We're almost starting a series in James this morning.
In fact, some of you might have come this morning expecting a series in James.
And James is a great book.
I, I have no qualms with James.
I'm not like Luther.
I don't think it's, uh, an epistle of straw.
I don't think he's disagreeing with Paul, any of that.
Uh, James is great.
We'll get into James eventually.
But I pushed back and I started to think, "Okay, what does our
church really need, though?
What do we really need at this moment?"
Y- you may know, but, uh, August 6th, uh, that happened this last week, was
our, our third anniversary as a church.
So again, 9:00 didn't clap at all for that.
You guys are, are the winners.
Good job.
Uh, yeah, it's 30 anniv- three years ago.
Three years ago, August 6th, we opened our doors.
We were down in Frisco.
But we'd even been meeting before that.
We were meeting at Frisco First Baptist Church, and we were in
a, a portable, and there were sometimes 25 of us in that portable.
But I started thinking, three years into this, what, what do we really need?
And I think a lot of ways we're, we're doing well as a church.
Like I said, we started in a portable with about 25 people.
We're, we're running, you know, two services now, and God's continuing to
grow us, and He's bringing more people here, and the Word is being preached, and
we've got community groups launching, and we've got student ministry happening, an
adventure club, and we've got all these good things happening, and baptisms.
And this is all really good.
There's nothing wrong with any of that But I started to wonder, okay, but are we as
healthy as, as God really wants us to be?
If we're not just gonna be here for three years, but for 30 years or for 300 years,
if the Lord waits, then what does it look like for us to be a church that's ready
for everything that God wants us to do?
I started to wonder, are, are we the church that God wants us to be?
Are we doing the thing God wants us to do?
Are we not doing something that we should be doing?
What should we look like as the church?
It was those questions and that desire, a- along with some conversations with our,
our other pastors, that led me to say, "Okay, what we really need right now is
we really need the Book of 1 Corinthians."
The Book of 1 Corinthians, this is at least the second of four letters that
Paul wrote to the Corinthian church.
Uh, we know that because in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, he references, "In the
letter that I wrote to you previously."
Now, we've got 2 Corinthians, and so if you're looking in your, your
Bible for 3 and 4 Corinthians, and you don't see it, don't worry.
You don't have to throw your Bible out.
It's okay.
We don't have those letters, and that just reminds us that God has
preserved for us in the canon those books that he wants us to have.
And so we don't have every letter that Paul wrote.
We don't have every letter that Peter wrote.
We don't have every letter that James wrote, for that matter.
We have the letters that God wants us to have as they were preserved,
as the church circulated them amongst themselves, as they began to be
recognized as th- this is from Paul.
This is authoritative, and so it got sent from the church in Corinth to the church
in Colossae to the church in Ephesus to the church in Philippi a- and this began
to be circulated around all the churches because there's information in here that
God wanted all the churches to know.
And so this is likely the second of four letters that Paul wrote
to this church in Corinth.
The church in Corinth was founded by the Apostle Paul, and we read
about that in Acts chapter 18.
On Paul's second missionary journey, he came to Corinth, which is located at the,
the mouth of what's now modern-day, uh, southern Greece, a region called Achaia.
Paul came there in Acts chapter 18, and he met two people, one Pris- Priscilla
or Prisca sometimes, and another, Aquila, that were already there, and
Paul joined forces with them, and from that union came the Corinthian church.
We read about it in Acts 18 verse 7 and following.
It says, "Paul left there and went to the house of a man named
Titius Justus, a worshiper of God."
His house was next door to the synagogue.
Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together
with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians, hearing
Paul, believed and were baptized.
And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, "Do not be afraid,
but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no
one will attack you to harm you.
For I have many in this city," that is, in the city of Corinth, "who are my people."
And Paul stayed there a year and six months, teaching
the Word of God among them.
So that's the, the foundation.
That's the genesis.
That's where this church came from, is Paul, Priscilla, Aquila doing the
work in the ministry there in Corinth.
In fact, Silas and Timothy join Paul there a little bit later as well.
But the reason for Corinth is because it was a, a strategic city.
This is a, a map of that region, the Mediterranean region there, and
right in the middle of that map in that red box is the city of Corinth.
Now, you'll … Just to get your bearings, on the left side of the map
is the Italian boot there, and, and Rome is up in the left corner of that map.
Over on the right edge of the map there is the region that we know as Israel.
And so that's the, the Mediterranean Sea there, so over on the bottom
right there, you'll see Mount Hermon, and you'll see Beit She'an.
That's Israel.
And so Corinth is kinda right there in the middle of the map.
It's located right there.
It's in southern Greece.
And when we get in even closer on this map, we're just zooming into Corinth
now, it was so strategic because of what was going on geographically here.
And so Corinth had access to these two harbors.
You'll see one there on the right and one on the left.
And so Corinth really helped control the sea trade in the Mediterranean region
there, especially for southern Greece.
But it wasn't just the sea trade.
You'll notice that Corinth is right there at the mouth of that isthmus,
and that opens up into southern Greece.
So Corinth not only controlled the sea trade, but it also controlled
the land trade for all of southern Greece, the region of Achaia.
And so all of that led Rome to say, "This is a significant city."
Rome had conquered Corinth ba- back in, in 144 BC, or 146
BC rather, and, and rebuilt it in 44 BC as a Roman colony.
And one of the reasons they rebuilt it is because of its strategic position.
They said, "Hey, we need to have something here that's gonna be a, a capital city
of this region," and that became Corinth.
