Bomberger, Phil: Ministry From 1 Corinthians 02 ~ 1 Cor 1;1-17

I'm gonna turn in our Bibles to the first chapter of First Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter one, and we begin our reading at verse one. We want to read the first seventeen verses as we begin our exposition of First Corinthians today, having given you an overview, uh, two weeks ago. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes the brother. Unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them which are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in everything ye are enriched by him in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that ye come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, in 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 are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. And I baptized also the householdest upon us. Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect. And may the Lord bless the reading of his word to our hearts. Let's pray. Let us pray. Now, Father, as we open thy precious word, having read it, and as we multiply words upon the sacred text, we pray that the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart will truly bring honor and glory to thee. Deliver us from anything that would in any way detract, and may we stand this morning exposed to thy word, that thy word indeed will become precious, more to be desired than gold, yet than much fine gold, and it may be sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb, for Jesus' sake. Amen. First Corinthians is a very interesting epistle, and the first four chapters of First Corinthians form the introduction to the epistle. That seems like a long introduction, but Paul has many things to do with the church at Corinth. There's a lot of straightening out to do in the thinking and in the acting of the Corinthian church, and he uses the first four chapters as an introduction to them. Now, out of these first four chapters, the first seventeen verses form an introduction to the introduction. They form an introduction to the first four chapters. And out of these four chapters, we have chosen a verse, a verse that forms the key that will deliver the Corinthians from the problems that they face. It is the last verse of chapter one where Paul writes, and he uses that verse from Jeremiah chapter nine: he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. But what Paul is doing here, he is seeking to correct a very serious malady that is afflicting the church there. And the malady is the Corinthians are pervasively man-centered in their thinking, and he is trying to get them to be God-centered rather than man-centered in their thinking and in their acting. And I want you to notice, as we move along this morning, and we're going to move as far as we possibly can in the time that's allowed, but there's a mighty, weighty words in the opening of this Corinthian epistle, and we want to notice how Paul applies this theme. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For in these verses that we read this morning, we notice the church's foundation. And then we also notice the church's origin, the church's constitution, the church's character, the church's destiny, and the church's unity. All these themes are found in these, in the introduction that Paul gives, and his purpose is that man should glory in God and not in man. So we begin at verse one with the church's foundation. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. Now, the foundation of the church is found in the first verse. It is found in the word apostle. We need to deal with that word, and the reason we need to deal with that word is because it is a misunderstood word in the day in which our lot is cast. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. This, beloved, is the foundation of the church. Now, when he speaks of himself as an apostle, this is the foundation of the church. Now, this is different from being the founder of the church. Now, Paul indeed was the founder of the church at Corinth, for he was the evangelist who went there, who broke new ground there, and who saw God raise to the praise of his glory a people whom he saved by divine grace. Oh yes, Paul was the founder, but to Paul, the more important truth is that as an apostle, he is the foundation of the church, not as a person, but as an apostle. This is a very vital issue in the contemporary church. You see, the key verse to prove this is Ephesians two verse twenty, where Paul, speaking of the church, he says, ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Now, there are three applications in the New Testament to the word apostle. And because this word is so important, and because many have been led astray by this word, I want to dwell on it for a few. I want to dwell on these three usages of the word apostle in the New Testament, and the first of which is in John chapter thirteen and verse sixteen. This is the universal meaning of the word, John thirteen and verse sixteen. We could have used other passages, but here we have the key to its usage. John thirteen sixteen, the Lord Jesus is speaking. He says, verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. Now that word sent, here we have the simple New Testament word apostolos, from which we get our word apostle, and it is a general use of the term, a sent one from God. This is a general use of the term, but there is a second usage of the term in the New Testament. It is used specifically for those who are sent or commissioned by the church, and the closest word that we use is the word missionary. And so it's used in Second Corinthians chapter eight, and I'd like you to turn to it. 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Paul, in the midst of speaking concerning, uh, the offering that the churches of Greece were taking up for the poor saints at Jerusalem. In chapter eight verse twenty three he says, whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow helper concerning you, or our brethren be inquired of, they are the messengers. And that word messengers there is the Greek word apostolos. They are the apostles, but notice they are the apostles of the churches. And our closest word is missionary. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is this. There are those today who claim to be apostles. Oh yes, and there's a book written by a man who wrote a number of books, and who is good on some subjects, and he wrote a book called The Normal Christian Church Life. And in that book, he claims that there are apostles today, and the man I'm speaking of is a man that you recognize his books, and when I tell you his name, it is Watchman Nee. Watchman Nee claims that there are apostles today. The problem is, when a man claims that there are apostles today, usually they set themselves up as one. We had a man living in our home. He came occasionally to our home. He needed a place to stay, and we provided the hospitality for him, and he claimed that he was an apostle, and he ordered my wife around more than her husband does. Eh, I'm telling the truth. Uh, and you see, here's a tricky thing. That word apostle has a threefold meaning in the New Testament. Now, when I speak of Paul as the apostle of the Church of Corinth, and I say that this is a foundation that brings us, you see, not to one of the two usages that we've already looked at, the general term in John thirteen or the messengers of the churches, for under this, uh, connotation, Barnabas also was called an apostle in the New Testament, as well as Titus and, uh, others. However, that brings us to the third usage. And, uh, here it is used as a select band of men who were called specifically by our Lord Jesus Christ and given the title. Turn with me now to Luke chapter six and verse thirteen. The Gospel by Luke, chapter six and verse thirteen. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles. You see, here is that select band of men who were called by the Lord Jesus. They were named apostles. And in the New Testament, beloved, the word apostle is basically reserved for these men and Paul. Now, this is a strict use of the word. This is how Paul uses it when he speaks of himself in the opening verses of First Corinthians one as an apostle. The apostles were they who were appointed to preach and to teach with authority, as you have in John fourteen and John sixteen in particular. And specifically, this authority is applied to the apostles. In Ephesians two verse twenty, a verse that I previously quoted, says that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. Now, beloved, we're not talking about the persons of the apostles. Paul makes that very clear in First Corinthians three eleven when he says, other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. No, we're not talking about the personal foundation of the church at all. We're talking about the doctrinal foundation of the church. The doctrinal foundation, and the doctrinal foundation of the church rests upon apostolic teaching. That's so important, very important. What does that mean for us? For us, beloved, that means Holy Scripture, where the teaching of the apostles is inscripturated into the very word that you and I handle. We are handlers of the word of life, and as handlers of the word of life, we are handling the foundation of the church, the doctrine of the apostles. Now for us, the Holy Spirit inspires us in a different way than he did the apostles. The Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to write the scriptures. The Holy Spirit inspires us to study the scriptures and to teach the word of God and to obey the scriptures. The inspiration, beloved, of the Holy Spirit is primarily concerned with apostolic doctrine, which we have in the New Testament. Now, Paul writes to the church of Corinth as an apostle by the will of God. Beloved, when you and I depart from apostolic doctrine, we are eroding the very foundation of the church. And when someone departs from the Holy Scriptures, they erode the very foundation of the church. They grieve the Holy Spirit who inspired the scriptures, and they dishonor the Lord Jesus Christ who authorized the scriptures, and they endanger the church, which needs apostolic authority for its well-being. And if there ever was a time, beloved, when the church needs to get back to the Holy Scriptures, it is today. We need the Word of God. We don't need the opinions of men, but we do need Holy Scripture. And a mark of the sickness of the Corinthian church was that they questioned the apostolic authority of the Apostle Paul. The very thing they needed is the very thing they questioned. That's what they did. And what a mark of their sickness. In the midst of all their man-centeredness and all their striving with one another in the various cl- cliques that were in the church at Corinth. They were so man-centered, they missed God, and they questioned the authority of the apostle. So in First Corinthians chapter nine and verse one, the apostle cries out, am I not an apostle? And by the way, when Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians, the first thing Paul did in the Galatian epistle, he established the fact that he was an apostle. Apostolic authority for the Galatian epistle begins with a word, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. He has to establish this with the Galatians, and he establishes it, establishes it also with the Corinthians. They question his authority. Now, he established his apostolic authority when he wrote his various letters, not for the sake of boasting himself. Paul wasn't boasting himself. He was doing it for their own spiritual well-being. That's why he did it. Now, beloved, it is utterly vital that you and I be wed to the doctrine of apostolic authority. We need a marriage. A marriage to the doctrine of apostolic authority, to the foundational nature of apostolic teaching. God has given to us his word. Now, what does this mean? When we're going to be married to apostolic authority, it means we're not going to pick and choose as we go through, uh, the New Testament. I like Paul here, but I sure don't like him over here. You know. He's acceptable on this thing, but, uh, I'm not