A Church Divided and the Grace of God | First Corinthians

Imagine an ancient city with the financial power of Wall Street, the cultural influence of Hollywood, and the moral compass of Las Vegas. Welcome to Corinth. In this kickoff to our year-long series through First Corinthians, Travis Aicklen unpacks the messy reality of a church that looked a little too much like the city around it. Plagued by cliques, petty squabbles, and deep dysfunction, the Corinthian church was fracturing from the inside out. Yet, instead of abandoning this divided community, the Apostle Paul leans in, addressing their chaos not with behavioral modification, but by pointing them relentlessly back to the grace of Jesus Christ and the unifying wisdom of the cross.

Main Points

• The Cultural Context of Corinth: Understanding the ancient city's wealth, influence, and notorious reputation for immorality (to the point that "to Corinthianize" meant to live wildly).
• Assimilation and Dysfunction: How the early church began to mirror the surrounding culture, leading to cliques, celebrity-pastor worship (Team Paul vs. Team Apollos), and petty divisions.
• Paul’s Radical Response: Why the answer to deep-seated church dysfunction isn't running away or relying on human wisdom, but returning to the foundational power of the Gospel.
• The Antidote to Division: Recognizing our own modern tendencies toward preference and disunity, and overcoming them by keeping Christ at the absolute center.

Biblical References

• 1 Corinthians 1:1-17
• Acts 18:1-11

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:39

Hey, after a summer of topical sermons, I'm excited to start marching through a new book of the Bible. I'm gonna read from 1 Corinthians chapter 1, starting in verse 1. Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and our brother Sosthenes, to the Church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, 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. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus, for in him you've been enriched in every way, with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge. God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there's quarrels among you. What I mean is this one of you says, I follow Paul, another I follow Apollos, another I follow Cephas, still another I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. So no one can say that you were baptized in my name. Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. This new series that we're starting this morning is gonna take us through the entire school year. So we'll start here in September and we'll be done in May, and we'll take a few breaks along the way. And I want to share with you kind of how the year is gonna stack up. We'll start where Corinthians starts in the first few chapters, talking about the power of the gospel and the wisdom of the cross. This is not a message we hear once and then move on from. This is a message that we come back to over and over again. This is the power of the gospel, and this is the wisdom of the cross. And this is a lens by which we're gonna read the entire book. So in every chapter, we're gonna be talking about the power of the gospel and the wisdom of the cross. We're gonna be asking the question with every issue we read what is the wisdom of the cross in this situation, and what's the foolishness of the crowd? This is a lens we'll wear the entire time. I'm really excited because in our packs in the fall, uh we're gonna come to 1 Corinthians 5, 6 and 7. And we're gonna get to talk about in small groups singleness, we're gonna get to talk about our marriage, we're gonna get to talk about our brokenness in this area, we're gonna talk about adultery and immorality. And more than talking about brokenness in this area of our sexuality, we're gonna get to talk about God's beautiful design for this area of our lives. So, excited that we'll get to process that. We'll come to Thanksgiving and we get we get to talk about two things. We'll get to talk about food and quarrels, which I can't think of like a better description of the holiday season than this is what you can eat, this is what you shouldn't eat, and this is what you should divide over and what you shouldn't disagree on. We'll go into the holidays and we'll have a Christmas series, and then we'll start our year backed by popular demand. We'll talk about how our jobs depend on ag, how we grow in Christ, how we mature. Um, and then we'll come to the month of February and we'll take on the famous love chapter in 1 Corinthians. Again, talking about the difference between the way the world defines love and the way that the scriptures define love. During the month of March, when we're in Easter, we get to talk about 1 Corinthians 15, which is an epic chapter on the hope that we have because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then in the months after Easter, post-Easter, when the church calendar is celebrating Pentecost, celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit, we get to talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The gifts that you have and hold and maybe are lying dormant. So we believe that the Holy Spirit's gonna activate gifts during the spring season, and we're gonna get to talk about those in our packs as well. We're