And so Corinth was a, a strategic city.
Its population that, that was there around Paul's time was probably around
80 to 100,000 people, give or take.
And so Paul was, was ministering in and amongst these other, uh,
Christians that were there, Priscilla, Aquila, and some other people,
but they had a, an uphill battle.
And the reason they had an uphill battle was because this area was also
littered with a, a lot of pagan temples.
And so the city of Corinth, they found, uh, the, the, uh, archeological
ruins of temples devoted to Aphrodite and to Apollo and to Poseidon and
to Hermes and to Heracles and to Athena, among many other gods.
Beyond that, there was also the worship of the emperor.
The imperial cult had a strong hold and a strong grip there in Corinth.
Outside of the idolatry, the other thing that was going on in, in
Corinth was that the city was known for its rank sexual immorality.
In fact, the ancient Greek comic, uh, Aristophanes once coined a
term, that is, to Corinthianize.
To Corinthianize was to commit sexual immorality.
This is the, the city, this is the region, this is the place where
the Corinthian church was founded.
A- a- and this is the place into which Paul was going to write, and, and
some of the things contextually that prompted this letter, uh, were that
he had already written to them once about some of that sexual immorality.
See, some of the sexual immorality was beginning to, to creep its way
into the church, and we're gonna see that, that they still had some
lingering when we get to chapter 5.
And Paul was writing to them a- a- against that, saying, "Hey, this is,
this is who you should be in Christ.
You shouldn't be doing these things."
So he's writing for that reason.
But he's also writing because, as we find out in verse 10 of chapter
1, that somebody there named Chloe and her people, it says, reported
to Paul saying, "Hey, Paul, the, the church is beginning to split.
Some people over here saying that, that they love Paul, and others over, over here
saying they love Apollos, and some people are saying, 'Well, we love Cephas.'"
And so she's writing, and her people are writing, saying, "Hey, Paul, we need
you to, to correct this divisiveness that's taking place here in the church."
Outside of that, the, the church had written and asked Paul
to weigh in on some things.
Chapter 7, Paul's gonna say, "Hey, regarding the matters
with which you wrote to me."
So there are a lot of people that believe that chapter 7 all the way
through chapter 14, if not chapter 15, are Paul answering the questions
of these Corinthian believers.
So in chapter 7, they're saying, "Hey, r- regarding marriage and
divorce and singleness, how should we think about these things now
that we're following Jesus?"
Uh, chapter eight, "Hey, Paul, all of these idolatrous temples are here.
What do we do?
W- we go to the market to buy our groceries, and the food, the meat that's
there was first sacrificed to idols.
Paul, can you give us some wisdom?
What should we do with that?
Some of us are okay with it, others aren't."
Chapter 10, "Hey, hey, Paul, uh, uh, the, the Lord's Supper, I know we're
supposed to do it, but it's, it's really begun to become a source of division
in the church because some people are showing up and they're eating a lot,
and then others with less are showing up and there's not much for them left over.
Can you weigh in on that for us?"
Chapter 11, chapter 12, get into spiritual gifts in chapter 12, "Hey,
Paul, ca- can you help us understand these things called spiritual
gifts, how we should utilize them?
What's the proper way?
What gifts should we be practicing?
What, what should we be pursuing and, and how should we do this?"
"Hey, Paul, can, can you help us understand loving each other?"
Chapter 13, "Can, can you help us understand what it looks like?
What is biblical love?
Because we've got this Temple to Aphrodite here that's talking about
a love that we know we shouldn't have, that we shouldn't be pursuing.
What does biblical love look like, Paul?"
Chapter 15, "Hey Paul, can you give us some insight into the bodily resurrection?
Because when we talk about that with some of the other people in Corinth here, they
look at us like we're crazy to think that there's gonna be a bodily resurrection.
Are we crazy, Paul?"
And so this is a lot of why Paul wrote.
This is a lot of why Paul wrote.
But why 1 Corinthians for us then?
I mentioned we're three years in.
We wanna make sure that we're a healthy church, that we're ready to be what
God wants us to be And it's kind of ironic that in r- studying a letter
written to one of the, the most, I don't know, out of line churches in
the, the New Testament, y- you've got 1 Corinthians is a pretty strong letter.
Galatians is a pretty strong letter, too.
But, but this is not a church that we would grade highly as far as how
they're doing in, in pursuing the Lord.
A- and so it's a little bit ironic that we're gonna look to
this letter to say, "This is what a healthy church looks like."
But really, I think it, it does make sense, doesn't it?
Because Paul's writing to say, "Hey, this is where you're at.
This is where you should be."
And so thankfully, I'm here to tell you I don't think we're where the Corinthians
were at, but I also wanna make sure that we're, we're where we should be.
And so as we study this book together, we're gonna find out
about the power of the gospel.
We're gonna be called to unite together, to not be divisive, to not
be split up into different factions.
We're gonna find out about purity and why purity is so
important to the bride of Christ.
We're gonna find out about marriage and divorce and singleness in the
church and what that looks like.
We're gonna talk about freedom in Christ and Christian liberties, and
how do I make sure that I love my brother or my sister in Christ, the
weaker brother, the stronger brother?
How do I navigate all of those things?
We're gonna talk about getting into the, the, the Lord's Supper and what's
the purpose of it and why do we do it, and how should we approach it?
We're gonna talk spiritual gifts.
What's still operative?
What's the purpose of them?
How do we pursue them?
