Alright, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 16. We'll read verses 5 through 9. Paul says, Now I will come unto
you when I shall pass through Macedonia, for I do pass through
Macedonia, And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter
with you, that you may bring me on my journey whithersoever
I go. For I will not see you now, by
the way, but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord
permit. But I will tarry at Ephesus until
Pentecost, for a great door and effectual is opened unto me. there are many adversaries. Now in everything that a believer
says and does, there will be a spirit of denying ourselves
and exalting God. There will be a spirit of denying
ourselves and our will, our fleshly way, and there will be a spirit
of exalting God's sovereign will in all things. That's the common
thread in the four points I want to show you tonight. Paul denies
himself and he exalts God. Now first of all, we see this
in regards to receiving brethren. to receiving brethren. He says
there in verse 5, I will come unto you when I shall pass through
Macedonia. And it may be I'll abide, yea,
winter with you, that you may bring me on my journey whithersoever
I go. Paul was persuaded that the saints
at Corinth, the church at Corinth were true children of God, chosen
by God the Father, redeemed by the blood of Christ and regenerated
by the Spirit of God, brought to trust Christ. That's what
a true child of God is. He's been chosen of God the Father
based on anything in Him. He's been redeemed by the blood
of Christ and He's been given life by the irresistible grace
of the Holy Spirit and brought to faith in Christ. And Paul
was convinced they were true saints. Now it's important And
this point is important because he was convinced of that and
received them as brethren after all the sins that he had corrected
them about, which they were guilty of. You remember, as a review,
we'll look here. The ones that he's calling, and
he called them in 1 Corinthians 15, 58, he called them my beloved
brethren. These are the ones that were
guilty of all this great sin that he's been dealing with in
this whole book. Let's review some of that. They exalted their
favorite preachers at the expense of others so that they were full
of envying and strife and division. And then they had one brother
that was in need of rebuke and they showed him no love. by receiving
Him and saying nothing to Him whatsoever. They condoned his
sin by that. And it was a grievous sin. And
they refused to judge one another in the church when it's needful
and yet publicly they were taking one another to law and suing
each other in a public court of law. Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine suing one of these brethren sitting here and
taking them to court? That's what they were doing.
They misunderstood the spiritual truths of the gospel in that
they don't apply to secular popular customs. You know, they were
thinking that because now they believed and their spouse didn't,
they should divorce their spouse. The ones that were servants,
they thought that they shouldn't be servants to their master anymore.
The women thought they ought to throw off the garment that
was known by the whole population in Greece, a Grecian culture,
that this was how you showed subjection, submission to the
man. A woman showed submission to
the man. They were just going to do away with that. And then others
sinned against Christ and their brethren by their liberty in
Christ. They let weak believers see them
eating and drinking things that weak believers don't think a
believer ought to eat and drink. They let weak believers see them
doing that. And it's not sinful when we eat
or drink things that we're at liberty to eat and drink. There's
nothing sinful about that. It's sinful when we do it and
let a weak believer see it. Because what's happening is,
by our example, they follow us and they do it, but Christ had
given them faith to do it, and so they wound their weak conscience.
And remember Paul said this, the fault though is our fault.
If I do that and I embolden a weak believer to take a drink of alcohol
just because they saw me do it. Paul said, when you sin so against
the brethren, when you sin so against the brethren. And wound
their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. That's serious. And then they were not supporting
their pastors financially. This was a wealthy place. Corinth
was. One of the wealthiest places.
They weren't supporting the pastor. They turned the Lord's table
into a vain, drunken feast where they each just came in with their
own meal ate and drank till they were drunk and people around
them were hungry. They used their gifts to exalt
themselves over their brethren, never considering that the gospel
is the best gift of all and the most needful of all and they
didn't even regard that. They were allowing women to preach,
which God forbids in His Word, and they were listening to false
preachers. Some were even questioning the resurrection of the dead.