gonna get to work those out. If you're here worried, feeling like, well, I've got to work these gifts out on this stage. No, you should work those gifts out in a small group. And honestly, the gifts are given not just for our meetings, but for the mission. So those gifts that God's given impact our Monday through Friday, not just what happens when we gather on Sunday. So the book will end by talking about money and a definition of masculinity, and then at the end of May, Memorial Day weekend, we'll head to celebration at Hume Lake. So that's it. That's our year in just a few minutes, and I'm pretty excited about it. So, why study this book? Um, just as simply as I can say it, we have a sense that God wants to mobilize this church to evangelize our city. It's nothing profound, it's always true, it's not just true this year, but we have a sense that this is what God wants to do. And we feel like this book is gonna help equip the church to reach our cities. And so we're excited about that. Um, and I want to start by introducing the book and then teaching those first 17 verses. So I was asking myself the question, because I I figured you'd be asking it as well, like why 1 Corinthians? What makes this book unique? Uh the Bible is actually not one book, but a collection of 66 books. And the events described in the Bible span over the course of around 4,000 years. It took 1,500 years just to record all the stories. Those stories are recorded in three different languages. We all, we believe that every one of them is inspired by the Holy Spirit. All of it's profitable, all of it's beneficial, so why study 1 Corinthians? What about this book is unique? And what do I think is going to happen? Well, the the first thing that makes the book of Corinthians unique in the Bible is that it's written to the church in Corinth. Right? It wasn't written to the church in Ephesus, that's Ephesians, and it wasn't written to the church in Thessalonica, that's Thessalonians, and it wasn't written to the church in Rome, that's Romans. So Corinthians has to do with a specific context, a specific city, and a specific situation, and that's what makes it unique. The city of Corinth was massively important in its day. A major city, most likely around 100,000 people in population, and that that was a massive city at the time. In his commentary, an expert on Corinthians, Gordon Fee, famously says this about the city. Paul's Corinth was at once the New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas of the ancient worlds, all three together. What he meant was that Corinth had the economic importance of a New York, a Wall Street. It had the cultural influence of a Los Angeles, a Hollywood, and it had the reputation for sin like a Las Vegas. What happens in Corinth stays in Corinth. It was known for pleasure and immorality to the extent that people in the ancient world had a phrase, and that was to Corinthianize. And it meant that something was wild and immoral. That to take something and to Corinthianize something was to take it and wreck it, to make it immoral and wild. So, similar to New York City, a lot of wealth in this port city, but we find out from the book that not many of those wealthy people are in the church. They're too busy trusting in money. And I wish I could tell you that all the things that marked the city of Corinth didn't mark the church, but when we read this book, we seem to, we see that the church struggled with many of the things that the city struggled with. It wasn't just that this church was in Corinth, Corinth was in the church. And there were some assimilation issues that Paul wants to address. Paul calls this church worldly and carnal because they're in the world and they're of it. Jesus said, Hey, I want you to be in the world, but not of it. This church is in the world and it's of the world. And so Paul will rebuke them for that. There's a couple ways in which our churches can become irrelevant. You can fall off one of two sides of the horse. One is we fall off into irrelevance when the church separates from the culture to the point where they have no contact anymore. The salt never touches the food. And we've definitely seen people separate and the church become irrelevant because they have no touch with culture. But there's another way the church can become irrelevant, which is to become so much like the culture that you no longer have anything to say to it. The salt loses its saltiness. Second thing that makes the book of Corinthians really unique is that Paul spent a considerable amount of time in Corinth. 