A Divided Church | 1 Cor 1:1-17 | Jonathan Huang | Sep 6, 2026

Our scripture reading today comes from the book of First Corinthians 1, 1 through 17.

If you're using one of the black Bibles available to you from our resource table, you can turn to page 895.

Those Bibles are free for you to take home if you need one.

Please stand for this reading of God's holy and inerrant word.

Greeting.

Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is Corinth, to those sanctified in Jesus Christ, called to be saints together with all those who are 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.

Thanksgiving.

I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless 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.

Divisions in the church.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you who agree, and that there will be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind in the same judgment.

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ.

Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.

I did baptize also the house of Stephanus.

Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks, Anna.

Good morning, everyone.

Good to see you all this morning.

Let me pray for us, and we'll get into the word.

Let's pray.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, or stands in the way of sinners, or sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers.

Lord, we want to be those kinds of people this morning.

As we gather on this Lord's day coming before your word, we want to be those kinds of people who delight in your word, who meditate on your word day and night.

And together as we sit under the teaching of your word, we pray that you would speak to us in a special way, that your spirit would come.

And may the name of Christ and Christ alone be lifted high in this place.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, back several years ago, I was at this conference, Christian conference, granted.

And you know those moments.

You've been to concerts, the your favorite artist, your favorite band gets up on stage, the crowd goes wild, everyone's mesmerized.

It's the same thing that happens at Christian conferences if you've never been to one.

Your favorite preacher, your famous celebrity, you know, speaker comes up and you're like mesmerized.

Like the crowd is like.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my Christian conferences.

And um, if you've ever been to one, you probably do too.

Now, this conference uh in Kentucky, in a stadium full of people, we were there together for the gospel.

Now, I think it's good every now and then to just pause and consider and ask yourself what what's driving us Christians to be so much like the culture around us?

I mean, we we just like anyone else get invatuated by famous people.

So remember, what it may have been that conference or not, I saw someone famous walking down the street because he just happened to be walking down the street.

I think he's a Christian rapper or something.

I was like, well, that's him.

We're mesmerized by Christian celebrities.

There's even this thing, if you've never heard, um, among Christian circles known as the celebrity pastor.

Caitlin Beattie, the author of the book Celebrities for Jesus, talks about how easy it is for Christians and churches to get their identities all tangled up and tied up in, you know, the guy at the top.

Maybe it's the beloved founding pastor of a church.

Maybe it's someone who's grown a reputation far beyond their own church because of their social media presence or because of books they've written.

And what can happen is that if and when this well-celebrated, well-beloved guy at the top falls or does something controversial, well then you get large fractures in the church.

You know what that's like.

You've seen it in the news.

You've got some people in the church who love this dear pastor so much they just want to protect them and support them.

You've got another group of people in the church who are just, we need accountability.

This is wrong.

And the church gets divided.

And what you end up is a divided church based on people who feel loyal to this person or not.

But there's something off here if you think about it.

Because the Bible says the church is to be the main display of God's manifold wisdom, made known to the rulers and authorities of the heavenly places.

It's through the church that God's power to reconcile people from all tribes and people and language and nations is supposed to be most magnificently displayed.

His power to reconcile and bring to get people together and unite people.

And at the center of attention of the church, always and only was supposed to be the name of Jesus Christ and Christ alone, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.

So, how we strayed so far away from that vision?

2026.

And what will it take to get us back on track to making Christ and Christ alone the center of our attention?

Well, this morning we're gonna kick off a new sermon series.

We've been in the book of Genesis for quite a while now.

We've studied the stories of creation, Adam and Eve.

Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, right?

And so we're gonna take a break.

We're gonna come back to the life of Joseph sometime next year.

We're gonna be in 1 Corinthians for a while.

So we're entitling the sermon series Gospel Hope for a Troubled Church.

That's this the series title, Gospel Hope for a Troubled Church, because we're we're gonna be looking at the problems and the issues that a very troubled church had in the ancient city of Corinth.

