May 3, 2026 – Final Instructions for a Faithful Church | 1 Corinthians 16:5–24 — Baptist Bible Church, Sparta MI

Well, we made it.

The final sermon to the book of First Corinthians.

The final sermon this morning.

So you know where to turn.

The end of the book.

1 Corinthians chapter 16.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

In this final chapter, we're going to notice a few final travel plans, some final instructions, and some final greetings.

And it may be tempting to buzz through this final section quickly.

After all, much of what's contained here was specific to the Corinthians themselves and to Paul and his situation.

However, I would encourage you this morning to take some time to reflect on what we're reading and what we're going to study, as I believe there are valuable insights for us today to be gained by examining the closing to this letter.

And in the words of James, as we wrap up the book of 1 Corinthians, my challenge to you is to not just be a hearer.

Don't just be a hearer, but be a doer.

Do the word.

As we reflect on what is contained in this letter in the Bible, commit as we head out this morning to apply, implement what we have learned, what we have heard from God's Word into how we live and into our relationship with the Lord.

First Corinthians chapter 16 this morning, we will begin in verse 5.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

Before we do so, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you for today.

Thankful now for this opportunity to open up your word.

Help us as we read to understand what your word says, and as we reflect on the word, help us to grow in our knowledge of you.

And as we grow in knowledge of you, help us to grow in love for you, to love you and to love your word, to love your commands.

Lord, fill us with a spirit that desires these things this morning.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

First Corinthians chapter 16.

1 Corinthians 16 · chapter mention

Let's begin reading in verse 5.

I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey wherever I go.

For I do not want to see you now just in passing.

I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits.

But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord as I am.

So let no one despise him.

Help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers.

Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now.

He will come when he has opportunity.

We notice here in this first section of our text this morning that Paul gives some travel updates and notifications, first regarding himself and then regarding some of his co-laborers in the ministry.

I want us first to notice this morning as Paul is explaining these travel plans.

I want us to first notice this morning Paul's desire for face-to-face Christian fellowship and discipleship.

Did you notice that expressed in the text as we read that?

Notice his desire.

He says in verse 7, I want to see you, but I don't want to see you just in passing.

I don't want my visit to be brief.

When I do come, when I do come visit, I want to spend time with you.

I want to be there with you and spend time together.

This is a desire for face-to-face ministry, fellowship, and discipleship.

It's important, I think, to note this in the text, to see Paul's heart and Paul's desire here.

It's important to note this because, especially in our digital age in which we live in today, there are multiple avenues by which you can receive good teaching.

Now, there's a lot of bad teaching out there, so you need to be careful.

But there's a lot of avenues for good teaching.

There's a lot of resources available to us today, isn't there?

If you say, boy, Pastor's sermon today really was no good, I didn't enjoy that at all.

You can go right on to, hey now, you can go right onto YouTube when you get home.

And you can look up your favorite preacher of choice.

You can look up some old R.C.

Sprawl sermons, some old John MacArthur sermons.

Those guys blow me out of the water, okay?

So you can go home, you can go, you can pull up some John Piper.

We've got some amazing communicators and speakers and preachers of the word that are recorded in audio form and on digital platforms for you to be able to go to and listen and greatly profit from their teaching and insight in the word.

But let me caution you this morning, let me caution you that that while there's much fruit to be gained from hearing, preaching, and teaching through other avenues, that there is something to be said for the face-to-face Christian fellowship of the local church that just can't be substituted.

It just can't be substituted.

We notice here, Paul wrote a letter.

There's a lot of instruction.

There's a lot of instruction in this letter, but at the end of the letter, what does Paul want?

What does he say?

I've sent this letter.

Now I want to come see you.

I want to be with you.

Because he understood the necessity of the face-to-face connection in our walk with the Lord and how we grow with the Lord.

In other words, what I'm trying to say is, you need the church.

You need the church with all of its warts, with all of its imperfections.

You need it.

It's God's design for you this morning.

We are not designed to be solitary pilgrims on the way to heaven.