so sure Paul knew too much about that. Well, beloved, he gave us the word. We have apostolic authority as believers, obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ who commissioned the apostles. We are submitted, and we should be committed to the whole of apostolic teaching, or else the very foundation of the church is eroded. We can't be like a woman who said to a friend of mine, I love the gospels, but it's the Apostle Paul I can't take. You know why she couldn't take the Apostle Paul? In all probability, she never read the Gospels. I'll tell you why. Paul isn't near as hard as our blessed Lord was in Matthew twenty three. I've never read anything anywhere that comes as straight as the 23rd of Matthew, where our Lord is speaking directly to the people. You see, the apostles, beloved, are the mouthpiece of the Lord Jesus. When you come to the close of the New Testament, you'll come to the book of the Revelation, and in the opening of the book of the Revelation, chapters two and three, we have seven letters by the risen Savior himself to seven churches in Asia Minor. He writes to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatara, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. And in each of those letters, he says the same thing. Oh, every letter is different, but he closes it the same way. He says, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. He that hath ears at his capacity. He that hath ears to hear, that is opportunity. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, that is responsibility. And he says, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. Well, what did the Spirit of God say to the churches? What did he say? There are seven church epistles. And what the Spirit of God had to say, he used the Apostle Paul to say it, and when he addressed what is known as the seven church epistles, the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and the Thessalonians. Here we have the church epistles. Here's what the Spirit of God said to the church, and in the book of the Revelation is God is closing the canon of Holy Scripture. He places his stamp of authority upon apostolic teaching. So when Paul writes as the apostle of Jesus Christ, he's speaking of the doctrinal foundation of the church. Now that brings us to the origin of the church. You notice here in First Corinthians chapter one in verse two he says, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Verse three: grace be unto you and peace. Verse four: I thank my God always in your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Christ Jesus. The origin of the church, beloved, its origin is in God. Never forget that. The origin is in God. The creation of the church was his plan. The calling of the church is at his initiative. The ownership of the church is in God's hands. It is the church of God which is at Corinth. It is the church which he has purchased with his own blood. Now, the origin of the church lies in the activity of God and not in the activity of man. For in verse four he speaks of the grace of God. I thank God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus. Beloved, let's be honest. The only thing that could have produced the church of God at Corinth was the grace of God. Nothing else could have done it. How do I know? Turn with me to First Corinthians six. First Corinthians six. These are strong verses, beloved. In First Corinthians six, beginning in verse nine, we read, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. Now, I've read from the old King James translation. If you have a newer translation like the NIV or the ASV, the new ASV, you'll find other words. You'll find the words homosexual and others in the text. Instead of the word effeminate, you read the word homosexual there. Now, beloved, I know the word of God says that they do not inherit the kingdom of God. Corinth was a wicked place. If you were to describe Corinth, as I think I did two weeks ago, as I was sitting there before coming to the platform, I thought, how would you describe Corinth today? I don't know if any of you ever walked on Clark Street in Chicago, from Chicago Avenue to Erie, to Erie Street. And if you walked down Clark Street, from Chicago Avenue to Erie Street, and you just stopped and looked around a bit at night, you'd get a picture of what Corinth was like. Wicked, wicked, wicked. When anyone e- one wanted to describe a wicked person, they'd say he's a Corinthian. That's why I say only the grace of God could have established the church to his glory there. And that's what he says in the next verse in First Corinthians six as he lists this whole catalog of sins that when a person lives in these things, they can't be saved. For when a person is saved, there's a change. And verse eleven says, and such were some of you, past tense. Past tense. And beloved, this idea today that you can live in sin and everything's all right, you got saved one time, you know, but you continue living the same way you always lived. It's contrary to the New Testament. The Word of God just tells us that when a person is saved, there's a change. Such were some of you, but you are washed, but ye are sanctified, but we, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Beloved, we have to be careful in our day, whether Hollywood or the news commentators tell us how to run the church. God on his throne doesn't bite his fingernails over Dan Rather, I'll tell you that. What Dan Rather thinks or what he says, nor Peter Jennings or any other one. And he isn't that excited about Hollywood stars, so-called, when they make their pronouncements. Our God is the righteous judge of the universe. And he says homosexuals, effeminate, fornicators, and the list is there. They do not inherit the kingdom of God. But he also says, such were some of you. In other words, the dog, the gate is opened wide for the homosexual to come to Christ and be saved. And when they're saved, there's a new lifestyle. Such were some of you, but you are washed. Oh, may I ask you this morning, has the grace of God so worked in your life that your life is different? It