What should we be looking for in this?
We're gonna talk about the, the idea of the, the bodily resurrection of Christ
and why that's our hope as Christians, as followers of Jesus, and, and why
that's the, the thing that we're here to gather to, to celebrate e- every single
Sunday morning that we show up together.
And so this book is gonna be formative for us.
It's gonna be super practical in some areas, and it's gonna be
doctrinal other areas, but at the end of it, it's really gonna help
us make sure that we are a, the, the church that truly belongs to Christ.
We are the, the bride of Christ, that we are Christ's church, and 1 Corinthians
is gonna be instrumental for us in that.
So this morning, I just want us to look at the first three verses together.
The first three verses are gonna be up on the screen.
Let me read them for us.
It says this: Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus,
and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who
in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and
ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In these first three verses, Paul greets the church, and he defines the church.
In fact, this is the, the most robust definition of the church that we find in
any of the openings of Paul's letters.
A lot of times, Paul will greet the church and say, "To the church in,"
"To the church of Jesus Christ," or, "To the saints in Christ," or to…
those things.
But what he does, especially in verse two, which is gonna be the meat of
our time together this morning, is he expands upon what he means by the
church and really gives us a firm understanding of what the church is.
And so that's why this morning, that's what we're here to do.
We're here to ask and answer the question, what is it?
What is the church?
If we're gonna be a healthy church, we first need to stop
and say, "What is the church?"
And this is not gonna be exhaustive.
There's a lot of other things we could say about what the church is, but this
is gonna be transformative for us to, to really get down to the nuts and
bolts and say, "Okay, if nothing else, we need to make sure that we have an
understanding of these three things that Paul's gonna lay out for us in
verse two about what the church is."
But first, his greeting, and it's related here.
His greeting.
He says in verse one, "Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of
Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes
Paul introduces himself as an apostle.
He does this as well in 2 Corinthians, in Romans.
He does it in Galatians, in Ephesians, in 1 and 2 Timothy.
He does it in Titus.
He, he does it in Colossians.
But he doesn't always do it.
Other times, he writes saying, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ."
But this time what he's doing is, is he's appealing to his a- his apostleship
because his apostleship carried authority.
A- an apostle was, big A, an apostle was an eyewitness to the
resurrected Jesus Christ, and commissioned by Christ to do his work.
That's why today, y'all, there are no more official big A apostles.
Okay?
The word apostle comes from a Greek word that means sent one.
And so in a sense, we could all say that we are lowercase A apostles.
We have been sent with the gospel message to reach the lost.
But we don't say that we are apostles with the authority that Paul is
saying he is an apostle here.
Now, Paul was not one of the original disciples, one of the
original followers of Jesus.
In fact, Paul was a persecutor of the church until Acts chapter 9,
he's knocked off his donkey and Jesus shows up to him and says,
"Paul, why are you persecuting me?"
Paul says, "Who are you, Lord?"
And Jesus says, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."
And so this is the moment that Paul becomes the apostle because he has an
encounter with the resurrected Jesus, and then is commissioned by Jesus with
the authority as an apostle to do the work that Christ has for him to do.
And so that's why Paul begins this letter saying, Paul, a-
an apostle of Christ Jesus.
He is an apostle by the call of God, through the will
of God, for the Son of God.
That's what he says here.
I'm an apostle by the call of God, through the will of God, for the Son of God.
Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.
Why is this authoritative introduction necessary?
Well, because Paul's gonna write with a lot of correctives for this church,
a lot of saying, "Hey, here's where you're at, here's where you need to be."
And so he's laying the groundwork for why they should hear him out on this,
why they should heed what he has to say.
But the other reason is, is because Paul has to make a little
bit of a defense for himself.
We're gonna find out in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 that some of the people
there were judging Paul as inferior, as not worthy of, of being the
one to have the authority to, to guide them and, and lead them.
In fact, even in chapter 9, he has to defend himself so much he, he
says this in 1 Corinthians 9:1.
He says, "Am I not free?
Am I not an apostle?
Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?
Are you not my workmanship in the Lord?
If to others I'm not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the
seal of my apostleship in the Lord."
In other words, he's appealing to this Corinthian church, to
the Corinthian believers there, saying, "I, I, I helped found you.
I planted you.
Like if to anyone I'm an apostle, I'm an apostle to you
because of my history with you."
And so Paul begins with this authority to, to greet the church here, to
say, "I, I, I'm an a- an apostle," again, "by the call of God, through
the will of God, for the Son of God."
And then he also says, "And, and by the way, there's this guy Sosthenes with me."
We're not entire- entirely sure who Sosthenes is, but it's, it's possible,
if not likely, that we do read about him back in Acts chapter 18 'Cause after the
crowds stirred everybody up and, and, and were looking for Gallio, the, the Roman
official there, to do something to, to get rid of Paul because he was causing
people to turn away from the idols and everything, uh, the, the Roman guy there,
Gallio, said, "No, I'm not gonna do this.
I'm not gonna get involved in all of this."
And then what did they do?
They turned and they grabbed a guy who's connected to the synagogue there, whose
name was Sosthenes, and they brought him out in front of Gallio, and they beat him
there in front of Gallio, thinking that that would cause Gallio to do something.
Well, it didn't.
But it's likely possible Paul's writing to the Corinthian church there from Acts
18, and he references now Sosthenes.
Wouldn't that be cool of God to take the guy that all of a sudden was drug
in there and beaten there and, and say, "Hey, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna save you,
and you're gonna do ministry with Paul"?