So I want to invite you to turn with me to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, which was a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

We're gonna be in chapter 1 and going through the first 17 verses this morning.

All right, 1 Corinthians chapter 1.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

Just for some context, the ancient city of Corinth was located in what we know today as the country of Greece.

Now, back in the day, it was the kind of the capital of the Roman-controlled Achaida, which was a province, and that made up most of southern and central Greece.

Now, Corinth was a bustling city.

It was known to be a center of trade and commerce.

It was a place where you would go and people would love heading to Corinth to make it big, to make a name for themselves, to be somebody.

Something you need to know about Corinth was that ancient Corinthians really, really cared about what other people thought of them.

Like where their place was in society was really important.

They really valued that.

Like the average Corinthian citizen paid an inordinate amount of attention to their own reputation, to their own status, and to where they stood in relation to others.

Like they cared a lot about that, which is going to be very important for us as we look at this passage this morning.

Believe it or not, one of the best ways these Corinthians would kind of bolster their image or their status in society is to flaunt their abilities to get up in front of large crowds and to give great speeches.

That was just something they valued back in those days.

To be the center of attention.

This was a city enamored by celebrities.

I love what one observer says about the Christians who made up the church in Corinth because it so beautifully sums up the problem we're going to be facing all throughout this letter.

He says this quote The problem was not that the church was in Corinth, but that too much of Corinth was in the church.

I'm going to say that again.

The problem was not that the church was in Corinth, but that too much of Corinth was in the church.

And so Paul goes and plants this church in the city of Corinth during his second missionary journey in Acts 18.

We learn that Paul travels from Athens to Corinth.

He meets Aquila, Priscilla, a couple.

Now it's a little interesting, confusing, because actually the 1 Corinthians is not the first letter he wrote to the Corinthians.

There's actually a letter before 1 Corinthians.

We see that reference in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 9.

1 Corinthians 5:9

Apparently, after hearing a report, after receiving a letter from the Corinthian Christians, Paul was convinced that the church he had planted back in Corinth was in trouble.

It was in trouble.

They were confused.

They were off about all sorts of things, which is why 1 Corinthians is all over the place about this or that, or this or that issue, or this or that issue.

It's because we're dealing with a very troubled church since the time it was planted.

It was a church that was tolerating sexual sin among its ranks.

It was a church where people were being puffed up with pride because of certain usages of spiritual gifts.

It was a church where people were becoming more loyal to their celebrity leaders than to Jesus.

It was a church struggling to stay united.

It was a divided church.

And so with all that background, let's dive into this passage, all right?

I'm going to spend most of our time looking at verses 10 through 17.

That's where the bulk of kind of where I want to spend our time is today, but I want to start at the top at verse 1.

So look down there with me, verse 1.

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.

And you know, the first thing I want you to notice is just how central to Paul's thinking, how center of mind the name of Christ was as Paul's writing this letter.

Now, I want you to notice, and I did the work for you, so you wouldn't have known this, the number of times Paul mentions the word Christ 14 times in just these first 17 verses.

There's only three other times he mentions Christ in the rest of the chapter, but you know the word Christ shows up 64 times in the entire letter, which means almost a third of the times he mentions the word Christ is found in this introduction.

Jesus is just all over his mind as he's writing this letter.

That's my point.

And I think this tells us something about his mindset.

His mindset as he's writing, writing 1 Corinthians.

Jesus Christ was the front and center of his mind, nothing else was on his attention.

He's got a troubled church, but Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, he's pushing and pressing into the name of Jesus.

And that's important.

Verse 2, Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians that what had happened to them, the way that they have come together and trusted in the gospel and were called together, that's a work of grace.

And he wanted them to recognize that.

This church that had just been formed in Corinth was entirely a work of God.

God is the one who calls them together as saints.

And he calls them together as saints to what?

Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see what he's doing?