now counts for God. So you see, when you read First Corinthians six, out of the unpromising background there was raised the glorious reality. I thank God, Paul says, for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus. Now, beloved, grace is not simply a doctrinal truth. Grace in the New Testament always has that distinctive sense of unmerited and unrepayable favor for undeserving sinners. Now, beloved, grace is the only ground on which God is dealing with man. Grace is the only ground. And the method of grace is that method of undeserved and unrepayable. Now, this is the first lesson that a sinner has to learn, if he's ever going to be saved, that I come to God just as I am, I have nothing to give him. I am a bankrupt sinner. I am lost. There is nothing of me that God will accept. He doesn't need me, and he will not have me. God is holy. I cannot repay God by a life of good works for what he does. Grace is unrepayable kindness. You can't pay God back. And when we come to God, just as the Corinthians did, such were some of you. What a background. Who wants to associate with that kind of a people? But they are lost. They're sanctified, they're justified. They are brought into the condition that we read of in First Corinthians one. They are saints. Why? The blood of Christ. The grace of God has made the difference. They are accepted in Christ. The grace of God has been given unto them. Now, this is the first lesson that sinners have to learn if they would experience the salvation of God. But I want to go a step further. This is the continuing lesson that the Church of Jesus Christ needs to learn if we would enjoy the blessing of God. And beloved, if we want to enjoy the blessing of God, we need to continually learn that it is all of grace. It is the doctrine of pure grace, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, which makes us boast in God alone. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Beloved, until you see the grace of God for what it is and for what it does, it's so easy to boast in man. It's so easy to become fatuous in your thinking and in your acting. But when you see what grace does and what grace is, there it makes a difference. Now, we need to continually recognize that you and I are the products of pure grace. The origin of the church is God. God. In Ephesians two verse eight we read, for by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. God so arranges his speech and his word, and God has so provided salvation in such a way that he will jealously retain to himself all the glory and honor of saving the guilty sinner. He'll give none to us. It's grace alone or nothing. It can't be any other way. For by grace are ye saved through faith. Now God deals with us all through our Christian experience with precisely the same aim in view, that men should not glory in men, but that they should glory in God. In the book of Romans, chapter three, where Paul outlines salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and how he shows that justification is by grace through faith. He gets to verse twenty seven. Romans chapter three, You all remember the verse. He cries out and he asks the rhetorical question, where is boasting then? Ha, he says it is excluded. God has so put the plan of salvation that no one can boast. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? A work? No, the law of faith. The law of faith. Beloved, when we come to God in simple faith, boasting is excluded. The hymn writer put it so well in that hymn, uh, written by James Gray. Boasting excluded, pride I abase. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. So, beloved, as God furiously guards his glory in the salvation of men, from salvation from beginning to end, from our election in eternity past to glorification in that grand day when we behold the King in his beauty. Salvation is God's work. It is not man's. Grace and human boasting cannot coexist. The only thing, beloved, that I added, I contributed to my salvation was my sin that made it necessary. Now, if you want to boast of your sin necessary, go ahead. But as far as the actual working of this grand redemption, it's all of God. It's all of God. In conclusion, I'd like to make two points, because our time's gone. The foundation of the church, beloved, is the Holy Scriptures. Question, what is your relation to the word of God? You delight in it. You read it. You meditate upon it. Here's the foundation. Here it is. The Word of God. Second, the origin of the church is the grace of God. Are you occupied with the grace of God, or are you glorying in men? This is an age of glorying in this man and in that man. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. You know, beloved, whenever you think of the Corinthian epistle, I don't know if you're like me or not, but I think of the awful stench of chapter five, the miserable activity of these believers in chapter six, their problems that are enumerated in chapter seven, and you can go on through the book. And why were they? They were pervasively man-centered rather than God-centered. The origin of the church is in God. The foundation of the church, the doctrinal foundation, is the Holy Scriptures. What is your relation to His Word? What is your relation to Holy Scripture? Our time's gone. If you're here this morning and you've never truly been born of God, it's only the grace of God that can save a sinner like you. Salvation from start to finish is God's grace, and I think we could do nothing better than sing the third stanza in closing of number three hundred— excuse me, two hundred thirty seven. Two hundred thirty seven, the third stanza only of that great hymn, Marvelous Grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. And the third stanza of that hymn, it says this: Dark is the stain that we cannot hide. What can avail to wash it away? Look, there is flowing a crimson tide, whiter than snow he may be today. Will you come to Christ today? If you're here without him, trust him. His grace is the only thing that will ever save you. Let's stand together and sing that third stanza.