And yet after all this, in 1 Corinthians 4.14, Paul said, I write not
these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. As my beloved sons and daughters. Did he correct them? Yes. Did
it probably sting a little while? Did it maybe make them mad a
little while? Probably. But does that stop us from correcting
our children? No. Not if we love them. And Paul,
it didn't stop him. It doesn't stop us from ever
regarding our children as our children, does it? And Paul never
regarded them as anything less than his beloved sons and daughters
in Christ. He never did. Now, what I want
you to get from this is let's be slow to condemn a fellow believer
and cast him off as reprobate based on outward conduct. Be very slow to do that. Be always
ready to forgive. Be always ready to use God's
Word to correct if you have the open door. And do so trusting
Christ will teach them. and never doubt them and never
reject them. Not at all. Christ will teach
us to do this in time. If we are His, He will teach
us this in time. I have listened to every message preached by
some faithful pastors who pastored for over 30, between 30 to 55
years. And I have listened to their
messages from the beginning of their ministry all the way up
to now or to the end of their ministry. And this is what I
have seen. In the early years of their ministry,
there's a whole lot more vinegar and a little grace mixed in there.
And towards the end of their ministry, there's a whole lot
of grace and very little vinegar. Remember Isaiah, he wrote six
chapters. Woe is unto you, woe is unto
you. And he said, and I saw the Lord
and I said, woe is unto me. Let's be far more eager to judge
myself. Let me judge me. And far less
eager to condemn others. Because this is the truth of
the matter. Grace and forgiveness makes believers want to live
more honoring to Christ. And law and condemnation never
do. They never do. You feel warm
and fuzzy when somebody rails on you and rejects you and casts
you off. But grace and mercy, the way
Paul treated them, I guarantee you that made him say, I want
to honor the Lord. I want to heed what He's taught
me and honor the Lord. And we know that God will teach
us, He'll teach His people and He'll keep His people. So we
don't have to reject them. We just preach what God gives
you to preach and talk to them out of the Word of God and encourage
them and trust God to keep them and teach them and receive them. So you see how Paul denied himself
in that? Flesh is a Pharisee. Our flesh
is a Pharisee. He denied that Pharisee trust
in God's will, looking at God's will. Well secondly, look here,
we see a denial of fleshly will and an exalting of God's will
in Paul's daily planning, in his daily plans. He said there
in verse 7, I will not see you now by the way, but I trust to
tarry a while with you if the Lord permit. If the Lord permit. Our life is so dependent on God
and our life is so governed by God and it's so set by God that
you and I We can't say emphatically what we will do in anything.
Not anything. Look at James chapter 4. Just a minute. James chapter
4. James 4.13. Go to now you that
say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue
there a year and buy and sell and get gain. Whereas you know
not what shall be on tomorrow, what's going to happen tomorrow.
For what is your life? What is your life? Have you ever
considered what your life is? Here's what it is. It's even
a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
We're going to walk outside here in a moment. It's going to be
real cold. If you want to stand out there in front of one of
those headlights and you just breathe out, and you see that
vapor come out, you see it for a minute and then it's gone,
that's what your life is. It's there for a minute and it's
gone. Look here, you ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall
live. I don't even know if I'm going
to be living. If the Lord will, we shall live
and do this or that. But now you rejoice in your boasting
and all such rejoicing is evil, therefore to him that knows to
do good and does it not, to him is sin. Now that's much more
than simply saying if the Lord will. There's a whole lot of
people that will say if the Lord will, whose hearts think otherwise. And it can be that you get to
the point where you use that phrase just like somebody says
knock on wood, superstition. What matters is the heart. That's
what matters. The most important thing is the
heart and the spirit. I may not always say if the Lord
will when I'm talking to you about something, but I want the
Lord's will to be done in everything. That's my heart. That's my heart
and that's our gospel. We don't boast that we by our
will chose God. God the Father chose us before
the world was ever even made. Chose us in Christ, not based
on anything in us. Simply by His grace He chose
us. That's the will we boast in. And we have never ever in
our lives honored and magnified the law because we're sinners.
