1 Corinthians 11, 17. Now in this that I declare unto
you, I praise you not, that you come together, not for the better,
but for the worse. Now Paul praised this church
in verse two for keeping the traditions, for keeping the ordinances
of worshiping God in the right way, in the right things. Remembering
Paul when they had questions But now he says in this I praise
you not They kept the tradition of gathering together, but there
was so much flesh in their services That it was not profitable There
had to be changes or there wouldn't be a church there wouldn't be
any worship I And so Paul writes this portion of the letter. They
observed the Lord's table, but it was not worship under the
Lord. It had become, in the manner in which they did it, rather
than a simple celebration and remembrance of the Savior, it
had become a mealtime to indulge their own flesh. The lack of
reverence in this church and the way that they did things
caused problems that you wouldn't necessarily connect to that. But we'll see that another time.
But all in all, Paul said it would be better for them not
to come together at all, the way things were at this time.
Rather than do what they were doing, it would be better to
not even gather. So clearly a very serious and
solemn exhortation here. But notice this, the solution,
though it was unprofitable, the way that they gathered and met
together, the solution was not to stop gathering. He didn't
just tell them, just go home and quit. But notice what the
solution was in verse 23. We won't get as far as verse
23 in that, but I want us to see this regarding what is the
answer when things in the worship are so bad and they've degraded
into such fleshly and carnal foolishness that it's not even worth gathering
together anymore. It's harmful rather than helpful.
Then what's the answer to that? Verse 23, for I have received
of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. That's the answer. Keep the ordinances that I've
delivered to you. He praised them for that, but
keep them in the right way. And the way to do that is Paul
received it from the Lord and delivered it unto them. Do it
the way the Lord has taught us to do it. Simple, straightforward,
clear in its imagery. Pure in its worship. Don't let
it degenerate into some fleshly foolishness, selfishness, and
neglect. And this tells us something about
what the answer is to every problem in the church. Do it the way
the Lord delivered it to us. If we didn't receive it of the
Lord, then it has no place in the worship. It's that simple. And look what he said in verse
23. What the Lord delivered unto
me, I delivered unto you. That is the definition of the
word ordinances in verse two. You see how this all ties together,
given over. It's a form of the same word.
The word in verse two is the feminine noun, and this is the
verb form in verse 23. So you see it all come together.
It's all about the worship of God. The ordinances are the traditions
given over. How did that start? Well, that's
what the fathers did, no? We received it of the Lord. Or
we don't do it. It's that simple. Anything that's
made up. Crosses and statues and nonsense
like that, made up. Walking aisles, made up. Repeating prayers that somebody
else wrote, not the traditions we're talking about. given over, I've received it
of the Lord, and then you received it from me. That's how, that's
what, and that's all. Coming together, assembling is
assumed. You come together, when you come
together, it says in another couple of verses there, when
you come together, it's assumed. It's specifically mentioned but
in a way that just presupposes it. Of course we come together. Of course you come together.
That's what a church is. It means assembly. The word church
is assembly. It's assumed, it's presupposed. The public worship of God is
the most important thing that we do in this life. Everything must. I say everything
should, but really everything must revolve around it. Because if it doesn't, it's not
worship. God don't take seconds. He don't
take leftovers. He saves leftovers, but he don't
take them from anybody. Where is God most glorified in
this world? in politics, by governments, by society, in
the newspapers on six o'clock news. Where is God glorified? You know that's why everything
exists. It's for the glory of God. Where
does that happen? Where is Christ preached? Where
are sinners saved? And I'm not talking about a location,
but where did God say he would meet with sinners? And what does
God use to save sinners? God's people are most blessed
in the worship. Where are we blessed the most?
What's the most beneficial to the people of God? Where are Christ's sheep fed? Where does Christ meet with his
people? Where two or three are gathered,
assembled, where they've come together. What place on earth, I've heard
people say this many times at a conference, at Bible conferences.
This is the closest to heaven we're gonna get in this world.
