I'd like to open this morning's
service with hymn number 127. 127 from your hardbacked hymnal.
If everyone can find their seats, please, and we'll start. Let's
all stand together, number 127. 127. ? Man of sorrows, what a name ?
For the Son of God who came ? Ruined sinners to reclaim ? Hallelujah,
what a Savior ? Bearing shame and scoffing rude Hallelujah! What a Savior! Guilty, vile, and helpless we,
spotless Lamb of God was He. Full atonement can it be? Hallelujah, what a Savior! Lifted up was he to die, It is
finished was his pride, Now in heaven exalted high, Hallelujah,
what a Savior! When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransom home to bring, Then anew this song we'll sing,
Hallelujah, what a Savior! Please be seated. Good morning. Hallelujah. What a Savior. It's good to have the Vandals
with us from Cottageville, West Virginia. Jim and Sarah, Jimmy
and Sarah are on their way to be husband and wife soon, and
the Vandals are down here to join us in celebrating that union. So we're very thankful that you
all are here. Let's continue our study in 1
Corinthians chapter 1. Let's pray together. our merciful Heavenly Father,
we ask that you would be pleased now to send your Holy Spirit
in power to open our hearts and to cause us, Lord, to find the
Lord Jesus Christ to be our Savior. Oh, what a Savior He is. We pray
that you would reveal more of His glory to us. We pray that
you would increase our faith. We pray, Father, for those that
remain strangers to Your grace, that You would be pleased this
morning to bring them to Yourself and to give them faith to rest
the hope of their souls on the glorious person and the finished
work of Thy dear Son, our Savior. For it's in His name we pray.
Amen. The world has always been of
the opinion that everything is relative. When the Lord, when
Pilate asked the Lord if he was the king, and the Lord said to
Pilate, for this cause was I born, and for this reason came I into
the world to bear witness unto the truth, Pilate's response
was, truth? Truth? Is that what this is all
about? What is truth? There's no such thing as truth.
Well, that statement is true if all we had were the words
and opinions of men. Your opinions, my opinions, my
understanding, all relative. Everything is relative in this
world. But when God's pleased to speak,
they shall all be taught of God. And when God teaches you, you
understand this is not relative. This is concrete. This is true. This is absolute. This is the
Word of God. And when God speaks to His children,
He speaks the same thing to all of His children and unites their
hearts together in the truth. Now that's what Paul begins his
address to the church at Corinth about, this matter of unity. And we are brought together by
the Spirit of God to rest the hope of our souls on the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of His free grace
in the finished work of Christ is the thing that we all have
in common if we're the children of God. If we've been taught
of God, and He teaches only children, You remember when the Lord said,
Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast hid these things from the
wise and the prudent and revealed them unto babes, even so as it
seemed good in Thy sight, our God. He reveals the truth of
the gospel to babes. Lord, I don't know anything.
I need to be taught of You. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. Learn of
me. Learn of me. And when the Lord
teaches you who He is and what He's done, you've been taught
of God. Nobody can un-teach you that.
And as I said, when He teaches one of His children the truth
about Christ, He teaches us all the same thing. And we have lots
of other differences, don't we? The church at Corinth was just
like us. They brought different cultures and different opinions
and different members of different groups of society in terms of
their socioeconomic status. And those things began to create
conflict with them. And the appeal that the Lord
is making is Don't let these side issues divide
you because you have a common bond in Christ. The main thing,
I started to title this study this morning, the main thing
is to keep the main thing the main thing. And that's the gospel. And don't
let these other things divide you so that you lose sight of
the unity that you have together in Christ. And so that's the
Lord's appeal. And we're dependent upon the
Spirit of God for that, aren't we? where the Spirit of God is,
there is liberty. And the scripture says, if the
Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. And Paul tells us in Galatians
chapter 5, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has
made you free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Don't go back to the law and don't let these minor differences
that you have with one another cause you to have a schism in
the church? This unity is how precious, how glorious it
is when brethren walk together in unity. And how can two walk
together unless they agree? And so, oh Lord, give us agreement
over the gospel. Unite our hearts together in
Christ. And give us the grace to overlook and to bear with
one another on issues that don't relate to the gospel. Because,
in fact, they really are all relative. They really are. They're relative to you and your
circumstances, and mine are relative to me and my circumstances. Let's make the main thing the
main thing. And that's the gospel that unites
our hearts together in Christ. Now, we looked last Sunday at
verse 5 when the Lord said, "...that in everything you may be enriched
by Him in all utterance and in all knowledge, that you would
say the same thing and believe the same thing, even as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you." It's the testimony of Christ.