Maybe.
Aside from that, we don't really know who this guy is, but the Corinthian church
did, and that's why Paul used him there.
Paul's establishing this, and he's establishing his authority, but he's qui-
quickly gonna get off of his authority now to then get to God's authority.
Pick up in verse two.
He says, "To the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every
place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours."
Paul's definition of the Church here is really not Paul's definition
of the Church, but rather it's God's definition of the Church.
Our big idea this morning is this: God is the one who gets to define this
place, what this is, what we're doing.
God gets to define the Church, and that's what he does for us here through the pen
of Paul in verse two of 1 Corinthians.
And so as we get into verse two of 1 Corinthians, we begin with
this opening phrase, "To the Church of God that is in Corinth.
To the Church of God that is in Corinth."
Let's just stop there for just a second.
The Church of God.
Prepositions matter.
In 1 Thessalonians 1:1, uh, we read this, "Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to
the church of the Thessalonians in God."
Okay?
The church of the Thessalonians in God.
Similar in F- Philippians 1:1, we read this, "Paul and Timothy, servants of
Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi."
But to the church in Corinth, he writes, "To the Church of God at Corinth."
Uh, the reason this matters is because that preposition
is communicating something.
It's small, but it comes from the, the original language there in the Greek.
It's in a, a case that suggests that this is a possessive word, the
Church of God, meaning this is God's church, is what Paul is saying here.
So as Paul opens up with this authoritative statement about his identity
as an apostle, he transitions to the true authority, which is the authority of God
over the church, to the Church of God.
In other words, that, that this is not Paul's church, that this is not the,
the church of, of anyone else, but this is God's church, and it belongs to him.
Point number one this morning, if you're taking notes, is this:
recognize the Church belongs to God.
Recognize this reality, that the, that the Church belongs to God, and it does.
It, it comes from this first preposition that we find here, to
the Church of God, that it's his.
The church as an institution belongs to the one who instituted it.
Paul's gonna build on this in 1 Corinthians 3:9.
He's writing, remember, to a group of people that were beginning to
say, "Well, I, I'm of Apollos.
I'm of Paul.
I'm of Cephas."
In other words, they're, they're saying, "I love Cephas' church.
I love Paul's church.
I love Apollos' church."
Not exactly, but that's the idea there.
And so this is one of the reasons why Paul begins by saying, "Hey,
first, let's get things straight.
This is the church not of Paul.
This is not the church of Apollos.
This is not the church of Cephas.
This is the Church of God.
This is the church that belongs to him."
And so in 1 Corinthians 3:9, he's gonna say similarly, "For
we are God's fellow workers.
You are God's field.
You are God's building."
You belong to him.
He is the one.
He is the Lord over the church.
In Acts 20:28, we read here, it says, "Pay careful attention," Paul
is speaking to the Ephesian elders there that care for the church there.
"Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy
Spirit has made you overseers to care for the Church of God," there's our phrase
there, "to care for God's church, which he, God, obtained with his own blood."
And so God bought this place, this church, and every church through the blood of
Jesus Christ, so it belongs to him.
It belongs to him.
It doesn't belong to a pastor.
It doesn't belong to a congregation.
It doesn't belong to a denomination.
The Church belongs to God in its purest form
That means, y'all, that even though I may have the title lead pastor,
senior pastor, whatever you wanna call me, uh, that doesn't mean that
I get to decide what the church is.
In other words, I can't stand up here next week and tell you, "You know what?
I was thinking about it this week, and, uh, because I'm the lead pastor of the
church, I'm, I'm gonna decide that we're not gonna preach the Bible anymore.
Instead, we're gonna preach Aesop's Fables
In fact, if I do that, somebody who's bigger and stronger than me, which is
not hard to find in the room, just come pick me up and just carry me out and have
Pastor Rod come up and finish the sermon
And he should preach a different sermon than whatever I had there.
I can't do that 'cause it's not my church, right?
And, and just like that, I, I also can't step back and go, "You know what?
I'm gonna decide on, on the doctrine that I want to believe in because
the doctrine that the Bible lays out for me, that God has given me to,
to follow as part of God's church, I don't like some of this 'cause the
culture doesn't really like it, so I'm gonna set that aside and not do it."
So in other words, "Next week I'm gonna announce to you that we're no longer
gonna be complementarian, but we're gonna just have women pastors because I
just wanna change what the Bible says."
I also can't stand up here next week and, and tell you, "You know what?
It's really hard to share the gospel, isn't it?
It gets really awkward to talk about sin, doesn't it?"
So from here on out, the gospel doesn't have to mention sin.
All you have to do is go tell people how much God loves them, that He loves
them just the way they are, that He, He cares for them, and, and you know what?
You don't have to change anything about your life.
Just add a little Jesus into your life and you're gonna be good.
I can't stand up here and tell you that next week because the gospel's not mine.
Doctrine isn't mine.
The Word of God isn't mine.
This church is not mine.
It's His.
The church does not belong to a pastor or a group of pastors.
This is not the church of Pastor PJ or Pastor Rod or Pastor
Marc or Louis or any of us.
It doesn't belong to the congregation.
It doesn't belong to the, the person here who's the squeakiest wheel in the room.
It doesn't belong to the loudest among us or the wisest or the
smartest or the richest among us.
The church doesn't belong to anyone who has the, the most
degrees behind their name.
It doesn't belong to the person who's the most popular or the most friends.
The church here belongs to God.
