Such Were Some of You

In one paragraph

The preacher preached through 1 Corinthians 6:1-11, pressing the church to see that the same gospel that saves also defines and reshapes how believers treat one another. He drew a straight line from what Christ has done to how Christians should live, arguing that a failure to live that way is not just a moral problem but a failure to understand the gospel itself. Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians,...

Read together

1. 1 Corinthians 1 The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved it is the power of God
2. 1 Corinthians 4:7 What did you have that you did not receive, used to frame the offertory
3. 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 Main passage preached, taking believers to court and the list of wrongdoers who will not inherit the kingdom
4. Isaiah 40:28-31 Have you not heard, have you not known that God is an everlasting God, quoted to encourage trust in God's sufficiency
5. Matthew 28:19-20 Go into all the world teaching and baptizing, cited as Jesus' own version of the gospel witness going forth
6. Colossians 3 Read in full as a positive counterpart to the 1 Corinthians 6 passage, covering putting off the old self and putting on the new

Talk about it

1. Chuck shared the story of a man who hit rock bottom and said the Good Samaritan Mission gave him 'a place to put it back together.' Has there been a time in your own life when you had to stop trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and accept help? What did that feel like?
2. The pastor pointed to the repeated phrase 'do you not know?' in 1 Corinthians 6 and said Paul was essentially telling the Corinthians they already had the truth inside them but were not living by it. Where in your own life do you find the gap between what you know and what you actually do to be the widest?
3. Paul tells the Corinthians it is 'already a defeat' to take a brother to court, and asks why they would not rather be wronged or defrauded. When a conflict arises, what makes it so hard to simply absorb the loss rather than insist on being proved right?
4. The sermon described the Corinthian church as beginning to look exactly like the culture around it. In what ways do you think our own congregation risks blending into the surrounding culture rather than being shaped by the gospel?
5. The pastor closed by reading from Colossians 3 and said God is sufficient for whatever each person's specific bent toward sin is. How honest are you, with yourself and with others in the church, about what your particular struggle actually is?