Final Thoughts
Notes
Transcript
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Paul wrote this letter to the EARLY CHURCH
Paul urged the Corinthians to be unified
and to give themselves fully to “the work of the Lord” (15:58
i believe we should pay attention to things very carefully
as we must adhere to a FORMULA
BIBLE - HISTORY - CULTURE
I pray for us all to gain wisdom through this study in Three Main Areas
Church
Community
Culture
If we concentrate in these area, we should discover how WE CAN BE
a CHANGE AGENT in ourselves and Others so to Honor our Christ.
Change is hard when we don’t truly want to do it.
yet we know we must put away the old, and become the NEW
Therefore Change is important
The Goal is to CHANGE to Become What Christ has Prepared for Us, and nothing else
We cannot mix Good and Evil in our Conclusions
if we focus on today and then seek to translate Today into Scripture
we may miss the point
Paul loved this CHURCH in CORINTH
We wrote this letter to assist, correct, and answer questions
Marriage
Unity
LOVE
Freedom and responsibility
Lord’s supper
Daily Living
the RESURRECTION
Unified in Doctrine
Sexuality
Lawsuits
Marriage
Idols
Traditions in the Church
Spiritual Gifts
The Resurrection of Christ
Giving and Money
The Corinthians have not yet gained the skill of applying wisdom
in Christ to the various questions and difficulties they face
Paul gives a wonderful final closing of the letter
He calls out people for there works, and acknowledges leaders in the church.
He gives them direction on the coming of Timothy, and Apollos
And then a LIFE verse to add to your collection
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
14 Let all that you do be done in love.
We need to be COMMUNICATIVE
we need to be AWARE
our life should be in CHRIST
not our Sunday morning
If you look through your notes and read through the Letter
you will be reminded of themes and missions for Paul to communicate
These two verses in context
do wrap up our message.
BE WATCHFUL
BE WATCHFUL
Do not miss the World’s pull on you
Watch for the evil ones.
The Bible says that Satan sneaks around like a roaring Lion
Today We Need to APPLY TRUTH
and be reminded of what we learned
It is kinda like a final exam on our Study
____________________________________________________________
We all KNOW that AMERICA needs Revival
and Revival must start INSIDE each of US
Our Church should be our Community, so to combat Culture
we have experienced TURMOIL in our CHURCH —— PAUL SAYS STAND STRONG
Relocation
Call to another
and honestly ---found they didn’t fit
Some want the SHOW instead of the WORD
We don’t have LIGHT, and SMOKE
All focus on the GLORY of GOD’S Word
This LIGHT to Illuminate the WORD
We Disciple to ATTRACT
We seek the person that WANTS the GOSPEL explained so that
they can GROW in their FAITH and THEIR WALK
But Friends we don’t need to be the Church for Everyone
We need to be a Church that creates
CHANGE in our COMMUNITY and CULTURE
In fact we believe that we can NOT compromise
on God’s Word
and we Seek to follow God’s Way
Going ALL IN
Going ALL IN
We Center our life on Christ
Seeking to have our WHOLE life integrated with our Christian Faith
Compromise is a battle we must fight daily.
Friends
Partially IN is OUT
We are all a work in progress
But you cannot HALF take the Class
You cannot partially walk in to a store
so don’t walk partially with Christ
Marriages fail because of Lack of Commitment --- Seeking Self Fulfillment
Our command is
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
We need to LIVE OUT
Matthew 6:33 “33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
“Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.”
That's the famous quote attributed to St. Francis.
Walk in Wisdom
Walk in Worship
to Wait on the Lord
and to Be WORTHY of our Calling
My Journey Through 1 Corinthians
My Journey Through 1 Corinthians
You know, I learned a lot during this series.
I was reminded why I sometimes get frustrated with different theologies from one guy saying it means this. and another guy saying it means that I think I was reminded that I need to go into the scripture.
I need to research it and pray about it and find it.
Frankly, I need to pause, pray, ponder, proceed, and praise all the time.
I need to be able to be discerning, to know what is outside of Scripture and what Scripture says.
And it was a problem that was coming up with the first Corinthians all the time they had submitted to culture rather than to Christ.
I started listening to things that said how they could have their cake and eat it too,
how they could be saved, but live a life anyway that they wanted.
They were biting off pieces of Scripture, but not accepting the whole MEAL
They were being taught that there's discipline that needs to happen in the church.
What happens when we water down our teaching or we lose that line of biblical, historical and then cultural?
How much trouble we can get in? How much trouble the Corinthians we're getting in by putting culture first,
trying to blend to walk on both sides of the fence to have it all and still feel good about themselves.
Frankly, we talked about how being a Christian is going to be tough you learn and you start operating and thinking different. you you love when others hate you. submit when others control, you start to learn that I deserve is not a term that a Christian uses.
Frankly, you learned that. Thank you very much. But I'll trust the Lord. As for me and my house, I will serve the Lord.
We learned how the world seeks to defy us. And we've seen a pitcher in First Corinthians of what happens when culture becomes too important.
