Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching from 1 Corinthians
1, Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth. And I mentioned
this last week about how the testimony of God had been confirmed
in the people, the believers at Corinth. But also we see in
the Bible that the church at Corinth had a lot of problems.
It was a large church, many professing believers, There were some false
believers, many true believers, but there was division among
the people, and that's what we're going to talk about. Well, Paul,
one of the reasons he wrote this letter was to give them a call
to unity in Christ. And that's the title of the message,
a call to unity in Christ. He starts off, look at verse
10 of 1 Corinthians 1. He says, now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the
same thing. and that there be no divisions."
Now that word divisions, you might see in your concordance,
it's the Greek word for schisms, divisions, separations. He said,
there be no divisions among you. See, Paul's calling them to unity,
not to divide. And he said that, but that you
be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment. Now what he's talking about,
you know, when you have a group of individuals in a true church,
all who claim to believe the gospel, that doesn't mean they're
going to agree on every little issue. And let me caution you
on this now. All true believers do agree,
and this by the power of God and the grace of God, we do agree
on the gospel. There can be no division on the
gospel. There's not some believers who
believe salvation by grace, and then another group of believers
who believe in salvation by works, and there's no mixture of grace
and works. Paul wrote about this in Romans
11. If it be of grace, it's all of grace. If it be of works,
it's all of works. And I've mentioned on this program
before how I've heard people say, well, he's a good preacher,
but he mixes grace and works. No, he does not. If what you
hear a preacher preach is a mixture of grace and works, it's all
works. Believe me. And so, for example,
a lot of preachers, they'll say, well, you're saved by grace,
but you're preserved or kept by your works. or you're saved
by grace but you earn your rewards in heaven by your works. That's
a false gospel. And understand that grace reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And I mentioned to you last week
how all false gospels have two things in common. Number one,
they make salvation in some way, to some degree, at some stage,
conditioned on sinners. Whereas the true gospel says
that salvation is conditioned all on Christ and that he fulfilled
all those conditions to secure the entire salvation of all for
whom he died and was buried in a rose again. And then secondly,
the false gospels, they measure righteousness and goodness on
a sliding scale. In other words, how good do you
have to be? I'm not as perfect as somebody
says, but I'm good enough. No, the true gospel measures
righteousness by Christ. If I'm to be saved by my works,
my works must equal the work of Christ. You know, my love
must equal His love, and it doesn't. We're all sinners. We all come
short of the glory of God. So the only way I can be saved
is by Christ's righteousness, the merit of His obedience unto
death, the righteousness of God, the God-man, Jesus Christ, being
imputed, charged, reckoned, counted to me, legally. And so that's
the ground of salvation. Now out of that comes the power
of the Spirit in the new birth to give life from the dead. But
that's the fruit, the result of Christ's righteousness imputed. Paul wrote about that in Romans
4 and verse 6 when he talked about the blessedness of the
man to whom God imputes righteousness without works. And the righteousness
he imputes is the merit of the obedience unto death of Christ. So there's no divisions over
the gospel in the kingdom of God. If anybody differs on the
gospel, they separate themselves from the true children of God.
There's only one gospel. I believe I mentioned last week
too, Galatians 1, if they come preaching, if Paul said, if I
or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, and that which
we preached, let them be anathema. There's only one true gospel,
one way of salvation, and that's by Christ, who is the way, the
truth, and the life. If you add anything to Christ
as forming any part of the ground or cause of salvation, you've
left the gospel. It's his blood alone, his righteousness
alone. That's what that means. So he
says to the Corinthians, he said, I don't want there to be any
divisions, but that you're perfectly joined together in the same mind
and the same judgment. Now, believers may differ on
other things that are non-essential matters. And you'll have differences
like that. But the division that was being
caused here in Corinth Believe it or not, it was over preachers,
true preachers, preachers of the gospel. And that's what Paul's
saying, that I'm calling you to unity in Christ over this
issue and don't be divided over it. Look at verse 11 of 1 Corinthians
1. He says, for it hath been declared
unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house
of Chloe, now this is one who was in the church there, a believer,
that there are contentions among you. In other words, it got so
bad there were contentions, there were divisions, there were arguments.
