Enduring Hope for Messy Churches

0:50Three times we pleaded with the Lord to take away the stickiness, but apparently His grace is sufficient for us because it's still there. Many of you know I'm a bit of a neat freak. Okay, I'm a huge neat freak. If there are things on the floor, if furniture is dusty, if cushions are disheveled, I can't relax until all of that is made right. So I've devised a simple, if unsustainable, solution. I don't relax. Kendra consistently reminds me that the house is going. To be messy as long as we live there.

1:33And so she encourages me to embrace the mess and enjoy this time with our family, knowing that our house will be clean and stay clean one day when we no longer live there. We began our messy church series nine months ago by acknowledging the reality that every church is made up of sinners, so every church is messy. But that's okay because God is in the business of transforming messy churches into beautiful displays of his glory. Today, Paul wraps up his first letter to the Corinthians by challenging them to do the hard work of discipleship in love, to submit to spiritual leaders who are setting a godly example, and to love one another from the heart.

2:24Because it is through those means over a long period of time that God will transform messy churches and messy people into beautiful displays of His glory. Let's pick up here in verse 13. Here he challenges the Corinthians to do the hard work of discipleship in love. Now, friends, following Jesus isn't easy, and anyone who thinks that it is easy misunderstands the nature of Christian discipleship. Take a look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 16. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

3:12For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. In describing what it's like to be his disciple, Jesus uses the language of denial and sacrifice. The call to follow him is a call to die, to sin, to self, and to the world. But many today don't seem to understand that truth. Many professing believers seem to think that being a Christian amounts to nothing more than mental assent to a handful of facts about God, about Christ, about eternity.

3:56But Jesus never taught that, and neither did his apostles. On the contrary, they taught that discipleship wasn't mere mental assent to facts, but an active apprenticeship to Jesus Christ. And in verse 13, Paul issues four challenges to us as disciples. First, Paul challenges us to be watchful. The Greek word can also be translated, be on the alert or Stay awake. Now, in the military, whenever you have troops in enemy territory, one or more soldiers are assigned to keep watch at all times. And that's because there are threats all around you.

4:47And the only way to protect the rest of the unit or the entire operation is for one or more soldiers to keep watch so that they can make sure that any threats are detected early and then neutralized. If the soldiers assigned to keep watch aren't alerts, if they fall asleep on the job, the safety of everyone depending on them is compromised. And friends, the same is true for believers in the church. We are in the midst of a spiritual war. And if we fall asleep, all of us individually and collectively, we are all in danger.

5:25Take a look at Ephesians 6 on the screen. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Look at 1 Peter 5. Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. The Corinthian church was facing a great deal of danger. Danger from false teachers, from division, from sexual immorality, from licentiousness, to say nothing of their own sinful hearts.

6:16And friends, our culture today is facing many of the same dangers, if not the exact same dangers. So we too must be watchful. We must be awake as Christians so that we are not caught off guard by those same exact dangers. Second, Paul challenges us to stand firm in the faith. Now, that phrase might remind you of what we read last month in 1 Corinthians 15. Take a look again on the screen. Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

7:06In that chapter, we saw that there were many who were denying the resurrection of Christ, or denying the resurrection of believers, or both. And sometimes, modern believers think that in the past, people just accepted theological truths like the resurrection, that there was no one that questioned those things. Those things have only been questioned in recent history. But as we've learned, That's simply not true. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, resurrection was unbelievable and undesirable. They thought the material world was evil.

7:43So they concluded, therefore, why would anybody want to be resurrected in an evil material body? It was unbelievable and undesirable. So Paul called the Corinthians to stand firm in the faith, to be unwavering to their commitment to Christ and His gospel, even though most of them were going to be dismissed by family members and friends, even though it may cost them their social standing, it may cost them their jobs, it may even cost them their lives.

8:14And in the same way, we are called to stand firm in the faith, even when those outside of the church speak evil against us and our beliefs, calling us intolerant, bigoted, saying that we're on the wrong side of history or anything else. We have to stand firm in the faith, remembering that one day every person, not just believers, are going to stand before God and have to give an account. Third, Paul challenges us to act like men.

8:52Now, the Greek phrase here is really an idiom. It means play the man, but the sense is to act courageously in the face of danger. Be brave. Now, in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament text, the phrase is found frequently in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua when the people are getting ready to take possession of the promised land. Now, the promised land was inhabited by several strong nations that had powerful warriors, so much so that when the spies went to look at the land, They looked like grasshoppers compared to these people, and they felt like grasshoppers compared to these people. And so they delivered a bad report, and the people faithlessly decided not to enter the land. So God waited until that entire generation died out. 40 years they wandered the desert. And then as they get ready to enter the promised land and take it over under Joshua's leadership, what is the first thing that God says to Joshua?