Christ came and did that for His people by His will. He willingly
did that for His people. And it wasn't our will that brought
us to Christ and made us to believe on Christ. It was the sovereign
irresistible will of God that drew us to Christ and He made
us willing in the day of His power. And we don't even boast
in our will that we persevere in faith because the one we boast
in is He who said, the God who that's begun a good work in you
will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. That's who we boast
in for perseverance. It's Christ. He's preserving
us. So if our heart's been made submissive
to God's will, it's going to come out in our spirit in what
we say and we do. You look here at a passage that
seems so insignificant at the end of this letter. And yet all
in it you hear, even if Paul had not said, if the Lord permit,
you hear that spirit in what he is saying here. Trusting,
looking to God's will and not boasting in his own will. You
hear it in all the gospel he declared and you hear it even
when he is just talking about, it seems like he is just tying
up some loose ends here at the end of the letter. And you still
hear it in the spirit in which he speaks. So remember now, I
do encourage you to say, if the Lord will, especially when you're
dealing with worldly men. Because maybe they might ask
you, what do you mean by that? And you tell them. But remember,
God looks on the heart. And that's the thing. The heart wants God's will to
be done. And that's so of His people.
And, by the way, it was God's will for Him to come there. Acts
21 and verse 1 says Paul departed to go into Macedonia, and when
he had gone over those parts and given them much exhortation,
he came to Greece, that's where Corinth was. And it says, and
there he abode three months. He stayed there through winter.
He stayed there through winter. I stop off and see folks when
I'm traveling places to preach, I just stay a night or two, but,
you know, back then you had to arrange it around the weather.
He stayed the whole winter. That's showing you that he received
them as brethren. He wasn't going just to pop in
for a visit. He went there and stayed at that church for three
months. Alright, here's the next thing. An open door. We see his
self-denial and him exalt God in opening the door. Look at
this, verse 8. But I will tarry at Ephesus until
Pentecost. That's where he's writing the
letter from. And I think it's interesting, you go over there
in Acts, around Acts 20, Acts 21, and read what all was going
on at Ephesus while he took the time to write this whole letter.
And you understand something about what's involved in being
a pastor. It's not just preparing to preach
at that place, you're answering other people's letters. And he
was answering a letter they sent to him, asking all these questions,
and he wrote this whole letter answering them while he's at
Ephesus going through what he's going through at Ephesus. And
it was a lot. You go over there and read about
it. But he says here that this door was effectually opened unto
me. He didn't open it. It was opened
unto me. He's saying I didn't do this. He's denying any part
in it that he did it. He's saying God did it. He's
giving glory where glory is due. And when he says here that it
was effectual, he's saying Christ made it effectual. Now, this
is the truth. We don't open any door. It's
Christ that opens the door to even give His preacher an opportunity
to preach and an audience to preach to. If it's being done
by the Lord, it's the Lord that opened that door and gave you
an audience to preach to, not ourselves. And we don't want
to be the one to open it. Listen to Revelation 3.7. To the angel
of the church in Philadelphia write, These things saith he
that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David,
he that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth.