And he says, now what was it about? He says in verse 12, now
this I say that every one of you saith, I am of Paul. I of
Apollos. Eye of Cephas, Cephas was Peter. And eye of Christ. Now think
about, they were dividing over preachers. Think about this. You know, we're
human. And you may have one preacher,
you know, even in a true church now. Now if you're in a false
church, this doesn't apply. You need to get out of there
and get into the true church where the gospel's preached.
One thing I can tell you about Paul, and one thing I can tell
you about Apollos and Cephas, they all preached the same gospel. Now they were different, maybe
in their delivery, they were different in their personality,
all of that, but it was the same gospel. And Paul says, some of
you, you might like to hear Paul better than you like to hear
Cephas. You might like to hear Cephas better than Apollos. That's
okay. We're all human. We have our
preferences. But to divide over that? Absolutely not. To argue over that? You see,
true believers are followers of Christ. And there were some,
even in the division, they claimed, well, we don't follow any man,
we follow Christ. Well, now that's true. In a sense,
we who are saved by the grace of God, we do follow men as they
follow Christ, which means this, we won't divide over men, because
anybody who preaches Christ, ultimately that's who I'm following,
I'm following Christ. But these, I think what was being
said here in verse 12, when they said, I have Christ, they said,
well, we don't listen to anybody. Well, I do, I listen to a lot
of, not a lot, because there's not a lot of good gospel preachers.
There are a lot of false preachers. But I listen to good gospel preachers. And I follow what they say, if
what they say leads me to the Christ of the Bible. And that's
why I've got to test them, check them out. The Bible says in 1
John 4, test the spirits, for all of them who claim to be preaching
the truth are not preaching the truth. There John was dealing
with an issue of the person of Christ. There were some of them
who said that Christ did not come in the flesh. Well, that's
a lie. Any preacher who claims to be
a gospel preacher who says Christ didn't come in the flesh, he's
a false preacher. Test him by the word of God.
Test the preachers, but use the right standard. You don't test
him by his mannerisms, his ability to tell a good story, or his
personality, or the clothing he wears, or the color of his
skin, or anything like that. You test him by the word of God.
Is he preaching the gospel? Is he telling the truth? Preachers
today, they'll preach salvation conditioned on sinners. That's
a false gospel. You need to be, see, there are
reasons to divide. And we divide over the truth.
We divide from those who preach a false gospel, and we follow
those who preach the truth. But we're not following the man,
we're actually following Christ. Now, I've often said this, that
the worst thing that can happen to a preacher, even a true preacher,
is to gain a following for himself. And that's why you have so many
denominations today. People following men or women.
And it's wrong. And number one, what do you do?
Number one, you find out what they preached, was it true or
was it false? Was it the true gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace through the righteousness and the blood
of Jesus Christ? Or is it salvation conditioned
on sinners? Do they point sinners to Christ
for righteousness or do they measure righteousness on a sliding
scale? You see what I'm saying? Do they
preach salvation by works? Well, these three men, Paul and
Apollos and Cephas, they preached the true gospel. And so Paul
says, you need to be of one mind and one judgment in these areas.
You don't need to be dividing off into factions and schisms
like that. And look at verse 13. Now here's
the basis of it all. And this is applying to those
who truly preach Christ, Christ in Him crucified, the glory of
His person, the power of His finished work to save and secure
all whom God gave Him before the foundation of the world and
all for whom He lived and died and was buried and rose again. He says in verse 13, is Christ
divided? Is Christ in Himself divided?
Is there not one true Christ? You know, in 2 Corinthians 11,
Paul warned the Corinthians there that if a preacher comes preaching
another Jesus, another Jesus of a different kind, then don't
put up with it. You know, there are false Jesuses
False Christ being preached. Christ warned the disciples of
this in the book, well, in the book of Matthew and Mark. He
said that they'll come saying, here's Jesus, or here's Jesus. Don't follow them. Preaching
a false Christ. And so what is it to preach a
false Christ? It's in some way to deny the
glory of his person as God manifest in the flesh. There are some
who say Christ didn't ever, I've heard preachers say, who claim
to be Christian, say that Christ never claimed to be God. Well, that's a lie. And then
others say that he was not man, but only God. That's a lie too.
