Knowing and Growing - 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 · Vern Peterman · Feb 19, 2017
Knowing & Growing, No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492654836723

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, so let's take a look here. We have 1 Corinthians 1, 1 through 9. And if you would like to get a copy with a footer on it, we do have a master that has that, and you can ask Sue or Nancy to make you a copy of that. I have no idea why it didn't show up. At any rate, we have the rest of it here. So as we go through this series, we come upon this passage in 1 Corinthians 1, 1-9. Now, I specifically chose this because here is an assuring passage. And let's ask this question.

How well off, and I'm not speaking financially, how well off was the Corinthian church? Not so much. It was a church that was evidently quite messed up in a great many ways. We'll look at those things in a little bit more detail and what those areas were where they had problems in a little bit. But that's one of the things that draws me with fascination to Paul's introduction here. He spends, and this is frankly a little unusual, nine verses on introduction. But what he says, particularly after you get into the meat of it, to the heart of it, is really rather astounding.

But it's also reassuring for a church that's struggling and having a tough time getting on solid ground. Yes? When we talk about the Church of Corinth, are we talking about all believers? Are we talking about some individual group, like probably the Old Bible Church or something? Well, OK, so that's a very good question.

So when he's writing to a church at Corinth, what's interesting is we have within the two letters that we have evidence of four letters, right? And so what's 1 Corinthians, if we had all the letters, would really be 2 Corinthians, right? And 2 Corinthians, if we had all the letters, would really be 4 Corinthians, right? So we have the second and the fourth letter. He's writing to a particular church body.

This was a church that was located in the city of Corinth. Corinth was a Roman colony, among several other different characteristics. It was known throughout the Roman Empire as being amazingly, astoundingly immoral. as the city itself was. And so you had people drawn out of that who had become Christians.

So this was a specific church body, just in answer to Wayne's good question here, this was a specific church body, he had spent time with them, he had written them a previous letter that we don't have, He was addressing things with them. He knew the characteristics of the people.

And something else interesting about this letter is not only do we have an understanding that this was really the second letter, there was a previous letter written we don't have, but also as he writes this, Paul alternates between written questions that have come to him from the Corinthian church, and things that are being told him by the person who brought the letter.

So he goes back and forth between, OK, here's what you wrote, and here's what I've been told. And then now here's what you wrote, and here's what I've been told. So we have that interesting pattern. And so between the things that have been told him, and the things that he has understood from their questions, written questions, he's got an understanding of where they're at at the moment and he's responding to them with that pattern. Second letter alternating between here's what you wrote and here's what I've been told.

Does that fit the bill? Okay, so we have that. Let me read through that, 1 Corinthians 1, 1-9, and it reads like this, Paul called 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 in 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. Then, this is verse four through nine, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus. that in everything you were 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 are called into fellowship with the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, that's the way it reads here. We're going to step through it one little bit at a time. So, he would start off his letters with what? Praise Him. He would often do that, but actually, and that's true, frequently, his name. How do we do our letters typically?

We start off with the person we're writing to. The custom in those days, and Paul carries through with the custom, is here's who's writing. Very interesting that we have a pattern of sending a letter to people, it may even be a long letter, and we don't identify who it's from until at the end. Interesting that we have that pattern. But that's our cultural custom. He's following the cultural custom.

He starts off, here's who's writing. Which in some ways, you look at that and say, well that kind of makes some sense, right? Rather than reading for several pages and then to discover who it is. So if we get a long letter, who do we, what do we look for? We go to the last page if it isn't apparent from the envelope or something else. Here's who this is.

So, he starts off with that. He follows it often, not always, with his claim to apostleship. Now, question, why would he do that? Why would he claim apostleship right off? He chose his authority. It shows his authority, it shows why he's there, why he's writing.