18 months to plant this church, which to me, as a church planter, I'm 22 years here, and I'm like, yeah, I think I did it. I think I planted a church. Paul planted some of his churches in three weeks. What are you? That is wild. And a long stint is 18 months. And that's what he gave Corinth. And what you'll notice is that Paul feels very free to speak directly to them because he knows them. The niceties are over. You know when you have a new friendship and you're only three weeks in and those things aren't bugging you yet. You're still getting to know one another and you can easily overlook their issues. And then 18 months in, you're like, hey, you gotta cut it out. If we're gonna stay friends, you need to deal with that. You can't chew like that anymore, or else I'm not gonna go out to eat lunch with you. This is the way the conversation sounds in Corinthians. Like, hey, listen, we've been together for a while, and I just gotta shoot you straight. You gotta cut that out. You can read about the planting of this church in Acts 18. If you want the background of how this church was planted and when this church was planted, uh read Acts 18, 1 through 11. That'd be a great thing to do in your packs to get a glimpse of when it was planted. The third thing that makes this letter really unique is that this letter was a response. There's correspondence going on between Paul and the church at Corinth. And it makes it interesting because you don't get a sense that Paul's responding to questions when he writes Ephesians. Ephesians is like an address to the church. But what happens is Paul plants the church in Corinth on his second missionary journey, and then after 18 months he leaves Corinth. While he's on his third missionary journey, he writes a small letter that we no longer have to the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth responds to his small letter that we no longer have with another letter that we no longer have. Paul's response to a letter from the church in Corinth and the intel he receives from Chloe prompts him to write a letter, and that letter is 1 Corinthians. So it's really cool in some ways what's going on here, but know this, we only have half the conversation. There were questions asked, and we don't know the questions asked, but we do know probably what was asked based on Paul's response. Okay? In the first service, oh let's just do it again. Who are we gonna do it with? Matherly. Come on. Let's go. Up here, buddy. I'm gonna ask Brian a question. You won't hear the question, you'll hear his response, you'll guess my question. Yeah, you you you did it. You did it. You could be a biblical scholar. Dallas Cowboys. What was the question?

unknown 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Who's winning the Super Bowl? Okay, let me no, seriously, let me ask you a question. How do you know I asked him what his favorite sport team is or football team is? How do you know I didn't ask him who's gonna win the Super Bowl? Because he said Dallas Cowboys. So we just know. We're like, that's not, that wasn't the question. You guys did it. Thanks, Brian. So we read Paul's responses to these questions and they're much more thorough. And so we have a good idea of the question that was being asked or the issue the church was facing when Paul responded in these ways. It helps you make sense of the letter. What makes it unique is that it has a variety of topics. Like there's a wide range of issues discussed. Spiritual gifts and how you work together as a church, right? And then can you sue the person you're sitting next to? There's a wide range of things being discussed in this book. There's variety. And if you're here and you like variety, this is the book for you. If you're here and you like the menu at the Cheesecake Factory, this book's for you. I hate it. 40 pages of every food on the face of the earth. It's not it. But I know it is for others. I do, however, like a good QA at the end of an address. I like the address, I like what the speaker has to say, but I really like it when someone I look up to goes to a QA. I loved that part of seminary. Of course, there was content, but the best part of class, am I right? Is when it goes to QA. Especially if those are good questions, because there is such a thing as dumb questions. So that's how this book works. The reason there's a variety of topics being discussed is because it's Paul's response to a number of questions. It's like a QA with quite a bit of variety. The fifth thing that makes this book unique is its relevance for the 21st uh century. One scholar named Raymond Brown said if someone could pick only one letter from Paul, if you could pick only one letter from Paul, what letter would you pick? I mean, Ephesians has got to be a favorite. Philippians, Romans, I mean, these are incredible, incredible works. This scholar said if you could pick one, it should be 1 Corinthians. And this is quite a claim. And he says the reason for that is that 1 Corinthians is the most practical and relevant letter to the 21st century. No other letter in the Bible speaks to issues that we care about more than this one. So when you read Romans and when you read Galatians, you read it and you find yourself thinking, I don't think much about justification. In fact, I don't ever use that word, and I don't even know what that means. But then there's 16 chapters talking about our justification, and we wonder what the relevance of that is for us. And then we come to Galatians, and it's chapters on sanctification. Once again, who used the word sanctified this week? Me neither. Now, I did work to become more like Jesus. I did want to see the Spirit work in me to make me more like the Son. That's sanctification. But that's just not a word we use, and it's not a topic that we spend our time thinking about. Here are the topics discussed in 1 Corinthians. They're a little different than justification and sanctification, although all of them have to do with both of those things. Sex and sexuality, that's something you