Route 66: 1 Corinthians - The Union of Believers with Christ

Bible.

You can get that out or you can look at one of the Bibles in the pew there.

For those that might be visiting with us tonight, we have been going through a series on Sunday nights where each Sunday night we look at the next book of the Bible, so it's a message on the whole book of the Bible.

We're not going to go all night, so stick around if you're here visiting, but we're going to be looking at 1 Corinthians especially tonight, and I want to start in chapter 1.

I'm going to read chapter 1, verses 4 through 9.

1 Corinthians 1, verses 4 through 9.

1 Corinthians 1:4–9

I always thank my God for you, because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.

In this way the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you do not lack any spiritual gift.

As you.

Eager's letter to the church of Corinth.

You'd be thinking that's a great church.

They have every spiritual gift, they're not lacking anything.

They have fellowship with Jesus and with each other.

This is the kind of healthy church that I would have wanted to be a part of if I was living back in Bible times.

And then you read the rest of the letter.

There's a guy sleeping with his mother-in-law.

There's division in the church.

They're suing each other.

People are getting drunk at the Lord's Supper.

Some people seem to doubt the resurrection.

Wait a minute.

That's not the church that I first thought.

But it's the same Paul who opened this way who wrote the rest of the letter right?

Paul has the amazing ability to see God's grace in messy situations.

He also has the willingness to challenge people where they need to be challenged.

Sometimes we tend to go in one direction or the other.

We can be kind of a bloodhound for sniffing out any little error in a church or our church or someone else's church, and Paul starts with God's grace is among you, and I see it active.

And then sometimes we can be so kind that we're not willing to say the difficult things that need to be said about significant sin in a situation.

And Paul does both.

We should aim to do both.

That was free.

Now onto the topic at hand tonight.

Before we get to the main idea, that's not going to be quite the way I framed the main idea for 1 Corinthians.

Let's look at the structure of the book.

Last time we met on Sunday night we looked at Romans.

Romans is more of a sustained argument.

1 Corinthians is a letter, like Romans was, to a church, the church of Corinth.

That Paul writes under inspiration of God, but it's not quite the argument and the steps of Romans.

It's a bit more topical in nature.

Paul seems to be writing to respond to some questions the Corinthians had as they wrote to him.

Let me show you that.

So hold your finger here in 1 Corinthians 1, go over to chapter 7.

Look at verse 1.

Now, in response to the matters you wrote about, he says it.

He's going to address what they asked him about.

Look down to verse 25 of chapter 7.

Now about virgins.

Do you hear the same language of now about?

Now about.

Go over to chapter 8, verse 1.

Now about food sacrifice to idols, chapter 12, look over there at verse 1.

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, and then over to chapter 15, verse 35.

But someone will ask how are the dead raised?

So it seems like Paul's going to respond to in part the series of questions that they had for him, but he doesn't start that until chapter seven.

Why does he wait so long?

Well, he has some things that he is going to be confronting them about.

That he needs to talk about before he gets to their questions.

That's part of it.

But he's also setting the foundation for how he wants to help them approach those questions.

He wants them to see something precious and important, and here's the big theme I want to give to you tonight from 1 Corinthians.

If we're thinking about our own takeaway in light of how Paul speaks to the Corinthians, corinthians, the more we understand God's eternal plan to unite people to his son, the more we'll be able to answer every question in life.

Now, I know that's a big claim, I realize that.

Let me repeat that again the more we understand God's eternal plan, the more we grasp it, enjoy it to unite people to his son, the more we'll be able to answer every question in life.

Wait a minute, I just took a calculus test.

The Bible didn't help me one bit with those questions.

We could.

If you want me to modify, you know the thesis the more we understand God's eternal plan to unite people to his son, the more we have the foundational material to address every question in life about knowing and pleasing God.

Now, that's a mouthful so I shortened it, but really aren't the questions about knowing and pleasing God the most important questions.

I mean, you can build the Brooklyn Bridge, but if you don't know how to live a life while pleasing to God, that knowledge of building the Brooklyn Bridge only is so valuable, right?

So those are the most important questions, and you see this right at the outset.

So go back to the verses we were looking at that.

I read for you 1 Corinthians 1.

We've got these two foundation pillars of union with Christ that believers have, and then God's eternal plan, especially as it involves the future coming into the present.

So first, look at union with Christ.

So Paul says there I thank my God for you.

Verse number four because of the grace given to you in Christ Jesus.

So there's union with Christ.

Now, in verse number five you were enriched in him in every way.