Have you ever gotten something, maybe it's a phone call, maybe it's a letter, and you say, you know, why are you writing me? Why are you calling? The people really have no basis for invading your life, and it's pretty common these days with junk phone calls to get that. But in a lot of ways, a lot of what we call junk mail is in that category too. It's people wanting to insert themselves into your lives who really have no basis for doing so. And that's why we call it junk.

But Paul's not doing that, is he? He has a basis for doing so. In each of these churches, he's been there, with rare exception. Romans would be an example of one of those exceptions. He's been there and has a basis for talking to them. The next thing you'll see is an asterisk after several of those. He also says it's by the will of God. And why is that important?

Is it possible to have a self-appointed apostle? It shows he was not self-appointed, and he was disappointed in what you've got. Right. Just by example, when we have a junk phone call, it's self-appointed, isn't it? Right? Somebody says, I appoint myself to talk to you, and I'm going to talk to you about this. Right? Yes, sir?

Also, today we're inundated by opinions And different people have opinions. Oleg is saying it's not his opinion. Yes. We live in a culture where people feel strongly about the right to express their opinions, whether you want to hear it or not. And there are people who feel very strongly that they have the right to go asserting their opinions. He's not expressing an opinion that's just humanly given.

He is going to tell them at the beginning of chapter 4. You guys have to figure out that we are stewards of the mysteries of God. Yes, Dan? It makes it kind of difficult spiritually because obviously he can't show a letter that God sent to him showing that he is the designated apostle. Let's ask this question.

Did any of the apostles have some special, you know, letter that said, hey, I'm, you know, the official guy, I got a letter here from Jesus or from God or something. Did any of them have that? None of them claimed that, right? What did they claim as apostles?

To have seen the Lord. To have seen the Lord, okay? And obviously with the twelve, Take Judas out of the picture and put Matthias in there. With the twelve, all of them have seen the Lord resurrected. Why is Paul, writing this, able to claim that he has seen the Lord? So the Lord appeared to him independently and separately.

By the way, we don't know exactly where that was. He claims it was Arabia. It may have well been near the city of what's now called Petra, in that vicinity. Could well be in there. And that would also be, think about it. You ever seen pictures of Petra and the surrounding area? Deep, narrow canyons. A great place for Paul to go off and meet with the Lord. It would make sense. So, anyway, that's possible. Yeah. And don't you think, oh, I'm sorry.

I was thinking that I had never memorized a book by Paul until I got where he said he was by the will of God until I got to Ephesians. And I was thinking, for somebody who did not know Paul personally, they would think he was kind of bold in saying, you know, I'm an apostle by the will of God.

How do I know that? You'd have to check up on him, you know, and there's probably a number of people who did know that he was. So let's explore that. Let me catch Stan's thought first before that drops out. I was just going to say that I'm sure the story of the Damascus Road and Cornelius and all the things that happened there was pretty well disseminated by the church and by the Christian people because there was such a big change.

Yes, so here is Paul's Damascus Road experience that Dr. Luke records in Acts 9, but actually as we'll see as we go through the book of Acts, twice more. Twice more in the book of Acts, Paul describes that event and repeats again what happened on that road, because to him that was major, major pivotal, not incidental. Now, back to Jim's very important question here, and that is, here's the Apostle Paul.

Did he have any way of validating that he was an apostle apart from just saying, I'm an apostle? And also the accounts that went along with his Damascus Road experience. Did he have any way of validating that claim? I'm an apostle. What about his extreme change from piety to something? Ah, yes. And as a matter of fact, that's something he described both in Acts as well as in some of his letters. Example, who was his rabbi? Do you remember? Gamaliel was his rabbi. An extreme change.

And what was Paul headed to Damascus for? What was his intent when he left for Damascus? To kill the Christians. And he didn't want to just slap their hands. It says he was breathing out threats and murder. He wanted him dead. He didn't want to just give him a negative message. He wanted him just flat out dead. So this guy was extreme in attempts.