It's His church.
Now, God has tasked the elders of the church, the pastors of the church,
with leading the church, and so we do that faithfully, but we do that as the
under-shepherds of the Chief Shepherd.
We always do that saying, "Lord, we wanna lead the way that you want us to lead.
We wanna go, Lord, where you want us to go."
We can be so prone to getting comfortable with the way thing, w-
we, we like things the way they are.
We don't, we don't always like change, do we?
I went to a, a serve at a church after seminary that had been around for a long
time, and, uh, a- any time you go into a church that's been around for a long time,
there, there are what's known as sacred cows, things that you, you better not,
you better not touch this thing because you're gonna be in a whole lot of trouble.
Well, I was young, and I was impetuous, and, and, uh, Christmas time came
around, and all of a sudden, right center stage, they put up one of the
most gaudy, tacky nativity scenes that I've ever seen in my entire life.
Like, it put Hobby Lobby Jesus to shame.
It is that level, okay?
And I was sitting there going, "Why, why is that there?"
And so I, I led a little bit of a revolt to remove the, the nativity.
Well, you would have thought I changed the name of the church
to First Muhammad Baptist Church
It became a thing because this is their church, don't change…
Now, I, I played a part in that.
I was foolish, I was young, admittedly.
But what, what caused the conflict was the mentality, even my own mentality,
right, of saying, "This is my church.
I want things to be the way I want them to be."
No church is my church.
It's God's church.
Listen, l- l- let me put it this way.
We want every single one of you to have a sense of ownership in this church,
but to also acknowledge this, that none of us, none of us own it, okay?
So we all want a sense of ownership in what we're doing.
Buy-in.
We wanna be in the mission, reaching people for Christ, teaching people
f- uh, to, to be like Christ and, and training people to serve Christ.
We all want to own that.
We want to own l- loving one another and serving one another and being
in community with one another.
We wanna own that, but also to recognize that, that none
of us actually own the church.
God does.
It's His.
This is the bride of Christ.
And so we all want the mentality that says, "Lord, whatever it looks
like then, for us to be a faithful lampstand that's gonna be effective in
reaching people for Christ, teaching people to be like Christ, and training
people to serve Christ, so be it.
Let's go."
And so what that might mean for you is that maybe you're gonna
be asked to serve the church in a way that isn't your top choice.
And for you to be able to say, "Okay, but it's not my church, it's God's church.
And if this is how I can help God's mission in God's church, then so be it.
Let me do it."
Or maybe what that's gonna look like for you is, is we're shifting from one
service to two services now and, and you sit there and you go, "Yeah, but
I liked it better with one service.
I liked my church that way."
Okay, but wait a minute, it's not my church.
It's, it's God's church.
Or maybe that's gonna look like you saying, "Okay, I, I
like the size of our church.
I hope we don't get too big because I really like the smaller church.
I don't like the big church."
But God, it's your church, it's not my church
Or maybe you're going, "I wanted to study James, not 1 Corinthians."
But God, it's, it's your church, not my church.
I, I promise you that your shepherds, your pastors, your elders, we don't
sit together on Tuesdays and, and rub our hands together and be like, "How
can we make life miserable for them?
What can we do to really just make them uncomfortable or frustrated?"
I know you trust that.
And so hopefully that, that any time, and, and stick around long enough and,
and I will make a decision or one of your ministry leaders will ma- will make
a decision or, or Pastor Rod will sing a song and you'll be like, "I, I don't
like that one," or, "I, I didn't like that decision Pastor PJ made," or, "I
didn't really agree with this over here."
But listen, at the end of the day, if you can extend the grace to us to believe
that we are seeking to shepherd the, the, the flock, that we are seeking to
pursue what God has for us because we recognize that we are under shepherds
to the chief shepherd, and that, that this place first and foremost before it
belongs to anyone else belongs to him.
And so we're here to serve him.
We could open up this letter by reading, "This is God's church," to
Compass Bible Church, the Church of God that is in Prosper, Texas See,
we're not built on a, a personality.
We're not built on a denomination.
We're not built on personal preferences here.
We're here as Christ's church to do Christ's work by accomplishing Christ's
mission, and that looks like us saying, "God, it's not mine, it's yours."
So this is God's church, and we recognize that, but then as that continues, what,
one of the things that that means is that if this is God's church, then God gets
to define what the church really is, who makes up the church, and that's where we
go next in the second part of this verse.
He says this, "To those sanctified in Christ Jesus."
To those sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Uh, this is Paul continuing his argument, continuing his thought.
This is in a separate subset, so he's not saying, "To the church of God in
Corinth, oh, and also to those that are sanctified in Christ Jesus."
Rather, what he's doing is he's saying, "To the church of God in Corinth, namely
those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus."
So he's further explaining for us what it is to be part of the church, and that
is to be sanctified in Christ Jesus.
It's no shock that, that I love the Texas Rangers.
I bleed blue and red and, and I, I would love to be able to go to every
single one of their, their games.
It's really impractical for me.
I can't do that.
But e- even if I could, let's say I did that for the next 30 years, went
to every single Rangers game, home game at least, and I cheered them on, and
I stayed the whole time, and I wore all of the swag, and I knew all of the
stats and everything else, and I even met the players because I was the most
diehard fan, and they gave me an award.
Guess what I still wouldn't be?
A Texas Ranger.
I'd be a fan of the team, but I wouldn't be on the team.
And so just being around the team, just being around something, being
at an event, doesn't mean that, that I'm part of it necessarily.