It's not what you believe or what I believe. We saw last week
this is called the testimony of the Lord. It's the testimony
of God. It's the testimony of Christ.
It's who is he and what is what has he accomplished on behalf
of his people. it's his testimony let that be
the thing that unite your hearts together you know even as the
circumstances relating to how the lord brought each of us to
christ those change you know some of us came out of religion
some of us came out of a religion some of us grew up on the gospel
uh... it it just it it differs and
uh... our circumstances the question
is not what is your testimony not what is your experience what
is the testimony of Christ. That's what will unite our hearts
together. Verse 7, so that you came behind in no gift waiting
for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. If God has confirmed
the testimony of Christ in our hearts, then he has caused us
to long for his return. to wait and watch for His coming
and to know that that's the goal of our life. That is the goal
of our life. That's the object. He is the
object of our life. We look through a glass, darkly
now, but then face to face. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall see
him as he is and be made like him. Oh what a glorious day that's
going to be when this corruptible is made incorruptible and this
mortal is made immortal and we shall all be changed. Are you longing for the day in
which God changes you? Shed your flesh be made in your
experience. Now in faith and in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to be perfect right now.
We look to the Lord Jesus Christ for all of our righteousness.
We have no hope of salvation outside of being perfect in Him.
But it's not our experience, is it? Our experience is that
we've got a lot of imperfections. We've got a lot of remnants of
sin and flesh that's in us, and that causes us grief. And the
Holy Spirit, here's what the Holy Spirit's taught me. He's
taught me to rejoice and grieve at the same time. Is that your
experience? He's taught me to rejoice and
grieve at the same time. He's taught me to be happy in
Christ, and to be sad in my own flesh. This is the two natures. We don't stress one to the exclusion
of the other. They're both true. They're both
true. We're perfect in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and yet we have this body of death that we carry about
with us. Who shall deliver us? We're always
in need of being delivered, aren't we? Sin, as David said in Psalm
51, my sin is ever before me. And so, we grieve over our sin
and we rejoice over our position and hope in Christ at the same
time. At the same time. That's my experience. I can't get away from one or
the other. They both are true. And that's what I read in the
Word of God. So if your experience squares up to the revelation
that God's made in His Word, then you have hope that you're
a child of God. But if your experience is different
than the revelation that God's made in His Word, then you have
to jettison your experience, don't you? And trust God's word. But what a delight it is when
your experience squares up to the word of God. What a delight
that is. That's your affirmation, isn't
it? That's your confirmation that, you know, the Lord's done
a work of grace for me because my experience is what God's word
reveals. You came behind in no gift, waiting
for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm
you, confirm you unto the end, to establish you, to make you
sure, to give you a firm standing. That's what I need. I need for
God to confirm me unto the end. Now, notice the next four words
in verse 8 are in italics. And as is often the case, usually
the case, you just take out the italicized words and the Scripture
reads better. The translators put those in.
One of the reasons I like the King James, if you've never heard
me say this before, is because when the translators added words,
they put them in italics. Whereas other paraphrases of
the scriptures, they're just man's words without warning us
that they're man's words. Read this verse without those
four italicized words and look what it says. Who shall also
confirm you unto the end blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now that's what I need to know. I need to know that I'm blameless
before God. Because my conscience and my
flesh is always accusing me. Satan's always accusing me. He's
taking advantage of my sin. He's the accuser of the brethren.
I need to know that I stand blameless before God. Turn with me to Colossians
chapter 1. We'll begin reading in verse
20, "...and having made peace through the blood of His cross
by Him, to reconcile all things unto Himself, by Him I say, whether
they be things in earth or things in heaven." So the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ is that which reconciles all things to God. Look at the next verse. And you
that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he received, hath he reconciled. That's what separated us from
our God, our sin, our wicked works. And the most wicked work, the
most sinful work that keeps men from God is their self-righteousness. It's when they think that their
works have earned them favor with God. When they think that
something they've done has given them a leg up on other men when
it comes to the salvation of their souls. That's the most
wicked work of all, isn't it? The Lord said, you will not come
to me. You won't come into the light because your deeds are
evil. You won't come to Christ because
coming to Christ means it exposes all of your righteousness for
what it is. filthy rags and you won't come
to Christ if you're if you're a religious you won't come to
Christ because you're in bondage to your own to your own pleasures
and indulging yourself in the things in this world and you
know that that's going to change if you come to Christ so in both
ways whether you're religious or irreligious whether be yourself
righteousness or the indulgent of your flesh you will not come
to the light why because your deeds are evil so when we come
to Christ When God, by his grace, brings us to Christ, then we,
for the first time, are able to acknowledge that all our deeds
were evil, and our self-righteousness was really the worst. So he says, you were sometimes
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to
present you holy. Holy? I'm going to be presented holy.