So the radical change, you're right, that's one evidence. Are there other evidences? Did he go to Jerusalem and talk with Peter and Barnabas and several other people and had told them what had happened to him and he also had his missionary journeys that he was on. So action and Witness. Between the book of Acts and other books in principally Galatians, Paul had interactions with the other apostles who would back up, yeah, this guy is an apostle. Here's even Peter writing about, and of course this is later, but Peter writing about, here's Paul's letters, and he calls them, he includes them in scripture.

So you have that testimony. And what else do we have? Well, what he taught. The Jews hated him by what he taught. He taught the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His messages for the Gentiles. He didn't do that as a Jew. So here's a very important question. Paul goes out and teaches. Did he teach things the other apostles didn't? He did teach some things that from any evidence we have are unique. Can you think of some of those things?

Salvation was for all, okay. Gentiles and Jews, and he went out there. Now, Peter was the first one to introduce the gospel to the Gentiles, but Paul, being appointed, went out to these Gentile lands first. What else? How you're saved. How you're saved and describing and explaining that. Jessica?

I think all the apostles alluded to it, but he was very specific in our identification. Ah, yes. You can find identification in the Gospel of John. You can find identification in 1 Peter. Dead to sin, alive to righteousness. Here is 1 John, excuse me, the Gospel of John that we looked at, chapter 15. Abide in me, and I in you."

So here is an understanding of identification, but only the Apostle Paul explained it, and repeatedly stated it. You're right, so that's another good one. So that was a unique thing. But what Paul taught, though he had unique messages, also was consistent. The other apostles didn't go, hey, wait a minute, You're off base here, right?

So Paul was consistent with the message of the other apostles, but he was additive as to this truth that he spelled out to people in his writings and in his speech. What else validated Paul's message? about wonders and miracles and signs and things of that sort. So he also would produce those things as validation that he was in fact an apostle. And the claim that we have from scripture is that all the apostles, and we'll be taking a look at that briefly in this morning's message and act, all the apostles were able to carry out miracles to validate their message. It's not the only validation, as we've all pointed out and seen here, but it was one of them. Let's look on page 2, there are several bullets describing the problems of Torah.

Paul could generalize that the believers were fleshly, the believers followed after specific men, Arrogance to the point of refusing Paul's apostolic authority and seeking to build personal empires within the Church were apparently widespread. Next, the believers were tolerant of the man being intimate with his stepmother, which is not even tolerated in the pagan culture. Believers were taking each other to court.

Not good. Believers were sinning to the point that there were weak, sick, and dead among them as God's discipline. Whoa. Now, fortunately, I don't see that that's happened at Holly Hills. I'm glad to be able to tell you, but it happened there. Some of them, after believing the gospel, were now coming to doubt the resurrection, as was typical of the Greek pagan culture of the day.

So here are people, all of whom had believed the gospel that Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again. And that third one, some of them were beginning to doubt. And consequently, they were also beginning to doubt their own resurrection. Does that mean when they began to doubt, they lost their salvation? It didn't mean that, but the reality is that they would not experience the joy and the hope in their lives if they did not believe in the resurrection.

So in 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul addressed that. It was also a problem because the Greek culture did not believe in a physical resurrection. So that was generally not taken as even worthy of consideration. So what had happened is the Apostle Paul had told them that Christ was resurrected.

He said, I've seen him myself, and the other apostles have as well. But they were getting pulled in by the culture which said there is no resurrection. Come on. Give me a break. So the general Greek culture, the secular culture, did not believe in a physical resurrection. So they're not denying that and being sucked into it. That was the last bullet we're referring to here.

So now, 1 Corinthians 1-2, 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 the Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. So, he calls them the Church of God. Did he goof up? Is he messed up? I mean, with all the things they've got wrong, is that a problem? He still calls them the Church of God.

Not only that, to those who've been sanctified, now, this I've got to point out, the Greek word is hagiazo, and if you don't remember that, that's fine. It's just similar to a word he's going to use shortly here. The big deal is it's perfect tense. I don't want you to get perfectly tense about the perfect tense. I want you to remember that it's a completed past action with ongoing results in the future implying permanence.