thought about this week. Singleness and marriage, that's something you probably should have thought about this week. Clicks in the church, disagreements over controversial issues, celebrity pastors, what happens when you die, the gifts of the Spirit, what to do with them today, how we define love is love, love, how to receive an offering, and what it means to be a godly man. Those are subjects that you most likely thought about or should have thought about this week. The sixth reason that this book is unique is that it's really uniquely screwed up. Like famous for all the wrong reasons, like notoriously dysfunctional is this church. Paul called himself chief among sinners, and definitely the Corinthian church is chief amongst sinning communities. When people come to you and they say, like, well, I just want to go back to the early church. I just, you know, I want to go back to the Bible, man, and do it the way they did it there. They're not talking about Corinthians when they say that. They're probably referring to one small chapter in Acts called Acts 2. But the rest of those letters expose quite a bit of dysfunction in the early church. The problems that they had were not small. We've all heard reports of churches arguing about really petty things like the carpet color. We're currently in an argument about the carpet color now. We're in a bigger argument about whether you should even be allowed to bring coffee in here because you're not trustworthy. Because if we allow you just to come in with your coffee, we'll be replacing the carpet again. So it's up to you. We can raise $40,000 again next year. We all know about petty arguments in church, and we've been a part of petty arguments. These aren't small petty arguments going on in 1 Corinthians. That's not what's happening here. They're massive. Listen to some of the issues. A prominent member in the church is sleeping with his stepmom and then he's bragging about it. He's not hiding it. He's high-fiving people because of it. And then the reason we think he wasn't kicked out of the church is because he was wealthy and they needed his tithe. So they looked the other way. Members getting drunk on communion wine, swiping all the communion bread before other members had a chance to get a piece. I mean, that's next level stuff right there. Let's just go back to the the way it was in the Bible. Okay, meetings with numerous people shouting over each other in competing tongues and prophecies. Sounds like a church you wouldn't want to invite your friends to, right? You're just like, man. But in chapter one, Paul addresses the main issue, and it's kind of surprising to me. I read it to you. The main issue that he's trying to solve with this book is interesting, because there's any number of major issues he could have taken on, but this is the main one he wants at through 1 Corinthians. I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there's quarrels among you. What I mean is this one of you says, I follow Paul. Another, I follow Apollos, another, I follow Cephas, still another, I follow Christ. This is the main issue that Paul wants at. It's what he wants to address. And if you're anything like me, you're thinking, really? Like disunity? Division? I mean, it sounds like you have bigger issues going on than cliques in the church. But here's the problem. Paul knows that the real problem is not problems. Because everything, even if it's in even if it's a healthy marriage, you're gonna have problems. Even if you have a healthy team, you're gonna have problems. If we have a healthy church, we're gonna have problems. The reason we have leaders is because we will always have problems. The real problem is when you can't agree that it's a problem and you can't agree that you need to approach the problem. That's the real problem in your marriage. You'll always have problems. When it becomes a real problem is when you and your spouse are not on the same page and have a different approach to the problem. Don't you get that he's after the issue, under the issue? The issue is that the whole church isn't going, that's a problem that you're sleeping with your stepmom. And we're not high-fiving about that. And it's a problem that we would look the other way instead of remove you from fellowship because you're a massive giver here in the church. That's the problem. And so Paul will work to create unity. This is, in fact, a problem. And the gospel and the wisdom of the cross addresses this issue, but you guys keep going the way of the crowd. Come back to the cross, come back to the gospel, agree that this is an issue. How many of you at your place of work? What's most frustrating is not that you have problems, but that your boss doesn't think it's a problem. And you're like, hey, hello down here. We got major issues. And he's like looking at the numbers, like, well, I think we're fine. And you're like, not fine. It's not fine down here. This isn't right. But you can't agree on what the issues are, and you can't agree on how to address those issues. That's the problem, and that's the thing that Paul wants at. Some are on Team Paul, Paul says, and he doesn't say thanks. Some are on Team Paul, and it's almost like he's trying to shake people from his team. He's like, I don't, I didn't even baptize you. Like, you're