He's God-man. God and man in one person. The
word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Matthew wrote in Matthew
1.21, his name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people
from their sins. And then in Matthew 1.23, he
says, his name shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted,
God with us. God manifest in the flesh. Over in Isaiah chapter nine,
in verse six, it says, unto us, A child is born, that's Christ's
humanity, unto us a son is given. That's his deity. In Galatians
chapter four and verse four it says, in the fullness of the
time God sent forth his son, that's his deity, the second
person of the Trinity, God the son, made of a woman, that's
his sinless humanity, made under the law, that's salvation conditioned
on him. to redeem them that were under
the law, to secure their salvation by the price of His blood, establishing
righteousness. That's who Christ is. God manifests
in the flesh. And so those who deny any part
of that deny the gospel, they deny Christ. Christ is not divided. And it's the power of His finished
work. What did He accomplish on the cross when He died for
His people? He secured their salvation completely, even their
new birth in time. He secured the reality of their
being brought under the gospel, hearing it by the power of the
Spirit in the new birth, and believing it, and continuing
in it by the preserving grace of God. So look at verse 13 again
at 1 Corinthians 1. Is Christ divided? My answer
is no. And then he talks to those who
were following Paul. He says, was Paul crucified for
you? Is Paul your savior? You say
you're gonna follow Paul and you're not gonna listen to Cephas
and you're not gonna listen to Apollos. Hey, Cephas and Apollos
are preaching the same Christ that Paul was preaching. You're
not following Paul. Paul's not your Savior. No preacher
is your Savior. I tell people all the time, I'm
not your Savior. I can't even save myself. I'm just a sinner
saved by grace, a signpost pointing you to the one who is the Savior
of sinners, Jesus Christ. Was Paul crucified for you? Or
were you baptized in the name of Paul? When a believer confesses
Christ before men, he confesses Christ in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You don't confess in the name
of a preacher. And listen to what Paul says
here. You know, there's a group of people who claim to be Christian
who say you have to be baptized to be saved. Well, listen to
what Paul says here. Now, that's a lie. That's a false
gospel. If you add anything to the grace of God and the work
of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, you're denying the
gospel. But listen to what Paul says here. He says, read verse
13 again. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified
for you? Or were you baptized in the name
of Paul? Verse 14, I thank God that I
baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius. Paul says, I only
baptized two men there, Crispus and Gaius, and I thank God I
didn't baptize anybody else. Now, if you have to be baptized
for salvation, that is believer's baptism, the ordinance. There's
other ways of seeing baptism, that's not what we're talking
about. But the ordinance of believer's baptism, if that is necessary
for you to be saved, do you think Paul would have said, I thank
God that I didn't baptize any of you except two men? And he
goes on, look at verse 15. Lest any should say that I had
baptized in mine own name. Verse 16, and I baptized also
the household of Stephanus. Besides, I know not whether I
baptized any other. Paul didn't even know who he
baptized. But look at verse 17, now here's the key. Is baptism,
believer's baptism necessary for salvation? No. Believer's
baptism is a confession of something that has already taken place. If you're a believer, you've
already been washed in the blood and clothed in the righteousness
of Christ, chosen of God, He died for you, and the Spirit
comes and gives you life from the dead, gives you faith to
believe and repentance of dead works, and you confess it in
believer's baptism. So he says in verse 17, for Christ
sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Now baptism
is necessary for salvation. I would say Christ sent us to
not only preach the gospel, but also to baptize. Now we are commanded
to baptize God's people, but not for salvation. were commanded
to baptize them as a public confession and a public identification with
Christ. And he says, for Christ sent
me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of
words, that is, not with human logic and reasoning, lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none effect. People today
are listening to a false gospel that was concocted by the words
of men to try to remove the offense of the cross. Oh, smile, God
loves you. Oh, Christ died for you. Did
He die in vain for you? That's human logic, sinful logic. It's false. And Paul said, I
don't preach it that way. I just put it out there the way
God says to put it out there. And look at the result. Look
at verse 18. For the preaching of the cross,
that's the finished work of Christ, the God-man, The gospel is to
them that perish, or who are perishing, foolishness. They
don't believe it. It's foolishness to them. They
cannot imagine salvation without it being conditioned on them.