So you messed up, believers in Corinth, have already been completely and totally and permanently sanctified in your position in Christ. Isn't that reassuring? The reality is, as a human being, I can blow it in a thousand ways. Being a believer, there's a bunch of different ways I can blow it. But, can I blow my sanctification positionally? Can I blow that? The answer is no. Yeah?

At that time, it seemed like this was a bit... I mean, even nowadays, this is a pretty big It's a big deal to begin to understand that, but that would be something then that was pretty new? Yeah, it was a Christian teaching. Let's ask this question. In the pagan culture, were you assured of anything? Not much. Here's Paul who gets to proclaim things that are phenomenal compared to the pagan culture.

Did the gods love you? Did the pagan gods love you? No. They didn't give a hoot about you. The pagan gods didn't love you. Did they ever bless you? No. And in the heavenly places, what do you got? Pagan gods who lie to one another? Pagan gods who steal, pagan gods who don't care about you, don't love you, won't bless you, pagan gods who might change their mind.

One of the reasons, by the way, that they had New Year's celebrations was that was the time of the meeting of the pagan gods and you're trying to positively influence them while they're having their annual meeting. That's why we have New Year's. That's where it comes from. Yes? So it's the reverse of the Christianity where pagan gods had human characteristics. Yes.

In Christianity you're supposed to gain the divine characteristics as you live out your Christian life. One of the reasons why the Apostle Paul explains things like our position that we're in Christ and explains God's character is because it needed to be explained in order to then talk about anything impacting the ethics or morality of your life. You know, if you worshipped Zeus, did Zeus care about whether you were moral or immoral? Sometimes. Maybe. Usually not. Yeah, usually not. You know, he really didn't care because Zeus himself was immoral.

Right? And so to have a God who is by nature moral, To have a God who is uncorruptible, to have a God who always tells the truth, that was an absolutely fascinating thing. To have a position that was untouchable in the heavenlies, to have a God who would bless you in the heavenlies irreversibly, that was just an amazing thing. An astounding thing. And so that's why, as he explained these things, to tell these messed up believers coming out of paganism, tell them you've been completely and totally sanctified in your position.

Have I got some things to talk to you guys about? Oh yeah. But tell them right at the outside that you guys are completely and totally sanctified in your position before we even step into any of these issues. that was to them just unheard of. First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30, by God's doing you are in Christ Jesus. What? See this is astounding news to them. Really amazing stuff.

Okay so let's take a look here Then it says next they are saints, haggios. Do you notice the similarity of the words? Haggiotso is sanctified. Saints by calling, haggios, same family of words. And so those are connected up. So you are sanctified and who did the sanctifying? Yeah, this is God's doing that you're sanctified and it's a completely done deal.

I didn't earn it. I didn't accomplish it. I had nothing to do with it except believe. That's it. And so then, saints by calling, so the sanctified is what God did. The saints is who you are. And who did the calling? God did. I didn't say, hey God, give me a little of your attention. I'm going to do some sacrifices here in the temple and I'd like you to give me a little attention for a minute or two. If I do the sacrifices several times a day, will that help? Would you give me a minute? No, instead, saint, who you are, sanctified ones, holy ones, set apart ones, by calling, and God did the calling. And it wasn't on your smartphone.

So then, 1 Corinthians 1.3, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

When the Greeks would greet one another, you know, just a standard greeting, meet some stranger on the road, charis, grace. And then peace, what would the Jews say to one another? Shalom, right? And that was the Hebrew word for peace, or in the Greek, Irenae, which we have in our English, the name Irene. The woman's name Irene is that word. Yeah?

I just thought of this and just wondered, the peace that he's talking about here, is that a positional? Yeah, let's talk about, you know, he says peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. What is the primary What is the primary focus of that peace? Where is there peace that there wasn't before because we're believers? With the Lord. While we were yet sinners, enemies, Christ died for us in order that what?

