The Corinthian Correspondence, Part 53: "Epilogue"

 The Corinthian Correspondence, Part 53: "Epilogue" Before we dive into the message today, I want to say 2 things. The first is "Thank you." It's no secret that the approach that I took during our Pentecost mini-series was not exactly smooth sailing, and even confused some of you. And I have said since day 1 as your pastor that if you sense that I'm going off the rails, then it is your job to come to me so we can talk about it. And you did! Over the past 2 weeks or so, several chats have taken place. On at least 1 occasion, we broke out the Bibles, had some vigorous discussion. Hard questions were posed to me. And on a couple of points words to the effect, "I don't agree with you," were said. And that is OK. As I mentioned last week, there are a lot of things Christians can debate and come to different conclusions about. The things I shared with you in the Pentecost series were what I call "intramurals." Things that brothers and sisters in Christ can talk about, sometimes vigorously, can even disagree over and still remain in the family. What we cannot disagree about are things like who Jesus is. The way of salvation. The existence of the Trinity. The inspiration of the Scriptures. Christians must agree on these things. And so I want to just reiterate to you my commitment to, and conviction about, the word of God. When I say conviction, I mean that I am willing to literally give my life for it. If someone were to come to me and say, "deny that the Bible is the inspired word of God or you will breathe your last," I would tell them, "Then I will breathe my last." I am willing to give my life for the Scripture, and for the God the Scripture speaks of. The Scripture is the absolute authoritative Word of the Living God. There are 66 writings that make up the list of God's inspired word--39 in the Old Testament, 27 making up the New Testament. There are many other books that are helpful to read and even study, so I may understand God's word and apply it aright--like 1 Enoch that I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago. It's helpful to read such things. But it is the Bible, and the Bible alone that carries with it God's authority. No other collection of writings will do. We dare not add to nor take away from this list. Paul describes God's word as "breathed out" from him. Every word in Scripture carries with it divine authority and power. Second, in my attempt to be "cute" -- can you believe that I just said that in reference to myself?? -- in relation to revealing our next series, I'm afraid I may have confused you as well. Last week when I said that our next series was "the Gospel According to Moses," I sort of heard it through the grapevine that what some of you heard was that we were going to study something other than the Bible. Let me set the record straight. What I have called the Gospel According to Moses is the title of the series. What we are going to be going through on Sunday mornings is a book of the Bible, namely Deuteronomy! I will be sharing with you my reasons for going through this wonderful book in a couple of weeks. But our next series is indeed the book of Deuteronomy. And I promise, as you ask the Lord to prepare your heart, and as you pray for me, the Lord will definitely make it worth your while to go with me through these amazing last words of Moses. I hope what I said was helpful to you. And if you feel the need still to talk about things, especially about what I said in the messages in recent weeks, I invite you to do so. And with that said, let's begin today's message, the epilogue of The Corinthian Correspondence. It contains 65 chapters. It's a little bit longer than 1 Corinthians. The author quotes 85 passages from the Scripture: 13 OT books and 8 NT books, to include the entire chapter of Isaiah 53. What's up with all the numbers, describing a strange document? Let me answer that question with a question. Do you remember what I asked you last week to prepare us for what we were going to talk about this week? How about: Have you ever wondered what happened to the church after the Scripture writer wrote his letter or letters to them? Do you ever wonder if they went on with the Lord? Some of the answer as to whether the Corinthians went on with the Lord is contained in a letter written about 95 A.D., about the time John wrote Revelation. This letter we're going to talk about today was considered very valuable to the churches at that time, so valuable that many churches would read it through in their corporate worship services. Admittedly, this letter is not part of the 66 books of holy Scripture. But there is so much Scripture in it that it sure seems as though it could be. One thing we need to remember when we think about how things were done in the First Century, when it comes to the body of Christ and when they met for worship. No church in the First Century had a complete Bible. The very most that any church had was the Old Testament and perhaps a few books in the New Testament, and few churches even had that. And no one had their own personal copy of God's word. When it came to the New Testament, it was still being written. And there were so few copies of the gospels and the letters floating around, that when a church actually