You need community, you need discipleship in the context of the local church in order to grow in the Lord in a healthy way.

And could I just say this morning that this is your own personal responsibility to pursue?

It falls on your shoulders this morning to pursue that and to offer that.

It falls on your shoulders this morning to both pursue the community, the face-to-face discipleship in the church, and it falls on your shoulders to offer that.

And this has really been our theme this year: building this community here at Baptist Bible Church.

You haven't forgotten our verse, have you?

Hanging up on the wall here.

I put it really in big letters so we wouldn't forget it.

This is God's design for our church here at BBC, and we need to be intentional as believers, as members of this church, to pour into and to invest and to foster this face-to-face community and fellowship in our church.

It will be for our benefit to do so.

We notice Paul expressing this desire in the text.

Then he goes on in verse 8, you'll notice that he wants to come visit these believers, but currently he's in Ephesus.

And he tells them that while he wants to come visit them, while he wants to see them and spend some time face-to-face discipleship and community, he tells them, I can't come yet.

And notice what it is that's stopping him.

Why can't Paul come visit the Corinthians yet?

Did you see the phrase he uses in verse 9?

He says, I can't come because a wide door for effective work has opened for me.

I love this.

I love this.

Because the reason why Paul isn't willing yet to come see the Corinthians, even though we know the Corinthians needed Paul.

There was work Paul needed to do amongst the church at Corinth.

There was necessary work.

But notice why wasn't Paul willing just yet to come?

Because of the overwhelming joy of being used by the Lord to do his work.

It was so compelling that it glued Paul to Ephesus.

He said, As much as I'd love to come see you, I can't come yet.

The Lord's doing too much work here.

I can't leave.

I have to be here.

I have to stay.

Now, what exactly is this work that Paul's talking about?

Well, I think very helpfully, if you look in the book of Colossians, Colossians, Paul shares a prayer request in the book of Colossians.

If you look in Colossians chapter 4 in verse 2, Paul says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

At the same time, or in other words, as you are continually praying, don't forget to pray for this in verse 3.

Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word.

Does that sound familiar to anybody?

Ask the Lord to open a door.

And what specific ministry, what kind of work is Paul talking about here?

This is important.

It frames the ministry and the work of Paul that he was so passionate about.

What is it?

He says, open a door for the word, that the word of God may come through the door.

And what?

To declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

What was the door Paul was praying for here that he says in Colossians 4?

Opportunities to tell people about Jesus.

He says, the mystery of Christ.

He says, pray that the Lord would open up opportunities in my life to be able to tell people about Jesus, to be able to teach people about Jesus, to do Bible studies with people and open up the Word of God and let the Word of God out of its cage to go and work in the hearts and in the lives of the people that I'm seeking to reach.

This is what Paul's prayer request in Colossians chapter 4 was.

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

This was the exact phrase he used: a door for the word.

And notice what's happening in 1 Corinthians.

Notice what he says in 1 Corinthians and how it describes what's happening in the city of Ephesus where Paul was currently ministering.

He says, the door has been blown wide open.

It's wide open, meaning what?

Paul was having incredible opportunities in Ephesus to reach people for Jesus, to share the gospel with people, to teach them God's word, to help them to grow in their faith.

And it was so compelling, it so filled Paul with such great joy.

He said, I'm stuck here.

I can't leave yet.

He loved it.

Could I submit to you this morning that there is no greater thrill to the soul than to be used by the Lord in this way?

Do you believe that this morning?

There is no greater joy than to see the Lord blow open a door and say, Here you go.

Tell them about Jesus.

Teach them about Jesus.

Help them grow in their walk with me.

There is a joy to this church.

There's a joy, there's a thrill when the Lord uses us in this way.

Could I ask this morning, do you desire to be used this way?

Maybe you're here this morning and you say, Man, that sounds great.

That sounds really good, but I don't have any opportunities.

There aren't opportunities in my life.

Could I just challenge you this morning?

What did Paul pray for in Colossians chapter 4?

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

He prayed.

He said, please pray for us.