And so Paul zooming in on this kinda concept, this idea there, his second
trait of the church that we need to understand and we need to see is this.
We need to see that the church consists of Christians, and I don't
mean Christians the way that our world uses Ch- the word Christians.
I mean those that are truly in Christ, those that are genuinely
saved So he says to those that are sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Again, not a, a new subset, but continuing his understanding,
his explanation of the church.
The church are full of those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Sanctified, the word there, is, is a, a passive participle, which just means this.
It means that it was, it was a, a past event that has ongoing effects.
So it's a, a perfect tense.
So it's a past event, something that happened, that still
has ongoing effects today.
A- A- And so here's what it means that he says that we are
sanctified in Christ Jesus.
At the moment of conversion, there are, are two things that happen, okay?
One of them is known as our justification.
To be justified is to be forensically declared, not just not guilty,
but righteous, innocent with the righteousness of Christ.
That is a moment in time event.
It happens one time, period.
You are declared righteous.
You believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
You repent from your sins.
You are justified in Christ, okay?
Also, concurrent with that, at the same time, is this concept of sanctification.
To be
sanctified i- is a, a process, in a sense, but there is a, a moment in time
sanctification that Paul has in mind here, and that's why it's in the past tense.
At the moment of conversion, you are not only justified, but you are sanctified.
To be sanctified means this.
It means to be set apart to be used by God.
So you are what we call positionally sanctified when you come to faith
in Jesus Christ as your Savior.
You are justified.
You are righteous in Christ.
You are no longer guilty.
You are innocent.
You are going to heaven because of the righteousness of Christ.
But at the same moment, you have been set apart, sanctified, to be used
now by the Lord in service of Him.
Positional sanctification.
Uh, this is similar to what we found in the, the Old Testament with the temple.
So in the temple, there would have been vessels that were
consecrated or sanctified to be used for the worship of God.
And so those vessels were made, and then they were set apart as holy
to the priests, and they would only use those vessels to worship God.
And so the priest, it's not like he would be at home an- and grab a cup off
the counter and walk into the temple with this cup off the counter and say,
"Oh, it doesn't matter if I use this cup from the counter to worship the Lord
and pour out a drink offering, 'cause I just brought it with me from home."
He wouldn't do that.
Why?
'Cause the cup is common.
It's not holy.
It's not sanctified.
It's not meant to be used by God Similarly, he wouldn't at the end
of his shift go, "Oh, you know what?
I'm pretty thirsty.
Let me just grab the cup that has the drink offering, and let me
dri- take it home with me and use it by my bed stand as I'm falling
asleep tonight to take my pills."
Why wouldn't he do that?
Because that cup was meant to be used in service of the
Lord, not for common things.
When you come to faith in Christ, you are set apart now.
You are now categorically different, but not just categorically different,
you are functionally different now.
And this is why this point matters, 'cause you might be thinking, "W- well,
why does it matter that we define the Church as just consisting of Christians?"
The reason is, is because we may have in this room, let's say, 110 people in the
room, but that doesn't mean that all 110 people in the room are part of the Church.
You may be at church, you may be in church, but unless you are in
Christ, you are not the Church.
And again, you might say, "Well, why does that matter?
Why make that distinction?
That s- just seems overly harsh to press in on that because it seems
like you're excluding some people."
But that's what, what Paul is doing here by defining this, and here's why.
Here's where it turns.
Because it, it's this: the true Church are those that God has saved
in order to accomplish His mission.
And so the only people that can effectively accomplish the mission
of Christ are those that are in Christ, those that are truly
saved, those that are the Church.
And so that's why Paul is writing to the Church saying, "Hey, I'm calling
you to do something, and if you're not in Christ, everything that I'm
writing here in 1 Corinthians, you're not gonna be able to do any of it.
So instead, I'm gonna define who I'm talking about here.
I'm about to write about not being divisive, about being pure, about using
your gifts in a good way, about not causing a brother to stumble, about
what marriage and singleness looks like.
I'm writing about all that stuff, and I'm writing to you who have been
set apart to be useful to God, and I'm writing to you to say, 'This is
how you should be useful to God.'"
And so he's defining the Church, those that are there to accomplish
Christ's mission, Christ's Church about Christ's mission.
So maybe you're, you're wondering then, "So then does that mean,
Pastor PJ, that, that unbelievers aren't welcome on Sunday mornings?"
Not a chance.
I want unbelievers here.
I, I want them here.
I want them under the Word.
I want them seeing the community here.
I want them hearing these sermons, and though they may not understand the
sermons, I want them seeing what's so beautiful about the Church together,
gathering every single week together, that they would say, "I want what you have
That said, I will unapolog- unapologetically tell you that
Sunday mornings are always going to be for Christians.
We gather as the church for the church to equip the saints
for the work of the ministry.
So as I prepare my sermons, am I thinking about an unbeliever?
Yes, but not m- the majority of my time.
The majority of my time when I'm preparing my sermons, I'm thinking of you.
I'm thinking about where you're at and what you're facing and how best
to equip you so that as you have been sanctified, set apart to be useful to
the Lord, you will leave this place more equipped, better equipped to
serve the Lord than you first entered.
And so the church consists of Christians.
The church is, is God's church and he has said that those that
make up the church are his people.
That is those that have been sanctified, those that have been saved.
They've been justified but they've also then been sanctified.
They've been set apart to be useful to him.
