Sermon Tone Analysis

“It’s Not About You”

Text:  I Corinthians 1:26-31

 

Introduction:

 

    On a bed of grass, a chameleon’s skin turns green.

On the earth, it becomes brown.

The animal changes to match the environment.

Many creatures blend into nature with God-given camouflage suits to aid their survival.

It’s natural to fit in and adapt to the environment.

But followers of Christ are new creations, born from above and changed from within, with values and life-styles that confront the world and clash with accepted morals.

True believers don’t blend in very well.

The Christians at Corinth were struggling with their environment.

Surrounded by corruption and every conceivable sin, they felt the pressure to adapt.

Allow me to paint a picture of the city of Corinth and the events surrounding the prompting of Paul to write letters to them.

Corinth was located on a narrow isthmus between the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea.

It was quite cosmopolitan.

The athletic isthmian games that used to be held there drew large crowds and ranked second only to the Olympics.

The outdoor theater accommodated twenty thousand people; the roofed theater, three thousand.

Temples, like the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple-slaves.

Shrines, and altars dotted the city.

Prostitution flourished.

The south side of town was lined with taverns equipped with underground cisterns for cooling the drinks.

There were liquor lockers with such names as “Security,” “Love,” and names of gods.

Ship captains had a saying, “If you get the chance, don’t miss it,” speaking about any possible visit to the city of Corinth.

Corinth was noted for its debauchery:  “To act like a Corinthian,” meant to practice immorality, and “Corinthian girl” meant the same as “prostitute”.

Are you getting the picture?

Corinth was not unlike any American big city today, especially Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, and the like.

Today, even our small and suburban cities could give Corinth a run for its money and morality.

I know I’m right about it because the Super bowl half-time antics of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake would have fit in nicely.

Now, this letter to the Corinthians was actually the second of four letters written by Paul to them.

The first and the third letters were lost, so we are left with what is called First and Second Corinthians.

Paul had spent about a year and a half in Corinth, living and working his trade of tent making with Aquila and Priscilla.

Now, he writes back to the church that he had founded there from Ephesus during his third missionary journey.

The reason for the letter was to respond to oral reports that had come by the household of Chloe regarding contentions in the Corinthian church and a delegation from the church that had come to Ephesus with an offering and a letter asking Paul’s judgment on various problems; which brings us right to the point of our message today.

There are three things that we want to note this morning about the church at Corinth and what Paul addressed to them:

§        *The problem *– that needs a solution

§        *The power *– that leads to the solution

§        *The plug *– that concedes the solution

*The Problem:  *That needs a solution:

I have already given you a picture of the people of Corinth.

The major problem that Paul is addressing is that the church had allowed the same thought patterns and many of the practices of the world to come into the church and to dominate their way of thinking.

I know that you might not be able to fathom this, so let me explain.

You see, on the one hand, the people in the church at Corinth were evangelistic; culturally relevant; expressive and celebratory in worship; wealthy; and cultured, well versed in Christian liberty.

But on the other hand, they were drowning in the applications of moral relativism.

They were prattling fools, always babbling, ranting, and talking gibberish and nonsense.

They were divided around personalities, or in personality cults as it were; divided around priorities and personal interest; they lacked discipline in moral matters and actually flaunted it as a source of pride; they were full of pride in preachers rather than in the God that the preachers presented; they had extensive Bible knowledge and were prideful of their friends at church; they considered themselves to be God’s people and saved by grace, but reasoned that they were therefore untouchable in the misapplication of the truth and indulgence in neo-morality.

All of these things lent to their “problem”.

There was a glitch, a setback, difficulty, obstruction, questions, crises, a quandary about their practices as a church of the true and living God.

That was *their* problem.

What is your problem today?

What is keeping you in perpetual setback; in wonderment and questioning of your standing with God; what has you in a dilemma about the authenticity of your faith; what is obstructing a clear pathway between you and God today?

What are those things that keep coming to your mind that you just have not dealt with?

What is presenting a challenge that you are not ready to accept?

What is your problem?

*The Power: *That leads to the solution:

The church at Corinth, at least many in the church knew that they had a problem; and they knew that they needed to engage a source of power to overcome their problems.

Their mistake was in thinking that the power that they needed could be found within.

First of all, they began to rely upon their spiritual pedigree that led to hero worship.

The admirers of Paul were loyal to him because he founded the church at Corinth.

That would be the equivalent to resisting any changes in New Hope suggested by the Pastor because you are stuck on the vision that the original Pastor had 50 years ago.

Others admired Apollos and were spellbound by his intellect and eloquence of speech.

Beside that, he was probably just plain “fine”.

I think you can get my drift without further explanation.

Some people will just flock to certain teachers or preacher because of the way they look or the impressive words they use.

It makes them feel smarter and better looking to be in the company of folk like that.

You know, its like saying the better you look and the better you speak, then the more you must know, so I’ll just hang with you.

I might not understand what you’re saying, but I just like the way you say it and the way you look when you say it.

And still others followed Cephas (Peter) because he was the foremost original apostle.

Peter has been at this longer, so he knows what he’s talking about.

He can tell you things that no one else knows.

There is wisdom in age.

And last, many who followed Christ did not want to be involved in squabbles, so they withdrew in an attitude of superior spirituality.

“I’m not arguing with those people.

I’m more mature that they.

I don’t have time for that; I know who I am and I don’t have to prove it to anyone.”

All are personality cults.

All of these attitudes lead to disunity in the church.

None of these attitudes were powerful enough to lead to a solution of the problem.

Their spiritual pedigree; nor their smooth and relevant words; nor their individual interests; not their ability nor qualification; not their strength nor their position were powerful enough.

Power is no good unless you find a way to plug into it.

*The Plug:  *That concedes the solution:

    It doesn’t matter how beautiful a lamp; it matters not how capable an iron; and it makes no difference how wide the T.V. screen – if the cords attached to them, the cords that can transmit the power is not plugged into the power source, they will not work!

Watch this:  Here is an electrical cord.

It has two ends – one a plug and one a receptor, but both ends are on the same cord.

If I insert the plug into the receptor, I get no power.

I am not shocked; I am not enlightened; I am not straightened out; I am not changed.

If, on the other hand, I insert the plug into the proper power socket, the cord will become alive with power flowing thru it; it will contain life, we say it’s live.

But not only that, if I then insert another plug in the socket on the other end, that power will be transmitted and shared with another dead thing to enliven it.

This is an electrical cord, but in and of itself it has no power.

As long as it stands along; as long as the lamp stands along; as long as the wide screen T.V. stands along, there is disunity.

But when the electrical cord plugs into the proper power source and shares it’s juice with the lamp and the wide screen T. V. things begin to liven up; lights shine, TV’s show beautiful colors, all give varying types of light to otherwise dark rooms.

You see, it’s not about the fact that the electrical cord is a chandler of electricity.

In and of itself, it is useless.

It’s not about the cord!

It’s about the power source.

It can’t be any power source.

It has to be the power source that has the ability, the right, the clout, the entitlement and the strength to charge the electrical cord.

You need to know that there are two types of plugs.

One type can be used as a stopper like a cork.

It will restrict the flow of life giving juices from reaching the object, or the juice will be weak and eventually cause the object to wither and die.

That plug will lead to death, to hell and to the grave.