Untitled Sermon

Learning to become who we are notes

INTRO:

Sermon is called Identity Crisis

I was reading 1 cor and 2 themes really popped out at me

1. Gods grace towards us is larger than we imagine And our identity as Righteous, washed, sanctified, Sons and daughters is a declared by God as completed

Basic thesis of the message is this: God declares us to be this way YET we are still in sin our actions and behaviors have not caught up with the divine declaration.

Thus we often live with a confused Identity. we know Gods grace is real and yet we are conscious of our failings so we arent comfortable with Gods declaration.

CORINTH THE CITY

Trade route ( Diolkos (De Ol KOS))

Trade hub between east and west - Sailors, travellers, merchandise, making it wealthy

It was the sin city of the ancient world - Aristophanes coined the verb Korinthiazo which meant to act like a corinthain meaning to be a fornecator.

Idol Worship there were 26 temples

Paul founded a church here as a tent maker

PAUL WROTE THIS LETTER? WHO IS HE WRITING TO?

Paul has already written to this church before about sexual imorality

In this letter he has to tell the congregation to refrain from using prostitues

3. They were suing one another in the courts which led to divisions within the church.

NOT WHAT YOU WOULD CALL A HEALTHY CHURCH

READ FIRST TEXT: 1 COR: 1:4-9

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 COR 4-9

-Talk about how it felt to you when you read this verse

The section “sustain you to the end, guiltless” really jumped off the page when I read it.

Where does Paul get this confidence? In the face of the sin of the Corinthian Church Pauls first remarks are assurance.

WHERE DOES PAULS CONFIDENCE COME FROM?

It is not from the people or their behavior

2. his confidence is in the faithfulness of God

Fee says it this way, “Gods prior action of Grace, always preceeds their obedience as responce to grace”

TELL JONATHAN EDWARDS STORY

the grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could ever live.”

The grace of good is greater than all of our sin — we sing about it all the time but we dont always believe it.

Gods grace can live with people that we could never live with! Gods grace was living with the corinthian church despite their struggles with sin

THE WARNING Chapter 6

do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Wow what a warning. He says do not be decieved the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is a stern warning from Paul, for the church is presently acting like the unrighteous and the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom.

This seems like the proper balance to chapter 1.

But Then He goes on to say

English Standard Version Chapter 6

11 And ysuch were some of you. But zyou were washed, ayou were sanctified, byou were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

I want to read for you a story

Two or three years before the death of John Newton, when his sight was so dim that he was no longer able to read, a friend and brother in the ministry called to have breakfast with him. Their custom was to read the Word of God following mealtime, after which Newton would make a few short remarks on the Biblical passage, and then appropriate prayer would be offered. That day, however, there was silence after the words of Scripture “by the grace of God I am what I am” were read.

Finally, after several minutes, Newton spoke, “I am not what I ought to be! How imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be, although I abhor that which is evil and would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be, but soon I shall be out of mortality, and with it all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor yet what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge that by the grace of God I am what I am!”

The christian life is all about becoming what you already are

The commands of God, for the Christian, are not put put in front of us like an obstacle course that we must pass in order to recieve the grace of God, but rather the commands of God are put in place as a road map for us to become who we already are in Gods eyes.

THE ENEMY

Our enemy wants us to live in guilt, to wallow in defeat and he achieves this by attacking our thinking. He will bring to your mind all of the things that you struggle with. He reminds you of your pride, your arrogance, your secret sins, your lies, your deceptions, your impatience and the list goes on and on.

He brings these memories to the fore of your mind and they are not lies — they in fact are the truth about what you have done, how you have acted, who you have hurt However, these truths are wrapped up in a grand lie — the lie is that your actions determine your status. And because your actions are unworthy you are not eligible for a Holy Status. But this is not the Gospel!

Yes it is true that our failures and shortcomings — our sin are what makes us unrighteous but we do not move from being a sinner to a saint by good behavior we rather become righteous by putting on the righteousness of Jesus

Dont be robbed by the enemy.

BACK TO THE WARNING

I want to circle back to the warning paul gives the church at the top of Chapter 6

there does seem to be a real warning here. He emplores them not to be decieved.

We also see real warnings elsewhere in scripture such as James “Faith without works is dead” or in Hebrews it saus of the Holy Spirit “today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” and he goes on to say that those who do will not enter the rest of God

How do we then understand these warnings in light of the grace of God and his declaration that we are righteous?

I think this is best illustrated in the Prodigal Son Story

Prior says it this way” “Paul is not talking about isolated acts of unrighteousness, but about a whole way of life pursued persistently by those who thus indicate that they would be aliens in the kingdom of truth and light.”91