If you're in the church, you're called.

So if you're going to use your faith for elevation in the church, you're going to quickly find out that you don't get to do that. So he immediately starts out, we're only two verses in, and the Corinthians, he's starting to neutralize this terrible disease of selfishness that the church has been ransacked by. So saints by calling, who does the calling? Who called? God called them.

And we know that because we can take a look at other spots in scripture, given the length of material that we have to cover this morning, I'm not going to go in there, but it's worth a study of your own to look at the 34 things. If you look, I'm just going to say this, go to Google, type in 34 things, Holly Hills Bible Church. And there's a doc that you can download from the website and you can read the 34 things that are true of a believer in Christ, including one of which is that we're called.

And just in case the people thought they were important within the body for being called, he gets global. He says, with all who in every place call in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. their Lord and ours. It's a big deal to be called and it's even a bigger deal to know that you have brothers and sisters in Christ that are all over the globe. But it also brings humility to have that calling and know that that's part of the global body.

When I get to meet Glenn Sandy, who's going to be coming here from Uganda in a couple weeks, You know what's really cool? Glenn Sandy is my brother in Christ. But Glenn Sandy is also tightly knit with Hassan, who was out here a couple years ago. So what's interesting is that I already feel like there's going to be a certain connection with Glenn Sandy because I already had a connection with Hassan. And that's really cool.

Have you ever traveled across the country or around the world and run into a believer and just right away the spirit solidifies for you, I know that that person's a believer. I actually flew to Canada for a business meeting or a conference where we were talking about software development and a guy got up to talk about a certain thing that was important at the conference and right away I knew he was a believer. It was just like, there's something different about this guy. And I had dinner with him that night and he said, yeah, I'm a believer. It was just undeniable that That's what's going on here. There's believers. And so Paul is reminding them that whatever their myopic view is, the small picture of Corinth, there's a bigger picture context, which again drives home the issue of humility and not just thinking about yourself.

So we have this calling, we have this global scope of the church, and They were called in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. So again, Christ is brought up as the focus and as the direction of our calling. So getting into verse four, he says, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God, which was given you in Christ Jesus. that in everything you are enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. So, verse four, I thank my God always concerning you. So, with this thankfulness, this is the second letter that Paul's written to Corinth.

It's the first one we have. And it's a corrective letter. And he's ready to lay down some ground rules and principles for some biblical issues that they've been dealing with. And that doesn't matter. He's still thankful for them. And I think that's a really important thing for us to recognize.

One of the first classes I listened to when I moved to Denver to come to Holly Hills was one that Hal Malloy put together on trials and suffering. And if you have listened to that, or we've had other classes that have talked about trials and suffering, what's the number one thing about trials and suffering that you take away from that class? I don't know if it's the same number one thing I took away.

Tom? Impetus for growth. Okay, it's an impetus for growth. And Bob? It's a privilege. It's a privilege. And Gary? God gets the glory. Alright, so those are the number one things, all three of them. I actually agree with that because all of those come together to a collective statement of saying God to his glory grows us and we get the privilege of being agents in that. So we can take all three of those and make a summary statement that I think is compelling.

So Paul, his heart is aching for this church. He has ministered to them. He has poured his own life and his own resources in Corinth for these people. And he thanks God for them every day, despite what he's going to lay down some correction on. He knows that they've been called.

You can be thankful in that case. I know that as a dad, when my kids are out of hand, at no point in time when I'm being a parent, do I say I'm not thankful for them? At no point in time do I say I don't love them anymore. But I have this opportunity that I have to take to correct them. And it's a thing that I have to do. So I am thankful for my family and my children and the opportunities that I have to correct. I don't love that the opportunities are there necessarily on the surface, but those things are there.

So Paul, ignoring these shortcomings, is thankful for this church. And who's he thankful to? God. So I want to ask one other thing about thankfulness and then we'll move on to the next section. What is required for thankfulness? How many parties are involved with thankfulness? At least a minimum number of parties. At least two.

And usually it's a recognition of something that the other party has done that you didn't do. I'm thankful that my wife did X. I'm thankful that you did something. So the thankfulness comes because of the multiple parties, and he's thankful to God for them. His thankfulness is directed towards God, and they're a third party in this, in a beneficial way.

And so the thankfulness isn't just saying, oh, I'm thankful. It's not just internalized towards ourself. It's heavenly directed. So it's important to recognize that the thankfulness is not just generic Thanksgiving, right? What does an atheist celebrate Thanksgiving for? I'm thankful to the universe for accidentally coming together. No, I mean, that's ridiculous. But for us, Thanksgiving has a purpose.