I agree with that. Where is that? In the worship.
In the church. Remember what our Lord said in
the Garden of Gethsemane. This came to my mind as I thought
about this. and what all the church means
in this world. Matthew 26, 41, the Lord said
to those disciples that had the great privilege of being there
with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said to them, watch and pray
that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing,
but the flesh is weak. Would that apply to the public
worship? Are we kept by these means in
this world? Is there an aspect of safety
in this, spiritual safety? Watch and pray lest you enter
into temptation. Hear the gospel. Learn of Christ. Now look at verse 18 in our text,
please. For first of all, when you come
together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among
you, and I partly believe it. Now Paul dealt with divisions
early in this letter. You'll recall that there was
fleshly pride involved having to do with what preacher they
followed. I believe Corinth was a, was
a city where philosophy was a great thing, and philosophy was all
about who do you follow, who do you agree with, who's your
mentor when it comes to philosophy, and they had brought that into
spiritual matters, and it seems like that's probably had something
to do with it, but whatever the backstory would be, Attaching
themselves to certain preachers some said I'm of Paul and others
of Apollos and so on and Paul sharply rebuked him for that
He did not partly believe that he knew that was happening the
house of Chloe There were those in the house of Chloe Told him
that it was happening and he dealt with that very thoroughly
and sharply in chapters 1 and 3 So that's not what he's talking
about here. He didn't partly believe that
he he knew that was true and he dealt with it already Well,
he's referring to here is revealed in the next verse heresies For
there must be heresies Divisions with regard to doctrine you're
divided when it comes to doctrine, arguments, debates, disagreements
with regard to doctrine. How many times have we seen that
come up in our verse by verse by verse studies in this book? And this is the first thing he
deals with before you deal with anything else. Your worship is
a disaster. It's not worship. It would be
better if you didn't even gather. And here's number one, quit fussing
about everything. Quit having arguments and debates
and fights and issues over everything under the sun. And especially
with regard to doctrine. That's not what this is. We haven't come here to debate
who God is and who Christ is and what he accomplished on Calvary.
We've come to declare it and to rejoice in it together. To
learn of him and find our comfort and rest and peace in him. Not
to debate it. And as you can probably tell,
this bothers me. There's too much argument. There's
too much division over doctrine, petty things, foolish things. They did not receive that of
the Lord. Some people thrive on disagreement. Have you noticed that about some
people? There's no place for it in the house of God, none.
We're specifically called over and over to unity, endeavor to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And we're
specifically forbidden to engage in debate or to address foolish
and unlearned questions for the very reason that they do gender
strifes. That's what was happening in
this church. This is so clear and so necessary. to address
foolish and unlearned questions. Was Christ a sinner? Have you
ever heard a more stupid question than that? Somebody said there
are no stupid questions. Oh yes, there are. And I don't
see how any one single question could be more stupid than that.
Was Christ a sinner? Let's debate that. Let's ask
questions about that. Is justification eternal or did
it originate in time at the cross? Really? Is the gospel that complicated? Do you need to figure that out?
I'm gonna tell you something. If you need to figure that out
to worship the Lord, you're in trouble, because you're not gonna
figure it out. I agree with certain people in
that debate. but that's not what we're here
to resolve. We're here because we're sinners
and we need the Savior. I don't know about all that, but
I know how a sinner is justified before God. By the grace of God,
I know how God can be just and justify a wretch like me. I believe that's an eternal thing
because God is eternal. And I also believe that what
God purposed and what was true because he said so in eternity
was carried out in time at Calvary, were justified by his blood.