9:57Be strong and courageous. Play the man. That's what he tells him. See, in Corinth, the believers were a tiny minority in a very large city, completely given over to a host of sinful vices. So living for Christ in that environment would require a great deal of courage. And I love what Peter wrote to the exiles, the believers who were dispersed all over the world in 1 Peter 4. Look at this. Time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do: living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, lawless idolatry. With respect to this, they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you. But they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

10:56I want you to focus on the phrase that Peter uses when he says they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery and they malign you. You see, living for Christ in a hostile world takes courage because the hostile world responded in the first century to Christ and his followers the same way that the hostile world responds to us today. First, they're surprised that we don't act like them. Then, they're offended because they perceive our lives to be a rebuke to the way that they're living. Then they malign us because they're convicted of their sin.

11:36But we can't throw in the towel. We have to ask the Holy Spirit to give us strength and grace supernaturally to be able to be courageous in the face of sin and temptation. Fourth, Paul challenges us to be strong. And this Greek word translated be strong. Isn't really referring to physical strength, but to what we would call mental toughness. It's more of an inner spiritual strength than an external and physical strength. Now, all professional athletes are in excellent physical condition, they are strong and fit. But the difference between a good professional athlete and the handful of truly great professional athletes is this: it's that mental toughness, that inner strength that separates them from the rest of the pack. And something similar could be said about the difference between mature Christians and immature Christians. What's the difference? It's that inner spiritual strength, a fortitude that comes from walking by the Spirit. See, mature believers, no matter their age, are strengthened by the Spirit. They're strengthened through regular prayer and communion with God, through reading His Word, through obedience. To put it briefly, they're strengthened by walking by the Spirit. But immature believers, no matter how old they are, are characterized by spiritual weakness because they're walking by the flesh instead of by the Spirit. So when Paul wrote back to the Corinthians, Again, in 2 Corinthians, take a look at what he wrote.

13:35For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. See, mature believers wage war not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. In Christ and through the Spirit, we have every spiritual weapon available to us. We have the strength that we need to fight this spiritual battle that we're in. And friends, this is a great challenge to every Christian living today.

14:24But I think this is an especially important challenge for men in the 21st century American church. We are in the middle of a spiritual war. And yet, many of the men in our churches today, if they're honest, are bored with Jesus. Spiritually, they are sound asleep. They are not going to battle for the souls of the lost. They're not going to battle in prayer. They're not going to battle for their own sanctification or for the sanctification. of others. To continue the military analogy, they are still wearing the dress uniform of their initial commissioning. They're not wearing the camouflaged combat fatigues of men who go into combat.

15:18We have to wake up and we have to get into the fight, man. No man has ever been bored on a battlefield. You may get bored in peacetime, but you're never going to be bored in a fight to the death. And that's what we're in. So, man, I charge you to wake up and to do your part to wake up the brothers around you, to wake up the sisters around you in the church, because this is critical for all of us who are asleep on the battlefield.

15:49So the Corinthians needed to be watchful. They needed to stand firm in the faith. They needed to be courageous and strong. But look at the qualifier that Paul adds in verse 14. He says, let all that you do be done in love. Those of us who are less compassionate, who may not have the gift of mercy, a lot of us read verse 13 and we're like, yes, absolutely. We need to get into the fight. Everybody needs to be in the fight. And if you're not fighting as hard as I perceive that I am, then you are not committed or you're a coward. But see, Paul doesn't leave anything. Room for that kind of an attitude.

16:33Our watchfulness, our strength, the way that we hold each other accountable in the church, it has to be done in love. It must be done with the goal of building other believers up. Now, we may disagree about how tough that love needs to be, but every believer must do everything in verse 13 in love. We have to emulate our Savior, Jesus, who was full of truth, but he was also full of grace. Friends, how does a messy church get transformed into a beautiful display of God's glory?

17:13When every one of us commits to doing the hard work of discipleship in love, let's pick up now in verse 15, where Paul challenges the Corinthians to submit to spiritual leaders who are setting a godly example. Verse 15. Now I urge you, brothers, you know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts in Achaia, 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.

17:49So in these two verses, Paul tells the Corinthians they should submit to spiritual leaders like Stephanus and his household, perhaps implying that these men were even elders in the church. And what You notice is he doesn't just tell them to submit, he explains why men like Stephanus and his household are worthy of submission. First, because they're spiritually mature men. Paul notes that they were the first converts in Achaia, in that whole region, so they've been walking with Jesus longer than anybody else in that church. Second, because they're committed to the church. Specifically, what Paul says is they devoted themselves to the service of the saints, they sacrificially served the believers there in Corinth.