Gary, you got a thought? The override principle is grace is the word. Grace means to be thankful. Yeah, that's a core. What does it mean to be thankful? That's part of the definition there, definitely to be thankful. So thankfulness is definitely a consistent theme in the New Testament. The trials and the suffering and the burden that are part of our day-to-day lives don't remove the need for thankfulness to be part.

And Paul starts off in recognizing that. So for the grace of God which was given, okay, so we have the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus. So he's thankful concerning them for that grace that was given them. Why is he thankful for that grace in them?

Anybody want to take a stab at that? What does this sentence accomplish for the reader? We'll ask it that way. Tom? In spite of what he's going to discuss later, every believer is that fully equipped. He's got a lot to be thankful for. Their position in Christ. And he's going to do all that correction, as Tom said.

But he's letting them know, this is their position. I think what follows is incredibly foundational. Paul's looking at not what they're doing, but who they are. They have to be positioned first before the condition is conformed. He's laid out this foundational element of who they are in Christ. We're only four verses in, and he's established them in Christ completely.

When When my dad would come to correct me, often that correction would come with a reiteration of who he knows. I am in Christ, or who he knew I was in Christ, speaking in the past tense. Although, as my elder, and as my father, he could still come today in the present tense.

Bob? This is just so foundationally important, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's so, so incredibly important to take the believer and have him or her see themselves as complete in the Lord Jesus Christ, and from there, you start to understand what that great grace is to live the Christian life.

Let's just start here, how many believers are so confused as to why they're failing day in and day out? It was the worst grueling process of failing over and over and over again, not knowing this and thinking I had to get there. I thought the place where I am starting actively as a believer, when I become a believer, was where I had to get to. I thought I had to get to sanctified, I thought I had to get to called, and I thought I had to get to this position of being in Christ and resting in Him.

I better put my cross-training shoes on and get ready and have my athletic gear because this is going to be an exercise. It turns out it wasn't. I just didn't know it. But if you don't know this, and the funny thing is that I had been taught from these very passages. But they kind of skimmed over this and went to the to-do list, right? They went to the, oh, you've got to do these things. So Paul is establishing these things.

So it's in the grace for you, for the grace of God, which was given you in Christ Jesus. So Paul is thankful for that grace that is in them, because that's going to be where he works from. He's thankful for that because it's a common foundation that he can work on this other longer list of things he's going to address in the letter. So, that in everything you were enriched in Him. You were enriched in Christ.

Now there we go, that's a non-trivial statement about who they are again, but it's just this phrase, this fragment, that's part of a longer Pauline run-on sentence. He's good at those. What does it mean to be enriched? In everything. Blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So we've been enriched in everything.

And what's really really cool is that we could probably, if if we had the time, which I've looked at the schedule and we don't, but if we had the time we could have this massive rabbit trail with this fragment of verse 5 and read through Ephesians and read through Ephesians and look at every place where Paul talks about the enriching of the believer including that every spiritual blessing and it would be an awesome study. I will leave that to you during the week as you have time.

But it's a phenomenal thing to think that this enriching in everything is a really powerful principle of what the Lord is conforming us to and what the Lord is growing us into. It's already true positionally. We've been enriched in a perfect way and we're being conformed into that in everything. And he continues on because he has a fantastic desire to load this run-on sentence with more truth, he says, in all speech and all knowledge.

And last week we talked briefly about the Corinthians really loving oratory and speech and things that would build them up in public speaking, like I'm teaching in front of you in Sunday school, what an honor, and you should lift me up as a Sunday school teacher. That's the Corinthian mindset. But Paul's going to take this thing that the Corinthians are braggadocious about and he's going to instead make it universal. In all speech and all knowledge, you've got all of it, But again, it's a collective of the church body. So instead of bragging, what you get is an even playing field. So let's briefly talk about all speech and all knowledge. Why did they have speech and knowledge from the Spirit as a spiritual gift at this point in time?

How much of the New Testament did they have? Not all of it. Certainly not all of it. Although Paul is going to refer to the principle of the New Testament being completed in chapter 13. But while they don't have all of the New Testament, they have the Holy Spirit moving in them to give them direction, to give them correction, which they're apparently ignoring. Although maybe they're not, but Paul is the one that's the agent for change in some of that. and also for that conformity.

2 Corinthians 3.18, where we're going to be beholding the Lord. That's one of my favorite passages. He's reminding them of this. I'm correcting you. Remember, you should be beholding the Lord.

