W.A.R. - 1 Corinthians 16:13-14
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If you have your Bible’s please open them to 1 Cor 16:13
Tonight we are finishing up our series called through 1 Corinthians that we have been calling ‘Messy Church.’
By now, we are all familiar with the laundry list of sins that the Corinthians were guilty of
division
idolatry
pride
they did not hold the faith
without love
Despite all the sins of the Corinthians, we hear Paul say something quite incredible at the beginning of his letter to them. Even though the Corinthia’s sin made a mess of the church, Paul still recognized them to be fellow Christians. Listen to how Paul said it,
1 Corinthians 1:4 ,8 (ESV)
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus... 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
the Corinthians many sins did not discredit them from being saved. Even though they were far from perfect, they were Christians because of the
1 Cor 1:4, “grace of God that was given [to them] in Christ Jesus”
And how did they receive this grace?
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
The reason that the Corinthians were saved was owing to the fact that they have heard and recieved the gospel. They rightly believed that Jesus Christ died for their sins, and having defeated death one and for all Jesus rose again on the third day. And when they recieved the gospel, they recieved God’s grace.
But Paul said something interesting in 15: 2 that we should compare with what he said back in chapter 1…
15.2 Paul says that the gospel that they have recieved will save them, but notice the condition of this salvation… they will be saved only if they all hold fast to the word of the gospel that he preached to them.
Compare this again to what we just heard back in chapter 1
1 Corinthians 1:4, 8 (ESV)
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus... 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So who is holding on to who? Is Christ sustaining and holding onto the Christians, or must the Christians hold onto Christ?
The answer is quite simple… Christ holds onto his Church, and the evidence of this grace is that the Church will continue to hold fast to the word that is preached.
Here is the mysterious relationship between God’s grace and our works…
We are saved only by grace…
Our works don’t add to our salvation
and our sins don’t exclude us from being able to receive grace
But how can we tell if we have in fact recieved God’s grace?
We can know that we are saved, if by grace, God is producing good fruit (that is good works) in us
This is why Paul is able to preach the gospel of God’s grace to the Corinthians while still calling them away from their sin and to Christ who is able to save them from their sins.
This was the problem with the Corinthians, and it’s the problem for many of us as well. They believed that grace was an excuse for sin. But they did not recognize that grace gives them and us an escape from sin.
With this in mind, Paul gives a short list of instructions in the end of his letter. And in no way are his instructions a contradiction to grace. Tonight I’m preaching on just two verses that we hardly touched last week, and this is how we will close out this series.
So if you would, please stand for the reading of God’s Word.
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.
Let’s pray.
Tonight’s sermon has a simple title. I’m calling this sermon W.A.R.
Most of us don’t think of the Christian life as a war
but make no mistake, the Christian life is just that… it is a war
Those who love a good action movie, or most video games likely have an interest in war… As a kid I was interested in all kinds of action
Action movies
Video games
Paintball
Now I speak not from experience, but from what I imagine to be true
Real warfare
The Christian life is a life of spiritual warfare.
And it is a matter of life and death
Paul gave the Corinthians some final instructions so that they and we take the Christian life seriously. In his instruction, it gives us the sense of our life being one of a fight during wartime.
So let’s hear the final exhortation again
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
There are four different commands given in this verse. And they all evoke a wartime image. I’ve paired two of them together.
acronym - so there are going to be three parts to this that will spell out the word war
First, Paul tells us that we must be
1. Watchful
1. Watchful
Another way we can say this is we must be alert, or on guard
That is to say, we must be quick to notice any unusual and potentially dangerous threats that might come our way.
The reason Paul commands the Corinthians to be watchful, is owing to the fact that we are at war… and wartime is not the time for us to relax and take it easy. Rather wartime is a time to stand guard and be alert.
Picture a watch-guard on the city walls… Why does he stand watch? Well there are multiple reasons;
For one, there might be an army that is coming to attack the city. So if he sees an army coming off in the distance, it is his duty to alert the rest of the army in a city that they must prepare for battle.