received a writing that actually became part of the Bible, everybody in the church came together and heard it being read. And quite often, when one church was done with the document, they would hand carry it to another church so they could take it in. So, for the Christians who met together in their respective churches on Sundays, no one ever said, "open your bible to . . . ." Questions like, "so, what did you get out of your Bible reading this week?" were non-existent. So, the way of life for the Christians back in the day was a bit different than the way we live in our day. Imagine what a First Century Christian would do if he were to somehow engage in a little time travel, and all of a sudden show up at Grace United and we handed him a complete Bible, in his own language! What would he do with that? The letter that we are going to be talking about today, was written by a pastor in the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, most likely written a guy named Clement. We first hear about Clement in Philippians 4.3, where Paul called him a fellow worker in the gospel. Paul wrote Philippians about 62 A.D. a couple of years before he was promoted to heaven. Fast forward about 30 years from there to, about 95 A.D. The leadership in the church in Corinth wrote to the church in Rome, asking their advice about some issues they had, really one: what to do about a fresh outbreak of division among them? Why, that issue had been plaguing them practically since the day they became a church! So Clement, now one of the pastors in Rome sat down to write a letter to the Corinthians to address their problems. And divine wisdom, as in holy Scripture, poured out from Clement's heart through his pen, onto the parchment. And in the space a little longer than 1 Corinthians, pastor Clement quoted 89 passages of Scripture, to include quotes from 8 New Testament writings. Clement treated these New Testament writings as God's word, on the same level as the Old Testament, and calling the Scripture the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. The point is, Clement knew the word, and he skillfully wove God's authority into the letter he wrote to the Corinthians, in answering their issues. Today's message will be sort of a good news, bad news, good news story. Last week we finished 2 Corinthians. Chapter 13 opened with Paul's plans: "This is the 3rd time I'm coming to you." He was getting ready to pay the Corinthians another visit. He had 2 reasons for stopping by. First, he was going to collect the money they had set aside to help the Jewish brothers and sisters to get through a devastating famine in Judea. Second, Paul was going to deal with the unrepentant in the church. This was not what he wanted to do, but he willing and able to exercise church discipline if he had to. Hear Paul's words again in 2 Corinthians 12.21: I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced. So, now, we can assume Paul paid them visit number 3. How did they respond to his visit? Inquiring minds want to know! This is where the good news comes in, written down in 1 Clement. What I'm about to share with you is lengthy. But given all the problems, all the sins, all the consternation the Corinthians caused Paul, I think it is good we hear this. Savor the fruit of Paul's ministry! After Clement gives the Corinthians a standard greeting, he tells them this: who did not admire the sobriety and moderation of your godliness in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificence of your habitual hospitality? And who did not rejoice over your perfect and well-grounded knowledge? For you did all things without respect of persons, and walked in the commandments of God, being obedient to those who had the rule over you, and giving all fitting honor to the presbyters--or pastors--among you. You urged young men to be of a sober and serious mind; you instructed your wives to do all things with a blameless, becoming, and pure conscience, loving their husbands as in duty bound; and you taught them that, living in the rule of obedience, they should manage their household affairs properly, and be in every respect marked by discretion. Moreover, you were all distinguished by humility, and were in not in any way puffed up with pride, but yielded obedience rather than extorted it, and were more willing to give than to receive. Content with the provision which God had made for you, and carefully attending to His words, you took his teaching to heart, and His sufferings were before your eyes. Thus a profound and abundant peace was given to you all, and you had an insatiable desire for doing good, while a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit was upon you all. Full of holy designs, you stretched forth your hands in prayer with true earnestness of mind and a godly confidence to God Almighty, begging Him to be merciful unto you, if you had been guilty of any involuntary transgression. Day and night you were anxious for the whole brotherhood, that the number of God's elect might be saved with mercy and a good conscience. You were sincere and uncorrupted, and you hardly noticed when someone wronged you. Every kind of faction and schism was abominable in your sight. You mourned over the transgressions of your neighbors: you deemed their