He's starting off this letter before he even gets to any of the problems of the church, and he's just reminding them what's most important.

The name of Christ lifted up in every place, in every church.

Now, what's what's the problem?

Again, the problem is not that the church was in the city of Corinth, but that too much of Corinth was in the church.

Look down at verse 10.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no division among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same judgment.

This word in the Greek for united here is used in the sense of being ready or suitable or equipped for a specific purpose.

And we know that the purpose of this church in Corinth, just like the purpose of every church in all places, is to be on mission with God.

Now, Jesus says in Mark chapter 3 that if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

Mark 3 · chapter mention

And therefore, therefore, a divided church has no way of moving forward on mission because it's just so busy fighting battles from within.

Amen.

That's the problem.

They were a divided church.

What was driving this division?

Verse 11.

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

What I mean is that each one of you says, Well, I follow Paul.

Or I follow Paulus.

Or I follow Cephas, which is another name for the Apostle Peter, or I follow Christ.

Now, people have interpreted this section differently.

One way to look at it is just to take Paul's words at face value.

And what that would mean is that the Corinthian church here was being fractured along the lines of well-known leaders in the church.

And they were putting them on pedestals.

In this case, there was Paul, the great missionary statesman, the great missionary who planted these churches, the one who wrote a lot of books in the New Testament, the one who was the infamous persecutor of the church who had the conversion experience on Damascus Road.

Celebrated, certainly.

There was Apollos, the eloquent, well-loved man who was able to fend a faith like no other.

People loved him.

And then there was the Apostle Peter, of course, Cephas, one of three of Jesus' closest disciples.

You can't get any better than that.

Pillar of the early church.

Now, commentators suggest that these Corinthian Christians were falling prey to a worldly thinking, that who they associated with somehow made them better than others.

They were being influenced by a secular model of leadership that was personality-driven.

Their sense of pride and their sense of identity was rooted in certain high-profile figures, including those who they were baptized by.

Which is why Paul goes on to say in verse 13, look down there with me.

Is Christ divided?

Was Paul crucified for you?

Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say you were baptized in my name.

I did also baptize the household of Stephanus.

Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.

Now you might be thinking, well, I don't I don't feel that way about the pastor who baptized me.

Not not at all.

But before you let yourself get off the hook too quickly, I think you should think about it just a little bit longer.

Are there people you know or people you like to just name drop every now and then because you just like knowing who they are or being associated with them, or you you want people to know you you maybe you've never known met this person, but you're connected with them somehow.

You got some ties to them somehow.

Just throwing around their name makes you feel a little better about yourself.

Oh you don't know about you don't know about so-and-so.

Fill in the blank.

The problem again is not that the church was in a city like Corinth, but too much of Corinth was in the city.

Listen, what's at the root of divisions in the Corinthian church lies at the hearts of humans in every age.

It's this struggle, it's this this need to attach ourselves to influential people in order to feel a sense of significance or to feel better about ourselves.

Amen.

I know that's not maybe not all of you feel that.

Maybe some of you feel that a little more than others, but I certainly feel that.

Caitlin Beattie describes this concept known as refracted light.

Now it's this idea that we there's a certain kind of glow.

G-L-O-W, glow.

There's a certain kind of glow that we get, this feeling of being special when we associate ourselves with powerful celebrity figures.

Now, even if you've never met this person before, we humans feel this, we can we can get this certain sense of pride, uh, uh, of significance simply by having a connection with certain people.

Now, I want you to think about the Calvinism versus the Arminianism divide, right?

Some people are followers of John Calvin.

Others are followers, and you may not even know his name, Jacobus Arminius, because you're not a Calvinist.

And people on both sides of the debate have argued about this issue, about the way salvation works for centuries.

It's an age-old debate.

Now, yes, there's a place to study scripture carefully and come up with your own convictions.

Yes, there is a place to say, hey, I think this so-and-so theologian summarizes things probably the best in scripture.

