1 Corinthians 1:1-20 - Part B

We're all flesh. We're all human. And yet I'm told I'm going to be blameless. I'm going to be presented as faultless.

How is that possible? One word answer. Justification. Justification. Romans chapter 5 verse 1.

Just reminding you of what you already know. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of our sin nature, we are guilty before God and deserve judgment.

But we can be declared blameless before Him. Find out how today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, as Skip shares how you can have freedom from sin and peace with God through Jesus. Now, we want to tell you about a resource that will help you discover the Bible's extraordinary relevance and transforming power. Is your personal Bible study time frustrating? Do you need direction? You can study the Bible with a plan and see progress.

Listen to this from Skip Heitzig. All of us, we have trouble with certain parts of the Bible. Sometimes it's tough. But exposure to the Bible, a consistent exposure to the Bible, and I would add on a daily basis, with a consistent desire to obey it, will do more for you than any other thing that I can think of in your Christian life. Take the mystery out of studying scripture with Pastor Skip's book, How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It. Our thanks to you when you give $25 or more to help connect more people with this Bible teaching ministry. Get the tips and tools you need to open your eyes, mind, and heart to God's truth. You don't have to be afraid of the Bible. Get your copy of How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It by Skip Heitzig today when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888.

Okay. We're in 1 Corinthians 1 as Skip Heitzig starts today's study. Evidently, after Paul leaves Corinth, after a year and a half, he moves to Ephesus, spends three years there founding a church there. In Ephesus, he writes a letter. And the letter is because of this rampant immorality. What was happening in the city was now starting to happen in the church. So Paul wrote a very stern letter that we do not have.

We don't have it. We have 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. With that former letter that he's writing about, we don't have.

So he wrote him a letter. But then after some time, after he wrote to correct that, somebody writes him from Corinth by the name of Chloe. And Chloe says, Hey, Paul, just word up, heads up. There's lots of division going on in Corinth.

People are breaking up into little groups. Some are saying, I'm a Paul. Some are saying, I'm a Paul.

There's these divisions you need to know about that. The church is breaking up. And not only that, but the Corinthian church itself wrote Paul a letter with a series of questions. What about marriage? What about divorce?

How do we deal with immorality, et cetera? So beginning in chapter 7, he says, Now concerning the things you wrote me about. So between the letter, they wrote to him, asking him a series of questions, and the divisions Chloe wrote to him about, he writes 1 Corinthians.

Make sense? So the theme of 1 Corinthians then is solving problems in the church. The whole book is a corrective, a polemic against a whole host of problems. Disunity, so there's divisions in the church. Abuse of spiritual gifts in the church. Divorce and remarriage in the church. Problems of immorality. Doctrinal problems concerning the resurrection. It's a series of problems one after the other that Paul addresses in this book.

Now having said that, we're ready to start. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, now watch this, and Sosthenes, our brother. Now that you know about Sosthenes, and he was so opposed, along with the other Jews, to Paul's ministry, evidently, and there's no indication necessarily that it's the same Sosthenes, it could be a different one, but probably not.

We have no reason to say it was, so I'm just going to guess it's the same dude that was in Corinth, has come to Christ, and is now, not in Corinth, but with Paul and Ephesus, being trained by Paul, being discipled by Paul. So Paul writes this letter from Ephesus, Sosthenes is there, Paul is giving greetings to them. Sosthenes, not the arche synagogue, Gogos, not the head of your synagogue, he's our brother. He's our brother.

Now we're on the same team, we both worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Sosthenes, our brother. Now just so you know, Paul, when he writes his letters, follows a pretty typical format of most letters in antiquity, and I like the way they wrote letters in ancient times. We could learn a lesson from how they wrote letters in ancient times. You see, when we write a letter, we say, dear so-and-so, then we write a page, and another page, and another page, and you don't know who's writing it until you get to the back page, and it says, sincerely, and you sign your name. Well, because of that, the first thing I do when I get a letter is go to the back page to find out who wrote it. It would be more helpful if they began by saying, you know, here is who I am, and I'm writing this Skip to you. That's how they wrote letters in ancient times.

They would begin by stating who the letter is from, then who the letter is to, then they would give salutations, greetings of some kind, then they would usually have some formal thanksgiving of some kind. Paul follows that format in the opening remarks, but he calls himself, Paul, called to be an apostle. Just a word about apostles, because I get this question, are there apostles today?

Yes and no. Yes, in one sense, all of us are ambassadors, all of us are representatives, all of us, the word means sent, apostolos, or apostolo means to be sent out, and it usually referred to in ancient times a royal representative of a king, and so somebody would be sent out representing a kingdom or that king. If you get sent out officially, you are an apostolo, an apostle, a sent out one. It is a word that is used in the New Testament about 79 times. It can refer to all of us. Jesus said, as the father sent me, so I send you.

