Sermon Tone Analysis

Review:

His thankfulness is because of God’s work through Christ in his church.

Therefore, in our time today, we are going to look at a few ways Paul is thankful for the work of Christ in the church.

He writes in v 4,

So Paul says he is thankful to God always because of the grace given to the Corinthians in Christ Jesus.

This gracious gift he refers to is the work of Christ, a mulit-faceted work of redemption and love that needs our attention today.

Let us see these gifts from God’s grace and like Paul be thankful!

The Gift of Divine Calling

Two sides of the coin of divine calling:

External Call of Gospel

Example: Jn 8:12

Effectual Call to Faith

John 6:44 (ESV)

44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

And I will raise him up on the last day.

But the Scripture actually teaches that the call of God that leads to salvation is a two-part call.

In other words, there is both an external call of the gospel and an internal call unto salvation.

The divine call of God awakens our hearts and minds to Christ Jesus in such a way that we respond in faith and trust in Him alone for our salvation.

Without his divine calling, we would all simply be those who reject his external calling and who will be punished by the judge for such insolence.

2. The Gift of the Church

A Gift to Son from the Father

A Gift to each other

A. No Isolation: Ekklesia (gathered people, together with all those who call upon the name of Jesus as Lord).

B. No boundary (their Lord and ours) Remember also that the church is both local and universal.

3. The Gift of Purification

The third aspect of the church that Paul makes the point to make: the church is made up of holy ones… sanctified.

V2 he states we are sanctified in Christ Jesus.

If you study the original language then you would understand the word sanctified there is layered with deep rich meaning.

It is written as a perfect tense, passive verb participle.

That means that our sanctification is a past tense action, brought upon us by at outside party, not of ourselves, which has continual results for us into eternity.

I have been made holy by Christ and not by myself and that sanctification will be lasting into eternity as I stand before a holy God.

We know then that the church, the bride of Christ, is the group of people who Christ _MADE_HOLY by his own perfection and righteousness.

There is an aspect where the church has been made holy in a complete sense before God.

He says in v 8,

In the end, we stand before God guiltless and undefiled because of the perfections of Christ and not ourselves.

He makes us holy and blameless because he is holy and blameless.

Two weeks ago I participated in the funeral for my grandmother.

Praise the Lord I was able to share the gospel clearly in my 7 minutes I was given because the priest literally got up and fumbled his way through a man-made presentation of works salvation.

He applied the parable of virgins who didn't fill up their oil before the Master returned to believers as those who need to make sure they have a sufficient amount of love (the oil) that they have shared with the world in order to be received into heaven.

My friends this is not the gospel and it is not a doctrine dependent on the sufficiency of Christ.

Instead, it is based on our good works to prepare a place for us in heaven.

This is not what the bible teaches.

Instead, Christ did all that was necessary in redeeming a people for himself, and making them holy and blameless in Him.

But the other side of the coin, is that while God sees us as perfect and holy because of the work of Christ, we are still called to live holy and are still being sanctified.

We live a reality of what Christ has done in us and what Christ is doing in us still.

Being sanctified means that we are living day by day resting in Christ us

2 Corinthians 4:16 (ESV)

16 So we do not lose heart.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

That renewal is Christ removing the old habits and disciplines by His power with new habits and disciplines that honor him and glorify his name in all the earth.

That transformation cannot happen unless the church participates in it.

Each of us is tasked with building each other up, making each other holy by the power and plan of Christ.

Look with me Col 3:5-10

We have a responsibility to live lives that are holy and blameless before God.

This means that those things that dishonor him and shame his holy name should be consider vile in our eyes and cast from us.

What happens church is that Satan slowly deadens our conscience to the prickly sinful influences until consciences are unresponsive to perversion.

For example movies and music.

I am guilty in my former life before Christ to listening to vile and evil lyrics that detest God and his ways.

For me to submit myself to those messages now as a believer is wrong because it doesn’t show the surrender of the “practices of my former life.”

Men, does your wife want you to behave in the former ways before you were married, maybe flirtatious in conduct and speech?

NO.

It was the past life and our past life of sin which demonstrates our loyalties to the worldview of Satan has been put to death.

Our new life seeks holiness and being set apart for God’s glorious purposes.

Response:

In what ways do you allow your former life of sin and unrighteousness to invade your new space in Christ?

Repentance is turning from and turning to and repentance is necessary for salvation and for continual holiness.

4. The Gift of Riches

There are pastors in this world that want you to think that God’s blessing on his people are earthly treasures.

They mis-interpret verses like v. 5 as treasures of heaven.

But these riches are not belonging to earthly matters.

They are heavenly treasures.

Paul is commenting on the gifts (grace means gift) that we possess in Jesus Christ.

This grace is bestowed on all those who belong to Christ and the fruit of his grace is many benefits or blessings to the church.

Forgiveness of sin, justification before God, unity in the spirit and church, community among the saints, etc.

These are examples of the blessings we receive from our salvation in Christ.

Therefore, Paul makes this point clear in v 5 that because of Christ, we are made rich.

This richness often referred to physical, earthly richness but Paul uses for riches not of this world.

We are rich in Christ.

Notice that in Eph 3, the riches are possessed by Christ.

They are gifts from the Father to the Son but because we are in Him, united with Him in all things, then we share in those riches.

The NT identifies many specific benefits that accrue through union with Christ.

These include freedom in Christ from the yoke of the law (Gal 2:4), p 336 comfort and encouragement in Christ (Phil 2:1), peace or inner tranquillity in Christ (John 14:27; Phil 4:7), strengthening in Christ (2 Cor 12:9; Phil 4:13), being wise in Christ (1 Cor 4:10), rejoicing in Christ (Phil 4:4, 10), being spiritually enriched in Christ (1 Cor.

1:5), spiritual victory in Christ (2 Cor 2:14), acquiring hope in Christ (1 Cor 15:19; Eph 1:12), and being safe in Christ (Rom 16:20).

It is eminently true that all of God’s goodness is mediated to believers in union with Christ

Paul addresses the Corinthians specifically about the enrichment they received in the gifts of the Spirit that God blessed them with.

Those gifts are utterance and knowledge.

Paul will address the abuses of the spiritual gifts in the church in Corinth later in the letter, but the words utterance and knowledge have to do with their understanding and proclamation of the gospel message.

Paul is thankful because He has witnessed these two gifts in them…as they understand the knowledge of God (his doctrines and deeds) communicated from the word as He has revealed himself to us.

But they did not merely understand him but they uttered or spoke of Him to others.

They told the old, old story as they understood the great truth about Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

He explains the word “speech or utterance” and “knowledge” as pertaining to the “testimony of Christ that is confirmed in you.”

Therefore, Paul was aware that the Corinthians were making much of Christ to their proclaiming the truth of Christ to others and that message, or testimony of the grace they received was being noticed by others.

The news of their bold proclamation reached Paul’s ears and he was confirmed in knowing that as He proclaimed Christ, so they displayed such courage and faithfulness to the gospel as well.

It reminds me on this Father’s day the joy that a Father has to see his children walking in Christ, being faithful to what Christ commands.

John wrote of his spiritual children,

Paul was thankful to see those he had led to Christ now being faithful to pass the baton of the Christ-centered life outward.

He acknowledges that gospel message and an understanding of it are gifts to be thankful for.

He will address gifts later in the chapters but his point in 5-7 is that our richness in Christ includes gifting for the church.

Those gifts are bestowed for us as spiritual resources for His people to possess and use for the furtherance of the work of the church.

For example those gifts are referenced in the writings of Paul like in Romans 12:3-8