Not, I think I'm gonna go this direction from what I can tell.

But there are really unhelpful ways to express those convictions.

Amen.

The late R.

C.

Sprohl talks about this phenomenon known as cage-stage Calvinism.

And that that's this this cage-stage Calvinism afflicts so many people who've just seen the truths of the Reformed doctrines of grace.

It can happen.

Maybe it's happened to you.

He writes, they're identifiable by their insistence on turning every discussion into an argument for limited atonement or for making it their personal mission to ensure everyone knows, they know, hears often quite loudly the truths of divine election.

Now, no wonder there are books out there with titles like humble Calvinism, or internet articles out there like Be a Kinder Calvinist.

Just search it up, it's actually true.

It's a real article.

I remember what it's first it was first like to start learning more about this issue and reading up and kind of discovering these truths and trying to make a decision where I land and forming my own convictions on the doctrine of election.

I know also what it's like to start feeling a sense of pride to people who don't think like that.

I do.

You're a Calvinist, you're not an Arminian.

I'm with Calvin, not Arminius.

Sound familiar.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13.

If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love.

What?

I am nothing.

So, Christian, do you see any place in your life where spiritual pride has crept in because you like associating with this person or that person?

I know it may not be for all of you, but maybe for some of you.

Can you spot in your heart where you begin to place a sense of identity in someone who's become a spiritual influence on your life?

Maybe it's your favorite author.

You just love name-dropping that author.

Maybe that person's become more of who makes you feel significant than Jesus Christ Himself.

You've got it mixed up.

Now, if that's you, I just want you to consider may this be an opportunity to repent.

To repent of the ways you've let people other than Christ Himself become who you find your sense of worth in.

Amen.

Now, is there anything else as we look at our hearts that can be done to fight these selfish ambitions, these tendencies to elevate ourselves?

Like, like how do you die to the kind of pride that keeps making you want to be tied and closely connected with powerful, influential people?

Well, Paul goes on to model exactly that.

Exactly that in verse 17.

Look down there with me.

He says this, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

You see, Paul wasn't out to make a name for himself.

By saying he was sent to preach the gospel, not baptized, not saying baptism is unimportant.

But what he's saying is that he was sent to preach the gospel plain and simple, without words of eloquent wisdom.

He was just bearing his heart, he's bearing his intentions, that he had no intention of being a crowd pleaser.

He had no intention of becoming an influencer, he had no intention of gaining a following for himself, no matter what other people are doing in the Corinthian church.

He wasn't doing that, he wasn't out to do that.

He had one intention, one intention alone.

And that was to preach the gospel and to lift high the name of Christ and Christ alone.

That was his intention.

Listen to what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

All Paul cares about is preaching the gospel and seeing the lost saved, seeing people drawn to Christ.

He's not worried about who's following him, who's not.

He's not concerned about whether people like him or are gathering around his name.

No, he's anxious to see people saved and gathered together to lift high the name of Christ.

And this is the road to unity in every local church.

This is the road to unity.

You see, if all of us would follow the example of Paul, then none of us would be clamoring to be at the top.

None of us would struggle with this issue of refracted light and wanting to associate ourselves with others.

There'd be unity in the church, not fractures based on who we follow or who we don't.

And I relate to this so well because one of the things I've struggled with over the years is to be recognized, to be somebody.

To be somebody.

Listen to what he writes: quote It has often happened that young men with certain gifts who listen to a great preacher are captivated by him and what he's doing.

They're captivated by his personality or by his eloquence, and they are moved by him, and unconsciously they begin to feel a desire to be like him and to do what he is doing.

Now, that may be right or it may be quite wrong.

They may only be fascinated by the glamour of preaching and attracted by the idea of dressing audiences and influencing them.

All kinds of wrong and false motives may insinuate themselves.

And so here's what I wrote as a response, February 20th, 2014, in my journal.

This is the state of my heart in 2014.

Quote, I see in myself two competing forces at work.