That's Christ. He's the one that has to open
the door. You know, there were places that Paul wanted to go
preach and the Lord sent the Spirit and He closed the door
and He wouldn't let Paul go to that place and preach. But he
opened the door and everywhere Paul preached, he opened the
door for Paul to preach there. Acts 14.24 says, When they were
come and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all
that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of
faith unto the Gentiles. How he did it. He said in 2 Corinthians
2.12, When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, a door
was opened unto me of the Lord. He always gave the Lord the glory
for opening the door. And then not only that, it's
by Christ opening the door of utterance that the preacher himself
is even able to preach the gospel. Why don't you think, there's
so many preachers, there's so many preachers, why don't they
all preach Christ? Why don't they, why do they preach
this piecemeal gospel? Why do they, it's no gospel at
all, why do they do that? Christ alone can make His preacher
have the backbone and the heart and the words to utter the Gospel. Paul said in Colossians 4.3,
Pray for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to
speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds that
I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. He has to give you
that. You can't do that. Why is it
sometimes you can be so bold and speak the truth and sometimes
you wilt like a flower? You wilt like a flower when it's
of your flesh. You speak it boldly, it's Christ doing it. And then
when Christ has to open the door of the hearts of His sheep to
give us the ability to believe on Christ. Revelation 3.20 says,
Behold, Christ says this, Behold, I stand at the door and knock,
and if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come
in to him and will sup with him and he with me. And you know
what the world does with that verse? They take that verse and
they say, see there, it's all up to you. You got to open the
door. Christ is begging for you to
open the door. He is like a beggar standing out there knocking and
just saying, would you please let me in? And you just got to
exercise your will and open the door and let Him in. But you
know what God's people say? I was not willing to open that
door. I didn't even have a heart with a door. He had to give me
a new heart and make me willing. And we say with the church in
Song of Solomon, My Beloved put His hand by the hole of the door
and my bowels were moved for Him. That's who we give the glory
to. Christ opened the door. He opened
the door. And then when He gives us faith
and we are made to behold that Christ, then He makes us behold
that Christ Himself is the door. He is the way to God, the only
way. He said, I am the door of the
sheep. All that ever came before me
were thieves and robbers. and the sheep did not hear them.
He said, I am the door of the sheep. Any man enters in, he
shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. We
got a new and living way into the holiest of holies. It's not
a cloth veil in an earthly temple. It's Christ's flesh because He
laid down His life as the God-man mediator and put away our sin
and He went into the holiest of holies and He's the door to
enter into God's presence. He's the door of righteousness
by which we have obeyed all the law and God will receive us justly. He's the door of holiness by
which we're washed so that we're made holy and God can have communion
with us. He's the door. You know, you
take some pushy religious folks and this... I haven't run into
this up here too much, but you go down where I'm from And everybody
there is religious. And you're going to run into
this. Kevin, you know what I'm talking about. You run into pushy
religious folks that want to push something on you. Push a
word of God on you. It's never true, but they want
to push something on you. And they want to force you to
listen to them. And you know a man that does that, he's not
denying himself. And he's not trusting the will
of God. He's not. What did Paul just say? He said,
Christ opened the door. He went where Christ opened the
door. He didn't try to bust down a door. He went where Christ
opened the door because he denied himself and trusted God by God's
grace. When Christ opens the door though,
He'll make it known that He's done it. You know, this is how
much Christ is sovereign over His church. If He's got an audience
for you to bear witness the gospel to, And he's going to make it
so that you're there to speak a word to somebody. He's going
to open that door by giving them an interest, and he's going to
open that door making you know they have an interest. He's operating
in the hearts of everybody involved. You're not going to miss it.
Don't worry. If he's opening the door, you're not going to
wonder, I wonder, was that door open? You're going to know it
if he's opening the door. Because He is that sovereign
in everything that is taking place. But now when He has made
it clear that He has opened that door, when that door swings wide,
you will be ready to go in it and preach, speak, be prepared. That means you have got to look
into this Word and know what to say. What would you write
now? Somebody just came up and said, what is the gospel? What
would you tell them? You need to be prepared for that.
We need to be prepared for that. It rarely happens. If He makes
it happen, take advantage of it. And I trust this, He's so
sovereign in the matter that He'll have you prepared too.
I say to you, study the Word, He'll get you prepared. If He's
going to use you to speak a word to somebody, He'll have you ready.