Verse number nine you were called by him into fellowship with his son.

Union, union, union.

You've got to understand your union with Christ.

He's starting with that.

What about eternity?

What about eternity?

Look at verse number seven.

You don't lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's talking about the second coming, when Christ is revealed and returns from heaven.

And then he goes on to say in verse number eight, he will strengthen you to the end, eternity approaching, so that you will be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, again, the end.

So right from the outset he's got these connected foundation pillars of union with Christ and looking to the future and God's eternal plan, and those two themes are going to be woven throughout the letter as he addresses their problems and responds to their questions.

So I'm going to try to prove that to you tonight by walking through seven examples from this book of how Paul brings the eternal plan of God to unite people to his son, how he brings that to bear on their lives and the questions they're facing.

So seven examples of that from the letter.

Here's the first example division in the church.

They didn't write to him about that one, but he heard about it and wanted to talk about it.

So look at chapter three, go over chapter three, verse number three you are still worldly.

For since there's envy and strife among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans?

Whenever someone says I belong to paul and I belong to paul's, are you not acting like mere humans?

There there's the problem division.

Look down at verse number 11.

No one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down.

That foundation is Jesus Christ.

If you're a believer, paul says you're built onto Jesus Christ.

You're not built onto Paul or Apollos or you're built onto Christ, but if you're, this building stacked on him, if you're united to him, then you have to be united to others.

You can't put bricks down and the bricks don't go together.

If they're part of the same foundation, they do go together and the bricks don't go together.

If they're part of the same foundation, they do go together.

That's his logic here.

Look down to verse 21, chapter 3.

Still so, there's union with Christ.

By implication.

Let no one boast in human leaders.

This is part of their division, as they were elevating, idolizing certain human leaders.

Let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present or things to come.

There's eternity, there's the future.

Everything is yours and you belong to Christ.

There's union again.

So think about division in light of who you are in Jesus and what's coming, and you'll be helped.

Example number two lawsuits among fellow believers.

Over to chapter six, verse number one.

If any of you has a dispute against another.

How dare you take it to court before the unrighteous and not before saints?

So we don't know the situation.

Imagine you know, somebody gives someone else their plow to borrow for something and they return it and they say wait a minute, you broke my plow, you need to fix it.

No, when you gave it to me it was already pretty much shot.

You need to fix it yourself.

Oh yeah, well, I'm going to sue you.

Oh yeah, go ahead.

I'm making that up.

But in your own mind, imagine what it's going to be.

And Paul says don't do that.

And he could say don't do that because that's not very nice.

But it's actually not what he says here.

He says in verse 2, don't you know that saints will judge the world?

Verse number 3, this is even more interesting Don't you know that we will judge angels?

If I was a member of the church of Corinth I would have said no, I didn't know.

That.

That's news to me.

Where does Moses say for all the righteous, in the future, when angels are judged, you'll get to judge them too.

Where is that in the Bible?

And Paul says he doesn't just say I got something to inform you.

He says don't you know that says he doesn't just say I got something to inform you.

He says don't you know that?

Well, it's possible.

When he helped establish this church he had extra revelation he gave, and that's possible.

I think what's more likely here is he's making a theological deduction that he says and thinks they should have made.

Doesn't Jesus say when the Son of man comes in his glory and sits on his glorious throne to his disciples, you too will sit on thrones.

What do you do when you're on a throne?

You're a king.

You make pronouncements and judgments.

Isn't it true that Jesus one day is going to judge the living and the dead and angels?

But if you're united to Christ, you'll be right there with him.

Now, I don't know the mechanics of it.

Is that Jesus makes his declaration against the sinful angels who rebelled with Satan and then we say amen, or do we actually verbalize some pronouncement?

I don't know the mechanics of this judgment, but Paul is bringing in both the future and the reality that if you're belonging to Christ, what Jesus is going to do, you'll be a part of that.

So you're going to be before all the created order, judging heavenly beings, and you're going to take your fellow church member to loss over a tractor, a plow, come on, that's the logic here.

Example number three sex, marriage and singleness.

I'm cramming three things into one example.

They are related in Paul's mind.

So go over to chapter five.

So here's a man that Paul needs to confront, given the especially grievous nature of his sin.

And Paul says, verse number five hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, but notice the reason so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

There's a looking to the future in the judgment that's being given to this man.

There's still the hope that he's going to be saved eventually through God's grace.

Look down, if you will, to chapter 6.

Further down, verse 14.

God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

Don't you know that your bodies are a part of Christ's body?

Should I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of a prostitute?