Pray that the Lord would open the door.

And could I challenge you this morning if you're looking in your life and your life is barren of these opportunities to make disciples, to engage in the mission that we're seeking to engage in here at Baptist Bible Church.

If your life is barren of those opportunities, could I challenge you this morning?

Start praying.

Start praying.

And don't stop.

You say, I have, I prayed once.

No door.

I'm serious.

That's how we do it usually.

We pray once or twice and then we give up.

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray.

And could I just say one more thing about all this?

I'm fired up about this this morning because of what just happened Wednesday night.

I'm fired up.

Because Dan knows we just talked about it.

We've been praying, praying, praying, praying, and we are seeing.

Wednesday nights we get together for the trellis and you we pray.

We pray.

We take time and we spend and we say, these are the people we're trying to reach with the gospel.

And people voluntarily say, This is the person the Lord has laid on my heart.

This is the person the Lord's laid on my part.

We say, okay, let's pray.

Let's get to work.

Let's pray, pray, pray, and we pray.

And we are seeing the Lord open up some doors that are so exciting, so amazing to see.

And I'm telling you, church, I'm just, I want you to know this morning, but what I want you to come on Wednesday night.

I want you to be here with me to experience and to see how the Lord is answering prayers.

It'll fire you up.

Some of you are here this morning, you're saying, I'm not fired up.

I'm telling you, if you want to be fired up about Jesus and the gospel and the work he's doing, get engaged in the work.

Get engaged in the work.

Be here.

See it with your own eyes.

It's amazing.

I could tell you like seven different stories this morning.

Just in the last couple of weeks.

If you want to know, you ask, go ask somebody like Dan.

Dan will tell you some cool stories.

He said, We've been praying for a year.

We've been praying for a year.

And we saw the Lord answer that prayer.

That's amazing.

It's amazing.

The Lord's opening up doors to engage in the work of making disciples.

I'd invite you to be here with us.

That's a good time.

We also have good snacks, so there's, you know, the Baptist angle to it.

Now, what's fascinating, before we move on, what's fascinating about this is in verse 9, where right after he makes that comment about the wide door for effective work, notice what, notice what he follows that up with.

And there are many adversaries.

Huh.

Isn't that funny?

Do you find you am I the one thing that's funny?

He says, We've got this huge open door, and we've got a lot of opponents.

We've got a lot of people that are rising up against us.

There's a lot of enemies, a lot of people that are opposed to the work.

We read this phrase, and those statements do not seem to be congruent statements.

They in fact appear to be at complete odds with each other.

This doesn't make sense.

How can Paul, on the one hand, say there's a wide open door for effective ministry, for effective work, for reaching people with the gospel?

Oh, and by the way, we've got all these adversaries that are seeking to stop us.

Something doesn't make sense.

Those ideas seem to clash.

But what we need to recognize this morning is that Paul viewed opposition as a sign that the Lord was at work, which is a transformative way, I think we need to think about opposition to gospel labor, gospel ministry, and the mission of making disciples.

Because I think far too often we as Christians, when there is a whiff of opposition, when there's a whiff of pushback, when there's a whiff of feeling a little bit uncomfortable, we say, oh, door's closed.

I guess that means the door is closed.

There's no opportunity here.

The door is being shut.

And I think it's so it's so interesting how Paul sets the paradigm here where he says, You can, there is a wide open door for ministry, and the sign that the door is wide open is that there are adversaries seeking to oppose us.

Now, how does that make sense?

Remember, we are we are a part of the kingdom of light.

Did you know that this morning?

You are a citizen of the kingdom of light.

And did you know that the kingdom of light is currently waging warfare against a domain of darkness, the domain of the enemy.

And you tell me if the kingdom of light is beginning to advance on the domain of darkness, are the enemies of God going to sit idly by and say, I guess we have to give up.

No.

In fact, they will resist.

There will be opposition to the advancement of the gospel.

There will be opposition, and you will feel it.

If you're engaged in the fight for lost souls, if you don't feel it, perhaps the enemy doesn't feel threatened by you.