We're accepted before God in the beloved. The only way we're
going to be accepted is to be holy. Holy. There's an absolute. That's not relative. Holiness
is not relative. You don't become more holy. What
God calls holy is holy. What God calls holy is perfect,
sinless, undefiled. How am I going to be holy before
God? Unblameable. Unreprovable. In His sight. I'm so glad for
those last three words. And I'm glad they're not in italics.
Aren't you? Here we are. Holy. Unreprovable. Unblameable. I don't see myself
as holy. I don't see myself as unblameable. I don't see myself
as unprovable. I mean, I can find lots of things
that are unholy and blamable in my in my heart and in my life
but in his site in his site found in christ not having my own righteousness
which is of the law but that righteousness which is by the
faithfulness of the lord jesus christ i'm holy unblameable unapprovable
in his site look at the next verse if You continue in the
faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. Don't let these minor differences
that you have take you away from the gospel. It's the gospel that
binds our hearts together. with one another. It's the gospel
that binds us to Christ. It's the gospel that gives us
acceptance before God. It's the good news that salvation's
of the Lord. It's finished. It's a work of
His grace. Don't be taken away from that.
which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature
which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister."
So, here he says we're, let's go back to our text in 1 Corinthians. We're going to be blameless How
are we going to be blameless? Only if the Lord establishes
us, makes us sure, confirms us, gives us a firm standing in Christ. And if He does that, He'll keep
us there. He'll keep us from falling and
present us faultless before His throne with great joy. What hope! Look at the next verse. God is
faithful. The hope of you being blameless
before God is not because of your faithfulness. It's because
of His faithfulness. God is faithful by whom you were
called. You were called. all that He
called, He justified. And all that He justified, He
sanctified. And all that He sanctified, He
glorified. We're called. It's an irresistible call. It's
an effectual call. There's an outward call that
the church extends to all men. and my god give us opportunity
to extend that outward call the more to mormon that we'd be more
more aware of opportunities that we have to tell men about christian
pray i pray every week lord bring bring somebody uh... you know
that that that will be able to hear for the first time uh... we extend the outward call but
we don't know who god's elect are doing we don't know but many
are called fewer chosen The outward call goes to all men. The effectual
call goes to God's elect by the power of the Spirit of God. So
it's God who is faithful by whom you are called. Have I received
the effectual calling? You say, well, how do I know
if I'm called? How do I know if I'm called? Did you come as a result of a
choice? Or did God shut you up to the
gospel? You've got no place else to go. If you've been called,
it wasn't a way you can have it this way, you can have it
that way. It wasn't even a take it or leave it option given to
you. It wasn't that. I was irresistibly drawn to Christ. All my eggs are in one basket.
I'm persuaded that He's able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know whom I have believed.
I'm trusting Christ. Faith is the evidence of things
hoped for, isn't it? I know I'm called because all
the hope of my salvation is bound up in the glorious person and
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've got no place else
to go. When the Lord asked the disciples, will you lead me also?
You remember what they said? Lord, where are we going to go?
Where are we going to go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. We know and are sure this is not relative to us. God has
spoken to us. I've been taught of God. I know
and I'm sure that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living
God. Where else are you going to go?
You've been called if you've been shut up to Christ. If you're
still playing with the idea of, you know, what do I believe?
who do I believe and what gospel do I believe, you know, maybe,
maybe this, maybe that, then you haven't been taught of God.
God's taught you. Then you know that Christ is
all and he's in all. And that's the only way you can
know that you've been called. So, the Lord says, God is faithful
by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son. There
it is. I know I've been called because
I'm in fellowship with Christ. I'm resting in Christ. He's the
only hope I've got. I can't present any of my works. My knowledge means nothing. My
hope, all my hope, is bound up in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
I'm not found in Him, I've got no place else to go. Fellowship. Union with Christ. 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. They were arguing over who had
the best gifts. They were fighting at the Lord's table
at the meal that was provided to see who was going to be in
line first. And some of them were even taken,
other ones, to court over legal matters. And the Lord said, this
isn't right. You've got contentions, you've
got divisions, and those divisions are causing you to lose sight
of the one thing that you have in common. Look what he says. 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, schisms among you, but that you
be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same
judgment. I was planning on quoting some
lyrics from a Pink Floyd song in the introduction of my next
message. You remember Another Brick on
the Wall? We Don't Need No Mind Control? That's the philosophy of the
world, isn't it? That's the philosophy. We don't need no mind control.