But typically, usually, normally, it refers to 13 individuals plus one. It refers to the 12 apostles, one of them, Judas, was replaced by Matthias in Acts chapter one, and another one, Paul, called an apostle, but he was called an apostle because he was commissioned by Jesus Christ and sent out personally by Jesus in a post-resurrection appearance. Usually, to be an apostle, you had to have been with the Lord during his ministry and had to have signs of an apostle that accompany you, like miracles, signs, and wonders, and you had to have been a witness of his resurrection. Paul wasn't follower of Christ during his ministry, but he did see the risen Christ. On the Damascus road, he was given his apostolic commission. He said, go tell Paul that he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before gentiles, before kings, and before the children of Israel.

That's his apostolic calling, but all of us have some calling, some calling by the will of God. And Sosthenes, our brother, that we've gone through one verse tonight, cooking, and we're cooking. To the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints. Are you looking in your Bible?

Are you looking in your Bible? Do you see the words to be are italicized? The reason they're italicized is they are not in the original Greek language. So literally it reads, and so the translators furnish these words because they think probably Paul meant that, but we don't know that Paul meant that, because literally what he said is, you're sanctified in Christ Jesus, and you are called saints. Now I like that better than called to be saints, because if you were raised like I was raised, and I hear that I am called to be a saint, then my mind says, okay, so that means I have to die, and people have to pray to me after I'm dead, and then miracles have to be attested to that have happened when they called upon my name, and if that has corroborated by the main church in Rome, then eventually I can be canonized or called a saint. So typically we have come to believe, unfortunately, that to be a saint is to be a dead guy or a dead gal, and you know, you have remains that somebody touches and they get healed, or they make a pilgrimage and speak something over your grave and something happens, or miracles, or whatever it would be, you are canonized a saint by the Catholic church. That's how I was raised. That is not a New Testament teaching.

You are a saint right now. You are called saints. The word sanctified and the word saint, it's the same Greek root word hagios. It means to be set apart. You've been set apart by God. When you came to Christ, you were set apart. You were completely saved, and when you believed in Jesus Christ, and God marks you as His own, or you're a saint.

So really, like J. Vernon McGee said, there's really only two groups in the whole world. There's the saints and the aint's. You're either a saint or you aint, and even though they were in Corinth and even though they had tons of problems, they're saints. So I'm looking at different saints here tonight, and you're looking at St.

Skip. It's got a ring to it, doesn't it? Called saints with all those in every place who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours. When I was a kid, by the way, I had a little medal around my neck, and it was St. Christopher. It was a little St. Christopher medal. Do you know there never existed somebody by that name?

Don't do it right now, please, but we go home. Just go fact check that. The Catholic Church has repudiated that there ever existed somebody that was St. Christopher. So for years, people prayed to St. Christopher.

They might as well be praying to their cat or their dog because he didn't exist. Verse 3, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how Paul opened most all of his letters, grace and peace, grace and peace. Grace was a common Greek greeting. Charis is the Greek word.

You would see somebody on the street in Athens, you go charis, grace. It's a wonderful greeting. The Jews, when they see each other, say shalom, peace. Now, this is a Greek letter, so they're not writing shalom. That would be a Hebrew word, but they're using the Greek equivalent, irene, so charis, chi, irene, grace and peace. I think Paul is combining a Greek and a Jewish salutation in one because that is how he opens most of his letters.

There's a couple exceptions. Sometimes he'll say grace, peace, and mercy, but usually it's grace and peace. And by the way, Paul never says peace and grace. It's always in this order, grace first and then peace.

And there's a good reason for it. You will never know the peace of God until you know the grace of God. And when you know the grace of God, you'll have peace. You'll have the peace of God which passes all understanding. So grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God always concerning you for the grace for the grace of God which was given to you by Jesus Christ. I think Paul looked back and he's writing from Ephesus and he's thinking about how the church started at Corinth and he goes, just an act of grace that that church ever got off the ground in that city. Why start a church of God in Corinth? Because you need a church of God in Corinth. Like you need a church of the Lord Jesus Christ in every city in the world.

It's dark and light shines brightest in the darkest places. And so it needed a witness for the Lord. I thank my God concerning you for the grace of God which is given to you by Christ Jesus that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge. Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you so that you come short in no gift or you come behind in no gift eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says you were enriched and the word he uses speaks of being filthy rich.