Selfish desires and godly desires.

The selfish desires in me include the following.

He needed to kill off some things in my heart that were that were brewing.

And I needed to learn to serve the Lord in obscurity.

What I mean by that is just doing what I'm doing in life as a medical student or as a doctor later, doing whatever I could to serve my local church without any name recognition, just as a volunteer.

And I needed to learn what that was like to serve the Lord in obscurity before I could become a pastor who isn't all about making the ministry all about me.

I love what Dave Harvey says about this.

Quote, we need to do ministry without acclaim.

So that we won't be acclaim addicts when it comes.

Anonymity, listen to this, anonymity is the ground from which pastors, and I would say anyone serving the Lord Jesus Christ, are harvested.

Obscurity fertilizes the man, I'd say women as well, with humility, humility so that when he grows, what he grows into can really bear fruit.

So what does that look like for you today?

What does that look like for you today?

Maybe you're here today and wouldn't consider yourself a Christian yet?

I wonder if you can relate to this kind of constant urge to be somebody, to be somebody in this world.

Maybe you recognize that in you.

You crave being recognized by others.

You want to be well connected.

You really care about who you're associated with, and you want to you want people to know that.

Maybe this shows up in your workplace, at school, in your neighborhood, your friend circles.

But what if, just consider, what if you've been looking for your sense of significance in all the wrong places?

You see, Christians believe that all of us were meant to find our greatest sense of worth and significance in having a relationship with God of this universe who created us and made us to live for his glory.

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God.

For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, all things were created through him and for him.

We were created for Jesus.

And the only thing stopping that from happening is ourselves.

We don't want to be created for Jesus.

That doesn't sound like a great purpose to some of us.

But we Christians, we Christians believe that being in a relationship with the God of the universe, with Jesus, is what will ultimately satisfy this need to be significant in this world, to be known and recognized because you are known and recognized by the God of the universe.

And that makes all the difference.

But what gets in the way of sin?

There's this constant push against the idea that somebody other than ourselves is supposed to be number one.

We want our name to be recognized.

We want our achievements to be known and broadcast to the world.

We want influence.

Every selfish ambition, every ulterior motive, every instance of self-glorification, these are all sins in the sight of God.

And the Bible tells us that all of us are headed to an eternity in hell, which is what it costs to pay off the great, enormous debt of sin we owe to a holy and just God.

The sins against, the sins that we have to pay for, the costs that we have to pay for our sins are proportional to this, to the God and the to who we sin against.

It's proportional.

That's why it makes sense.

That we're all headed to hell.

And that's the bad news.

But the good news, the good news of Christianity lies in this.

God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to live the perfect life we should have lived.

And to die the death we should have died.

On the cross.

On the cross, Jesus died for our sins that we should have died for.

And he paid for our sins that we should be paying for in hell.

And he was raised back to life, which means Jesus is alive and well right now, and he's calling you to turn away from a life of sin.

And turn to him to be the Lord and Savior of our life.

And to all who do so, to all who do so, he promises the gift of eternal life.

Life with him not just now, but in the life to come.

And he promises you the forgiveness of all your sins, past, present, and future.

And he gives you the gift of a clean conscience, which is an amazing thing.

A clean conscience before the God of the universe.

You can be reconciled with God and walk with him and find your deepest sense of significance and identity in him starting today.

And now, if that's something you're interested in doing and you want to talk more about this with someone, I want to encourage you to find me after service or to speak to someone you know at this church.

By coming to Christ, you can be set free of your need to attach yourself to other people in order to feel that sense of significance because what God thinks of you matters most.

Amen.

Now, for those of you who are Christians in this room, here's what I want to say to you.

This is how I want to land our time together.

Do you, like me, struggle with this problem with selfish ambition?

Maybe you've never voiced it or consciously thought of it, but maybe this moment we're letting some of these things surface.

Any of you relate to my story and feel these sinful desires to make a name for yourself?

