This is how you do church

 Read 1 Corinthians 1

Acts 18

 

And so we come to Corinth, at least we accompany Paul as he was there in Acts 18. The Jews rejected him and he went to the Gentiles and started a church before returning to Asia Minor.

The Jews took Paul before the secular Greek authority because he was disrupting the Sabbath services with this Jesus business. Gallio did what Pilate couldn’t manage. He stuck by his decision not to get sucked into this obviously religious struggle.

The Jews didn’t get what they wanted from the local authorities, so they beat Sosthenes, the leader of the Corinth Synagogue. We find the name Sosthenes in Paul’s salutation and must wonder: Did the leader of the synagogue come to be a believer, or is this Sosthenes someone we won’t hear of again?

Paul also maintained a relationship with this church. We know because he addressed specific issues. This wasn’t just Sophomore Theology conducted by correspondence. This was Paul in the middle of the congregation’s business. Plenty of theological pointers exist, but this is mission work, not commentary from the sidelines.

This is how you do church!

Thankfully, we can just sit back and comment on those knucklehead Corinthians instead of getting another series of challenges from Tom. Or can we?

We don’t seem to have any problems with the Lord’s Supper, but we learned not to take it during a fellowship meal.

We don’t seem to have a problem coveting Spiritual Gifts. We seem to comprehend being a member of the body of Christ. Maybe we should read Romans instead. It has plenty of theology that we can apply in this modern century.

That’s one perspective. Try another. There is who we were before professing Jesus as Lord and there is who we are now. There is a word for that journey between these two points: who we were before Christ and who we are now. It's one of those four-letter words, but you don’t need to cover your children’s ears. The world is life.

Life

Life involves struggle and challenge. It sometimes runs us through the wringer. Life is sometimes just so apparently amazing, yet we struggle to find the blessing in our situation.

We live and give thanks for life itself.

We struggle. Everything seems hard. But we press on.

We hurt to our souls, and sometimes it just hurts right here, but it has your full attention. We know pain.

And we know joy. That inexplicable feeling overwhelms you with peace, hope, love, and other godly companions.

We know life and can empathize with those believers in Corinth from 2000 years ago. They were figuring out how to be the church.

They were figuring out how to be a church. They were not a synagogue that now embraced Christ. These were mostly pagans from a pagan culture who chose to profess Jesus is Lord!

They sound like us. We didn’t grow up Jewish. We don’t fully comprehend grafted in. But we are trying to please God in this modern and post-modern age.

From where we were before we knew Jesus to where we are now is life, but for us, it is life lived in grace. Let’s get to the letter.

Paul began his letter with his standard salutation—blessing and thanksgiving. He then moved directly into attacking a leadership crisis at its root. Some had divided into camps. I follow Apollos, Paul, Peter, and…

Paul noted that only Christ was crucified for you. There need be no divisions. There must not be division! Christ is the head of the church. And this is not news. You know this!

But some do not. The message of the cross means nothing to them. They are perishing. They are already dead in their sin but reject the lifeline as foolishness.

Jews demand signs and miracles. Greeks demand wisdom. Paul said that he came with the truth, not eloquence. He brought wisdom that the world would call foolishness in introducing a God they did not know and how much that one true God loved them.

We preach Christ crucified. It is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles—in this case, the Greeks. God chose the simple things of this world to put the so-called wisdom of the world to shame.

The cross—that despicable symbol of Roman power and oppression—will bring liberty to the one who will receive its message.

In very short order, Paul got down to business. It’s all rooted in God’s love that we know in the blood of Jesus. That blood was poured out on the cross. It’s that simple.

It seems crazy to a world—a world that is perishing—but it’s nonsense to them, nonetheless. It just can’t be that simple… There’s got to be a catch…

And what are we to learn from such counsel?  How about salvation in Christ? Jesus will always be looked upon as foolishness by those who are vested heavily in the things of this world. It does not make sense to those seeking only self-gratification.

The world will try to convince you that you are going the wrong way because so many others are headed in a different direction. But you are to stay the course. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Press on towards the goal.

Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth are often noted as good teachings because of the problems of this early church. But we should note that this church also had some things going for it.

Paul notes that the believers had received spiritual gifts, which were known to the community. Later, we will see Paul setting aside the argument over which gift is greater in these words: Yet I show you the most excellent way.

This church had a lot going for it, which makes it an even more valuable resource for us. Which of our bodies of believers is without fault?  Without Gifts?

Corinth had faults, and they had gifts. They had blessings, and they had blunders. They had faithful servants, and they had hard cases. The church had growth.

We have faults and gifts. We struggle and we obtain victories. We try to keep our eyes on Jesus and put his words into practice, but things get in our way repeatedly. We want to be overcomers but sometimes we find every stumbling block that there is. Sometimes, we become one.

We need counsel. Although we may have different problems and opportunities than the believers in Corinth, we have the same mission: to love one another and make disciples.

Having preached those two words for about a dozen messages in the last half of last year, I was pleased to hear them at one of those mega-churches with video satellites.  Make disciples.

Make Disciples!

We are to make disciples once we are perfect in everything we do, right? Not!

We make disciples while we work on our own discipleship. We call others to trade the wisdom of the world—which is foolishness—for the wisdom of God, and we do it while we are a work in progress.

And we do it while the world calls us fools.

Consider who you were before receiving Jesus as Lord. Now consider the new creation that you are. It’s a struggle sometimes to live up to being this new creature, but that struggle is growth, sanctification, and God continuing the good work that he began in us.

So, keep pressing on in your journey to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. And keep inviting others—others who are perishing—to know this liberty and peace that comes only through Christ.

Grow in God’s grace and make disciples. The world considers us foolish. We are assured of salvation.

To borrow words from Casting Crowns, Know him and make him known. Even when the world considers you to be a fool.

Draw nearer to God and invite others to join us on the journey.

Amen.