Absolutely not.

So.

It's not just that this form of immorality is icky or wrong.

Paul could say both of those things.

But he's saying you belong to Christ and you can't separate, as a human, your body and your spirit, your one being so when you take your body and sin in this way because you're united to Christ.

It's as though you're bringing Christ into that and consider that as you're facing these temptations.

And he even goes a bit further than that, verse 16,.

Don't you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her?

For scripture says the two will become one flesh.

But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

There's something so sacred about our intimate union with Jesus Christ that that's the ballast and ground and help for us to face other kinds of temptation, though in some ways maybe a little different in nature.

There's an intimacy there of union with Christ is a reality of our relationship.

Over to chapter number seven.

So now we're getting to their questions.

So we're still in my third example of trying to prove this argument about what Paul's doing in Corinthians, showing us how all the questions of life they can flow back to.

We're united to Christ.

The future is present.

God's got an eternal plan that reshapes our thinking.

So I'm an example number three.

But now in the letter he's going to turn to some of their actual questions, and marriage and issues related to marriage are part of their questions.

He's got throughout chapter seven a refrain.

So look at verse number 17.

Let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him.

Verse 20.

Verse 24.

Verse 26.

In which he was called Verse 26,.

Because of the present distress, I think it's good for a man to remain as he is.

Do you hear that theme?

Stay as you are.

There's a theme, but that refrain is, in light of what he's already developed, that you belong to Jesus.

The most important union you could have has already been established if you belong to Christ.

So you don't have to be overly distressed about whether you were converted after you were converted after you were already married and now my spouse is not a believer and this could be horrible what about the influence on the kids?

And remain in the situation in which God's called you.

Now I could imagine a 20-year-old coming to me and saying Micah.

I could imagine a 60-year-old saying this, but it's a little more pressing as a 20-year-old for most people.

I could imagine a 20-year-old saying I hear what Paul is saying.

I've experienced union with Christ.

I want to enjoy that intimacy with Christ more.

I can extrapolate, you know, when Paul says don't visit a prostitute, I shouldn't be in my college, ending up in someone else's dorm room.

I don't want that.

I've got that.

I understand the future is going to be here sooner than I think and in the future it's a different situation.

We're not given a marriage in eternity.

I understand those things, but there's the here and now.

We're not living in the future and there are days I feel like if I don't get married in the next 30 minutes, something terrible could happen.

I could end up in someone's room where I shouldn't be.

Paul's got a response to that.

He says get married, he makes an allowance for that and it's a happy allowance, it's a joyful allowance.

Now, I don't think Paul would have said to every 20-year-old get married within the next 30 minutes.

I don't think he would have said that, but he's got an allowance for that.

But the allowances and the situational specifics of all these different things that he goes through here, that's not what's animating his heart and his mind fundamentally.

He acknowledged and addresses it.

But what he's still trying to do is reshape their whole frame of thinking, regardless of the decisions they make in the course of their life, in the present or in the future.

And he says as much here.

Look again at chapter 7, look at verse 29.

This is what I mean brothers and sisters.

So he even signals he's going to summarize something important.

This is what I mean brothers and sisters.

The time is limited.

So from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had none.

Those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they didn't own anything.

There's some hyperbole here.

This is the same Paul who said husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.

He's the same Paul who said wives love your husbands.

It's the same Paul that said provide for your family.

That's a command.

So there's exaggeration here.

But he's making a point.

No matter what your situation in life, there's a mentality of how you approach that.

And it's not only the nearness of eternity, it's not that only our life is a vapor and soon it'll be over.

It's that the future is already present.

So keep reading what he says here.

So there's a union with Christ as the foundation.

But keep reading what he says here, verse 31, those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it, for this world in its current form is passing away.

He doesn't say it will pass away, he says it's running through your fingers right now.

Eternity is already present right now.

So you've got to come to grips with that, regardless of your life situation.

That regardless of your life situation.

Example number four food offered to idols.

Chapter eight.

They bring this up.

There's some delicious hamburger.

Maybe the butcher had a ceremony to Zeus before he brought this hamburger out of the back.

And if I eat this hamburger, am I somehow worshiping a false god?

Maybe I shouldn't eat it.

And someone else is like ah, it's a piece of meat.

I'm not worshiping Zeus, it's delicious.

Pass the burger over to me, I'll have it.

This kind of thing.

How does Paul respond to this?

Well, his burden is to say you need to give up your rights for others.

You need to love others.

That's the overarching principle.

Your rights for others, you need to love others.

That's the overarching principle.