And so Paul's laying the groundwork for where he's gonna go later
in the letter by even that idea.
You've been set apart to be useful to the Lord.
The question that, that is introduced there is, is am I being useful to him?
Are we as a church being as useful to the Lord as we possibly could be?
Are we as, as Christians here being as useful to the Lord as we should be
It's God's church.
It's made up of those that are, are God's people, in other words,
Christians that He has saved.
But then the, the other thing that is so important for us to understand
is where Paul goes next, and that is that we are only one church in a,
a broad, broad horizon of a lot of faithful churches that exist out there.
And rather than being threatened by that, we need to celebrate that.
Look at where he goes next at the end of verse two.
He says this, "Called to be saints together," we are those
that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.
In other words, c- we're set apart as holy, called to live
holy, called to be the holy ones.
That's what saint's there.
Maybe you've got a Roman Catholic background or a liturgical background
that thinks about canonization, St.
Matthew, St.
Mark.
That's not what Paul's talking about here.
Saints was one of Paul's favorite terms for Christians, because
it's the same root word that goes back to those that are sanctified.
So we are the holy ones.
We're called to be the holy ones, notice here, together with all those who in
every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.
What Paul's saying here and where he goes now is he's saying this, church in, in
Corinth, you guys don't stand on your own.
And, and guess what y'all?
Neither do we.
A- as the church in Corinth there may have been tempted to think, "Well, well,
we have … Paul planted us, and we, look at, we, we had Priscilla and Aquila here.
And w- we've interacted with Apostle, and we've ac- interacted with Cephas."
He's writing to kinda knock them down a couple of notches there
and go, "Hey, don't forget.
Don't forget, you're calling upon the name of the Lord with, with a whole
lot of other people that are calling upon the name of the Lord, too."
And so he's reminding the, the church there of something that's good for us
to remember, too, and it's the third part of our, our, our definition of
what is the church, and that is the, the church is, is not just one place.
But the church is bigger than any of us.
Our final point this morning along those lines is this, realize that,
that the church is bigger than us.
The church is bigger than us.
It's bigger than any one body.
It's bigger than any one congregation.
It is those that have called to be the saints that God has redeemed, that God
has regenerated, that God has drawn to Himself through this irresistible calling.
And He has made us a part of the church, and we are the church together with
those who in every place, which in Paul's original day there, they would have
understood that as in every church, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
Y'all, our commonality with the church in Corinth or with the, the Baptist church
down the street or the Presbyterian church around the corner or Lighthouse
Church where we just had our men's Bible study and women's Bible study yesterday,
our, our commonality with them comes back to this, and that is we all call
upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does that mean, to call upon the name of Christ?
Does that just mean that we mention Jesus a few times, that we have Jesus in the
name of our church or something like that?
No, it doesn't mean that.
In Romans 10:13, Paul says, "Everyone who calls upon the
name of the Lord will be" what?
Saved.
And so i- in one sense, to, to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ is to express faith in Christ.
It's, it's saving faith.
And, and so Paul is saying, "We join together with all of those who have
saving faith in Jesus," that the gospel is there, it's genuine, that they've
repented from their sins and they've put their trust in Christ as their savior.
But then notice it's also this, that it's to call upon the name of the what?
Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
So it's also the fact that, that these are churches that have submitted
themselves to the lordship of Christ, that he governs, that they understand
what we've already talked about this morning, that that church is Christ's
church, and so we are here to submit to him and to follow him and to obey him.
And so we're gonna follow his word.
We're not gonna tamper with it.
We're not gonna, we're not gonna mess around with it.
We're not gonna teach something that doesn't accord with it.
And so these are kind of the, the litmus test for Paul here.
Hey, as long as you can look at them and say, "That church is calling upon the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ," and understand that that's more than an intellectual
ascent, but that is a surrender of oneself in faith to the character and to the
nature of Christ as Lord and Savior, as long as you look at a church and you would
say that they've got a biblical gospel and they are preaching the word of God and the
doctrine is intact there, then, then we can say, "Hey, we're gonna cheer you on."
You know who does that really well, and you've been recipients of it if you've
been part of our men's Bible study and women's Bible study, is Lighthouse Church.
When we came here to, to, to move into this facility, they used to meet in
this facility until they built the building that's a stone's throw away.
A- and the pastor reached out to me after we, we moved in here, and he
said, "Hey, can we grab lunch together?"
And I said, "Sure."
And then I thought to myself, "Oh, he's not gonna be happy maybe
that, that there's another kinda like-minded church that's here.
Hey, this is my turf."
He's like, "Dude, I, how can I help you?
We, we, we met in the same room that you're in.
We love that you're here.
How can we help you?
Use our facility."
Awesome.
Are you using it on Sunday mornings by any chance?
They are.
But man, that, that's, that's a church that's saying, "I, I get it.
Hey, you're calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're together with you."
Y'all, we need to stop trying to score points against
churches that are like-minded.
A- a- a- and so I, I, I don't ever wanna be the church that's up here badmouthing
a pastor down the street if, if that pastor is preaching the biblical gospel.
Now, I will warn of wolves in sheep's clothing, yes
But, but I'm not gonna take a tier two issue and make it a tier,
tier one issue a- and, and slight a pastor whose congregation is
with us reaching people for Jesus
The, the, the stakes are too high.
Like I said, we've got Muslims building mosques and Hindus building temples
Not to mention the cultural Christianity that already plagued the area
We can't be fighting with each other.