They don't know that yet, because they're only in this first letter, right? But there's this principle of all speech and all knowledge. And if you were a Greek, the idea of having all knowledge would be something worth boasting on, right? I love me some philosophy, and I love me some knowledge, and I'm going to just be the most powerful person in the world because I have all knowledge."

Only, it's not you as an individual, it's them as a church. It's a collective, so they can't have pride in it. But he's thankful that they have the grace in Christ, he's thankful that in everything they were enriched in him, and he's thankful that they have all speech and all knowledge. even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. So we're now in verse 6, we're only a few verses in, and Paul has laid down these foundational truths and he's established them in Christ so that they know where they're starting from. What are they bringing to the table at this point in time? Nothing. all the pride that the Greeks had, all the pride that the Romans had, all the pride that the Jews had, didn't matter which one they were, they're believers, and it doesn't matter what the Corinthian culture says, it's a level playing field because it's all in Christ. And it's established and they're confirmed in it. Then he says in 7, I'm sorry, let me ask this real quickly. He says, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed to you.

What's the testimony? We need to ask, that's really an important question. What do we think of testimonies today? Court setting. Okay, court setting, that's great. testimony. So this is a statement of truth about what happened in my life. Gary? You're sworn in the testimony. But today, what I was thinking originally in the question, although those are fantastic points, so I think we should should elevate those as things we take note of. What I was thinking about is how the testimony has changed in the church.

If I say, oh, so-and-so gave their testimony, what immediately comes to mind? hopefully it's not what it comes to my mind but go ahead yeah and usually the best story start with the drug addict prostitute drug dealer right like those are the always the killers if you want to have a knockout testimony you gotta have done drugs and been a prostitute and been in a gang and you know like those are important for a good testimony but that's not the point what's what's the point of the testimony here It's part of that definition of confirming.

Yeah, it's confirming. It's guaranteed. Okay, it's guaranteed. Bob? The truth of who Christ is. Right. It has nothing to do with you. And what he's done. It's not self-certain. Yeah, it has nothing to do with you. Paul saw with his own eyes, weak as they were as we know from other places, right? Paul saw with his own eyes the testimony of Christ in their lives. I know you're saved. He's writing to them with the confidence of saying, I know you're saved. So if this first part of the letter does anything, it says Paul knows who they are in Christ. They should know who they are in Christ. And we're establishing from this great rich soil that he's going to challenge them to grow in as we go through the rest of the letter.

So in verse 7, "...so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ." So the first part there, that you're not lacking in any gift. When we get to chapter 12, we're going to find out that not only were they not lacking in gifts, but they didn't understand them, and so they were trying to use them for merit or for social clout. Having been a charismatic between junior high and high school and grown up in some formative years of my own life, I've watched this happen where certain people want to be known as the person who has this gift or the person who has that gift. Or they want to collect the whole set. That's also another variation. But what happens is that your pride gets in there.

I spoke in tongues. I had a guy who prayed over me dozens of times in the time that I knew him that I would speak in tongues. You've got to speak in tongues. You need to speak in tongues. Why? It's just what he felt I needed to do and it was important to him that I do that because then I would be important in the church because I spoke in tongues. So, this letter is very, very real to me.

I had to understand spiritual gifts as Paul outlined them in chapter 12, but somehow, despite that being the source of the list of spiritual gifts, along with Ephesians, no one actually read it. They were just looking for some lists of things that they could add, like their PhD at the end of their name. Ah, Randy Peterman speaks in tongues. Randy Peterman heals people. I want to put that at the end.

Pat? this verse with confirmation. The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you? Yeah. What did you say the confirmation was? Actually, I don't know that we spoke of it right there. The confirmation is the salvation. The testimony is a confirmation of the salvation. Christ was confirmed in you, which means the testimony proved out the truth of your salvation. I saw it.

I guess the best way I can think of it, using the joke of what I just said about testimony, if the guy is a drug dealer, let's pretend generic Mr. X is a drug dealer, and he says, I got saved, and nothing in his life changed, we would probably say that there was not a testimony of confirmation. Nothing changed. He's still doing the same sinful things and he didn't respond to correction in a biblical way. Again, I don't know his heart. The Lord knows his heart. He may have repented temporarily and then just not bearing any fruit.

