It Could Happen Here

I want to thank you for all of the texts, cards and calls over the last couple of weeks while I was recovering from my hip replacement surgery.

I’ll be recovering for a while but everyday is better and God has been very good to me.

I don’t like to make a big deal out of things like this.

We have a very able church staff that can keep things running.

We have excellent pulpit coverage with Austin.

I don’t worry for a minute about the soundness of Austin’s preaching - he preaches Jesus.

He preaches from the Word.

He leads our students well and he just celebrated his three year anniversary with FBCG this past Thursday.

The Lord blessed us when he called Austin and Lauralee and now Price to us and I am most grateful.

And, on that same note, this coming Tuesday is Matthew’s 1 year anniversary with us.

I am certain that you agree with me that the Lord blessed us with Matthew, Skye, Liam, Blayke and Sawyer.

I am most grateful to the Lord for him and his family - God has been good to us.

I’ve kind of been in a race with George Scoville.

Many of you know George.

He and I had the same surgery on the same day performed by the same doctor.

George was first on the docket; I was second.

George’s recovery has gone well too and I’m sure both of our nurses will be glad when we are once again out of their hair.

Also while I was gone our oldest member passed - Ms. Vara Lee Greene.

I felt very badly that I was unable to perform her funeral service.

But in my stead, George Sheffield willingly and graciously jumped in.

George and I had visited Ms. Vara Lee a number of times and George’s music had given Ms. Vara Lee happy feet.

I watched the video and George honored Ms. Vara Lee and our Lord very, very well.

George has been a blessing to me and to many of you as well and I thank God for him.

So, thank you all for taking care of business so the Lord’s church never misses a beat.

I also want to thank the Hospitality team.

This last Friday they fed the Basketball teams at Jones County High School.

The Bible is kind of big on the hospitality thing and our team represents FBC and Jesus very well.

We appreciate the hard work of ministry that you do.

So, I’m back.

I have no clue how much stamina I will have - surgery was 19 days ago.

If I need to sit, Matthew has provided me with a stool - so let’s see where we go.

Again, I do want you know how blessed I am to be the Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gray.

You are a blessing to me and I love you each and every one.

So - let’s get rocking with God’s word.

Our identity is “in Christ Jesus”

In Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet”, Polonius’ son Laertes was headed off to college.

Dad was giving his son some parting wisdom and in his speech he said:

“To thine own self be true.”

Sammy Davis, Jr. had a popular song back in the day, “I’ve got to be me.”

Frank Sinatra sang, “I did it my way.”

Lady Gaga’s “Born this way” is the same idea.

Being true to oneself is good advice.

There is just one question that has to be answered before you can follow that advice:

Who are you?

Many of you have probably heard about the vote that Gray Methodist took a few weeks ago.

There are two churches under Jason Dillard’s charge - Clinton Methodist and Gray Methodist.

So, following their church polity, they voted last week in a special member meeting to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church.

Clinton voted 100% to disaffiliate.

Gray Methodist voted 97% to disaffiliate.

There are more hoops they have to jump through because of their denominational polity.

But by mid-year, God willing, Gray UMC will become a part of the Global Methodist Church.

Now, why did this happen?

It happened because this congregation in Gray had to be true to itself, it happened because of identity.

To way oversimplify what happened over a long period of time - some other people decided that they had to be true to their identity.

“To thine own self be true,” right?

But to be true to oneself means that you reject things that aren’t - well - you.

And in order to be true to themselves, a very vocal number of US United Methodist Churches rejected the authority of scripture.

The media is playing it off as a gay / lesbian / LGBQTIA+ thing - but those are symptoms - they aren’t the disease.

The disease is the rejection of the scripture as the basis for our practices and beliefs.

It’s just not who we are.

Now, those of you who remember or have studied the 80’s and 90’s in the SBC, don’t be feeling too confident that we’ve fought this battle and it has been won.

As brother Jason said to the the other day, “We are where you’ll probably be in 5 - 10 years.”

That’s why I’m leading us to a biblical model of elders and deacons - I see a storm coming.

We need to be ready when it gets here.

And God willing, we will be.

The issue of identity is not going away any time soon.

One of the most powerful tenets of our time is “You have to be true to yourself.”

But you may have heard something King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1:9 “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

We are about to see that.