shortcomings as your own. You never grudged any act of kindness, being "ready to every good work." Adorned by a thoroughly virtuous and religious life, you did all things in the fear of God. The commandments and ordinances of the Lord were written upon the tablets of your hearts. Now you tell me. Do you think Paul's ministry finally bore fruit? Do you think his visit had an effect on them? So do I. Divisions vanished. Sin repented of. Unity became their hallmark. At last! The Corinthians showed by the way they lived, and not merely by what they claimed, that they were true disciples of Jesus. What an amazing, extended commendation to these same people who at one time seemed to live in any but godly! They turned the corner. It seems as though everything came together. I wish I could have been there, just taking in the experience of how Paul dealt with them. Certainly, the Lord used everything Paul had to bring the Corinthians around. What I find in the good news part of this story is the Corinthians' change was evident, and public. The Roman church leadership told the Corinthians what they heard from others! "Who did not find your faith to be as fruitful of virtue as it was firmly established?" "Who did not rejoice over your perfect and well-grounded knowledge?" But over time, certain weeds began to grow, or should I say, regrow. For these weeds were what plagued the Corinthians from the start. Let's now take a brief look at the bad news of the Corinthian church. Again, I will quote parts and pieces of the letter from pastor Clement. So the worthless rose up against the honored, those of no reputation against such as were renowned, the foolish against the wise, the young against those advanced in years. For this reason righteousness and peace are now far departed from you, inasmuch as everyone abandons the fear of God, and is become blind in his faith, neither walks in the ordinances of his appointment, nor acts a part becoming a Christian, but walks after his own wicked lusts, resuming the practice of an unrighteous and ungodly envy, by which death itself entered into the world. Our apostles also knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and there would be strife on account of office of the episcopate--or those in the leadership. . . . We are of opinion that those appointed, with the consent of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ in a humble and peaceable spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. But we see that you have removed some men of excellent behavior from the ministry, which they fulfilled blamelessly and with honor. So, what was going on? Simply put, some faithful leaders were, in our vernacular, fired by the people in the pew. There were a couple of young, influential wicked men who led the way on this. And of course, this caused a lot of pain and division. Pastor Clement did not dive into the details of the reasons for attacks by these young men. But by what he could surmise, the leaders were faithful and their firing was unwarranted. What were these weeds, in reality, the weed? Divisions in the church. Sound familiar? This was the very first problem Paul addressed. Remember the scenario? 1 Corinthians 1:11-12: For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 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 threat of the people to follow their favorite personalities was a weed that the enemy planted deeply into the soil of the church. But after Paul visited the third time, it looked like the weed was taken care of. Unity was the name of the game. But tragically, the weed was not taken care of. It was simply cut down. The dandelion root in the otherwise pristine green grass that was the church in Corinth was not dug up. It looked as though things were fine. But it grew back. And it grew back with a vengeance. Listen to another part from pastor Clement's letter, describing how things went from bad to worse. Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the Gospel first began to be preached? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you. It is disgraceful, beloved, yea, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of your Christian profession, that such a thing should be heard of as that the most steadfast and ancient Church of the Corinthians should, on account of one or two persons, engage in sedition against its leaders. And this rumor has reached not only us, but those also who are unconnected with us; so that, the name of the Lord is blasphemed, while danger is also brought upon yourselves. This weed of division in the church grew quickly. Disorder in the assembly soon followed. And wickedness began again to multiply. And the good testimony the Corinthians enjoyed began to turn into a horrendous one. This was the issue pastor Clement dealt with. He took about 60 chapters to deal with it by rebuking them with one biblical example after another. He wrote about envy and recounted the stories of Cain and Abel, Moses when he killed the Egyptian, Saul's persecution of David and many others. Clement called all the Corinthians to repentance, using many biblical examples. Humility was another topic Clement dealt with, and quoted Isaiah 53 with the Lord Jesus as their prime example. Clement pressed home that in light of their certain