Yeah, we do. I need my mind controlled. Give
me the mind of Christ. And if you do, He's going to
give us all the same mind. And we're going to be in lockstep
conformity, not to an elder, not to a church creed, not to
a set of rules and regulations that threaten to discipline us.
We're going to be in lockstep conformity to Christ. That's
what He's saying. Don't let these schisms take
you away from Christ. You put a man under the law and
all you're going to do is divide him and take him away from Christ. perfectly joined together in
the same mind and the same judgment. What is your judgment? What is
your judgment about how God judges sinners? What's your judgment about how
God judges sinners? If you're of the same mind, then
you know that God demands absolute perfection. And that he'll not
let one sin go unpunished. And that all the sins of all
God's elect were placed on the Lord Jesus Christ and God satisfied
His holy justice when He poured out His wrath on His own Son. It pleased God to bruise Him. That's my judgment. That's my
only hope. and by the sacrifice of himself
once and for all he put away all our sin so that now he is
our propitiation there's no more wrath there's no more anger there's
no more judgment there's no condemnation be of
the same mind and the same judgment for it hath been declared unto
me of you my brethren By them which are of the house of Chloe,
that there be, that there are contentions, debates, and arguments
among you." I think there's a good lesson in this verse for all
of us to take heed to. And that is that if you can't
tell who told you something, then you ought not to tell it
somebody else. Well, you know, I heard. Well,
who'd you hear it from? Paul said, I heard from the house
of Chloe. He tells them exactly who he
heard it from. She was a member of that church.
So he's exposing her to all the other members of the church saying,
she told me. Isn't that a good, isn't that
a good rule? And we repeat things we ought
not to repeat. And if we don't have the liberty
to tell where it came from, we ought not to say it. Just keep
it to ourselves. That'll keep us from saying a
whole lot of things we shouldn't be saying, won't it? Now this I say, that every one
of you saith, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, and
then the real super spiritual ones in the church said, well,
I'm of Christ. Yeah, it wasn't a humble declaration, you know,
I don't need those preachers, they're just men, they're just
preachers. There was a contention among them over who their favorite
preacher was. And Paul's saying, you know,
there's not one preacher in a thousand that's preaching the gospel. There's not one in a thousand.
I mean, these are rare thing. Esteem them highly for their
work sake. They're just men like you. They're
sinners just like you. They've got the same problems
you've got. But God's called them and given them a gift for
the salvation of your soul. And what they're doing is essential
for the hope of your salvation. And so, you know, not as a man,
but for his work's sake, for what he's doing, for the message
that he's telling you. You see, again, it's coming back
to the gospel. It's not to a man. They were putting their attention
on men. You know, I'm a Paul, I'm a Paulist. I like this preacher
better than that preacher. Don't do that. esteem them if
man's preaching the gospel he's a rare thing and uh... and god's going to use different
personalities don't you know which you know how impetuous
peter was in his person i'm sure he rubbed a lot of folks a wrong
way uh... i bet that i've been a lot of
people you know just didn't want to be around Peter, maybe, you
know, just because of the way he was. And John, on the other
hand, would have been, you know, the kind of person you just would
feel so at ease with. And yet, when they stood to preach
the gospel, give heed. God speaking through them don't
don't say well I want this preacher that preacher or or say or say
in pride and that's what this I am of Christ it was a proud
full thing you know we we don't steam any man we're just we're
just following Christ and we don't need a preacher I'm how can they believe on whom
they've not heard how can they hear without a preacher or give
us give us gospel preachers Is Christ divided? No. No, Christ is not divided. He's one. And every member of
His body is an important part of His body. The hand doesn't say to the foot,
I don't need you, or you're not as important as I am. No, we're
part of the body of Christ. If there is a most important
part of your body, what is it? It's your head, isn't it? See
how your body does detach from your head? Christ is the head of the body.
Everything that your body does, the voluntary and the involuntary
functions of your whole body, from the bottom of your foot
all the way through, is controlled by your head, isn't it? Lord, make us... We've got a
disconnect from the head because of some schism or some division
or some minor issue. Lord, give us the grace to make
the main thing the main thing. Alright, let's take a break. Thank you.