But if you're seeking to advance the kingdom of light, there will be opposition.

Now, I don't say that to get us all quaking in our boots this morning.

Because while we do face an enemy, while we do have an adversary who is reigning over a domain of darkness, that enemy is defeated.

It's a defeated enemy.

He's a lion that's been declawed.

And we can say that because in Colossians chapter 2, verse 15, through the power of the cross we read that the enemies of God and the enemies of the gospel have been disarmed.

Colossians 2:15

They've been disarmed, they've been deweaponized, they've been rendered powerless before the might and the power of the gospel.

Not of you, but of the gospel.

They're powerless to resist, which is why Jesus makes that statement.

When he says, I will build my church, what does he say?

And the gates of hell, the very gates of hell, will not stand against it.

That's powerful stuff, amen.

That's an it's an enemy.

There's adversaries, but they are defeated.

Verses 10 through 12, Paul gives these updates regarding his co-laborers' ministry plans, which is we don't have time this morning to get into it, but it is fascinating to think about how the Corinthians viewed their Christian leaders and kind of used them as a way to factionalize.

And here we see we see none of that amongst these Christian ministry workers.

They're just laboring in the gospel together.

And Paul gives those updates here.

Verse 13, we we see these final exhortations.

Okay, we need to go through these quickly.

Verse 13, he says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

One commentator describes this verse as a sudden fusillade of commands.

There's this short, snappy boom, boom, boom, boom, all these commands.

But it's interesting, all of these exhortations are really centered around the concept of maturity in the faith.

Maturity in the faith.

I say that because that phrase there to act like men, that's not necessarily a manly virtue Paul's talking about there.

What he means is this is in contrast to childish immaturity.

In other words, we could say it is grow up.

Grow up.

And we've already noticed the many ways that the Corinthians were acting as immature believers.

We see that in the text here.

So we notice there that first concept, grow up.

Grow up.

We've seen several signs of immaturity in the church in Corinth.

Several ways in which they were acting as though they were immature believers, division, sexual sin, their strong advocacy for personal preferences instead of thinking of others, and then just an attitude of pervasive selfishness.

All present here in the text, and issues that we notice Paul addressing, all signs of immaturity in the faith.

We're reminded this morning that a sign of a mature and growing Christian is not the number of years that they've been saved.

It's not how long a Christian has been coming to church.

It's not how much of the Bible they know.

It's not how many ministries or Bible studies or whatever else that they're a part of.

The sign of a maturing, growing Christian is the ability to stand firm in the faith by resisting and putting off sin.

In other words, sanctification, growth in holiness, growth in Christ-likeness.

In each of these examples of immaturity, the sign of immaturity is an indulging in sin, a powerlessness against the temptation and the influence of sin.

Paul's point is that you must grow up in maturity, grow up in faith by growing in holiness and in sanctification.

The second challenge here we notice in verse 14 he says, Let all that you do be done in love.

Love is the second exhortation.

In ancient times, there was A medicine called a theriac.

And one theriac was known to contain sixty-four different ingredients, including honey, cinnamon, multiple different types of crushed leaves.

So far so good.

Viper flesh.

And opium.

Oh Scott's thinking about that now.

It was thought that combining, that by combining all of these ingredients together into a single tonic called a theriac, it was thought that by putting all of these ingredients together, the medicine would become a cure-all.

Essentially a medicine that whatever your ailment was, whatever issue you were having, if you took this specific medicine, it would fix you.

And we know that isn't exactly how it works.

But that's how they thought, especially in medieval times, even going all the way back to ancient Greece, you can find examples of these theriacs.

What's interesting is that in our passage, Paul doesn't give a theriac with 64 different ingredients.

Notice what he does.

He gives one.

One ingredient.

One ingredient that would cure essentially everything the Corinthians were struggling with.

And what is that ingredient he lists here in the text?

In everything, essentially, this is the summary.

In whatever, everything and anything and whatever you do as a church, here's the guideline.

Love.

Love, that's it.

That's really that.

