"Live Life Through the Lens of the Gospel."(1Corinthians 3)
Live life through the lens of the Gospel • Sermon • Submitted
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Living in Fractured and Broken World...
Living in Fractured and Broken World...
The main concern of Paul in 1 Corinthians is the unity of the church. Or I guess more correctly what was dividing the church.
It shouldn’t be very surprising but some of the very same issues that infected Corinth, are the same issues that communities and church are dealing with even today in our community.
QUESTION FOR TODAY? Can the fractured brokenness in our world be healed.
A secondary question must then be… Can we use the methods of Paul to begin to see a change in our Fractured, broken world
I want to get right to scripture so if you can I’d you to stand as I read scripture. I will be reading 1 Corinthians 3. Please bring your bible to church or your app, phone or however you interact with scripture.
It will be up on the monitors for a couple of more weeks but then the reading of the scripture will have to be my using your bible or app.
OK… 1 Corinthians 3
Stand if you can and will!
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—
13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours,
23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
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Let’s pray....
You may note that this version is the English Standard Version.
The ESV is much clearer in many instances and is more true to a word-for-word translation of the scripture.
It actually is my favorite version of scripture.
I want to get right to it… There is a bunch of stuff I want to cover.
Verse 1 & 2
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
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Whatever you knew, whatever you were taught, whatever your father or mother tried to model and teach you you have forgotten, misplaced or simply ignored.
We have fallen asleep at the wheel of the world...
We are going to limit our discussion to “spiritual matters.” Then in our application we are going to see if there is any instruction for us for our community.
The first division in this chapter is verses 1 - 9.
Our Grandson Isaiah is 3.5 years old. He is the most perfect child that has ever been born. He plays with others well, he shares, he is blind to skin color, he has no idea what it means to be rich, poor or otherwise.
He just likes to play, to have a invisible friend, to play with his brother Malachi.
Life is simple, straight-forward without many complications for him. His “way” involves being a “good boy” enough that he gets to watch a television show before going to bed.
Life is pretty simple for a 3 1/2 year.
Paul says that the Corinthian Church has all but totally lost their way.
Paul is telling them in verses, 1&2 --
The Corinthians have lost their spiritual compass. So much so he has to return to the beginning and start over
He has to return them to “mere infants in Christ.”
What does it mean for the “brothers,” I’m sorry women but this also includes you by the use of the word, “brothers” that is translated from Greek as — “fellow believers.”
Paul indicates that the believers have lost the “spiritual” and have turned to the “worldly.”
I think we know what “wordly” means in a 21st century context but what does it mean for a person of the first century?
It’s kind of rough but listen...
Worldly — “Carnal, Sensual, according to the flesh.”
I know we are not applying yet… but I certainly see a connection from the first century to the 21st century.
V.3
3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
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The fleshly, worldly desires are being expressed as jealousy and strife among all of them…
Paul is saying that they are behaving only in a human way… Without a care in the world for spiritual matters.
Once again… we are not applying but this is pretty close to home.
Paul goes on to say that our allegiance is in the completely WRONG PLACE!!!
Verses 4 & 5
4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
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There was this major conflict… “I follow,” “I was baptized into,” Apollos, Paul.
and Paul says in V.4
The believers of Corinth had detached themselves from the SPIRITUAL and returned to the HUMAN.
Once again I’m not saying Corinth equals Sunnyside, Washington state, or the United States. But the shoe seems to be the same size.
Paul draws God into the discussion with these Corinthian believers..
Verses 6,7,8
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
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God is one who makes things “grow...”
It is our responsibility to plant, to water, to tend, as God makes thing grow...
How do we do that? Where is my least exposure to possibly being asked something I don’t know, Where am I the least likely to have to “witness” to someone????
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
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This is what the Apostles did, this is what is required:
Breaking of Bread… Eating together.
Prayer… Pray for each other.
Express gladness and sincerity… Be happy, be interested in others.
Praise God… For what you have and what you can share.
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Back to 1 Co 3.9
9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
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This is our GREAT BIG RESPONSIBILITY!!
Lay a foundation to return people to their first love, or build a foundation where the love of God can first be shared.
A FOUNDATION BUILT ON ANYTHING BUT JESUS CHRIST IS GOING TO CRUMBLE…
Listen to V.13
13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
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Everything of “value”, every last thing of “human value” is going to be revealed by fire, in the end-times.
Question for us ALL… This fire will test us all. Have we been“built in” human terms or have we been “built in” spiritual terms.
Hold on for a bit of reality...
14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.
15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
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The spiritual survives… The human burns.
Note: There is a “grace-way” for the believer who has not participated to moving from the human to the spiritual.
“… He himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
The next passage 18-20 is
Written here as a PROVERB
A contrast of wisdom and foolishness.
A contrast of spiritual and human.
The wisdom of this world is foolishness.
The Lord knows the thoughts of the futile.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
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And now some instruction for all of them and us by extension
21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours,
23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
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All of them and all of us are Christ’s… and Christ is God’s
Let’s return to our question for the day...
QUESTION FOR TODAY? Can the fractured brokenness in our world be healed.
Yes it can… Listen to how we can have victory over our worldliness and remain spiritual, In doing so we can heal our world.
Do not be conformed to this world (Romans 12.2)
Christians are crucified to the world (Galatians 6.14)
Seek and set ones mind on heavenly things (Col 3.1)
Avoid worldly fables (1Tim 4.7)
Trust God rather than riches (1Tim 6.17)
Overcome the world through faith in Christ (1Jo 5.4-5)
We are going to transition to communion now...
COMMUNION
I’d like our Elders come forward to pass the elements.
As they are coming I’d like us all to pause to consider our lives. How we have traded our spiritual wisdom for human wisdom. How we have abandoned Christ and His ways in exchange for our ways.
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
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This is the time to confess that before God. To ask God to provide not the wisdom of this world but His wisdom as we re-orient our lives in accordance with Him in mind and the things of this earth will grow dim.
The Elders will now pass the bread
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
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Take the bread and eat it!
25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
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