The Gospel+
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
This is my phone. It’s a Lightphone and doesn’t do anything but make calls and text messages. I love it.
I can get sucked into a smartphone with doomscrolling, endless content, and easy distractions. And I didn’t want to anymore. So I ditched the smartphone and got this so I could be more present when with people, focus one better hobbies, and waste less time.
It’s the entire selling point of the phone. Less features, less distracting.
They’ve come out recently with a new model. And this one has all sorts of new features! So many that it’s almost like a smartphone!
Sometimes less is more, and the more you add, the more you sacrifice.
Text Connection
Text Connection
We have a similar issues going on in Corinth. When Paul taught them the gospel they fell in love with it! He is God in the flesh and has done everything for our salvation and benefit. He doesn’t need any help, he doesn’t have to ask anyone for permission. He is the fullness of salvation and our faith is in him alone.
But then the Corinthians thought, wouldn’t it be neat to add a few features? Wouldn’t it be great if we had a premium version of the gospel, Gospel+?
And that’s how we end up with a church divided. They’re fighting over who has the best version of the gospel - not realizing that all of them are deficient.
The Division in Corinth
The Division in Corinth
10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 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.”
The church is supposed to be together. God’s hope for humanity is one family all united to him through Jesus. As we all draw closer to him in knowledge and holiness we inevitably draw closer to each other. We’re all walking the same path to the same Goal.
But Corinth is a church that is splitting apart at the seams. Each person has their own aims and objectives and insists on their priorities. Rather than a body that is pulling together for the work of the gospel we have Christians pulling away from each other as they pursue their own agendas.
There are reports about fighting in the church with each person laying claim to their favorite teacher and pitting them against the others. It’s not so much that everyone has a radically different theological position - Paul doesn’t get into correcting false doctrine here. Instead we have a church that’s arguing over their own self-importance based on who their teacher is.
We don’t why exactly they liked one over the other but we have some ideas.
Me? I’m a Paul guy! He was the one who founded this church so I’m going to stick with him.
Or I’m an Apollos kind of Christian. He got his education from Alexandria and knows all the latest philosophies and is just so interesting to listen to.
Then we have the Peter people. He’s the OG who’s been with Jesus from the beginning. If anyone knows the gospel it’s him!
And finally we have the Christ Christians. That sounds good but Paul is calling them out as being just as divisive as the rest! Maybe they’re above all the petty divisions and say they’re staying out of it all, but in doing so they just create their own exclusive group of spiritual elitists.
In any case the Corinthians were admiring certain qualities of their favorite teachers and assuming that some of that rubbed off on them when baptized by them. In their mind it was still the gospel, just with a little extra flavor sprinkled in.
Me and my team are more spiritual, more wise, more gifted, more whatever than anyone who follows a different path.
Connect
Connect
We see this kind of thinking at largescale among denominations. There are interpreters and entire churches that cling to their teachers: Luther, Calvin, Wesley. Those teachers come dangerously close to being as authoritative as scripture to some people. They’d rather be a good Calvinist than a good Christian.
And churches of Christ can have similar tendencies.
We have our traditional understandings of certain passages. Maybe we hold to those interpretations because of who we learned them from.
Recently I’ve been seeing division all over FaceBook because of certain churches having certain preacher for gospel meetings.
Whether you did or didn’t got to Florida College can affect how well recieved you are in some groups.
We can be so unwilling to put up with anyone else’s shortcomings that we become just as divisive as we withdraw and hold ourselves above it all.
We can have different opinions on scripture (Peter is still the rock), we can be critical or accepting of different institutions, we can find listening to one preacher more beneficial than another. All of us have certain ideas and understandings of following God; what needs to emphasized more or left more to the margins; what would be beneficial to the church and what needs to be left alone.
What we can’t do is insist that any of that makes me more of a Christian than you, that my gospel has better features than yours.
Paul writes in verse 13:
FORMAT TEXT
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Do any of us have more of Jesus than anybody else? Has he been distributed in different portions?
Do you have more Jesus if you’re holier than others?
Does your Christ-cup overflow because you know your bible better?
Can we be more called, more forgiven, more saved than anyone else God has called, forgiven, and saved?