18:35Third, because they were fellow workers and laborers with Paul. In other words, Paul saw them as colleagues who were preaching and teaching the exact same gospel and working for the same goal to make mature disciples of all nations. So, when you read the description of Stephanus and his household, these certainly sound like elder-qualified men, don't they? Elders must not be recent converts, they have to prove their spiritual maturity over a significant period of time. Elders must serve the church through preaching and teaching, through their spiritual leadership, by protecting the flock from false teachers and from false teaching. And elders have to be fellow workers with Paul in the sense that they're preaching the same gospel and working for the same goals that he was.

19:29So it seems we're. Whether or not these men were actually elders in the church at Corinth, they certainly were qualified. They were elder-qualified men who are worthy of imitation. And submitting to such men is an act of spiritual obedience for the church, which has benefits for all of us. Look at Hebrews 13. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

20:07I love that verse because it so clearly explains the why behind the command. It doesn't just say obey and submit. It says we should obey and submit to spiritual leaders because they're keeping watch over our souls. They have to give an account. They report to a higher command, to God Himself. And if it's true that we are in the midst of a spiritual war, then every one of us needs people who are watching out for our souls, who are being careful to pray for us and lead us and protect us from false teachers and false teaching. That's what Stephanus and his household were doing. They were serving the church and keeping watch over it. And you notice they weren't alone. In verses 17 and 18, Paul mentions these two guys, Fortunata. And Achaicus, whose names mean lucky and the guy from Achaia, which is just awesome. If that's your crew, if you roll with lucky and the guy from Achaia, some stuff is about to go down.

21:14Paul notes that as these men refreshed the Corinthian spirit, so they refreshed his spirit when they came to Ephesus. And when they came, they were likely the ones carrying the letter from the Corinthians to which Paul is now replying. Paul says, Give recognition to such people, to people like Stephanus and Fortunatus and Achaicus. It reminds us of Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5. Take a look at this. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages.

22:01Church, I want to thank you and continue to encourage you about the way that you recognize the elders here at our church. You are a gracious church. You are a supportive church. And I want to continue to encourage you to recognize, pray for, and bless all of the pastors, but especially Pastor Chris and Pastor Bill, who is working at the hospital this morning. These are men who volunteer countless hours every week to pray for you, to prepare to preach and teach, and to spiritually keep watch over your soul. See, godly elders don't serve for recognition, they serve because they love God and they love His church. But recognition and gratitude and prayer-that all goes a long way to encourage faithful elders to remain faithful to the hard work of shepherding souls. And elders who do that are worthy of submission. So, we should submit to spiritual leaders who are setting a godly example.

23:10Let's move on now to the final section of the letter where Paul reminds them to love God's family from the heart. We'll pick up in verse 19: 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. Now, you may recall that when Paul uses the term Asia, he's talking about the region that we know today as Western Turkey. And the believers there were eager to send their greetings to the church in Corinth through Paul and his writing. Paul is writing the letter from Ephesus, and the churches from the surrounding area wanted to greet the church in Corinth, and so they sent their. Greetings. Aquila and Prisca, which is probably a short form of Priscilla as we know her from the book of Acts, they met Paul in Corinth and helped him to establish the church there, and then they moved on with him to Ephesus to plant that church. They hosted a church in their home, and they likely missed the Corinthians a lot, prayed for them regularly, and so they sent their greetings as well. And then the brothers, which is likely referring to the believers who actually comprise the church at Ephesus, they also sent their greetings. Now, I think if a lot of us are honest, you know, at the beginning of these letters, at the ends of these letters, when we have these kinds of sections of greeting, we're quick to skip over them. We think it's just kind of administrative stuff, not something that's going to really be spiritually beneficial. But I want you to think about the fact that there were not many believers in the world in the first century, to say nothing of a city like Corinth. And being a believer in the first century was not at all like being a believer in the 21st century in America. See, in the 21st century in America, it's likely that many people, if not most people that you know, at least profess to be Christians. But that was not the case then. So you would feel a real kinship, a real closeness and connection with believers, not just from your city or your church, not just from your region, but all over the world. There was a real sense that they needed one another's prayers, they needed one another's support.

25:31They needed at times real physical assistance from each other. And so these greetings were a reminder that even if your church is small, even if you're struggling, you're not alone. You are loved and cared about and prayed for by believers all around the world. And friends, that's just a good reminder to us as well to make sure that we always remind our missionaries who are on the field that we are with them, we are praying for them, we are thinking about them. Remember to respond to their emails that they send out, their updates, to let them know you're reading them and you care. It just goes a long way.