But look at what he says in verse number 12 of chapter 8.

If you're not careful about the conscience of other Christians verse number 12,.

When you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

But Christ doesn't have a weak conscience.

We can't tempt him to do anything wrong.

Yes, but because the people you interact with are united to Christ.

When you trouble them you're troubling the Lord.

So keep in mind that union with Jesus.

Down in the next chapter, chapter number nine, verse 25.

He gives many examples here of how he is willing to give up his own right as an apostle for the sake of others.

Still kind of on this theme of beat out for the idols, but verse 25.

Now, everyone who competes exercises self-control on everything.

They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.

When do you receive that In the future?

He's living his life and he'll give up all kinds of things because he's got the end in view.

He's got God's eternal plan in view.

That burger sure is tasty, but it doesn't have the immediate in view.

He's got loving others in light of God's eternal plan as the center thing in his mind.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 10.

Look at verse number 11.

He's talking about Israel in the past and the nature of if you do eat food offered to idols in the context of a worship ceremony.

Now that's where Paul says don't do that, because there's the union element.

You're taking just like if you were visiting a prostitute the warning back from earlier chapters if you go into the context of a false pagan worship ritual and you participate in that because you're united to Christ.

You're bringing Christ into that and you're in danger of bringing the forces that are there to bear on your life in some unfortunate way.

But again he argues from the future.

Chapter 10, life in some unfortunate way, but again he argues from the future.

Chapter 10, verse number 11.

These things happened to them, the Israelites, as examples, and they were written for our instruction on whom the ends of the ages have come.

What does that have to do with anything?

What does that have to do with anything?

In light of Christ's coming, everything is collapsing.

The future is here, eternity is present Not fully and finally, as it will be one day but the coming of Christ into the world was the biggest change in world history and if you've got that change in the back of your mind, you can see the meat offered to idol for what it is in light of that and you can see loving others in light of what it is for that.

Next example, example number five, the Lord's Supper and their behavior at the Lord's Supper, and this actually overlaps some with food offered to idols.

But chapter 10, we're still here.

In chapter 10, look down at verse 16.

We're still here in chapter 10.

Look down at verse 16.

They had some divisive behavior even at the Lord's Supper.

And he says in verse 16 of chapter 10, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?

The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread, we, who are many, are one body, since all of us share in the one bread.

Communion is not merely a ritual, it's a participation, not that the bread or the cup somehow automatically just gives us more of Christ, but, as we're believing and trusting and calling to mind the truths that symbolize there, it's a spiritual experience.

It's not just a ritual.

And because it's a spiritual experience and you're meditating on and exhibiting your union with Christ and his death and resurrection, how could you rush ahead and selfishly take when others are hurting and they're not arrived?

How could you greedily drink and you drink so much, you get drunk at the Lord's Supper when this is supposed to be a spiritual experience of who you are as belonging to the Lord?

Chapter 11, still the Lord's Supper example, but we've got union to Christ and we see again the future.

Invoked chapter 11, verse 26 as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes.

Communion is a chance for us to proclaim all that Christ is, and we're doing that always with anticipation that he's coming.

He's coming, he's coming.

That's part of what we say when we celebrate the Lord's Supper.

Two examples left.

Number six spiritual gifts, chapter 12.

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, that's how the chapter opens.

Look over to verse number 12 and 13 of chapter 12.

And you hear a similar argument from the division he addressed at the beginning of the letter.

Just as the body is one and has many parts and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ.

For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink.

How should we exercise spiritual gifts, paul?

How should we exercise spiritual gifts, paul?

He doesn't say go out into the woods and ask God to show you your special spiritual gift.

Maybe you could use it, maybe not.

It's a horrible idea.

But he begins with now remember, even though there's different gifts, you're one body and that's the body of Christ.

You're united to him.

So, in all the ways you exercise your spiritual gifts, you're trying to build up the body because you belong to Jesus and he's built you up, and don't you want to build up others who belong to him.

It's all together, it's all one.

Chapter 13, read at weddings, and a wonderful exhortation for new husbands and wives has application even beyond that.

He's still talking about spiritual gifts, because in chapter 12 he does.

In chapter 14 he does too.

What he says in 13, though, is yes, there's spiritual gifts, but, again, love is this crowning virtue, and his argument is the reason why love is the crowning virtue is because it lasts longer than some of these spiritual gifts will last.

Chapter 13, look at verse number eight Love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will come to an end.

So you can prophesy Good, great, wonderful.

Paul tells the Corinthians, but that has a timestamp.