Why would we argue about that? Was sin taken into account when
God chose his elect or not? Shut up. Who cares? If God didn't choose to reveal
that to us, shut up about it. Look at what he did reveal. God
chose a people from eternity and loved them. Set his affection
on them throughout all eternity, He chose them and with loving
kindness, He drew them to Himself in the person of His Son. He
gave them faith in Christ and forgave their sins because of
the precious blood of the Lamb of God. The message delivered
unto us of the Lord has nothing to do with any of that. It's
the message of righteousness without the law. God requires
righteousness. You can't produce it. You don't have
any. You can't do it and you're not
it. But there is righteousness without you keeping the law,
without you being in conformance to the law. There's righteousness
in the person of Christ who did keep the law in thought, word
and deed. That's the message that we've
been given to declare righteousness. A sinner can stand righteous
before God in the person of Christ through faith in him. It's a
message of perfect atonement by the blood of Christ with the
certain result of saving all those atoned for when he shed
his blood for them. It completely leaves unanswered
the question of supra or infralapsarianism. But bless God, it answers so
beautifully and so vitally the question, how can God be just
and justify a sinner like me? If you're gonna come together
and cause or engage in strife, it would be better if you went
to a movie or a ball game. You'd be doing the people of
God a favor. But again, the real solution
is to come together and that which we have received of the
Lord, do that, preach that and make it plain. to have strife and division has
no place in the church of God's people." 1 Corinthians 3, 3,
for you are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you
in being and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as
men? In other words, you're not acting like the church when you
do that, you're acting like lost people. God's people don't do
that. What is there to argue about? We should be rather standing
in awe together. of the magnificence of our Savior
and what he did for us. Rejoicing together. Strife is not what God's people
do. It's what lost people do. That's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
3. Is there a riot outside? What is that noise? Sounded like
somebody yelling. It didn't sound like the nursery.
Okay. Verse 19 in our text. Verse 19, for there must be also
heresies among you that they which are approved may be made
manifest among you. So specifically what they were
divided over was that there were heretical ideas being thrown
out, you know. questioning things, questioning
the clearly revealed gospel. Paul's not contradicting himself
here by saying here that it's normal and okay for there to
be heresies in the church. That's not what he's saying.
When he says there must also be heresies, he's not normalizing
that. He's not saying, well, that's just gotta be. There's
just gotta always be heresies in the church. That's not it.
That's clear from the context. He's saying that it is inevitable,
not that it's acceptable. It's not an ongoing condition
in the church, but it is something that God will use from time to
time, as he clearly says here, there must be, because God brings
it to pass. And God will use it to weed out
the chaff from among his people. from time to time. Notice specifically
what he uses, heresies. Well, you said that, Chris. Yeah,
but let's think about this for a minute. It's important that
we understand this word. Now we know heresy. If I ask
you what heresy is, you would say, well, it's doctrine, it's
teaching that's blasphemous. It's doctrine that's inconsistent
with the gospel, with the Bible. It's doctrine that's opposed
to the truth of God and his son. And that's a good definition,
but what is that? We gotta get to the root of it,
and it's very core. What is a heresy? Well, the word
means choosing. That's it. Choice. Isn't that interesting? We'll let that sink in a little
bit. Heresy means choice. Is that what happened in the
garden? The Garden of Eden? Suddenly there was a choice. Not before that. There was nothing
to choose before that. Did God give Adam and Eve a choice
in the garden? Of course not. He told them what to do. It's
pretty clear who he is and who they were and they were given
clear instruction, no choices to make. Let me ask you this,
who did give him a choice? That's who's doing it now. That's who's doing it now. Do you see what heresy is? Does
the gospel give you a choice? I don't see it, do you, in the
gospel? The command is come unto me and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth. The command is come now and let
us reason together, saith the Lord. There are no options. Who does give a choice? Heretics. Whenever a sinner is
given a choice, Throughout history and from now on he does and shall
choose heresy He'll choose error He'll choose himself over God
that was the choice in the garden by the way That wasn't an option before Truth does not allow for choice
Think about that. Truth doesn't allow for choice. What if somebody said, I choose
to believe the sky's blue? You'd think they were crazy,
wouldn't you? That's because they're crazy. You believe it because it's true.