not even, I don't even know your name. You're not on my team. He's like, some of you are on Team Apollo, some of you on Team Cephas, which is Peter, some of you on Team Christ. Paul, as you know, is a genius. Whether you're a Christian or not, Paul's a genius. He's a converted Pharisee, very educated, with tremendous pedigree. He's white collar. He's brilliant. He wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament. He's a great thinker. Apparently, he's a bad speaker. Have you ever met that person before? It's surprising, huh? You're like, wow, you're brilliant. But when they give you a mic, something breaks down. Apparently, this is Paul. He's not eloquent. And the church in Greece loves their orators. And they're unimpressed with Paul's ability to speak. You're a great thinker. You write these killer letters, but then when it comes time to present and pull on the heartstrings, you can't do it. Paul was preaching to a group in Troaz, and he was preaching and went so long that someone fell asleep leaning in a window and fell out the window and died. That sounds like history class, right? It's what I tell myself when you fall asleep. I'm like, they did it to Paul, and Paul was brilliant, and you too are brilliant, Trav. They just don't know. And that's why they're falling out. You know who is a great speaker? You know who is gifted? Team Apollos. Corinth loved their debaters. Apollos is relevant. Apollos could draw a crowd. Apollos could illustrate those truths with stories that pulled on those heart strings. And at the end, people were asking for autographs, not falling asleep. And some are on Team Peter, and if you know anything about Peter, he's a fisherman. He's not white-collar. He didn't grow up the way Paul grew up. He's blue-collar. He's a doer. He's not a thinker, and he's not a talker. He's a doer. And he's tasked with building the church. He's got no PhD like Paul, and he wasn't a doctor like Luke. And then others are still, they're on Team Christ. And I know that in the past, when you've read 1 Corinthians, you're like, okay, that's the good one. That's the one I'm supposed to be on. You're like, yeah, that's my team, Team Christ. But this is actually the worst group of them all. Because they think they're superior to everyone else because it's just me and Jesus, and we don't need leaders. I don't follow Paul or Apollos. I follow Jesus. And they go out and they take pictures of the mountains and they say, This is my church on Sunday. And then they go to China Peak and they take photographs and they're like, This is my sanctuary. Here I am on the ski lift, just me and Jesus. And I don't deal with all this mess. Too spiritual for it. That same group claiming Christ was doing all the same things that the other groups were doing. And it was causing disunity in the church and causing the church to remain immature because they had withdrawn claiming Christ. I read this, and of course, we're speculating to some degree why people would pick these teams, but I don't think today it's any different. Even in this church, like there's Team Paul in this church. And Team Paul likes their pastors to be a theologian. And if I don't get this sermon right, I hear from Team Paul. Because they like purity. They don't just want the gospel to be effective, they want it to be pure. Because what the church believes is so important. Doctrine is so important. And it is. They're not wrong. Some of us are on Team Apollos. And we prize gifting. Charismatic church prizes charisma. Cultural relevance. People on Team Apollos like their leader to be well spoken. They want them to be engaging speakers. They want it to feel like a TED talk. They want the church to be relevant. They want the church to be culturally engaged. Paul's coming strong, but Apollos is winsome. He's winning people. And the church, the most important thing she can do for the team Apollos is reach culture and affect her. And Team Apollos wants me to be an influencer and an author. And then there's Team Peter. And Peter prizes action. He gets after it. Not primarily a thinker, not primarily a speaker, primarily a doer, primarily a leader. And he wants the church to be effective. Team Peter in this church is going, why are we even replacing the carpet when people are starving in the world? Like Nepal just flooded and we're raising money for carpet. Does anybody else see the problem in that? Team Peter is like, I like the stage the way it is. Why would we cover the wood with another wood? Waste our money. Let's get after it. I don't know why we're sitting here listening to sermons week after week, anyways. Let's make disciples. That's Team Peter. They like their leaders to be missionaries. And they prize the mission. And then there's Team Christ. Again, this is super interesting because they like their leaders to not be called leaders. Because they don't need a leader, they have Jesus. And they want their churches to be in homes, unspotted by all these institutional trappings that happen here. That it's not political, that they would just step back and be done with this because they love Jesus, but they don't love his bride. And Paul would say, not so fast. I'm not bailing on this mess, and neither are you. Together we're the body of Christ. And if you're going to grow into all God