That's that's as you go through the list of everything the Corinthians were struggling with, everything, all the sins that were plaguing them.

And what's the one thing that would essentially cure everything that they were working through and struggling with?

It's love.

It's why you have 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

Why Paul goes to such great lengths in his letter to describe, not only to explain and define what true biblical love is, but then to go to great lengths to describe its supremacy over essentially everything else.

He says, love is better.

Love is better.

There's some great things.

You have some amazing, powerful spiritual gifts.

Essentially, you can get rid of all of those and just have love.

And you're gonna have a healthy, growing, awesome church if it's dominated by a spirit, a natural disposition of love.

We can look, I mean, we can look through this.

This is worth more time.

On your own time, go back and look at, reread 1 Corinthians, and as Paul brings up the things they need to grow in and the things they're struggling with, just think about how does love cure that?

And you'll notice that it cures everything.

How do you stop division in its tracks?

The first major chunk of the book, all about division.

How do you stop division?

Adopt a spirit and disposition of sacrificial love for the people in your church.

Decide, I'm just gonna choose to love the people here.

That'll stop division.

How do you defeat the temptations of sexual immorality, lust, and adultery?

Delight and satisfy yourself in the goodness of God's love, more than the temporary and fleeting pleasures of sexual immorality.

How do you stop thinking of yourself and having your own preferences met in church?

Paul says, use your spiritual gifts of service to serve one another, motivated out of love.

Love.

If you take nothing else away from the book of 1 Corinthians, I hope this morning that you'll take this away.

That it's more important than anything else for the health of this church that each of us are governed in our actions, in our attitudes, in our motivations, and in our words by love.

If love is the governing principle, I promise you we will grow and thrive as a church body that is just full of health.

And we see that here as Paul gives this essentially this cure all in verse 14.

Whatever you do, whatever you're doing.

I haven't covered it yet.

Let it just be said.

Just do everything in love.

The final challenge in verse 15, the final exhortation we read in verse 15, he says, Now I urge you, brothers, you know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts in Achae, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints.

Be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer.

I rejoice at the coming of Stephanus and Fortunatus and Acha and Achaeus, because they have made up for your absence, for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours.

Give recognition to such people.

We notice here the final exhortation, follow.

Follow.

We're reminded that one of the root problems in Corinth was how they had viewed their leaders.

And Paul seeks to address this a few different times and gives one final summary comment on this topic here at the end of his letter.

We have a reference to subjects themselves.

He says in verse 16, be subject to such as these.

This will be the same word used in other places, like 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 22, to refer to the ruling authority of Jesus.

1 Peter 3:22

It's the same word used there.

The word indicates that God has chosen to use pastors and elders to lead the church, to lead you as a believer, and that it is to your benefit for pastors and for elders to lead.

Secondly, we notice Paul, the second exhortation in this context that Paul calls on the church is to give recognition in verse 18.

He says, give recognition to such people.

The word comes from the Greek root word to know, to know, and indicates that in this context, it's an acknowledgement of the worth or the value of the subject.

So these words, together taken together, are meant to shape how the church is called to view their pastors and elders.

And once again, this is given in the context of a church that had a very healthy view of their pastors and elders.

They idolized some leaders.

They villainized the ones they didn't like.

And both sides of the spectrum are unhealthy.

Pastors and elders are fallible human beings who have their own weaknesses and struggles.

They shouldn't be turned into celebrities.

We'll let you down.

If I haven't already, I've been here 10 years.

I'm sure I've let everybody down at some point.

Don't turn us into celebrities, and don't hold pastors and elders to unfair standards of perfection either.

However, acknowledging this, there is also an acknowledgement that pastors and elders have been called and appointed to lead the church as shepherds.

And therefore the church is called to respect and follow their leadership.

It's amazing to think it's been 10 years since I've been here.

Ten years at Baptist Bible Church this summer.

And some of you have been here that long.

And you probably remember what I looked like 10 years ago.

Liz and I like to joke that if you were to look at a picture of her and I from 10 years ago, Liz looks exactly the same.

