How Did You Get Into Heaven?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
When you read the first 9 verses of 1 Corinthians it sounds like a really promising group:
Sanctified saints
In Christ Jesus
Together with all the others who call on Jesus
Paul is thankful for them
They have gifts of knowledge and speech
But by the time you finish reading the letter you wonder if Paul got his greetings mixed up. Throughout the letter we find that these Christians, by our standards, are definitely not unified and anything but holy.
How can Paul have anything good to say about these people, let alone say that they will sustained until the end and guiltless in the day of Lord Jesus Christ?
They Weren’t Holy
They Weren’t Holy
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church of God
The Church of God
Paul addresses this letter to the church of God that happens to be in Corinth. And we can make either too much or too little out of that word church.
Plenty of us have heard the idea of church being an especially religious or holy term meaning “those who have been called out.” But the word is used in pretty non-religious sense both in and out of the bible to simply describe a group of people.
What makes the church in Corinth special is that they are the church “of God” in Corinth. And what this term does is tie them into people of God throughout the Old Testament.
3 Then the king turned around and blessed all the assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel stood.
When Israel gathered together they were the assembly, the church, made of Israelites - God’s chosen people.
And as such they were an exclusive bunch of people:
3 “No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever,
So the early Christians took a term, already used to denote God’s specific and exclusive people, and took it for themselves.
They could have just as easily used the word synagogue, a synonym to church that also means a gathering of people, also used to describe God’s people in the Old Testament. But that was already being used as a term for the Jewish synagogues which were consistently rejecting Jesus. The Christians didn’t want to be a synagogue - they wanted to be something different.
Just like all of God’s people are to be.
The Sanctified
The Sanctified
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
God’s people couldn’t be like any other people. They were to be markedly different from the world around them. In a word, they were to be holy.
Sanctify and holy are English translations of the same word in Greek. Paul addresses those who have been made holy in Christ Jesus, who are called to be holy people with all other believers.
Our call to be holy has its roots in Israel’s call to be holy. After being saved from slavery and death in Egypt, God calls out to Israel from Mt. Sinai
5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
All the earth belongs to God, but Israel is going to be special - unique. As a nation they are to be holy, different in form and purpose from the world around them. And that holiness depended on their obedience to God’s voice and covenant. This is what marked them out from everyone around them.
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. 3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. 4 You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God.
All of these concepts transfer over to the followers of Jesus. We are to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, showing the nations around us the character of God through our good works so that they will praise his name.
Was Corinth Holy?
Was Corinth Holy?
But was Corinth really all that holy? Were they really an exclusive community formed and characterized by God? Did they show themselves as any different from the world?
We read of a church plagued by:
Sexual sins and prostitution
Committing crimes against each other
Eating at pagan festivals and temples
The only thing that seems to make the church exceptionally different from the city they lived in was that they were exceptionally immoral!
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
Sure, they were called to be holy, but had continued to defile themselves. If we can’t act like Christ then what right do we have to be called Christians?
But still we have Paul, calling them holy people, thankful for and sure of their salvation.
They Weren’t Together
They Weren’t Together
He’s particularly thankful for the gifts that they have:
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—
As we read through the letter we’ll see that there was a lot of fighting over these gifts of knowledge and speech.
Paul spends most of chapter 14 talking about the use of miraculous tongues - languages - being spoken in the church.
26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. 27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret.
From these instructions we can assume that:
Everybody had their own contribution in their assemblies.
But they weren’t always for the purpose of building up the church.
People were clamoring for the spotlight and insisting on getting their own time.
They were going to speak in tongues even if nobody else understood them. It was all about displaying their miraculous gift, not about doing anything productive.
And as far as that knowledge that Paul says he’s thankful for? It was a knowledge that denied the resurrection of Jesus and justified sleeping with prostitutes and eating at pagan temples!
Instead of these gifts and knowledge being used for the sake of the church, it was splitting the church up.
12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
So when Paul says that this church in Corinth is:
2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Are they? How can Paul see them as a part of the global church when they’re doing everything to draw away from others and serve themselves?
Would You Join That Church?
Would You Join That Church?
So you do your church shopping and find a church.
You find out the Lord’s supper was already taken by a few people so they weren’t going to let anybody else have any.
Bible class becomes a bible argument. The only thing people seem to agree on is that Jesus never rose from the dead!
The sermon is interrupted multiple times by people who have their own lesson
After services you shake hands with a guy who introduces you to his wife who, funny story, used to be his step-mom!
You don’t want to shake hands with this other guy because you saw him on an episode of Cops getting arrested for hiring a prostitute.
You’re pretty sure you recognize that arguing bunch over there from an episode of Judge Judy
Would you place membership at that church?
Would you even call it a church?
So why does Paul have so much confidence in Corinth?
A Work in Progress
A Work in Progress
7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Paul’s confidence isn't in Corinth - it’s in God.
The Corinthians had assumed that because of their spiritual gifts and their knowledge that they had reached the end! They weren’t even looking forward to the resurrection anymore! So much had happened that they could hardly think of anything more coming down the road. They had arrived!
But Paul wants us to understand that we’re waiting - something else is coming. What we’re in right now is similar to the days between D-day and V-day.
D-day was the sign that the Allies were going to win WWII. After a victory like that it was only a matter of time before we took the Axis powers out entirely. D-day launched the inevitable.
But there was still a lot of work to be done - the bad guys were still around, death was still a very real possibility, and everyone was waiting for the war to be over.
Jesus dying on the cross and being raised was our D-day. That event secured our resurrection. But we’ve still got a long way to go. Whatever you are right now, isn’t what you’ve been waiting for.
We shouldn’t be arrogant like the Corinthians thinking that we’ve arrived and can do whatever we want
We shouldn’t think that sin has the last laugh and will carry us away.
We are being sustained - meaning our salvation has been put beyond any doubt
And it’s only been put beyond a doubt because of what God has done - not us. He is faithful. He looks at us with all of our issues, all of our fighting, all of our rebellions, and still is working for our salvation.
Every time Israel turned their back on God during the time of the Judges, God still sent a savior
After the exile when God could have left Israel in the dust he still brought them home and sent his son
Every time we become defiled and divisive, God is here to forgive us and put us back together
How are the Corinthians getting to heaven? The same way we all are! We shouldn’t look down on the Corinthian church thinking “Well if they can get in then so can I!” We’re not better than they are!