We've gotta remember that a mark of the church is to realize, hey, we're here
to take our spot, yeah, and to, to, to plant our flag and to do the work in
the ministry alongside all the others that are doing the work in the ministry.
I mean, just think about this for just a minute.
This morning I was, I was thinking about it pre- prepping this week, and it just
was so encouraging me to think about we're in, in the Central … What it, Ce- is it
Central Daylight, Central Standard Time?
I don't know.
Whatever.
We're in the Central … We're in Texas time.
That's where we are
So if you think about the, the East Coast, right?
There are faithful churches there, and they're done for the day.
They've had lunch even after church, and they're back at home.
And now you think about what we're doing here.
We had a 9:00 AM service.
Now, now we've got our 11:00 AM s- AM service right now.
And you think about the other churches in our area where the, the
services are happening right now.
And then you think of the West Coast, those poor souls over there.
And you think of the fact that, that they're still looking at, at church,
another service in front of them or, or their, their service is about to
start over there, whatever it may be.
A- and then I want you to think about Hawaii and all those suffering for
Jesus in Hawaii, and they've still got like four hours before they're
getting up to, to go to church.
And then th- think about Europe for a minute, and the, the, the faithful
lampstands, few them, they, though they may be, but there are some
there that had church this morning, and it's, it's winding into the
late afternoon and evening hours.
And think of Australia, and be jealous that they're asleep already,
except Monday's coming way faster for them than it is for us, isn't it?
But here's what I want you to think, y'all.
All of that
And then you have our Heavenly Father, and He has received the
praises from all of those churches.
As we lifted our voices and sang this morning, we joined the
chorus of voices in all of these different churches praising Him.
As I've opened the Word now and preached these two sermons, I'm adding my voice
to the faithful pastors that have opened up the Word and preached hundreds if not
thousands of sermons throughout the world
exalt in Christ.
We pray together, and as we pray together as a church, God is hearing not only
our prayers, but the prayers of, of Lighthouse, and the prayers of Providence,
and the prayers of Prestonwood, and the prayers of, of other churches all over
the world that gather together on Sunday morning in rehearsal for eternity with Him
We're a part of that, and it's not insignificant, but it's not everything.
It's so good for us to remember that we are one of many, and to pray that
God would multiply and bring more and more and more like-minded churches.
The Church is bigger than us.
It's His.
He defines it, and it's way bigger than any one church.
This is gonna be important for us as we get into the letter, because Paul's
going to use some of these very things that he's already talking about before
he even gets into the correction.
When he gets to the correction, it, it's gonna anchor back to this.
Like this, let me give you this example.
He's gonna write to those that have been saying, "I'm of Apollos," and, "I'm
of Paul," and, "I'm a, I'm of Cephas."
And he's gonna say, "No, you're not, because none of them died for
you, and the church that you're a part of doesn't belong to any
of them, but it belongs to God.
You are God's field, you are God's building."
And we're gonna think back to this opening verse and go, "Oh, yeah, that, that
fits with what Paul was talking about.
This is the Church.
It belongs to Him."
Or we're gonna get to chapter 5, and in chapter 5 Paul's gonna say, "Hey,
you've got something going on in your church," and we'll get there and I'll,
I'm gonna send a parent, parental warning probably out before that message.
"But you've got something going on in your church that not even the,
the, the unbelievers tolerate.
They're even appalled by what you're doing, and you're sitting there thinking
that you're super generous and super tolerant, and you're boasting in your
generosity by allowing this sin to just go on unchecked in your church.
You should be ashamed and get them out of the church."
Why?
Because the Church is those sanctified in Christ Jesus, set apart to be holy.
This isn't holy.
It should be out
So, so what we've just looked at, verse two, is gonna have a lot to
say about the rest of this letter.
Paul ends in verse three here, and I'll just touch on this quickly.
He says, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
It's a familiar greeting of Paul.
He's wishing that they would know the grace of God, the unmerited favor
of God, and to experience the peace that's only found in Christ Jesus
I, I can't wait for this study.
I'm so excited about the book of 1 Corinthians.
I think it's gonna be so helpful for us as a church, formative for
us as a church, really to make sure at the end of the day that we truly
are Christ Church, that we're on the right path, that we are healthy.
I think we're doing great.
I think God is doing great things in and through us, but I don't want us
to, to let off the accelerator on that.
We're three years in.
What are we gonna look like 30 years in, 300 years in, if God waits?
I won't be here.
But I hope that we're still a faithful church.
And so this is an opportunity for us to lay the foundation to
say, "What does it look like?
What is God's church?
How can we be faithful to it?"
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that we get to be a part of what
I was talking about earlier.
That we get to be a, a group of voices that are lifting ours to join the
chorus of all the other voices that have already been raised to you or
that will be raised to you this morning to praise Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Lord, we want those voices to multiply.
We want people to come to faith in Jesus.
We want to silence the, the, uh, the false religions of Islam and Hinduism,
not just because we want them to pack up and go, but rather we want to go to
them with the gospel and the good news of Jesus, and we want to see them saved and
to joy th- join the ranks of your church.
We wanna be Christ's church doing Christ's work on Christ's mission as
we seek to reach, teach, and train.
And so, God, I pray that you'd make us a faithful and fruitful
lampstand toward that end.
We love you, Father, and we are so privileged to be yours.
And so we are here this week, and if you tarry, we'll be back, Lord willing, next
week to raise our voices to praise you and to worship you as our Lord and Savior.
We pray this all in Jesus' name.
Amen.