He'll have you gun loaded, I guarantee you. Or your sword sharpened,
that's a better analogy. Alright, now look, here's the
last thing. Concerning Paul's willingness to preach to adversaries,
I like this. Now look at this carefully. 1
Corinthians 16 and look here now at verse 8. He says, I'll tarry at Ephesus
unto Pentecost because a great door and effectuals opened to
me. And he's saying, I'm going to tarry at Ephesus unto Pentecost
because also there's many adversaries here. There are many adversaries here.
This might be the biggest way He is showing a denial of Himself
and a trust in God's power and God's will right here. You see,
everywhere that Christ spoke, from the first time He spoke
publicly until the last time He spoke publicly, He always
ruffled theological feathers every time He spoke. Somebody
got mad every time. There were adversaries in the
audience every time Christ spoke. And it was the same with Paul.
And everywhere I've ever preached, there have been adversaries there.
And they let you know they're an adversary by usually getting
real mad at you. Well, what would make you want
to stay in a place like that? You go there the first night,
somebody lets you know they don't agree with you. Why would you
want to go back and preach the next day and the next day? Why
wouldn't you tone down the gospel and take the offense out of the
cross when you go back? It's because God successfully makes
His preacher know what a successful ministry is. That's the difference. God makes you understand what
a successful ministry is. Look over at Look over with me
at 2 Corinthians 2.14. Every preacher is going to learn
this right here. 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now listen
to what is being said here. Now thanks be unto God which
always causeth us to triumph in Christ. and maketh manifest
the savour of His knowledge by us in every place. Now watch
this. For we are unto everybody we
preach to, no, we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ. He
is talking about preachers here when he says we. We are unto
God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in
them that perish, in them that are the adversaries. To the one,
we're the saver to God of death unto death. And to the other,
the saver of life unto life. Now, and who's sufficient for
these things? Now, why are we a saver to God
in both of these? Why are we a saver to God even
when we're preaching to the adversaries? Here's why. Verse 17, For we
are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity,
but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. We are in Christ, and we are
speaking of Christ, and we are speaking by Christ, and before
God in Christ, we are a sweet saver to God. when we preach
to the adversary because we preach it, because we preach Christ.
Now you think about this, if a physician had the only medicine
there was that could cure his patient, but he knows when he
gives that medicine to that patient, that patient is going to get
ill, he is going to get so sick, he is going to get way sicker
than he is now. And that patient is not going
to like what that doctor is going to do to him when he gives him
that medicine. He is going to be mad at it because he is going
to get so sick when he gives him that medicine. So, the doctor
instead of giving him that medicine, he decides I will just give him
something to make him feel good while I watch him die. You know what we call that doctor?
A quack. That's what you'd call him, a
quack. He had the cure and he withheld it for his own gain
and made money off the guy while he did it and watched him die. There are far too many quack
preachers in pulpits doing that exact thing. And they do it for
one reason. They have no idea what a successful
ministry is. They don't believe God's Word.
They don't believe God and they don't believe God's Word when
He declares that a successful ministry is when He makes His
preacher to preach Christ and Him crucified according to God's
Word in spirit and truth with no regard to who believes it
and who don't believe it. That don't have a thing to do
with it. That don't make it a success. It's preaching Christ. That's
what makes it a success. Whether anybody believes it or
not. That's what makes it a success. That's exactly what Paul is saying
right there. So, when it comes to receiving
our brethren as true brethren in spite of their sin, when it
comes to our daily plans, when it comes to Christ opening the
door for us, and when it comes to even our adversaries, deny
our fleshly will. Always deny your will. When you stand before an adversary,
there's going to be a big part of you that says, I don't want
this person getting mad at me. Deny that. That might be one
that God's love from eternity. That might be one Christ has
shed his blood for. And he's going to bring you to
speak the truth to that person. And God will call him out. But
even if he don't, deny yourself will in all these things and
trust God's will. Trust God's will. And because
by His will, we're going to triumph always in all these things. So
always, always deny the flesh and in doing so, exalt God. Trust God. Trust His will. All
right.