If you have your Bible, please open it to 1 Corinthians 4:14-21.

If you don’t have yours with you, you can grab one out of our pew rack and use it.

And if you don’t own a Bible, please take one from our pew rack with our blessing and call it your own.

If you are joining by live stream, greetings - we are happy you chose to worship with us today.

If you are close by, please consider attending in person if you can.

I promise, the services will be much more meaningful if you can.

And if you are visiting with us today, we are so glad you are here as well.

We are not a perfect church and don’t pretend to be.

If you are perfect, please don’t stay - you’ll be miserable here.

But if you are as messed up as many of us are, you’ll find yourself a wonderful, loving family here.

So our text - hear the Word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 4:14-21

1 Corinthians 4:14–21 ESV

I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power. What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

This is the Word of the Lord.

To get up to speed, the people of the church at Corinth are struggling with their identity.

Who are we?

You’ll remember early on, Paul says some are followers of Apollos, some are followers of Peter and a few are hanging on to Paul.

But what is going on, is society is pulling on them in a whole bunch of different directions.

Starting in chapter 5, Paul is going to address some of those things directly.

But right now, Paul is fighting against the ultimate outcome of everyone “being true to themselves.”

When everyone does what is right in their own minds, what will that look like?

It will be anarchy.

It will be confusion.

It’s discord and anger and hurt and pain.

Because see, now listen, if I accept something as being central to who I am, then that means I have to reject something else.

Makes sense right?

If I’m a Georgia Fan, I can’t simultaneously be a TCU fan.

I can like them both, but I’m going to pull for one over the other - I’m going to reject one of them.

And, follow me, when I reject something - that something might just be what you think makes you you.

So now we are in opposition to one another.

We have conflict, discord, anger, distrust.

Throw in social media and you have name calling and all kinds of accusations.

This is where we are - right where Corinth was.

How did Paul deal with it?

Look at 1 Corinthians 4:14 “I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.”

He came to them with the heart of a father.

He loved them so he wants the best for them.

When you try to argue something in social media, what typically happens?

Someone jumps in and calls someone a moron - or worse - our language has degraded so badly that God only knows what you’ll be called.

On the night of the College National Championship, Stetson Bennett was trending on twitter.

Not because he played the greatest game of his career - but because he was 25 years old.

“He’s the same age as” some NFL quarterback.

“He’s 35, 40” - memes were all over the place about him playing as an old man.

Their goal was to embarrass him for playing college ball at 25.

I don’t know how college eligibility works, but he had 6 years due to Covid.

That means his eligibility started when he was a pimple faced 19 year old.

Truth didn’t matter - do your best to embarrass him.

Paul didn’t want to embarrass them.

They might end up feeling shame when they realize they were wrong - but that wasn’t his goal.

He goal was to admonish - to warn them that they were on the wrong track.

That if they continued the way they were going, it’s not going to end like you think it’s going to end.

Look at what was going on in the church.

Everyone was “being true to themselves” and what was the result.

The church was collapsing around them.

Chaos, arguments, disorder.

So Paul admonishes them - while he was very firm with them - he was firm with a purpose.

“This isn’t going to end the way you think this is going to end.”

I know from my own experience that my first reaction to some of the things in the news isn’t compassion and understanding.

Many times I’m ready to break out the pitchforks and torches.

But calling someone a moron isn’t going to help them.

And screaming in their face that they are going to die and go to hell probably isn’ t going to help either.

But leading them to answer this question might help, “Who are you?”

Listen to verse 15 1 Corinthians 4:15 “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

The phrase “countless guides” loses some of the fun of hyperbole in the translation.

There’s nothing wrong with it - it is a correct and accurate translation - it’s just not fun.

If you’re a parent, you’ve said, “I’ve told you a million times to clean up your room.”

Did you really tell them a million times?

The way they said that was “though you have 10,000 guides in Christ...”

I know you have a million people telling you how to be a Christian.

Telling you what it looks like to be a Christian, what you should believe.

Let me remind you, Paul says, that you are a Christian because I preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to you.

And the Holy Spirit opened your eyes and you were born again.

Your identity changed to “In Christ”

You might remember from my January first message, that I said, when you tell someone the gospel, don’t leave Jesus in the tomb.