But unto us which are saved, or are being saved, being preserved
by the grace of God, it's the power of God. It's the dynamite
of God. We get our word dynamite from
that word power there. Same word that Paul used in Romans
1.16, for it is the power of God unto salvation. When God
brings a sinner to believe in Christ, in the new birth, to
believe in Christ, to repent of dead works and idolatry, that's
works done before salvation, aimed at saving us, dead work,
fruit unto death. and brings us to persevere in
the faith, in the struggle of the warfare of the flesh and
the spirit. When God does that, true believers see that not as
their own power and goodness, but as the power of God. It's
the grace, the goodness, the power of God in Christ that saves
me, that keeps me, and that'll bring me to glory. None of it's
conditioned on my power or my goodness. It's all conditioned
on Christ. And I've often said this, if
you're truly saved, truly born again by the Holy Spirit, when
it comes to the preaching of the cross and the gospel, you
cannot deny it, you cannot ignore it, and you cannot leave it if
you're truly saved. Well, look at what Paul says
in verse 19. He says, for it is written, now he begins to
quote from the Old Testament here, the book of Isaiah probably,
most references say to Isaiah 29. He says, for it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, that's human wisdom,
God's gonna destroy. Salvation's not in our wisdom,
it's in God's wisdom. And he says, let not the wise
man glory in his wisdom, but glory in the Lord. He says, and
will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. That is people
who are wise in their own eyes, smart, whatever. In other words,
you think you can figure this thing out in your own fleshly
mind how God saves sinners? Well, God's gonna destroy that
and bring it to nothing when he enters your life and brings
you under the gospel by the power of the Spirit and shows you your
sinfulness and depravity. The impossibility of salvation
conditioned on you or based on your works or your will and drives
you to Christ who is the very wisdom of God. Look what he says
in verse 20, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? That's the
interpreter of scripture. Where is the disputer of this
world? Those who argue and debate. Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? Those who are perishing, they
see the gospel's foolishness. But those who are being saved,
they see the world as being foolish. God has made foolish the wisdom
of the world. When it comes to salvation, the
world knows nothing worth believing. And so he says in verse 21, for
after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not
God. That's human wisdom. You see
again, salvation is the wisdom of God. That's what we need.
Human wisdom, human philosophy, human works and will will not
get it. It's God's wisdom, God's way,
God's works, God's will. And he says they knew not God,
it pleased God. by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. That's the preaching of the gospel.
And when he says the foolishness of preaching, that's what the
world calls it. That's foolishness to the world.
But it's the very thing that God uses to save them that believe. The power of the word, the word
of life. The gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation.
And notice he didn't say the preaching of foolishness. There's
a lot of foolishness being preached out there in the name of Christianity. But that's not what it is. The
foolishness of preaching the true gospel to save them that
believe. Look at verse 22. The Jews require
a sign. They're religious, see. The Greeks
seek after wisdom. They're philosophers. Oh, give
us a sign. Remember Christ said, a wicked
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but no sign will
be given except that of the prophet Jonas, referring to his resurrection
from the dead. The Greeks, they seek after philosophy. Remember Paul in Acts 17, talking
to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill. They have human wisdom. Verse 23, but we preach Christ
crucified. We don't preach ourselves. We
don't preach in the name of a man, Paul, Apollos, Cephas. Dividing over men like that is
foolish. We preach Christ crucified, the
glorious person and the finished work of Christ. And unto the
Jews, those who are there, it's a stumbling block. Why is it
a stumbling block to the Jews? Because they're seeking salvation
by their righteous works under the law. And the gospel preaching
Christ crucified tells them that that's evil deeds, dead works,
fruit unto death, they need to repent of that. And they call
that, that's a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks, foolishness.
The Gentiles are the Greeks who seek after that, and verse 24
says, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. When God the
Holy Spirit gives you life, eyes to see, ears to hear, a new heart,
you'll see the preaching of Christ crucified is both the wisdom
and the power of God, and you'll glorify Him. You'll follow Him
and not divide over preachers who preach the truth. I hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-3. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.