has for you, it's not going to happen on a ski lift at China Peak because you checked out. No, we're in this together. Paul's not saying here that you can't have a style. These guys, Paul, Peter, Apollos, Christ, they have the same message. The issue is not top-tier differences about things that matter. The issue is preference and style. And I don't think Paul's saying here that you can't have preferences and you can't prefer a style. You're here at this church because you prefer a certain style. And I don't think that's wrong. What Paul's saying is wrong because it causes disunity and immaturity in the church is that you would think you're superior to someone else in your style. That you would look down your nose at someone. Superiority is causing disunity and immaturity. Silos are causing disunity and immaturity. That you think you drink from just your stream. Every one of these streams can be yours. That's the point that Paul's made. He's like, you dingus, if you belong to Christ, you can have Paul, Peter, and Apollos. You don't have to pick. And so many people in the Christian tradition pick. I drink from this stream. This is my stream. And I reject all these other streams. They're misguided. No, you can actually drink from all of these streams. If you're in Christ, then you get to drink from all of these things. And the last thing he's after is people identifying. The thing that's bugging him the most is people who are saying, I'm of Apollos. And he's like, why would you ever say that? Don't identify with this click. You can have a style, you can have a preference. You know, it's okay to come into church and say, Oh, I wish they were leading worship. I love it when they lead worship. It's okay to come to church and think, I love it when that person speaks. It's helpful for me when they speak. It's okay to have a style. It's not okay to think that you're superior to everybody else who has another style. That creates disunity in the church. So this is the story of 1 Corinthians. The story's dysfunction and division. And this is the story in each one of our lives to some degree. Issues, things that we're sorting through, and people that we're having a hard time connecting with. To some degree or another, some of you are here and you're like, no, I some of you came in and you're like, I these people have problems, I get it. Like nobody's perfect and everyone has problems. But I have like real problems. Like sleeping with stepmom problems. These people have, you know, other issues, like where they're gonna eat lunch today. But I have issues, like real big issues. And you can walk into a room and go, I have massive dysfunction, and there's massive division in my life. I'm separated from people that I should be connected to, and it's the result of the issues that are in my life. So what do we do? What does Paul say to this church that has dysfunction and division? I don't know if you guys notice this, but ten times in the first ten verses, he says, Christ Jesus. And if you're new to church and you've got massive issues, the answer is always Jesus. And he makes it really clear to them. In fact, he says it. He says, I'm not counting on you guys to produce this change. I'm counting on Christ Jesus who is faithful and has given you grace. Ten times in the first ten verses, he says Christ. Fourteen times in the first 17 verses, he says Christ. The answer to your dysfunction and the division that you're experiencing in life is the grace of Christ and the cross of Christ. And that's what he emphasizes with this dysfunctional, divided church. The grace of Jesus Christ over your dysfunction and the cross of Jesus Christ over the division. This is so wild. Knowing what I just told you, you know very little about Corinth, I know very little about Corinth. But knowing what we now know, can I show you again how this letter opens? Because this is the grace of Jesus Christ. This church is met with kindness, and it's the kindness that's going to lead them to repentance. 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, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus, for in him you've been enriched in every way, with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge. God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He's going to keep you firm to the end, so that you're going to be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Is this surprising to anybody else, this little intro? Because it's surprising to me. And if I wrote this book, I'd be like, Dear Corinth. What's wrong with you? There's something deeply wrong with you. Seriously? No, seriously. Eighteen months together. I've talked to you about this multiple times. Don't. Just stop. Stop. Stop. Sincerely, Travis. Or, dear Corinth, as of today, you're no longer a church. You lost your church card. You misrepresented the name of Christ. Cut it out. You're done. Paul. I think it's incredible that Paul starts this letter by finding evidence of grace in the most difficult church he's dealing with. What's the most difficult situation you're dealing with right now? Like you don't know what to do? Who is the most difficult person in your life like you don't know what to do? And we could really quickly start in on what's wrong with them, what needs to be addressed, but few of us