I mean, literally, we were talking about this at our Koinonia group.

Liz looks exactly the same.

And you would probably think that that the husband that she had married 10, that was she was married to 10 years ago had died, and that she had remarried me.

I mean, very I came to this church and I had braces on.

I remember Chris Brown, the first meeting I had.

She had the biggest eye roll in her head and she said, Oh, he has braces.

I was like, Well, this is gonna go well.

Lots changed over the years.

I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes.

Areas in which I've had to grow and learn as a pastor.

I'm thankful for a gracious church body that's given me the space in the room to grow and to learn and to continue to develop as a pastor and as a shepherd.

I'm thankful for that.

And I really couldn't think of a better church to learn the ropes and to grow in than this church body.

And I mean that from the heart.

I'm thankful for this church.

I'm thankful for each of you here this morning.

I just encourage you from the text here to continue to follow.

Follow the pastor.

Let the pastor lead, let the elders lead.

And this is the instruction we have here from the text.

This brings us to verses 19 through 24, which are the final greetings, and this would be the ending to the letter.

It says, The churches of Asia send you greetings.

Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.

All the brothers send you greetings.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.

If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.

Our Lord come.

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.

My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

We notice here at the end of the letter the love and the fellowship shared by believers.

The holy kiss would have been a symbolic action meant to represent close, family-like love that's shared in the family of God.

I think that since we've already brought back our meet and greet time, we probably don't have to do the holy kiss.

It's kind of the same spirit there, the meet and greet time, sort of the same spirit.

Although I will say in other parts of the world that this would be a fairly common part of the culture.

Verse 21, we notice that Paul makes the comment that he has written this in his own hand.

This would essentially be Paul's personal signature to the letter.

He writes here in his own hand.

This is probably where Paul picked up the pen and finished off the letter in his own handwriting.

He probably had somebody else, which was very common in those days.

He would have had somebody else, a official scribe, write the letter out as he dictated it.

And then this was his personal signature.

And then finally, the last thing I just want us to notice here at the end of the letter, we see that phrase, our Lord come, which in the Aramaic the word is Maranatha.

And it's a word that expresses a desire for the Lord to come.

Maranatha.

Come, Lord.

Come, Lord.

Which I think is an appropriate way to end the letter of 1 Corinthians.

We want you to come back, Jesus.

We love you.

And may we as a church, may we walk faithfully in the instruction of the Lord as we look ahead with great longing and desire for his appearing.

All those who love the Lord, you know what it says.

All those who love the Lord, they love his what?

They love his coming.

If you love the Lord this morning, you can't wait for him to come back someday.

At the beginning of this series, we described 1 Corinthians, if you remember all the way back to last summer, we described 1 Corinthians like the frequently asked questions part of an owner's manual.

In other words, you go to this part of the owner's manual when something is broken or something isn't functioning quite right, and you want to find out how is this specific problem addressed or fixed?

And because of all the problems in Corinth, the letter functions this way.

In other words, hey, we've got this problem, we're struggling with this.

Let's see if it's answered in 1 Corinthians.

We've got all these things that are being addressed here.

It's a helpful letter.

It's a helpful letter for us today as a church to consult, to help us, and to guide us and how we should be functioning as a healthy church.

It's helpful because many of these challenges and problems in Corinth still are faced by the church today.

The church still struggles with these things.

We still need God's help, God's guidance, God's instruction.

May we here at BBC take heed of Paul's instructions and challenges to the Corinthians as we seek to endeavor to continue to grow into a healthy church.

Father, we thank you for today.

We are thankful for this opportunity to be here this morning to spend time digging into the text together and to be reminded of some of the main themes and concepts brought out in the letter of 1 Corinthians.

Help us as a church this morning to not just be hearers, but to be doers, to seek to implement and to apply what your word says for our benefit.

We know that it's ultimately for our best when we submit ourselves and obey your commands when we love your commands because we love you.

We're thankful for your love for us.

We're thankful for the gift of the church.

We're thankful for the gift of this church family.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.