Remember that?

And what I meant was this - we are all about being forgiven of our sins - and that’s important.

Jesus died on the cross to take away the penalty for our sins.

The wrath of God was poured out on Jesus on the cross for all of my lies and immorality and rebellion.

I owned that punishment and Jesus took it for me.

So that He could be declared guilty in my place and I could be declared innocent in His place.

That’s important - but forgiven isn’t the whole story.

I was forgiven so I could be born again.

To put it theologically, my identity changed from “In Adam” to “In Christ.”

I’m no longer a sinner - I was a sinner - but now I am a child of God.

That’s why Paul can say in verse 16, “be imitators of me” - look at what I’ve gone through and remained true to the Word.

If you look back to verses 11 - 13, 1 Corinthians 4:11-13

1 Corinthians 4:11–13 ESV

To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

I’ve been through all of this hardship - just like you go through hardship in your life.

But I’ve never wavered.

Though there are 10,000 people telling me 10,000 ways I should live.

But I know that there is only one that I should live - my identity rests in Jesus.

That doesn’t mean I become vanilla.

It doesn’t mean I will look like everyone else.

But it does mean, I have a common Lord with a common set of life goals.

With a common set of outcomes if I choose to pursue those goals or not.

Paul is going to say in Ephesians 4:4-6

Ephesians 4:4–6 ESV

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

There is one authority in the entire universe - who is over all and through all and in all.

And when you trust Jesus, you are born again into the one body and one Spirit.

That’s why in verse 19 Paul can say that when he gets back to Corinth he’ll see who’s identity is based on what.

Eugene Peterson translates verse 20 like this, “God’s way is not a matter of mere talk; it’s an empowered life.”

There is only one who will empower you and me to live fee.

There are literally thousands of voices telling us how to live a good and respectable life.

The government of the United States of America is preaching in every avenue it can using the coercive powers of the government

All in a bid to convince us about who we are - what our identity should be.

But we resist because we know what our identity is - we are in Christ.

And ladies and gentlemen, we do have to make a choice.

There is no fence - there is no middle ground.

For to choose one thing - no matter what it is, is to reject the other thing.

Paul tells the church at Corinth, if you are choosing Apollos or Peter or even me, you are rejecting Jesus.

I preach that same message to you this morning.

I encourage you to be true to yourself.

I encourage you to stand strong and be courageous.

But most of all, I encourage you to find your identity in Jesus because He is the only one who can make you new.

And He is the only one who can give you power to live free.

Let us pray.

The Lord’s Supper

In the very beginning of the Bible, God told us that He created us in His image.

We’ve sullied that image with sin.

We’ve stained it - dishonored it - we’ve treated it in so many undignified way.

We’ve rejected it.

There are 10,000 voices out there telling you and me what makes us human

And what will make us lovely and acceptable and good.

But the loudest voice is our Father’s.

While people just talk, He acted.

He sent Jesus.

Jesus was faithful.

He took the bullet meant for us and gave us the life meant for Him.

Now think about that for a moment.

If God is perfect, and He is, right?

Then what Jesus gave to us was the right to be perfect too.

The right to realize we are lovely in His eyes.

The right to be acceptable in His world.

The right to be good on this earth

So when the 10,000 voices scream at me with such intensity

I can sit back quietly - on my porch - with a cup of coffee.

I can stare at this beautiful world that the Lord created just for us.

And I can be content.

The 10,000 voices screaming simply become dust in the wind.

Because the one thing we all want more than anything else in the world, we have.

Acceptance.

Jesus took care of that.

I belong to my Father and I always will.

As we approach the Lord’s table, let’s remember what Jesus has done for us.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

One day Jesus will come again and take us home.

He may come at the moment of our death.

Or He may come busting open the skies.

Either way.

He will come for you and me.

And we will be amazed at how beautiful we will be on that day.

Because we are in Jesus.

Mike Carr, one of our Deacons serving today is going to lead us in prayer.

(Chris can come on down too)

Every, please exit your pews to the left and come forward.

If one of the stations has no one in line, feel free to change lines.

Remember, as you receive the bread dipped in the juice, you are taking the body and blood of Jesus.

When you receive it, eat it then prayerfully and gratefully.

Jesus has empowered you to live a brand new life.

Please come forward now.