could find evidence of God's grace in the most difficult situation we're walking in. I challenge you to that. Find evidence. Spot God's call, God's grace, and Christ's cross at work. In the most difficult situation you're facing with the most difficult person you're facing. It's so easy. It requires nothing of us to spot what's wrong. It's so difficult. It's such a rewiring to find evidence of God's grace and the people that bother us the most. Last week I came home. I came home, I like came through the door. There's always a mountain of shoes. I don't know. We have five girls, we have 500 pairs of shoes. So I like step over the shoes, I look into the living room, I've got three kids on one couch, they're all on their phone. I think the morning and the afternoon cereal bowl is on the coffee table, and I'm just like, all right, everybody up. I flip on the lights in the room, get off your phone, do something. Homework, pretend like you're doing homework, pick up your cereal bowl, let's go. You unload the dish. I just went at it. Started in on everything I spotted right when I walked in the room, and it was easy. And then they all went upstairs. And Tiff's like, Where are the girls? And I was like, they're all upstairs on their phones, probably. And she's like, Well, what happened? And I was like, Well, I came in and this is what happened. And so I started in and she's like, Is that the first thing you said? And I was like, Yeah, it's the first thing I said. It was the first thing I saw. And she's like, You didn't ask them how their day was? And I was like, No, I don't care how their day was. They're like, Did you say hello? And I was like, No, I didn't even say that. I just launched in. Like this, I can spot what's missing. And it requires serious effort to see evidence of God's grace in the messy situations in our life, and then to have the courage to call it out. I mean, it would have felt phony if I was like, hey girls, how was your day? I'm like, uh inside, I'm like, I care nothing about your day. Like, I care that our house is thrashed and I care that you move now. Like, just pretend like you're doing anything. If God were to write a letter to you, how do you think it would open? Like, honestly, I know you know the right things to say. What would his first words be to you? Would he call out the good that he sees in you? Would he call out the evidence of his grace at work? Oh man, you're so gifted in so many ways. I mean, we'd like to think so. But I can tell you this, man, if I got a letter, I'm pretty sure it would open with some things that need to shift. I feel pretty comfortable with the idea of Christ challenging me. Spots the good in us and calls it out. This God who sees a smoldering wick and doesn't extinguish it but fans it in the flame. The God who sees a bruised reed and doesn't break it, but calls us forth and calls us out. The answer to our mess, the answer to our dysfunction is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And grace is unmerited favor, like we didn't do anything to earn it or deserve it. And it's very hard for us to get our heads around. Most of these men who stood up here, that was the revelation for the weekend. Most of us are performing, working, striving, wanting to earn. And God met us with his grace, and his grace, his unmerited favor, is no excuse to keep on sinning. It wrecks us forever. And we don't want to run back to those things. While I was at the mountain, I was helping lead it, and my back was going south. The last four mountains that I've led, my back's been out. And so there's long meetings where you're sitting, and so I'm kind of standing. Standing in the back, being this guy, you know, trying to find some relief. And I think in my head, I should ask for prayer. I should ask them to pray for my back. Because this is getting old. It's been two years of coming to these retreats with back pain. I should ask them. And then I had another thought, which was I can't do that. I haven't been doing the exercises that the physical therapist gave me. I've been eating like crap. The day before I left to come to the mountain, I did yard work, and I was told by the chiropractor not to do that. But I was so sick of my yard, I went at it. I'm only going to ask for prayer if I'm doing what the physical therapist told me to do eating, exercising, and refraining from doing yard work. And when I do those things, then I'll be eligible for God to bless this mess. And I'm the pastor, I know the answers. I know, I know this isn't right, but this is what's at work with me. I'm not eligible for God's grace. And so I just I raised my hand and I said, Will you guys pray for my back? And one of the guys who prayed said, God cares. Like he cares. He cares that this has been uncovered. Again, it was just so foreign. God cares about your situation. And I was like, no, God is saying, go to the physical therapist. I've heard him before. And he's saying you can't eat like that and live very long. That's what God says. And they were like, no, it matters. What's going on for you matters. It's just so difficult for us to get our heads around. Unmerited favor. Early in the life of the church, 2012, we're meeting in a building smaller than this one. We're working hard to put some systems in place. And I got this in the