And it starts pulling away when
people seek to live in two worlds, you see, the Corinthian church is a great example of our hearts, or even as a Christian, we love Jesus.
We say we love Jesus and we want to commit to Jesus, but we're satisfied with being a work in progress,
which we are.
But the problem is that's not by our terms, but by gods.
we seek to balance the lessons of God and the joys of the world,
and we seek to run away from the pain of the world into idols like drinking and smoking and pornography and lustful ventures.
We put other things in the place of GOD.
we compromise our commitment to Christ
Look, I said it in January and I'll say it again today that we all know that
America needs a revival.
But friends, that revival needs to start inside of each of us.
Paul reminds us that we are
CHRIST’s First
a church the body
and that church forms that community so that we have power in being together.
As I just said, we've experienced challenges in our church, but our mission stays the same.
And as October creeps up on us and we celebrate five years here, we realize that that's what we've tried to do.
We preach the gospel on Sunday
so that you can share the gospel during the week
We need to submit to God.
We need to learn to listen to him and to hear him, to, to hear his voice and listen and listen. meaning obey him.
You see, that's our mission that we set out for.
And I hope that we've achieved some or all of that enough to glorify God in the changes that you guys revealed.
Let me ask your question.
Did did last week's message on generosity spark anything in you?
Did you put a couple dollar bills in your pocket?
Did you give a little bit more tip to somebody?
Did you offer some time to somebody? Did you?
Did you give of a resource that may not have been monetary because you wanted it to come out of the generosity of your heart? We talked a lot in this study about walking in wisdom and and walking worthy.
I mean, that was, that was a call that we we used during this sermon series. You know, as we went through this sermon and again, we started out with this, these divisions in the church. And then we talked about that. The only thing that's important is to place our foundation on Christ.
We're going to be moving into a series here in about two or three weeks.
Remodeling
Well, we're going to be talking about that foundation.
We're going to be talking about what you need to do and help you to develop a blueprint. You know, we've been talking a lot, disable makers class about discovering who you are. And I heard a podcast this week. There's two other guys talking and the one guy said something about,
what do you think the most difficult question in the world to answer?
And the guy said, without a doubt, the question is, who are we?
Who am I?
Because it's so deep.
And that's why we go through an exercise.
Start just quickly writing up who you are and start thinking about it. because we're so many things.
Frankly, sometimes we change on a daily basis.
Pulse stress to us early in this book that we need to be true disciples,
we need to be followers of Jesus Christ.
We need to hear directly from him. We need to to tune in and learn to tune in to the Holy Spirit.
We talked about the immorality that exists in this world. and
we talked about how to handle lawsuits and how that the biggest problem in that is when the outside world hears that a Christian suing a Christian or one church.
So they feel that we're no different. But for instance, our whole mission is to be different. It's the whole mission that we went through.
We talked about honoring God with our bodies.
We talked about principles of marriage.
We talked about two becoming one to a point where they can't be separated.
I hope that changed your marriage. Hope it made you look at your spouse a little bit differently.
Your spouse is in a convenience or or a lottery win. If you're Christian, your spouse is your God granted helpmate. and that's the point. Didn't we learn that? What is the mission is to help the other become closer and closer to Jesus?
We talked about that. It's okay for somebody to be single, that Paul addresses that.
we talked about the church. W
it's not a building about how it needs to be.
More than that. We talked about the principles of living a holy life.
understanding freedom and responsibility.
We talked about struggling with, frankly, phrases in the Bible, from the Book of Acts.
Were Peters acting one way with Gentiles in another way with Jews.
and he shares this vision that he had of a sheet coming down with all these things. And Paul or Peter cries out, you know? No, no, no. I can't do any of those things.
The Lord tells him that all things are permissible. He says that all things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial.
All things are permissible, but to be mastered by none.
freedom and responsibility.
How that we can say that and know it scripturally that we are free from the bonds of sin and death, but that we need to have a responsibility.
We talked about inviting a loved family member over who struggles with alcohol and coming in there and having beer and wine and all kind of stuff all over the place. Just tempting him at every turn wouldn't be every responsible way to live. And that we need to adopt that. Learned that we have true freedom in Christ, but you need to know your boundaries.
We talked about faith making the difference. We talked about having anything that pulls your full attention away from God. From being an idol, we needed to stay away from those things.
We learned that we needed to live for his glory and not ours, and how that can create a challenge in our lives. Because frankly, we're selfie centered. We protect ourselves first. That's why there's so much defensiveness in the world. That's why people can't listen to an opinion they don't agree with because they're unsure of their own prince. If you truly know God's Word. And, you know, God said something and you truly believe that that's God's word. and somebody wants to contradict it. You don't need to become all kind of defense even and hurt about it. I
t's truth. Stand on the truth. I can listen to people speak lies all day long because they do it all day long. But I can do that because I know the truth. We talked about the importance of the Lord's Supper.
Talked about how to everything. and we've all been guilty of taking it too lately. We talked about building foundations of the faith and putting them into our relationship. We talk about spiritual gifts. We talked about how we don't believe that everybody has everyone, but we believe that everybody has at least one. and there's purpose of that, that were one body with many members that that some of us are hands and feet and mind. Some of us, frankly, are wallets.