Love doesn't have a timestamp.

As for tongues, they will cease.

As for knowledge, it will come to an end, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put aside childish things, for now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then, face to face, the revelation of the day of the Lord Jesus.

The same thing he opened the letter with, he brings out here.

Christ is coming back and the things that are effective in these days and these ages.

They won't always be here, but love will always be here and Christ is coming.

So exercise your spiritual gifts in light of the love you have for the body of Christ and pleading with God that he give you a love that surpasses even the great insight or wisdom or other kinds of gifts that you might have.

Finally, resurrection hope Over to chapter 15.

Apparently, they've got questions about the resurrection and some, it seems, perhaps are even unsure if believers will have bodily resurrection.

And Paul says yes, absolutely, you can anticipate if you know the Lord Jesus, christ, your body is going to be raised out of that ground.

And look at his arguments here.

And look at his arguments here.

Look first there at verse number 12, where you see him even phrase the question this way If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead.

And I take Paul to be making this theological argument, like he made back in chapter 6 with the lawsuits and the judging the angels to be saying more than well, one guy rose from the dead.

So you can't say no one ever rose from the dead.

I take him to be saying Jesus rose from the dead.

And haven't we been saying all along you're united to Christ.

So if you're united to Christ and his body came out of the grave to live forever, why would you even think that your body wouldn't come out of the grave and live forever?

That's impossible because you belong to Jesus.

Look down to verse number 22.

Verse number 22.

Just as in Adam, all die, we come into the world united to Adam in a legal sense, in a moral sense and bearing his sin, nature and the consequences of all those things, which is death.

But in Christ all will be made alive.

There's no hope of the resurrection apart from Christ.

God doesn't owe us new bodies, but if we belong to Jesus, christ has earned and accomplished all that we could ask for, including the right to adoption and new bodies in the grand and glorious future.

Go over to verse number 58.

We're skipping down here some, but Paul is going to move from this question about resurrection to encouraging them in their day-to-day labor.

Paul does care about day-to-day life.

So don't hear what I'm saying that Paul doesn't care about the questions of life.

He does.

He just wants them to view them with an eternal lens and with this lens of your union with Christ.

He ends this whole section in verse 58,.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work, because you know that your labor is not in vain.

But I skipped something.

Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Yeah, your labor has value every day, even though heaven and hell are pressing in on us.

Eternity has already arrived in the future and your labor still has value, but that's because you belong to the Son.

I hope this gives you hope.

This was great getting into this in Corinthians this week and the last couple of weeks for me because, again, this is a resource and a way to approach all kinds of questions in life.

The way that Paul does it so regularly in this book should suggest to us it's not just about these questions they had, but how we think about all kinds of questions.

Let me start with I'm united to Christ.

How does that reshape the way I think about it?

And the future is here, it's coming, it's near.

How does that reshape how I think about these questions?

Last passage, we didn't hit this earlier, but go back to 1 Corinthians, chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

Or, I'm sorry, chapter 1, chapter 1 still.

So I read that opening.

Or, I'm sorry, chapter one, chapter one still.

So I read that opening of Paul setting the foundation.

And then he reiterates that again.

And just look down to verse number 30.

It is from, and I'll close with this First of all, it's from him, god the Father, that you are in.

Christ Jesus, god's got an eternal plan to unite people to his son.

And it's Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us, the most important kind of wisdom, wisdom for every life, day-to-day life.

But wisdom even beyond that, who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it's written, let the one who boasts boast, boast in the Lord.

Let's pray, lord.

We want to grasp this more.

We, if we're honest, we confess we've only begun to see the tip of what this means for us to be united to the Son.

That it's forgiveness, it's restored fellowship with you, it's intimate union and communion.

It's the knowledge of things present and things to come, it's life and death and angels and judgments and disagreements with fellow believers and everything in between.

So, lord, give us a humility that we would not ever boast in ourselves, but boast in the cross, through which the world was crucified to us.

And we've been crucified to the world, but we're alive in Christ.

Lord, help us to take stock of every relationship, every decision that comes our way, every anxiety or fear, in light of what it means to belong to Jesus.

And it's of you that we're in Christ.

It's him who is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption, and we thank you that in one real sense, we can sing as we will.

And we thank you that, in one real sense, we can sing as we will the gift of grace in Jesus.

What more is there for heaven to give?

Having given us your son, what more could we own or ask for that you freely give to us all things, because you've given Christ to us.

So let us wait that in our hearts tonight as we rest, as we go to sleep, in Jesus' name amen.