That enemy status might be completely done away with. It's a treaty, not that we have things that are a problem and he has things that are a problem and we just call a standoff. It's a treaty in which he takes all the steps and all the measures, and it's entirely at his expense, and you have that kind of a treaty, and all we did was say, yeah, I believe you. That's it.

It comes out of propitiation, right? Yes, God is completely satisfied in his character. He is completely satisfied in his character. by Christ's death on the cross. That's propitiation. A big word that we never use, but that's what it is. God's character is completely and totally satisfied by Christ's death on the cross. God doesn't say, well, you know, that's pretty good.

We just got, you know, A, B, and C here to cover. Jesus paid it all. Completely. Here's Jesus, he's on the cross, he uses one Greek word, tetelestai, and that's also in the perfect tense, right? It's all permanently, completely paid. Done deal, okay? There is nothing that God says, you know, Jesus did a whole lot for you, but we gotta cover this, this, and this here in order to get things in. You better watch your P's and Q's. It's all completely paid.

So here's the next part here. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus that in everything you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge. For the grace of God which was sold to you. The grace of God which will be given if you do everything right. The grace of God which is going to cost you. The grace of God costs him, not me.

He already did it. It's a done deal. And he didn't say, you know, if you guys will do this and this right and sign on the dotted line here and I can check you off, then the grace of God is going to be given to you. Do you believe that's it? God says that's it? I'll do the rest. Nothing more.

Grace of God which was given, grace given to you completely and totally free. If you want to pay for it, sorry it doesn't come on that basis. Completely grace given. We can't earn it, we can't deserve it, and that's the way it stays. that in everything you were enriched in Him.

And how much? Where? In Him. And then also, and this is an issue with them in chapters 12, 13, and 14, in all speech and all knowledge, because they were really big in that. What was the speech issue that they're concerned with? Tongues. We've got the tongues issue, and he's going to deal with that. But where are all the answers about that? In him. And then all knowledge. There's a gift of knowledge that Paul is going to address in chapter 13. But he's dealt with it.

Further on there, in verse 6, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, and then in verse 7a, so that you are not lacking in any gift, among them all in the body of Christ are any of them lacking any of the gifts that God intended.

Why? He gave each person a gift of salvation. And by the way, if the Lord gives any of us a gift, a spiritual gift, is there any of them that we deserve? Is there any of us that are somehow better because of the gift? No. Not at all. And we don't have to plead for the gifts. We don't have to plead. Matter of fact, what good would it do? Lord, I'd really like this gift, because then I could A, B, and C, and X, Y, and Z. But there's no place for that either. I don't get credit for what the Lord has done in gifting me, and neither does anybody else. Yes? So this isn't saying that you have all gifts, but you aren't lacking in the gift that God has given you? As a church body, is there adequate gifts? Yeah. Individually, do you have the gift or gifts that God wanted to give you? Yes. Yeah. It's that simple. But it doesn't mean you have them all. No. I don't have them all. I can't ask for more.

They were given at the time I was saved, and the Lord may in various ways further develop those or demonstrate that I have those gifts. But I don't get to say, hey Lord, you know, it would be really nice if I had this other one, and then after that this other one, this other one, because it would be really cool, you know. That's not the way it works. But within the church body, the Lord has gifted us as He's seen fit. Let's look at the bottom of page 3. Sorry about the footer being missing.

1 Corinthians 1, 7b-8. 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." Now, these believers are really, really messed up here on earth. How will they stand at the end of time here on earth and before the Lord? What will be their standing at the end? Blameless. And after being messed up really badly, can they be blameless still at the end? Stand before the Lord and be... How could that be? How is that possible? God did it. Let's look at this question.