26:10And here in verse 20, Paul encourages the Corinthians to greet one another with a holy kiss. Now, that kind of greeting is only still used in a few cultures around the world, mainly in Western Europe and in Hispanic cultures. I received a holy kiss several times when we visited our sister church in Guatemala on a couple of mission trips a few years back. That was different. Back in chapter 11, you might remember that we talked about the cultural norm of wearing head coverings in first-century cultures. We talked about why Paul encouraged the Corinthian women to wear them, what it meant, and why it's not necessary for women to wear them today because it doesn't mean the same thing.

26:52And in the same way, I think you'll be relieved to know the holy kiss falls into that category. It's a customary greeting. That's used to show warmth and friendship and belonging. But what does stand firm to the day is the principle? The principle that we are to show open-hearted love to everyone in the church. Even people who have sinned against us, even people who are different than we are, even people who disagree with us on certain issues. See, the Corinthian church was plagued by division, and Paul is essentially telling them: listen, these people across the Aegean Sea, who you've probably never met and may never meet, they love you, they care about you, they're praying for you, they send their greetings. So, you guys in your church need to be sure to show open-hearted love to one another, no matter what.

27:45See, the very fact that every church is messy makes it hard to show open-hearted love to each other. But that's one way that churches are transformed into beautiful displays of God's glory when we love each other from the heart. Finally, Paul takes over for his secretary, his amanuensis, as they were known, and he writes the last few lines of the letter himself. Now, obviously, a handwritten note shows care and concern and love, but it also served to authenticate the letter that this was in fact written by the Apostle Paul and not by an imposter of some kind. Here in the next verse, he pronounces a curse on anyone who has no love for the Lord, which I take to mean no love for the Lord. Love for the resurrected Lord because that was the big problem. How many people were denying the resurrection in Corinth? I'm also led to believe that because Paul follows it up with this prayer, Our Lord come.

28:46Well, Jesus can only come back. He can only return if he was physically raised from the dead. And so I think here at the end of the letter, it's a subtle, but it's a clear reminder that Jesus is alive, that he's going to return, and that we should long for his return. And Paul's last words in the letter, despite all of the difficulties in the church at Corinth, despite all the doubts surrounding his apostleship and his authority, despite all of the distance that separated them now and the years that have passed, were, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

29:31Paul loved God's family from the heart. And that was evident in his life, and it was evident in his letter. Well, friends, we've come to the end of this nine-month exploration of the book of 1 Corinthians. That church certainly was a mess, wasn't it? Division, sexual immorality, licentiousness, lawsuits, doubts about the Resurrection, you name it, they dealt with it. But one of the reasons 1 Corinthians is such a helpful letter, especially for us today, is that it blows up the idea that Christians are good people who live good lives, and because of that, they're accepted by God.

30:21The Bible affirms what we already know about ourselves to be true: we are not good people. Try as we might to be more religious, more moral, less hypocritical, we never even measure up to our own standards, to say nothing of God's perfect, holy, and righteous standard. That's why Jesus came. He said, It's not the healthy who need a doctor, it's the sick. And what an apt analogy for this moment in global history. We battle a deadly disease that is all around us, perhaps even inside of us, and it doesn't manifest itself until a person is on death's door. You see, sin is just like that. It's an invisible enemy that will put us to death in the end unless there is external intervention.

31:12God intervened for us by sending His Son Jesus to live a life of perfect cleanliness. He never became soiled through sin. And because Jesus was perfectly clean, He was able to offer Himself in our place on the cross for our sins. His resurrection from the dead on the third day proves that God accepted, he received his offering. And the beautiful thing is that through faith in Christ, God not only declares us clean today, and he not only begins the process of making us clean, sanctification, through the rest of our lives, but he promises that one day when Jesus returns and we receive our new resurrection bodies, we will be actually made clean for eternity. That is good news.

32:10No matter how messy your life is, no matter how messy your church is or our church is, that is the enduring hope that God can transform messy churches and messy people into beautiful displays of His glory. Let's pray. Father, we are so thankful that you have seen fit to present. This letter for the last 2,000 years so that we could benefit from it today. We are thankful for its instruction. But more than anything, we are so thankful for the clear picture it paints of Jesus the Savior.

33:25We pray for any among us today who are here, who are watching on the video, we pray that any who have not received Christ by faith would, through the true teaching of this letter and the power of the Holy Spirit, receive Him today. God, it is our tendency as people to look back on believers like those in the church at Corinth and pass judgment on them, to shake our heads at their sin and their folly. We often forget that while they are messy people, so are we.

34:17They weren't accepted by God because of their goodness. They were accepted by their faith in Christ. And in the same way, God, as we battle. Division and heresy, sexual immorality, lawsuits, doubts, and denials about critical tenets of the Christian faith. God, we pray that we would remember that we are messy people who are also in need of the grace of Christ that you have given to us through faith in Him. Thank you, God, for speaking to us so clearly through your word. We pray that we would now be doers of the Word and not hearers only.

35:07In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.