I’ll bring up the point I made in last weeks sermon: The Corinthians were plagued by incest, prostitution, division, swindling each other, hanging around pagan temples, and denying the resurrection.
And Paul is still confident he’ll see them united with God and every other saint on the last day.
We unite in Christ, but then divide over things that have no bearing on our relationship to him.
Apply
Apply
The solution to this is what Paul had written in verse 10:
10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
There’s a threefold emphasis on being the same:
We speak the same
We have the same mind
We have the same judgement
If we’re going to do this, we’re not going to think “Oh good, I have all the answers and now everybody can fall in line with me.” Not a single one of us has a monopoly on the truth of God’s word. Even though it’s my full time job to prepare lessons and teach, I learn from your perspectives.
Rather, we need to have a mind of humility that accepts our own weakness and the strength of others.
It’s why I find discussions in bible class so valuable - it’s how we practice unity. Unless we sit down and talk about things then I don’t know if we have the same mind or the same judgement. We can’t speak the same thing if we’re not speaking to each other at all.
So when you come to bible class, speak up!
The Right Focus
The Right Focus
In order to get the focus off of himself and other teachers, Paul admits to how useless he is, and by extension, all the other teachers.
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)
Paul is not going to take any credit for God’s work. Their baptism wasn’t special because Paul dipped them in the water. It’s only empowered by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
That seems to be one of the fundamental misunderstandings of the Corinthians. It was less about who they were baptized into, that is baptized into Christ, and more about who they were baptized by - as if being baptized by someone gave you some of their wisdom or spirituality.
So Paul is thankful he hardly baptized any of them. It just wasn’t something he really took note of. Because he took no pride in being the one baptizing them. He wasn’t claiming them for himself - he was giving them to God!
Jesus has done all the work in your salvation. So why do we get proud about things that add nothing to our condition? All we’re doing when we boast about having Jesus plus something else is diminish the work of Christ - as if his work is now even better because we improved it. His salvation is perfect, meaning anything taken away or added to it makes it less.
The Delivery Boy
The Delivery Boy
Paul’s just the delivery boy.
He never died for anyone. And if he did it wouldn’t do anything for us.
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Preaching is all that Paul can do.
Now some people look at this passage and say “See! Paul doesn’t care about baptism! It’s not necessary to to join the body of Christ and so be be saved!”
Paul’s not trying to say baptism is unimportant - otherwise, why is he baptizing people? Instead, Paul is separating himself from the Corinthian idea of baptism being some sort of connection or credit to the one who’s doing the baptism. Paul is saying I’m not here to get a following! I’m not here to claim you as my own. I’m here to tell you about the only one who matters!
Paul was only sent to preach and not baptize because preaching is all he can do - it’s all any of us can do! None of us have any control over how a person responds to the gospel. Paul doesn’t want people to have faith in him “Trust me, this is important!” He wants them to trust in God and the power of the gospel.
which is why he’s not going to try and dress it up in “words of eloquent wisdom.” Again, Paul isn’t against having a thought out and coherent presentation of the gospel, as if the only good preacher is a bad one.
The wisdom he has in mind is described later:
13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
It’s once again, the idea that God’s gospel needed more features which the the Corinthians were only too happy to supply. But in doing so they had emptied the cross of its power.
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
How can we get people in here?
We can spice up the music a bit and get a rock band
Might as well throw in some smoke machines and a laser show
I’ll focus on illustrations and jokes more than the passage at hand - try to jazz it up some
We’ll make church more fun! And in doing so we’ll put all of our trust in being fun instead of the cross.
We’ll tell God that his gospel just isn’t attractive enough
We’ll let him know his violent death is too triggering
His shame and humiliation just doesn’t appeal to the modern generation
We’ll tell him the cross isn’t good enough to save people. So we will instead.
that’s how worldly wisdom empties the cross of its power. It looks at Jesus’s death as inadequate to pull people out of the world.
Paul isn’t going to play that game though. When we take attention off of the cross we are taking away from the glory of God’s love for us.
The gospel doesn’t need any extra features. Because none of us could ever show more love than God already has by sacrificing his only son for our sake.
Application
Application