What's going to happen for all the things in which you and I have blown it? Me too. What's going to happen with all those things where you and I have blown it? It's going to go away. 1 Corinthians, he's going to get into it. Chapter 3, verses 10-15. Our works will go through the fire. Is that you and I going through the fire? No. Our works will go through the fire, and the stuff that I've done is just junk. That's not His doing. What's going to happen to it? It's going to be burned up. And with the end result that how will I stand before the Lord?

Blameless. The Lord's not going to say, you're going to heaven, works and all. Right? You're not perfect, but you'll be okay because you're safe here. No. What is not blameless will be gone. Isn't that great? It doesn't mean that I don't concern myself with something that's out of whack here. It doesn't mean that self-dependency is ever any good thing. But in eternity, I'm not going to go carrying around warts and all. I'm not going to have the junk, it's going to be gone. I'm going to stand before the Lord blameless. You will and I will.

And that's a really good thing. And if you want to feel guilty about it, I can't help you. You'll have to go somewhere else. If you want to feel guilty about it, you can go somewhere else. But it won't stand on the last day. See that? You and I are going to be blameless before the Lord, period. And these Corinthian believers too, have messed up the city. Let's look at it. Here's Vern. Vern's done various things in dependence upon the Lord. Vern's done various things not in dependence upon the Lord. What's going to happen with those things that are done not in dependence upon the Lord?

Gone. And I can stand in front of you and you may say, well gee, that was a pretty good message or something. If it's not done before the Lord in terms of where it stands for eternity, what's going to happen? It's gone. Only what Christ does in and through each of us, that's what's going to last. But we are going to be blameless. The Lord's not going to say, you know, it's a sure good thing you're here in heaven, but let's talk for the next several years about what you did or didn't do. So, the new being that Paul talks about, that's what this is, because that new being is sinless and painless, and it's a new kind of creature, so it's sinless.

One of the things we're going to talk about later on, this elective, pretty quick, but later on, is we are being conformed, that's through both physical and spiritual circumstances, into the image of Christ, and by the way, is that going to happen in the end, in that day, before the Lord, or not?

It will. That is predestined. If you're worried about predestined, like God makes every single move, every breath you take, every move you make, that's not what predestined is about. Predestined is you will be completely and entirely conformed to the image of Christ on that day. Some of the process goes on here, but it will be absolutely and totally completed on that day that you stand before him. Fully done.

And from that day forward, right after the rapture, from that day forward, Jesus is never going to bring these sons up again. And you won't even have memory of it. It will be gone. Your focus will not be on, man, I sure blew it back there. Your focus will instead be, I'm here before the Lord, and I'm fully conformed now into his image. Everything that is not is burned away. And that's a good thing. That's what grace does.

Now, last thing, last page. eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ? Why would we be eagerly awaiting the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ if our thought was, oh no, he's going to scorch me? Why would we eagerly await that? That's because that's not what's going to happen. We are going to stand before the Lord, and He's not saying, man, I can't wait to get my hands on burn. I'm going to give Him what for. And boy, He's never going to hear the end of it. Is that what He's going to do? No. He's going to say, burn all that other stuff that's burned away, and what I did in and through you, that's what remains for eternity.

You are now completely and totally conformed to the image of Christ. All the discipline we receive is here on earth. No more discipline. Discipline is for here and now. Discipline is not for eternity. You're not going to have classes on trials and suffering when you get to heaven. You're not going to have classes on how to finish this conforming process in heaven.

So the going into what you're talking about here, the eagerly awaiting, has to do with the peace that we talked about earlier. It's the same thing, right? Yes. Imagine, here is this peace, we have peace with God, we have peace in our own hearts, because God's not sitting there saying, oh, when I get a hold of Vern, he is really going to get it. I'm going to scorch him.

Up one side and down the other because of what he did, because of what he didn't do, that's not what's happening. And we can eagerly await his coming and not dread it. We can eagerly await his coming for us because of absolute, total grace. All grace, all the way, all the time. Paul does seem so contrary to everything that they've ever been taught.

