Sermon Tone Analysis

- In the 1994 World swimming championships, the Chinese women swimmers were dominant in just about every swimming event.

Date: 18-08-19 843 Echuca

- In the 1994 World swimming championships, the Chinese women swimmers were dominant in just about every swimming event.

- They won 12 out of 16 Gold Medals & set 5 world records

- There has been much speculation, suggesting that these swimmers had been using performance-enhancing drugs.

- If that were true, then they had an unfair advantage over the other competitors

- If that were true, they may have won the events but, in reality, they lost

- But we will never know – interestingly, that dominance has never happened again

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- Sportspeople have various views on competing, from winning at all costs, to just being a good competitor

- For Christians, in matters of life, it is not so much the winning, but the faithful perseverance towards the finish line

- For the Christian, it is not so much a matter of losing, but of who you are pleasing

- Who you please is the ultimate aim of every believer

- If what you do, irrespective of what you lose, pleases God, then you’re a winner!

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- The “space-time” continuum is divided into 2 eras – BC & AD

- In this diagram we see the two ages that are explained in the NT

- The Church is right in the overlap of these times - the old fallen age of Adam on the left & God’s new age as shown on the right

- The new began with the 1st coming of Christ & the old ends with His 2nd coming

- Jesus is the pinnacle of God’s plan to restore mankind back to Himself

- In the resurrection of Christ, God put the future in motion

- The future being resurrection – this is what God had ultimately planned

- With the fall of Adam & Eve, the world had become lost in sin & death

- But with God’s actions in bringing Jesus into the world – in Him dying for sins & being raised from the dead – a new order had begun

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- What God has planned for all His people had actually entered into the fallen world of Adam & Eve

- The power of God is here now & in His people

- When a person becomes a Christian, they enter into union with Christ

- We become partakers of the Holy Spirit – no one else has this privilege – only Christians

- As we know from the apostle Paul’s words in...

—9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

- So only Christians are reconciled to God for only Christians have the Spirit of Christ & of God

- You cannot get any plainer that this

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- Christians are born again or born anew or born from above as they are touched by God, renewed, regenerated

- It is by grace that we have been saved & the word saved is in the perfect tense which suggests that salvation has been given at one point in time but there is an abiding effect that continues

- So a Christian remains in a state of salvation due to the fact that it is by grace, but we need to stay in that grace

- One sure way of losing that grace is to step out of Christ

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- Crazy to be sure – who would do that – but this is what happens & there are plenty of warning texts speaking of this, so it is a very real possibility, in spite of what some people say

—12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

—10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

- The reason we can have confidence is because of the POWER of God that keeps us in Christ

- By faith, we stay with the Lord & He commits to us & gives us all & every bit of POWER necessary for us to stay locked in with Christ

—27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

30 “I and the Father are one.”

- Do you notice here that the assurance is not a “once saved, always saved” cliché

- But, no one can snatch them away from Jesus or the Father because they will both be there to keep us

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- What happens, however, when a person walks away – which has indeed happened before?

- Well they cannot blame God

- It’s like me complaining that the lawn mover I have is useless but I don’t engage with it & start the engine

- Just because I have a lawnmower doesn’t mean I engage with it

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- The other side of the coin from turning your back on God is that we are or have been, a long way from God in our behaviour

- The Corinthian church is a typical example

- You couldn’t get a more worldly church than this one

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- If the future has begun with the resurrection of Christ & Christians have been brought into God’s future age, then, it stands to reason, that Christians ought to leave the behaviours of the fallen world behind

- Paul gives this principle in Romans

—3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

- In baptism, the Christian demonstrates his or her death to the old fallen world, & his or her resurrection to new life with Christ into the new age of God

- There is this union with Christ & baptism ably displays this union with Christ & our transition with Him to the new age of God

- “With Him” is the key point – Jesus, in His death & resurrection – moved from the fallen age into the new age that God had ultimately planned

- What we know as the future age

- In baptism, a person believes & identifies with Christ in His journey from the old fallen age to the qualitatively new, special & superior age of God’s presence & power

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- It is an amazing thought, but what it does show, is that a Christian is not static

- With the movement from the old fallen age of Adam & Eve into the future age, our behaviours must correspond with our new reality

- Monkey’s act like Monkey’s; Cats like Cats; Spirit-endowed Christians, like Spirit-endowed Christians

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- The problem with the Corinthians, of course, is that they are still living as if they still belong to the old fallen world of Adam & Eve

- Metaphorically speaking, the Corinthians didn’t act their age.

- They were part of the future kingdom alright, but they lived as if they were still 95% part of the present evil age.

- They, like us, have a race to run & the finish line is the day of God’s salvation & judgement - when Christ comes again

—26 ‘He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS; 27 AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father;

1.

The Competence of God’s People (v.1-6)

- This is a bit of tricky section in today’s passage because my experience suggests that what the apostle says has limited application

Q. Can it be true that Christians are competent to judge between disputes that the Christian community may have?

- My concern is that Christians may lack the capacity to navigate the rights & wrongs of these disputes

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- Ever watched Judge Judy?

She’s a cracker.

No mucking around – there are clear distinctions of right & wrong with this woman

- I know it’s TV & entertainment & I know that any of her decisions are paid for by the Network – that’s why they get plenty of people to appear – even the audience is paid

- But she shows a certain competence in making sound judgements

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- But the apostle’s words here are not based on worldly competence, but other-worldly competence

- The other-worldly competence means those who have entered into, & belong to, God’s era

- This ability to be able to judge is because we are on God’s side & have His ways & His thoughts in mind

- It is true, however, that this church is really struggling to qualify

—5 I say this to your shame.

Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren,

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Q.

How is it that Christians are qualified to make good judgements between themselves?

- It is because God has declared that we will not only judge the world, but judge angels

- If this is the case, how minuscule are the judgements we make in matters of this life – surely, we should be able to do that

- EG. It’s like saying, if you can push a car down the road, then surely you can push a Go-Kart?

- So if your going to judge the world and angels, how much easier to judge the trivial matters of this life

- It is such a shame that the word judgement is seen in such a negative way

- In saying judgements, I’m saying discernment

- It is such a shame that the word judgement is seen in such a negative way

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- Firstly, our society has downgraded the word judgement

- Judgement means determining between right & wrong

- In the social arena, we are told that we must not judge anyone

- That there is no truth other than what people want to make of it

- A guy can feel like a girl – sure, you can be a girl, our government tells them - & you can change your birth certificate once a year in Victoria to whatever sex you want to be, even one that we have never heard of before

- But secondly, Christians have followed the lead from their culture & started to reinterpret Jesus’ sayings so that we “should not judge, lest we be judged”

- That cannot stand up to scrutiny when we read that passage in context - Hypocrisy is what Jesus is criticising there