mail. It was a flyer trying to encourage me as a church to get my books in order. And it said, just because your heart is right with God doesn't mean your books are right with the IRS. Then it says, amazing. Many denominations, religious organizations, and churches could be in serious trouble. And then at the bottom, I don't know if you can see it, it says, God cannot bless a mess. And I read this and I'm all for having your books in order. Like, and I think a lot of churches need this message, but I couldn't think of a stupider line I've ever read in my entire life. Like, have you read your Bible? Read the book of Genesis and see if your takeaway from that is that God can't bless a mess. If God can't bless a mess, he doesn't have a job, like what else will he do? He has no choice. He gave us another option, and that was to do it well, and we can't. He has one option, and that's to bless a mess. And if you're playing this game of, well, I'm here on a Sunday and I'd love prayer, but if I need, I probably need to go four Sundays in a row to be eligible for prayer. I'd like to sit in the front, but you've got to work your way up to the front of the church through steady attendance, giving, and serving. Then you can be a first four-rower. Until then, I'll be back here. Like, you just play this game for years. For years. When is enough? Like, how many trips to the physical therapist? The answer to your dysfunction is not to get it together, but to touch the grace of God, which ruins you forever. Our world operates on a serious system of ungrace. And I just want you guys to know, because we don't just have the grace of Christ because Christ is like, no big deal. The grace of Christ is not God winking at sin. The grace of Christ is not God sweeping your sin under the rug. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is Him paying your debt on the cross. And it's the cross of Christ that is the answer to our division. This is what Paul would say. You weren't open to God, you weren't a seeker, you weren't a lover of God, you weren't near to God, you were the enemy of God. You wanted nothing to do with him. You hated God. And God, who is rich in mercy, made you an enemy of the cross. Someone who could come boldly into his presence. Not because he said, oh, don't worry about it, but because he paid our debt in full. And the cross of Christ dealt with the distance or the gap that was between us and God. And here's the point that Paul will always make. If the cross of Christ is enough to deal with what separates us from God, God and all his holy perfection here, and us here. If the cross of Christ can deal with the wall that divides us and the distance that we had, then the cross of Christ can surely deal with your horizontal issues. But we tend to think differently. Well, we're pretty close to God. We're a good person. We're not perfect, but we're a good person. There's a small gap between us and God, but man, there's a large gap between me and liberals. There's a large gap between me and my neighbor. There's a large gap in my family. These horizontal issues are insurmountable. And Paul would say over and over again, no, no, no. The thing that was insurmountable was your vertical issues. And if the cross of Christ can deal with these issues, can deal with this barrier, you better believe it can deal with this one. You better believe that you can be united with your neighbor. You better believe that you can get on with Team Apollos. You better believe you can get on with Team Peter. You better believe that this is just a small hurdle if God's dealt with this distance. Would you stand with me, worship team? Would you come? Some of the guys from the mountain are going to be up here ready to pray for you because God straight blessed our mess. He walked right into the things that we were looking to just close off and never wanted to share with anybody. And he met us in our dysfunction. And he dealt with the distance we felt with God and with other people through his forgiveness. And he's here this morning to make a way for you. And please don't play the game of like, well, I'm not quite in a place to receive prayer. No, you're you're right where you need to be to receive prayer. We'd love to stand with you and invite the grace of Christ into your dysfunction and the cross of Christ into the division you're experiencing in life. The table's open. When we come to the table, we're remembering the body of Christ broken so that we could be made whole. We're remembering his blood shed so that we could be washed clean. So we'll lift our voices and worship him. But more importantly, we don't just want to worship him with our lips. We want to worship him with our actions. So be obedient if he's prompting you to receive prayer. Like I said, these guys are not in a place of judgment. We've touched the grace of God for our lives. We know. We know the mess and we know that we're loved. So, Spirit of God, I want to ask that you would help us as we go through the book of 1 Corinthians. Would you help us to receive the grace of God? Would you help us to understand the wisdom of your cross? That you delight to show mercy. It's not something you have to do, it's something you want to do. It's something you've decided you'll do. Pour out. Pour out on us, we pray. Amen.