How To Destroy Division
Lessons From 1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Greetings…
Theme: Lessons From 1 Corinthians.
Hope: To understand the doctrines mentioned therein all the more.
We find so many wonderful topics and lessons to discuss in this great letter to the church at Corinth.
As we have mentioned, and will continue to mention, 1 Corinthians 2:1-2 are the theme verses of the book.
1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Paul knew, like you and I know, that the only way to be pleasing to God and correct any wrong doing is to “know nothing…except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
And in reality there were a lot of biblical problems there in the church at Corinth.
In our text today, 1 Corinthians 3, we find another glaring issue of division on full display.
These brethren were dividing themselves over who taught them the gospel.
They were arguing and being jealous over who was taught by who?
3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
Paul reminds them how immature and silly this is when he writes…
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
The apostle Paul then explains “How To Destroy Division” there in the church at Corinth.
Where they need to put their focus so as not to get caught up in these petty thoughts but to stay focused on the upward call.
He starts this by pointing that Christians…
Need To Work
Need To Work
We Must Get Active.
We Must Get Active.
The first thing any new or old child of God can do to keep themselves from getting caught up in busywork instead of the work of the Lord is to get active or get to work for God.
One of the most dangerous things we can do is become idol and complacent in our walk with God.
Of the young widows Paul admonished…
13 Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.
Of those that were refusing to "earn their own living” Paul would write…
6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you,
Though the phrase, “Idol hands are the devil’s worship” is not found specifically in the bible but the thought certainly is.
There is a great danger when we Christians don’t get active for God, because we will eventually start filling our time with Satan’s situations instead of working on God’s goals for our life.
So then…
What Are We To Be Active In?
What Are We To Be Active In?
Paul, using what was he just admonished them over “being divided by jealously over who taught who the gospel,” shows them what they can stay active in that would keep them too busy to get divided.
Conclusion
Conclusion
v
Invitation
1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.