You didn't choose to believe that. You saw that it was true
and you believed it. You don't decide that ice is
cold. It just is. You don't choose to believe that
God is God. He just is. You don't choose to believe that
Christ saved everyone for whom he died. He said he did. He just did. In order to believe
anything else, you have to choose to do so. You have to make a
willful decision to choose to not believe what's true. That's what heresy is. Satan
gives you that choice, not God. And look at this word approved,
that they which are approved might be made manifest. When it says this word approved,
we might tend to attach an element of excellence to that. You're
approved. That means you're better than some because you're approved.
It may seem to indicate that these are exceptional in themselves,
but consider why in this context they're different. There are
those that are approved and there are those that are not. Why are
they different? How are they different? The word
of approved here is set in opposition to heresies. There are those
engaging in heresies, and then there are those who are approved.
And we see those opposites formed against one another in that it
is by the heresies, when the heresies are identified in those
who are propagating them, Then you can identify those who are
called here approved. So it's set against, they're
set against one another. The word approved is a word used
in the determining of the genuineness of a coin. This was important
back then because there were a lot of silver coins changing
hands. It's a word used by those who
determined if a coin was real silver or what is referred to
in Jeremiah 630. Listen to Jeremiah 630, reprobate
silver shall men call them. These are heretics, lost people. How do we know that? Because
the Lord has rejected them. They're not approved. They're
rejected because they're fake. They might be partially real.
But you know what partially real is? Fake. That's just another
word for fake. Reprobate silver shall men call
them because the Lord hath rejected them. That's all of us by nature.
They've been tried, they've been weighed in the balances and found
wanting. And this is a picture of the
difference between God's people world Our text is simply saying
that when choices are made rather than simply bowing to the truth
of Christ It reveals who is the real thing and who's not It's a test Anyone who takes a chosen course
of thought and action is a heretic and because the truth is given by
God. Believers don't have a choice to believe what they do. Just
like a man doesn't have a choice to believe whether fire is hot
or not. That's not a choice you can make. It's that simple. In the house
of God, it's that simple. When God says that he elected
a people before they were born, or had done any good or evil,
and he did say that, didn't he, in Romans chapter nine. And he
made that choice based on the simple fact that he loved some
and hated others, when God clearly declares that. And then religion says that all
of that, though, was based on the sinner's choice. You know what they've done? They've
simply chosen to believe something other than what God said. That's
heresy. That's heresy. You don't get
to choose that. When God says that he hateth all workers of
iniquity, and specifically that he hated Esau, and then religion
turns around and says that God loves all sinners the same, they've
made a choice, haven't they? They've made a choice in a no-choice
zone. There's just simply no choice
when it comes to the truth. When the Lord Jesus Christ says
that he laid down his life for his sheep and that they shall
never perish, and then religion decides to believe and say that
Christ laid down his life for everybody, including those who
do perish, they've made a choice. They willfully despise the sovereign
Christ. who is the sinner's only hope
and their heretics. That's the meaning of the word,
choosing. We don't decide to believe that
faith in Christ is God's gift. He said it was. We don't decide
to believe that Christ is all in creation, in providence, and
in salvation. We just know it because God has
revealed it to us. What choice do you have to believe
that Christ saves whoever he wants to save? What choice do you have to trust
him? Those whom he's given faith in
him, could you just quit trusting him tonight? Just decide I'm not going to
trust him anymore. Those people are the real deal. Reprobate means worthless. Approved means real. Those who are approved reject
foolish questions, and they don't abide making choices when it
comes to the gospel. Because the truth is not debatable.
There is no choice to make when the truth is revealed. There's
submission if God is gracious, and faith and trust and observance. And these ones, approved ones,
do that simply because they're real. They're something God has
made. They have a true heart of faith
and love for God. And they're made new by God himself. They're given that new heart.
God creates silver. It's man that adds something
else to it. It's man that corrupts it. It's
man that does that for nefarious purposes, for selfish reasons. God created silver, and silver's
worth something by God's design in providence. It's worth something.
God creates sons. And I am what I am by the grace
of God. Amen. Let's pray.