Whether you want to hear it or not, because, but generous nature, we give so that others can do their roles that that there's a community that there's a way that God wanted this put together for us. We talked about love. Want to take a moment and read through that set of Scripture for you? because it's key. It's something that you should be thinking about every day. And even if you can't memorize it in perfect order, if you live it out, seeking to do better and better every day than you accomplish the goal, It's not about memorizing Scripture. It's about becoming scripture. We talked a lot about the resurrection and how people were saying that it didn't happen.
But we talked about how important this letter of First Corinthians in that we, we understood that that Paul was talking about eyewitnesses.
And recorded this for for us to know truth. God's Word written that the resurrection happened.
And if the resurrection didn't happen, then we wouldn't even have faith. It's about believing it's about becoming.
But it's also about being blessed, knowing that Christ died, that he had authority over all things. We talked about what's it like when we resurrected?
And frankly, what I said is, why does it matter? That was my whole message. Why does it matter?
Because if you trust God and believe in God, that, you know that when he says that you will reach perfection, you will be brought into the presence of God, that that's what matters.
What does it matter if you have one eye or thirty eyes and forty arms, whether you're fourteen feet tall, one hundred feet tall or a quarter of an inch tall,
what does it matter? all these speculations about something if God wanted you to know, he would tell you, but God tells you something better than that that you can trust him and that he will bring you to perfection, that we're all the work in progress.
he talked about the mystery. It talked about that.
We have the ability now to understand that life is forever for us. as Christians, this life and that life.
And we just pass from one to the other.
There's no death for us. A present body is flawed.
I don't want any of the flaws. We talked about how God said that our flesh and blood can't inherit heaven because it's flesh and blood that we will have a spiritual body and that our current state of being a sinner in need of a Savior will be forever changed because we'll be perfected in heaven with and for him.
You know, and finally, we talked about money. Yep, we did.
We talked about giving and realizing that it's not about ten percent tied to the church.
It's about giving what's on your heart and being generous, giving more than most people would being known to give.
we, we talked about being generous and intentional and yet discerning and sometimes offering somebody a day's labor. and then the fifty dollars or the one hundred dollars is what the Bible commands us to do.
We talked about why Paul said that we should give to widows, but those who are truly widows. It's a discernment that we need to use. and the quick and easy one was like if somebody's truly a widow and they have a reputation for being part of the church and giving in the church, then giving and care for these people. But if it's a young woman who's out seeking to be married, that this is not somebody the church ought to take in and cater two? Yeah, and how about the guy that could do a day's work but chooses not to. It just wants a handout. Paul talks about that and says that's not something we should do either. So friends, I hope this changed you. I mean,
I know from my heart that I have an unbelievably increased. Presence during the Lord's Supper that it heightened my need of not going through a process, but in the process, seeing the passion that I have for Jesus and remembering the passion he had for me that even when I was a sinner, he came and died for me.
This chapter has made me realize that arguing about theology is probably not the best way to unify the church.
But to seek the commonality,
it's what's important is to be able to talk to somebody who believes something different and not argue your view to their view, but to know the Bible well enough that you can tell them the truth. You can ask them, well, how do you interpret what you said in light of what God said?
Hopefully convicting them to see the truth, to understand that the Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Friends, frankly, I was convicted of exactly what I preached, that I'm not going to pontificate on what your body looks like in heaven.
I'm just going to seek the truth that it's going to be perfect. And perfection is beyond our understanding.
o I'm just going to leave that up to God and to trust him, I think, as I've gone through this series,
I've been challenged by people and customers and employees, and I've had to learn to do the right thing.
But I also had to hold people accountable
because it's not just about doing the right thing.
It's about exercising the right thing. It's about honoring your agreements.
it should be about CHRIST, CHURCH, COMMUNITY and CULTURE
It's about understanding standings and misunderstanding.
It's about realizing that you just might be the one who's wrong in this situation
and learning to give grace and forgiveness and understanding.
I was really convicted during this series that that I do have freedom in all things. And it's usually a denomination that's telling me something's right or something's wrong.
But if that's not based on them reminding you what God said is right and wrong, that it may not be something that does anything more than steal my freedom that I have in Christ.
Yet I have a responsibility to exercise, exercise that correctly. The sermon reminded me of something simple
that love never fails.
So frankly, when I'm at the end of the rope, what do I need?
I need to be loving, I need to be understanding,
it's taught me to discern through the lessons and generosity
and the lessons and knowing the word of God so that we can apply it,
that we can live holy life
because we know about getting around the church that teach us these things that I do this to change me so that I can be an example of a change person.
that is so desirable to somebody that I'm not who I was.
I'm exactly who God wants me to be, and I'm going to become more and more like him.
So I hope and pray that you had some epiphanies during this series that you had.
Some real challenges that you had to choose right from wrong. And you started realizing that you're becoming something beautiful. A true masterpiece of God's creation.
So let's pray.