Yeah, I mean, think about it. Whether you are a pagan Greek reading this stuff, and the gods didn't care about you, you had to work to get their attention and make the right sacrifices and all that. We have writings from the Greeks expressing, I don't know how to get the gods attention. Exasperation. How do I get him to listen to what I ask? We would have them praying, for example, to be able to steal that. I pray that this guy would die so that I could have his wife. We have a record of those kinds of things among the pagans, or among the Jews.

I've really got to keep the law and work really hard and hope the Lord will overlook the fact that I kind of blew it over here and I picked up firewood a half hour too late. Nobody saw me, but the Lord knows. If you just say that you had all these things and you didn't have to follow the law like that, how frightful would that look to other people? I mean, you're a frightful person.

This has to be such a conflict of what they knew and what they have. Paul's got a whole raft of issues to deal with with these people, and some of them are pretty bad, pretty severe, even to the point where God is bringing judgment. But in the end, he's given them, you know, these are, God's faithful, God's done it, He's going to pull it off, and that's on the last page there, 1 Corinthians 1.9. God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's the reason, especially for including this message here.

You're called into what? Fellowship with the son. If I am trying to build my own empire, what am I called into? Fellowship with the son. If I am tolerant of this brother's immorality with his stepmother, I'm called into fellowship with the son. If I'm going about and being involved in lawsuits against other believers, what am I called to? Fellowship.

It is scholarship, it is knowing Him, it is a spiritual partnership, a joint participation, it is a personal interaction that's based on a relationship that's eternally established and spiritually productive. That's why we call this class Knowing Him, because for a lot of us we can get hung up on all these other areas where we've blown it. I've blown it. And we can get all snagged on these things, and all of a sudden guilt is motivating us, and we get all wrapped around the axle. But in the end, we're called into fellowship with the Son.

That's what God is aiming for. And do you know why God cares about sin at all in the believer's life? He wants it out of the way so that we can have fellowship with the Son. It's not that God is obsessed with sin and gets all tangled up and that is the first thing he sees. What he's looking at is, I want that out of the way so that you and I can fellowship.

Because that's what you're called to. That's what it's all about. the Damascus Moat Road experience, because Paul being raised as a Pharisee and Gamaliel and all this and the law, it would seem like a logical approach for him to walk into that church and say, okay guys, here's the rules. This is what you're supposed to do, because this is what God said through Moses. And he would just try to straighten it out by laying all that out and saying, follow these rules.

He didn't do any of that. He didn't even touch on it. That's amazing to me that he could so drastically change. In chapters 9 and 10, he's going to talk to them about learning from the law. Even Christ is our Passover, included in those chapters. So learn from the law, but he's not laying the law.

So there's a difference. Other thoughts, questions, comments? This is grace with all capital letters. This is grace with all capital letters. And this is really important for us to recognize in knowing the Lord that it's not our job to sit there and clean all the stuff out of the way.

If we, I'll go to 1 John 1.9, if we agree with him, all we have to do is say the same thing. Lord, this is garbage.

The analogy, it's one of my favorites, is years ago Nancy and I used to live in a 12-story apartment over on Iowa Avenue. And we'd walk down the hall and take the garbage and we'd drop it down the chute and close the door and it's gone. Nancy and I would not sit there and talk about the eggshells from yesterday's breakfast. We would not pull out the wrappers for the bacon. We wouldn't sit there and mull over the garbage. Do Nancy and I agree it's garbage and time to put it out?

Yep. On to real relationship and real life. God is not obsessing over the garbage. He is aiming, just as this introduction to the letter says, he is aiming for fellowship with us. That's what he's most intensely interested in. And as we've been saying, I'll say it again, you have his undivided attention. You're not trying to grab a minute or two of his time. He's got all the time in the world for you and for me.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what is indeed most amazing grace, and that you want, desire, and would even pay full price for that fellowship with us. That is astounding. We thank you for that. What amazing grace. What amazing love you've loved us with. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.