That's what these Corinthian Christians are trying to do when they're associating themselves with some top-notch leaders in the church.

That was dividing the church.

That was fracturing the church.

Now, in his book Mere Christianity, C.S.

Lewis describes what meeting a truly humble person is like.

Meeting a truly humble person is like.

Now it's not like this person is always just walking around and putting himself down like he's a nobody, he's a nobody, he's a nobody.

What's gonna stand out to you is how much he or she is truly interested in you.

Like you're gonna have conversations with this truly humble person, and you're gonna walk away feeling like this person really cared about me.

Maybe you've met someone like that.

Lewis writes, quote, he will not be thinking about humility.

He will not be thinking about himself at all.

So here's my call to action for you.

And I think practicing this is just gonna be part of the mix of fighting against wanting to be somebody and not making life all about you.

When you're mingling with people after service, or you're having lunch with someone during the week, or you're at the grocery store and you run into someone you just happen to run into, or you're walking in your neighborhood and you you you get you you get a chance to run into your neighbor that you haven't seen in a long time.

Begin practicing what's been called self-forgetfulness.

Begin practicing what's been called self-forgetfulness.

And what that looks like is to be more interested in their lives, in what others are going through than you are of telling them about you.

Like ask thoughtful questions about their lives and spend time listening to them.

Be more concerned about others, how you can serve them or pray for them instead of getting people to do that for you.

Now that might not sound like very mind-blowing, but if you practice that on a daily basis, the freedom of self-forgetfulness becomes yours.

Because little by little, day by day, you're gonna you're gonna practice the habits of thinking less about yourselves and more about others for the glory of God.

Does that make sense?

Self-forgetfulness is, I'm not gonna say the key, but a key to breaking this cycle of trying to be somebody in this world because it's not about all about you.

And every every conversation you have, when you practice this, you're dying to yourself to make yourself important.

And as you practice self-forgetfulness, here's a phrase I want to leave you with that's been so helpful to me over the years.

Now, I heard it a while back, and I have kept it with me to help me fight selfish ambition.

It's actually a quote from this guy who everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people know who Hudson Taylor is.

Hudson Taylor was a founding founder of this great organization, missions organization, China Inland Missions, now known as OMF International.

No one really knows about his successor, D.E.

Host.

Like everyone knows about Hudson Taylor, no one knows about D.E.

host.

But what D.E.

host says just it just uh solidifies exactly what I'm saying, and he lived it out.

Because no one knows about him.

He says this live to be forgotten so Christ can be remembered, live to be forgotten so Christ can be remembered.

He lived it out.

No one knows who host is, but so much of what happened with OMF after Hudson Taylor was gone lies on the shoulders of this man who knows what he did.

No one.

Some people do because they read about him, but most people don't know his name.

Most people know the guy before him, but it didn't matter to him.

It didn't matter to him.

He lived to be forgotten so Christ could be remembered.

Let's die to the need for people to remember us, brothers and sisters.

Let's fight together the sin of wanting to be somebody in this world.

And as we do so, may the Lord be pleased to grant this church the kind of unity that's centered around the name of Jesus and Jesus alone.

Amen.

For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Live to be forgotten so Christ can be remembered.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for the ways you teach us from your word.

And it's like a mirror, a mirror to our lives.

And we see things in ourselves we may not even have recognized until we see your word.

And here in the book of Corinth uh 1 Corinthians, we see a church that was deeply divided and troubled because they cared so much about themselves.

They wanted to be noticed.

They wanted to be recognized, and they would do anything.

They would fracture their own church so they could associate themselves with the kinds of people they thought would bring them glory.

May we never be a church like that, Lord.

May we never be a church like that.

May we learn these lessons early on and not be a church that's centered around this person or that person, or this pastor, or that person, even for myself.

Help me to know that my days here are numbered in this role.

Someone else will take over this role one day.

May we all live to be forgotten so Christ would be remembered.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I just want to give