The Antidote for Division

1 Corinthians 3:18-4:5

Intro:

Imagine if you paid the doctor a visit because you’re not feeling well and haven’t been for a while. You describe your symptoms to the doctor and before you can even finish he provides, not a diagnosis, but some medication to deal with the symptoms. You take the medication for a while and your symptoms are helped for a little but after a few weeks the symptoms come back in increasing measures.

I trust that most of us know that the sign of a good doctor is not to simply provide medication that can deal with symptoms, but to run deep tests that can provide a diagnosis for the root problem which may be an underlying disease. For the symptoms to get better, the disease must be cured.

Like a Skilled surgeon, the Apostle Paul here in his letter to the Corinthians has been addressing the symptoms of Division within the church which is indicative of an underlying disease.

We are now nearing the end of the first section of the book. As you may remember, the Church in Corinth has many problems that need to be dealt with and Paul is going to address them one by one throughout the letter and each case he makes builds upon another and in the very first section Chapters 1-4 Paul is providing an Antidote for them that will not simply deal with Symptoms, he’s getting to the root of the matter. The antidote of course, is nothing other than the gospel of Christ.

You may be thinking, but wait these are Christians! But we would be remiss to think that Christians need something else to address root issues in the church. Paul knows this and so with each symptom or problem he addresses it by showcasing Christ and His gospel and the need to believe it once again which is the fountainhead of true godliness and change in the church.

What we’ll see in our text today and what we need to remember is that belonging to Christ means that we lay aside worldly wisdom, rest in His approval, and pursue unity in His temple.

Paul in the previous section compares the church of Christ to the temple of God and indeed that is what we are. We are the end-time temple of God and as His temple, Christ is committed to making sure we are unified so that there is health in the church and light to the watching world.

Let’s see how Christ accomplishes this this morning and Paul really begins his conclusion for all that he’s been saying in the first 3 chapters.

Main points:

4 Ways ways Christ makes unity a reality in His Temple...

1. He wakes us up to our self-deception- Vs 18-20

Read Vs 18-19a

Paul is not just a good surgeon but he is a good teacher. And good teachers know that one of the keys to learning is repetition. Maybe you’ve heard this before, that one of the keys to learning is repetition. I had a bible college teacher once tell us that one of the keys to learning is repetition. It’s true, one of the keys to learning is repetition. Oh, and did I mention that one of the keys to learning is repetition?

Paul has brought this up to the corinthian believers already. Remember back in chapter one and part of two? We have the importance of true wisdom which is rooted in Christ Crucified and the laying aside of worldly standards of wisdom.

So Paul again, and God Himself through Paul, waking the church up to a self-deception that must be avoided.

The first imperative or command here is to let no one deceive himself, then the second command is to become a fool.

A little confusing right? But Paul is pointing us back to the Christ crucified and crucial aspects of the gospel in order that we might not become wise in their own eyes.

A question we can ask when looking at this is - Why?

Well perhaps because

He’s seeking for them to learn something easily forgotten,

but also,He just previously said to them that it’s foolish to try to boast in their favorite teachers whether that’s Paul or Apollos, and about how they are simply servants who water or plant but it’s all God’s doing when the church grows and is built. So he just now provides a conclusion for that whole charge he brought up and is essentially saying this

You are thinking that you are wise by judging certain ministers and putting your whole confidence in them, but that is again worldly wisdom which must be avoided.

If you TRULY want to be wise then you must become a fool in the worlds eyes- which was what? Looking to the crucified Christ for all your confidence, wisdom and strength— this is what was foolishness to the greeks and a stumbling block to the jews.

So in context, becoming a fool means actually remembering Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

He calls it out again, the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God

But then Paul grounds what He’s saying in scripture- he quotes from the old testament book of Job chapter 5 and from Psalm chapter 94- Read vs 19b-20

So there is self-deception to be avoided. Christ Himself is our sufficiency and by running to Him and in the worlds eyes become a fool, this cures the worship issue at hand. You realize it’s a worship issue to find your identity in a person? Jesus comes to us and digs up the destructive root as we’ll see more and more here in a moment.

This is idolatry because when our sole confidence in is one person or a minister then we can either worship them, or we worship our own wisdom because we found our tribe that truly knows what’s up and everyone else has it wrong.

Do you see how this causes division? Paul keeps going and we see the second way Christ accomplishes unity in the church...

2. He turns us to Himself- Vs 21-23

Read vs 21-23- He begins with So- or the original language gives the idea of “so here is the result of this...” And it’s for no one to boast in men. This is Christ’s command to us His people.

But he grounds his imperative in an indicative statement— Something to understand when we read the bible is that when God gives us law or commands, He grounds those commands in the indicatives. So an indicative is a statement of what is— as statement of fact or reality. “The light is on” that is an indicative statement. But then there’s imperatives- “turn the light on”- This is a command. So the imperatives grow in the soil of the indicatives.

Paul’s indicative statement is “for all are yours” so it’s because something is already true about us through the gospel that we now pursue God’s commands as a guide for our living, not to to earn God’s favor or righteousness.

So this truth that all are ours showcases that everything in this life has been given to us by the Father as a gift. He works these things for our eternal benefit. So we shouldn’t boast in other men or take sides with certain ministers of the gospel because this is showcases that we do not believe the beauty of what we have in Christ.

More indicative statements come “you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” So since Christ Himself has a union with His Father, since we belong to Christ and have union with Him, We ALSO belong to the Father. We have everything we could ever need if we are in Christ! So this statement about what has already been done for us necessitates that we respond with such gratitude and worship! We don’t any longer boast in men. We can believe Jesus Christ and Him Crucified and we can obey this command.

So we once again see Christ who by virtue of His death and resurrection has become for us wisdom from God. He has become our righteousness. He has become our sanctification. So we repent of our worship of self and remember our true identity in Him which causes us to lay aside such divisive worldly wisdom. Only then do we start seeing unity accomplished in the body of Christ.

God knows how to work in us by His Spirit. He is the true master builder of His temple and uses us to do this as we look to Him each day.

So why one earth would we boast in anything other than Christ? He is truly all we need. He appoints ministers to care for our souls, but they are merely servants pointing us to the one who truly should be depended upon and worshiped. That’s where Paul turns next as he applies what he previously said.

3. He reminds us of Minister’s True Responsibilities- Ch.4:1-2

4. He reminds us who is Judge- Vs 3-5