When he gets to heaven, when we look at chapter 3, he'll get through naked and smoking, right? As my dad said. But it's one of those things where the confirmation of the testimony means that Paul sought with his own eyes. He knows that these believers are saved. He sought and it was confirmed for him. So now he's going to hold them accountable. He's got a point to start with to hold them accountable to that confirmation that he sought. So after not lacking in any gift, the spiritual gifts that they have there, they're actively participating in that in the body. He says they're awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now how many of you, when you hear eager, accidentally, and I did this, so that's why I'm bringing it up, accidentally think of eager as also being short-term? I remember being eager to deliver enough newspapers, to earn enough money to get a Nintendo. really wanted a Nintendo when I was a kid. So I delivered the newspaper and I was eager to get the Nintendo, but once I got the Nintendo, that was done. And then I eagerly really wanted a car, but I never really pulled off. So it was a short term. My patience wasn't there.

But this eagerness carries with it the idea of patient, long, drawn-out hope. So eagerly awaiting the return of Christ, or the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not just eager excitement and hope, but also a patient, drawn-out hope. It's not temporary, it's not short-lived. Why is it short-lived for us when we're eager as children? It's because it's very emotional, right?

I really can't wait for the new iPhone to come out. That's what adults, I hear adults say things like that. Oh, I'm going to get the new iPhone. And they're eager and they're excited, but the new iPhone comes out and then what happens to your emotions? They release an OS update and it slows down.

So that eagerness is a long, drawn out, patient type of hope. My Bible says waiting. It doesn't use the word eagerly. Awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. So awaiting is that drawn out. But I want to make sure that we don't see awaiting eagerly and walk away with just the eager side without the awaiting and the patience that comes with that. So why do we care about the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ? What's going to happen when Jesus Christ is revealed on this earth again in his physical manifestation?

Let's look at Colossians 3. We'll look at Colossians 3, 4. I love Colossians 3, 1-3, but Colossians 3, 4 is also an awesome verse to take a look at here. Colossians 3.4, he says, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

That's a pretty big deal. When Christ is revealed, at his revelation, they're waiting eagerly, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, they're going to be glorified too. they have confidence, and Paul has confidence in their testimony, and they have confidence in the return of the Lord.

They have confidence that comes from that. The confidence that Paul's going to actually hold them accountable to, because what do you want to be found doing when the Lord comes? His work, right? I'm shy a few verses here. That's the second bell. So they're awaiting eagerly with patience but excitement for the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. They know they'll be glorified.

And then in verse 8, continuing on with the confirmation from 6, "...who will also confirm you to the end blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." So Christ is going to confirm them in the future tense. confirm them to the end. Christ will be the one doing the confirming, not they themselves.

And, just in case, still, despite the sin issues that Paul is going to bring up, they're going to be found blameless in the day of our Lord. They will be found blameless. When I sin, it's hard for me to think of myself as blameless. because I'm thinking of myself conditionally. But Paul is reminding them of their position, that they're blameless into eternity in Christ. Not of their own doing, not of their own merit, not of their own works, but because of grace that they get this unlimited, unmerited blessing of God in salvation.

And then last, in verse 9, since we're going to blitz through these last two verses so we can pick up next week, God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. So God is faithful. We could spend a lot of time on that actually, because if we start to ask what does God's faithfulness mean, that's a tremendous topic. Again, just like going through Ephesians with being enriched in everything in him, God's faithfulness can be proven out in so many of the other scriptures as we read through it.

But he wraps up, so he starts with being called, he reminds them that they're called with all of the believers in the world, and then he wraps up the section in verse 9 with, "...through whom you were called into fellowship with the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." And when we're called, Paul was called by the Holy Spirit, unto the work of Christ by the Father.

That calling involves all three parts of the Godhead. That applies to us as well. That calling is something that all three parts of the Godhead work out. But they work out drawing us unto the Son. And who does the Son draw attention to? The Father. So the Spirit moves in us drawing us to draw our attention to Christ who draws our attention to the Father and all three parts of the Godhead are there. So God is faithful.

Now starting next week in verse 10 we're going to get into this exhortation and of course when Paul is exhorting he's not going to mince any words. He's going to come in and he's going to let them know hey we have some problems but as it turns out he's going to do it with this established foundation. And it's going to be something that it's going to build. So when we're done with 1 Corinthians, he will have built a logical argument about the heavenly position that we have in Christ and the outcome that that should bear.

That was the second bell, so I should end right there, but let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you that we can rest in our sanctification in Christ, that we can rest in the enrichment that we have in Christ, and we can rest in the knowledge and the truth and the words that are in the scripture. And we just ask that you would continue to bring these things to mind throughout the week and that we would walk in the truth that is here as well. In Jesus' name, amen.