Another reason to stand watch on the city walls is that there might be a spy, or some kind of invader who wishes to slip into the city quietly. This is a subtle attack compared to an army, but if the guard isn’t staying awake and watching the city, someone who wishes to slip in and do great harm could do so and not even be noticed.
And finally, a guard must stand watch at all times, because a messenger might come with an important news for the people in the city.
So too in the Christian life, we must stand watch.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Sleep is not the solution to a stalking lion. Satan is a very real enemy. He is compared to a lion here. Have you ever seen how a lion hunts?
Mountain lions have been known to stalk people for miles without them even realizing it. So too, we have a real enemy, the devil, who most people are mostly ignorant of. So we must be watchful of him, because we are at war with him.
Also we are told to be watchful of false teachers who wish to lead us astray.
29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.
The need for watchfulness in our lives means we must listen to the voices we listen to.
Pulpit
Peers - friends
People - everyone in the world is saying something
We must be watchful of the words that we hear
But not only these things, we must be watchful for the Lord’s return
Matthew 24:36–44 (ESV)
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man... 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
In Noah’s day, people didn’t know the Lord was coming to judge the world. And what were they engaged in?
Eating and drinking, and getting married… Are these things bad things?
Of course not… we are talking about people enjoying the good pleasures that God has given them
But when those good things keep them from being watchful, then they give way to all sorts of problems.
We are distracted people…
friends,
games
phones
you name it… most of us are hardly watchful.
So we need to remember, it is wartime. Therefore, be alert, on guard, and watchful.
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
I want us skip stand firm for now, and look at the last two phrases.
“Act like men, and be strong”
Now, this isn’t to say that you girls aren’t strong…
And this isn’t to say that you girls shouldn’t act like women…
The NIV translates this as, be courageous and be strong. That is the sense of what Paul is saying.
2. Audacious
2. Audacious
- to be bold, or to be brave
When Paul tells the Corinthians to be men and to be strong, this is a nod to what Israel failed to do back in Moses’ day.
Remember, God had just delivered Israel…
God was sending them into the promised land, and so 12 spies went into the land to check it out
31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
These men were not acting like men… they were not strong in the Lord, instead they were weak, because they relied on their own strength to take the land.
But here’s the deal… Israel was never strong
7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Israel was never strong enough to take the land...
and we aren’t strong enough to remain faithful to God either…
But God is strong. And since God is strong, and because he is with us, Christians can show unflinching courage in the face of opposition.
1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah
When Paul says act like men, and be strong… he is speaking being strong in the Lord like this.
This is why God told Joshua, when he was leading Israel into the land this wonderful promise;
5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.
Our strength does not come from ourselves, rather our strength comes from the grace of God.
This is war time…
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
Let’s focus not on that second phrase,
Stand firm…
3. Resolute
3. Resolute
Resolute means to be unwavering. You have your eye on something and you aim to make that your goal. So you stand firm, you don’t waver to the left or to the right, but you go straight for the prize.
If we wish to stand firm in the faith, means we build our house on the rock
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
In every and all situations, we must not budge. And the only way that is possible is if we are in the Word, and if we obey the Word, and the way we do so is by building ourselves on Jesus who is our Rock. For he is the Word who put on flesh.
So we must build our life on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
Remember, this is WAR
We must be watchful, for we have an enemy who would wish to distract us so that he can take us down
We must be Audacious, because God calls us to go against our foe. But he is with us… and so we can be strong and courageous.
And we must be resolute. We cannot abandon the faith.... we cannot retreat rather we must stand firm in the faith and keep the faith until the end. And the way we will do this is through God’s grace. For he is the one who will sustain us till the end.
This is WAR.... but don’t confuse this spiritual warfare with human warfare.
Human warfare seeks to survive no matter what the cost.
They will kill anyone so that they can survive.
Human warfare is violent, and bloody.
But this is not the way Christians fight.
13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.
4. Even though we are at war, we must do everything in love.
4. Even though we are at war, we must do everything in love.
Every sin of the Corinthians was owing to their lack of love. Either it was a lack of love for God, or for one another. Paul has told us that all the law is summed up in a word… that is we love one another.