resurrection and that they will give an account before the Lord of their lives, the Corinthians will need to get ready. They need to do things that please God and flee from the things that God hates. Clement also spilled ink reminding the Corinthians that God made them right with him account of his grace. They were to serve him out of gratitude for his grace that made them right with God through faith in Christ. So, what can we say about the bad news part of the story? One weed, running unchecked, can cause massive devastation in a church fellowship. It is not enough to, as it were, cut the grass to merely make things look good. It is much more important to get rid of the weeds. And did you catch who else was watching division 2.0 in the church? Clement described it this way: And this rumour has reached not only us, but those also who are unconnected with us; so that, the name of the Lord is blasphemed. Who else was watching? The pagans. Clement called their division something that was blaspheming the name of the Lord. How sobering! But in the midst of all that Clement wrote in his rebuke, there is such hope and compassion here. Proverbs 27.6 tells us that faithful are the wounds of a friend. And Clement was playing the part of a wise friend to the Corinthians. In his call for repentance. In his pointing out the root causes of the sins of envy and being divisive, refusing to submit to the Lord's authority. Clement also warned them. Resurrection day is coming. And with that comes evaluation day. We call it judgment day. Paul described it this way as we remember in 2 Corinthians 5.10: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. The good: Paul's ministry was fruitful after all. The bad: the weed of division reared its ugly head, causing division between brother and sister, and giving them cause to return to the wicked ways they walked away from. So, here we are again. The Corinthians did not do well. Then Paul visited 3 times. And they began to do well. Then they did not do well. Did the Corinthians get back on track because pastor Clement wrote to them? The unsatisfying answer is--we don't know. But we will know when we get to the other side. If we meet some Corinthian Christians then we will conclude that they did. So we will have to wait. However, there is yet another good news part of this story. I said it a couple of time in this message and it has to do with how many passages of Scripture Clement quoted and referred to. It is widely known that this letter, 1 Clement is one of the earliest letters written that isn't part of the Bible. So the reasons for Clement writing this letter actually resulted in a strong witness for the Scripture we have, for Clement directly quoted from almost 1 third of the books in our Bible. Again, Clement referred to the Scriptures as the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. We had a great church history lesson today, and I thought it was fascinating. But there is something we can take away from here that we can apply to our lives. We can follow the example of the Corinthians in the good news part of their story. After the Lord used Paul to get them back on track, the Corinthians' way of following Christ was conspicuous. Everybody knew that the Corinthian Christians took their discipleship of Christ seriously. We don't know how long they followed Christ before the wicked young men began to water the spiritual dandelion in their church yard. But we can use their example to help us in our followership of Jesus. Let me give us 2 action points to make our discipleship as Christians conspicuous--something that everybody can see. First we can follow Christ internally. In other words, make a clean break with evil. A way to do that is that we can write a Dear John letter to the devil. It's not as crazy as it sounds. How many of us came to Christ by repenting of our sin and believing his gospel? This is the way we all have come to understand the way of salvation. Christ is the Lord. He died on the cross in our place, for our sin. He rose again. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he is now interceding for the saints according to the will of God. And one day he will return to earth to set up his kingdom and to judge the living and the dead. But how many of us have actually told the enemy to formally take a hike? We know he is real. We know there are principalities and powers that we are called to wrestle against. But how many of us have said in essence, "I slam the door in the enemy's face?" To, as it were, make a clean break from the enemy? Ephesians 2.1-3 tells us that at one time all of us were dead in trespasses and sins. We all followed the course of this world. We all followed the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. We were all by nature children of wrath. But since we have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, the enemy no longer has authority over us. The most he can do is to try to get our attention. So, since we were all close to him in the past, why not write the devil a Dear John letter? It's been said that Satan hates to be mocked. He hates to be belittled. He can't stand it when we remind him of his destiny. So why not do that from time to time? Musical prophet Keith Green actually wrote such a letter and put music to it. But I want to read his letter, his mocking tone to the devil and the end of his relationship with him and his ways. I hope I can do this justice! Oh, I used to love you but now that's hard to do / 'Cause I got some information 'bout the evil things at night that you do / Now the whole thing is through, we're through / Oh, you're such a devil, how'd you get me to believe you were true, ooh? Oh, my momma warned me and how my daddy cried / The day I left my home, you said you'd always keep me satisfied But oh, how you lied, you lied / Well, I should have heard my momma's words / But then I guess I had too much pride, original sin Oh, I used to lie awake at night and see your face on the ceilin' / What a bad a feelin' I have when I think of how you almost got me / In the ways of the world, in the ways of the world My so-called friends said I misjudged you, my anger's all in vain / But I'm afraid you got to them before I had a chance to explain /And it caused me such pain, ouch! / 'Cause they were such good friends of mine /But now you've got them playin' your game, you creep! Well, I believe in Jesus and what he said he's gonna do / He'll put an apple in your lyin' mouth and cook you in a sulfur stew, ooh / One that'll never be through, is it soup yet? No! / Ah, but if he hadn't rescued me then I'd be down there cookin' too / Oh, if Jesus hadn't rescued me then I'd be cookin' right next to you, ooh I used to lie awake at night and see your face on the ceilin' / What a great feelin' I have when I think of how you're gonna get yours / At the end of the world What a mocking tone! Praise God! And God's people can say these kinds of things to the enemy because "we are from God and have overcome them, literally those evil spirits in the unseen realm, for he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world." So, if you sat down to write your Dear John letter to the devil what would you say? Tell him to take a flying leap into the lake of fire. Commit to tell him and your flesh no, with emphasis every time you are faced with temptation to deviate from the ways of the Lord. That's one way of making our discipleship of Jesus conspicuous on the inside. But let's not forget the outside. Let's make our followership of Jesus conspicuous to others. This includes fellow Christians, those who don't care about the things of God and even those who hate him. In a word, eradicate the weeds in our field. Remove every trace of them. Like one of those weed removers we stick into the ground and pull up the weed, root and all. Now, when I say this, I want you to hear me well. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. This will never happen this side of eternity. We will not eradicate every weed--every sin--in our lives. But by the power of His Spirit, some sins in our lives can be eradicated. For example in my BC days, I used to shoplift. I was good at it. Almost got caught once. And I got so used to it that at one point, it was rare that I didn't go into a store without stealing something. But since the day I came to Christ, I can say that not once have I shoplifted. Of course, I made restitution--it was difficult because I didn't have much money. Kitty and I were very early in our marriage with Jeremy in tow. But I can say that this sin was eradicated. To God be the glory. Have I been tempted to shoplift since I became a Christian? Yep. But by His Spirit I never yielded. That weed was eliminated. So, in your life as a follower of Jesus, what weeds, individual sins, can you claim complete victory over? Again, we won't be able to claim complete victory over every sin. But is there a sin you can say that by the power of God, you have victory over? That every time the temptation rears its ugly head, you put it down? That you no longer yield to it? Not a pride thing, but a real thing. See, the Holy Spirit's job is to make us holy. To remake us into looking like Jesus. Remember the Corinthians. They did well for a time after Paul's 3rd visit. But they let the weeds of division lay just below the surface unchecked. It didn't take much by way of bad circumstances for it to pop up again. And as far as we can tell, the latter state of the church in Corinth was worse than before. But we don't have to be like the Corinthians. Let's take care of the weeds. As we close this morning, I want us to read outloud 2 lists on the screen, and 1 verse sandwiched in between. One list has what Paul calls the deeds of the flesh, and the other one is the fruit of the Spirit. As we read them together, outloud, make it your prayer for the Lord to show you what weeds you may have growing in the lawn of your heart. Then ask him to do what it takes for him to be pleased to eradicate one or more of those weeds. Obviously the first list is not exhaustive. So if the Holy Spirit uncovers another weed different than that on this list, great. Ask him to eradicate that weed. The verse we are going to recite together is 1 John 1.9, where the Lord gives his people a most wonderful promise: that if we sin, we can confess that sin and repent of it, for God is faithful to forgive. And then we ask him to replace those weeds with the fruit of his spirit, which is the second list we will recite. The works of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.