Sermon Tone Analysis

Baptism Videos - 1st service

I just ran upon a message from a year ago that I didn’t share with you, but I want to now.

Good evening my brother.

My name is Carl Malcom.

Me, my wife & our son visited with you guys several times during the month of March as we stayed in Madison.

(We're the traveling family) I wanted to take a moment and let you know how much we appreciated the welcoming spirit & love shown to us by you and your sweet church.

Quite honestly, I find myself missing being with you guys.

The worship was genuine.

The preaching was empowered.

The fellowship was sweet!

I want you to know that though we're down the road, we continue to follow you guys online & more importantly, I want you to know that you & Fellowship are being prayed for faithfully.

May Christ our King continue to use you guys & to bless your efforts for His glory.

For His glory,

Carl Malcom

Church, I am SO GRATEFUL for so many of you that treat people with value, honor Jesus daily, and put your hand to the plow to SERVE on campus and in our culture.

PRAY (Lord, thank You for this precious church.

I pray that you protect us from the enemy’s schemes to divide us and splinter our eternal impact instead of multiplying it…)

________________

We took a break from our 1 Corinthians series and now we’re back, a series entitled “A Beautiful Mess”,

If you’ve read this letter before, you might understand the title.

The Corinthian Church was so similar to so many churches in our culture:

with maturing believers who loved Jesus,

and others who were very young in the faith with an immature understanding of what God wants.

Still yet, the Church in Corinth had rivalries and factions - where some in the Church were even taking one another to court - as we will talk about today.

Further, the Church had yet to discipline one of the members who was living in open sexual sin - as we talked about in the last teaching - go back and listen to them on our website: FOM.life (over 530 teachings).

And on top of all that this Church lived in a city that was full of idols and temples to false gods.

The Church in Corinth was...a Mess, but this church was also Beautiful.

Remember how Paul begins his letter:

1 Corinthians 1:2 (NIV) To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

These people are the church of God in Corinth.

As most of you know, the Greek term Ekklēsia is what we translate as “church” - a term meaning a gathering or “assembly”.

It never refers to a building, but to the Body of Christ (a phrase Paul will use in this letter - 1 Cor 12:27).

Let’s quit calling this PLACE “the church”.

Instead, let’s refer to each other as “the Church”.

Remember - [point to the building] “This is NOT the Church” [then point to the PEOPLE] “This is the Church”.]

Turn to someone and say, “We ARE the Church.”

Paul also calls this assembly/church sanctified - meaning, set apart for service to God,1

These people are His holy people - often simply translated as “saints”.

1 Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 537.

These people have been changed by the good news of Jesus.

So Paul points to their POSITION in Christ - set apart, God’s holy people.

Paul reminds them WHOSE they are, and he reminds THEM…and reminds US that while followers of Jesus have participated in slimy, nasty, sins...

...we are NOT WHO WE USED TO BE.

Followers of Jesus have been forgiven much!

And because of that...

[BIG TRUTH] We can’t live in sin, if we belong to Him.

Paul has already addressed this in the previous chapter where he told the church to discipline the man in sexual sin with his step-mother.

They were to remove him from their fellowship…and they did, which ultimately led to his repentance and restoration!

Now, let’s dig in as Paul addresses another messy issue among these beautiful church.

1 Corinthians 6:1–3 (CSB) If any of you has a dispute against another, how dare you take it to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

Or don’t you know that the saints will judge the world?

And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the trivial cases?

Don’t you know that we will judge angels—how much more matters of this life?

1 Corinthians 6:4-6 (CSB) So if you have such matters, do you appoint as your judges those who have no standing in the church?

I say this to your shame!

Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who is able to arbitrate between fellow believers?

Instead, brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers!

1 Corinthians 6:7-8 (CSB) As it is, to have legal disputes against one another is already a defeat for you.

Why not rather be wronged?

Why not rather be cheated?

Instead, you yourselves do wrong and cheat—and you do this to brothers and sisters!

According to Paul, there is coming a day that the saints, followers of Jesus, will judge the world and even judge angels.

How could this be, especially since we have sinned ourselves?

The answer?

As we will see later in this study of 1 Corinthians, when Jesus returns believers will be transformed into the image of Jesus - with no more sin and no more sin nature (1 Cor 15:49-55).

And…if believers are going to sit to judge the world and judge angels at the end of time, they should sure be able to handle the trivial cases on earth right now.

The church should be able to settle these trivial cases and to keep from approaching the court as enemies rather than brothers/sisters.

Instead, we should handle some things in house.

Otherwise, brother against brother communicates unrest & anger rather than the peace & love we are to have in Jesus.

Note: This doesn’t mean we can’t ever bring judgement to our courts.

We are bound by our United States law to bring cases of child abuse, assault, and murder to the governing authorities God - authorities that He has put in place to protect the innocent and punish the guilty (Rm 13).

But in lesser cases, we need to handle this within the Body of Christ.

And what if we did!

What if the offender and the offended actually humbled themselves before spiritual leaders, settled their dispute, and walked out of the room as brothers/sisters rather than enemies!

What would that say to our vengeful culture?

The late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia made this observation:

I think that this passage has something to say about the proper Christian attitude toward civil litigation.

Paul is making two points.

Paul says that the mediation of a mutual friend, such as the parish priest, should be sought before parties run off to the law courts.…

I think we are too ready today to see vindication or vengeance through adversary proceedings, rather than peace through mediation.…

Good Christians, just as they are slow to anger, should be slow to sue.

Stephen T. Um, 1 Corinthians: The Word of the Cross, ed.

R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 107.

Of course, no one wants to be wronged and no one wants to be cheated, and certainly not by a brother or sister in Christ!

It is never okay for us to do wrong and cheat, especially to do so to people in our own family.

To do so would be unrighteous, and that can’t be us anymore because...

We can’t live in sin, if we belong to Him.

As we have said before, we can’t keep living for the sin that Jesus died to pay for.

Sadly, many in our culture have bought the idea that we can be Christians without denying ourselves, taking up the cross, and following Jesus.

Rather than crucifying their sin (Gal 5:24), many celebrate their sin (Rom 1:32).

But...

We can’t live in sin, if we belong to Him.

Paul makes this Crystal clear with these next words.

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 (CSB) Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom?

Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom.

This isn’t an exhaustive list that mentions every possible sin, but it covers a bunch that are NOT to play a part in the lives of those who belong to Jesus.

And while all of us can likely point to one of these sins that we HAVE participated in,

Those who say anything different, are not speaking the truth, so…do not be deceived by them.

Notice what always leads the list for Paul:

Sexually immorality comes from the Greek word porneia, from which we get our word - pornography.

This term refers to any sexual activity outside of marriage, and in this context likely is targeted as those who are unmarried - as married folks will be mentioned in a moment.