It's the word that we would translate plutocrat, the ruling class of the very very wealthy. So you are excessively rich and you come behind in no spiritual gift. One of the things about the church at Corinth is that all of the gifts of the Spirit were in operation. That's a good thing but it became a bad thing because Paul has to write to correct so many of the abuses of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that happened at Corinth. So I was going to say unfortunately there were abuses of the Spirit in the church of Corinth but I'm going to say something differently. I'm going to say fortunately there were abuses of the gifts of the Spirit in Corinth. You say why would you say that because Paul wrote a letter addressing the problems so that now we can see the proper use and balance of spiritual gifts in the assembly. So the value is that it has produced for us what we call 1 Corinthians which is actually 2 Corinthians but I digress. You come behind in no spiritual gift but look at this as you are eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now he's going to mention this several times as he does by the way in most all of his letters. Realize this the early church 2,000 years ago the churches were taught by Paul to always look up, to always anticipate that the promise that Jesus made to return could happen at any moment and that they should expect it. So beware of any teacher, any doctrine, any church, any movement that tells you my Lord delays his coming. We should all be looking forward and especially 2,000 years post this when so many crazy things are happening and so many signs that we have now in the New Testament laid out have been fulfilled and I think we are waiting on borrowed time.

We're waiting for the revelation. The word here is apokalupsis, the final unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ who will confirm you to the end. He's going to take you all the way through. He's committed to your faith. He's committed to your spiritual walk to bring you all the way through so much so watch this he will confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord. Notice that you may be blameless. Let me ask you a question. Are you blameless now?

You're looking at me like, how should I answer that? Because he doesn't say you are now blameless but he says that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? At the end of that little letter of Jude, that one chapter letter of Jude, Jude verse 24, the writer says, now unto him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Now that doesn't mean you are faultless or that you are blameless but you will one day be presented as faultless and blameless in his presence.

You go, well how is that possible? What magic trick does God have to work to present me blameless? And I ask that because I know me. I sin. I fall short of the glory of God. I still have proclivities and propensities and leanings toward aberrant behavior and thinking as we all do.

We're all flesh. We're all human. And yet I'm told I'm going to be blameless. I'm going to be presented as faultless.

How is that possible? One word answer, justification. Justification. Romans chapter 5 verse 1, just reminding you of what you already know. Having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He's declared us righteous. He's declared us as having the same righteousness as his son Jesus because we believe in his finished work. Doesn't mean you are perfect or righteous or blameless or faultless but he already declares you as such and one day will present you as such.

So it's a pretty good deal and that's why we have peace with God. Having been justified by faith we have peace with God. Think if my peace depended upon my performance. Well some days I'd be very peaceful and some days I would not be very peaceful because some days my performance is good, some days my performance really stinks.

And so I'd have peace one day and then I'd have anxiety the next day because I'm always looking at my performance. But because I'm justified, declared righteous by faith, I have peace with God every day through our Lord Jesus Christ because now I understand how God sees me, how God reckons me and how one day he will receive me and I'll be presented as faultless before his presence with exceeding joy. The psalmist, I read it early this morning, Psalm 130, oh Lord if you should mark iniquities who could stand? If God kept a record and checked it, who would stand? We would be miserable but we are justified.

So because of that, one day you'll be blameless. God is faithful by whom you are called into the fellowship of the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Okay so that is the introductory remarks of the epistle of the letter. Now he gets down to business and he addresses the real issue that this person Chloe has written about and that is the tearing apart of the church, the breaking up into different factious groups because he says in verse 10, now I plead with you brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. The word divisions, schismata, speaks of the tearing of a garment, the fragmenting of something that was once a cohesive unit, being torn into little pieces. And it's not just that there were disagreements, that's never a problem.

It's healthy to have disagreeing points of view over certain things. The problem was in disagreement, it was dissension. They were splitting up and being opposed to what each other as we will find out. For it has been declared to me concerning you my brethren by those of Chloe's household that there are contentions among you. On one hand I think oh Paul you shouldn't have mentioned Chloe because you kind of threw her under the bus. Now everybody's going to go oh you're the one that ratted on us to Paul. But Paul had to give a source and probably this person Chloe, and by the way scholars are divided whether this Chloe is a feminine name or a masculine name, we don't know, it's just a person named Chloe.

We'll call it, we'll identify her as a she just because that's how our minds probably will deal better with that. It has been declared by those in Chloe's household that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, each of you says I'm of Paul or I'm of Apollos or I am of Cephas or I'm of Christ. Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? When Jesus before his suffering prayed for his followers, after praying for his immediate followers, he prayed at the end of his little prayer in John 17. Lord I don't just pray for these alone but for all those who will believe in me through their name that they may be one as as we are one. I and you and you and me that they may be one in us that the world may believe that you sent me.

He prayed for our unity. That's Skip Hightake with a message from the series Expound First Corinthians. Now we want to share about an exciting opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's word even deeper. Think taking classes in biblical studies, can't fit your life? Here's Calvary College student, Cresta. After years of wanting training in ministry, I found Calvary College. Now I can deepen my walk with the Lord and I can go as little or as often as my schedule allows. The classes are great and the schedule definitely works around my work and family life. Learn more about God and the Bible on your schedule with Calvary College. Apply today at calvarychurchcollege.com. Thank you for joining us today. Connect with Skip Hightake exists to connect listeners like you to God's truth, strengthening your walk with him and bringing more people into his family. That's why these teachings are available to you and so many others on air and online.

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