Sermon Tone Analysis

Inscription: Writing God’s Words on Our Hearts & Minds

Part 72: Keys to Unity – One Lord

1 Corinthians 1:10-13

April 22, 2012

We begin this week in the book 1 Corinthians, were we will be spending the next three weeks.

~* This Sunday I get to preach on something I deeply believe in but have never addresses – I am really excited.

Prayer

Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

One Crazy City

The city of Corinth was a wild city.

It was a major sea port and located at the crossroads of Greece.

Basically think of it as the Las Vegas of the day and you won’t be too far off.

The place was known for luxury and sex.

At one time, one of the local temples had 2,000 prostitutes.

In fact, Plato used the term “Corinthian girl” to mean prostitute.

And “corinthizing” came to mean “fornicating.”

So Paul came into this city and spent 1 ½ years building this church.

These become people he deeply loves.

He calls them his letter of recommendation.

~* But not surprisingly, this church had some real problems.

All about unity

Corinthians deals with things like drunken communion services, a guy banging his mother-in-law, Pentecostalism on speed, people denying one of the core doctrines of the church.

Q With all that, what do you think is the main issue Paul addresses, again and again?

Holiness?

Order?

Righteousness?

Unity.

They have divorce, sexual immorality, and all sorts of the “big” sins, according to most churches, and Paul is spending the lion share of his effort on unity.

Q Why unity?

Sarah was sick at the Seder a couple of weeks back, and we were afraid to get sick, so we tried to get enough sleep, eat right, and take vitamins.

~* If we take care of our bodies, they usually do a great job healing themselves.

When we are a unified body under Christ, each doing our part and putting each other first, so many of these problems will be worked out naturally.

~* These problems do not naturally disappear, but a healthy, unified body is able to work together to fix them.

Following Paul’s major theme, we will spend the next three weeks talking about unity.

Next week will be about unity in the face of different takes on disputable matters, and the last week will be about unity through serving as we are wired.

~* This week is the core of unity: We all have the same Lord.

A call to unity

After the opening greeting, which is a standard part of Greek letters, Paul gets right down to business:

1 Corinthians 1:10-13 10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

11 My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

13 Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Were you baptized into the name of Paul?

Typically sermons about unity talk about our unity as a body, and I will focus on that in the next two sermons.

But this week I want to first look at unity on a higher level.

In Paul’s standard greeting, he says something he doesn’t say in any other opening:

1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and ours...

Paul pulls their attention to their unity with the “all those everywhere.”

~* Let’s talk about unity between churches and denominations, not just within this church.

~* This is a great sermon to ask questions!

Highlighting other churches

The timing of this sermon, the week after Jeff spoke, is perfect.

His message was really good – I was a little jealous.

Getting to know Jeff as forced me to reevaluate many of my perceptions about Adventism.

I knew I might raise some eyebrows with having and SDA pastor.

I really love being able to demonstrate the unity of the Body of Christ.

As Jeff quoted:

Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

I love going to the pastors’ luncheon and talking about it on Facebook.

I love my ongoing connection to His Place, I loved preaching at Turning Point.

Teaching away suspicions

~* Our generation is getting rid of a lot of the suspicion and barriers between churches.

I remember as a kid going to a Lutheran church with a friend and being terrified by how different it was.

I was afraid that it was some sort of cult.

They had responsive readings, took communion at a weird time and the pastor wore a robe.

~* I kept praying God forgive me it I did anything heretical.

The funny thing is that my parents hadn’t taught be not to think that way.

They had never said “Ours is the only proper way of doing church.”

~* But they had not taught me otherwise either.

Kids tend to assume what they grow up with is the only right way.

I want parents actively teaching our kids that other church’s are the same body.

~* I want to be teaching you the same.

God’s ideal

As a kid, I remember learning the Nicene Creed at my Christian school.

We got to the line “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church,” and I started freaking out again.

~* The teacher said that “catholic” just means universal, that we are all part of one church.

I do think that God’s ideal is that there only be one church.

If we could really have just one Holy Catholic Church, without the Roman part, that would be the ideal.

1 Corinthians 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

In America today, there are over 200 different denominations, and between 30,000-40,000 independent churches.

Is that the picture of being “perfectly united in mind and thought”?

~* Obviously not – we have fallen short of God’s ideal in yet another way.

Several years ago, the Evangelical artist Michael Card and the Catholic artist John Michael Talbot did an album together called, “Brother to Brother.”

The opening song is called “One Faith” talking about unity of the Church.

I was really curious how they would handle their different views on the Church:

But some of the shepherds,

Have pastured themselves on their sheep

So He has come out against them;

And scattered His people of faith.

But there still is one faith,

One hope and one baptism,

One God and Father of all;

There is one church, one body,

One life in the spirit

Now given so freely to all.

The problem is not with God’s ideal but with our human inability to keep that ideal.

~* We are spiritual lazy which leads to corrupt worship and beliefs, and easily corrupted by power.

Last week Grace was and I were talking about Catholics...she said that someone could pretend to be the pope and tell people to do the wrong things.

That basically describes the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages!