The Message of the Cross Is Where It's At
November 30, 2014 · 1 Corinthians
Scripture referenced 5 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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1 Corinthians 1:18 cited as Paul's thesis sentence: the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God
18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.
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Keep this verse
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
quoted listing the unrighteous who will not inherit the kingdom of God, followed by 'and such were some of you but you were washed, sanctified, justified'
9 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom.
11 Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.
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1 Corinthians 10:31
quoted as 'whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God'
31 Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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Romans 15:13
read during the Advent candle lighting: 'may the God of hope fill you with all the joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit'
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Colossians 3:12-16
read as a benediction: 'clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience'
12 Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;
13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.
14 Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This was a fifth-Sunday all-praise service at First B, built around a review of what Pastor Ray has been teaching through 1 Corinthians since July. Between songs, a baptism, and a new-member covenant ceremony, Pastor Ray traced the single thread he said runs through the whole letter: the message of the cross.
What was said
Pastor Ray opened by noting that Paul begins both his letter to the Thessalonians and his letter to the Corinthians the same way, with "grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." The Thessalonian church was thriving and needed encouragement. The Corinthian church was full of divisions, sexual immorality, pride, and factions, and badly needed correction. Paul leads with grace and peace in both cases, and Pastor Ray said First B should do the same, especially toward people in Jackson who have already seen church done without grace or peace.
The thesis sentence Pastor Ray kept returning to was 1 Corinthians 1:18: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God." He said that sentence is not just the heading for one chapter but the anchor for the entire letter, and he noted that it came up five or six times across the eleven chapters they have covered. Every problem Paul addresses in the letter, he said, gets resolved by pointing back to this.
From there Pastor Ray walked through the major themes the study had hit. The church, he said, is like a hospital, a place where people who are spiritually ill go to get well. Paul uses that reality to press the Corinthians not to excuse what the Bible plainly calls sin, and not to expect people outside the church to act as though they know Christ while failing to hold those inside the church to that standard. The scalpel of truth and the anesthetic of grace belong together.
When Paul reports that the Corinthians were starting to decline, turning away from their first love and sliding back toward old patterns, he quotes back to them what they already know: "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God." Pastor Ray said Paul's aim is not simply to condemn but to arrest the decline and get them growing again in sanctification, not just resting in justification.
The other theme Pastor Ray spent time on was the idea that who you love is more important than what you know. He connected this to Paul's statement that he became all things to all men in hopes of winning some, and to 1 Corinthians 10:31, "whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." He brought in J. S. Bach, who reportedly began each composition with the letters JJ, meaning "Jesus help," and closed with SDG, "Soli Deo Gloria," to God alone be the glory. Pastor Ray said that pattern, starting with dependence on Christ and ending with His glory, is exactly what Paul is after in the letter and what the morning's worship was trying to reflect.
He closed the sermonette by tying the baptism of Blaze McDonald directly into the text. Blaze's baptism, he said, is a public identification with the death and resurrection of Christ, the same move Paul describes when he tells the Corinthians that they were buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life. The proclamation Blaze made in the water is the same proclamation Paul wants the whole Corinthian church to return to: trust not in factions or knowledge or self-sufficiency, but in the message of the cross.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Pastor Ray said that Paul opened both his letter to the Thessalonians and his letter to the Corinthians with 'grace to you and peace,' even though the Corinthian church was full of divisions and sin. Why do you think Paul started from that same place of grace with a church that was in such bad shape, and what does that tell us about how we should approach people in our own lives?
- Pastor Ray described the church as a place where people who are spiritually ill go to get well, and said we should not expect people of the world to act as if they know Christ. How does that change the way you think about who belongs in a church, and what it should feel like to walk through the doors here?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 7,580 words
0:00
Alright. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. It is good to see you guys.
0:04
Every one of you, I'm glad that you're here. What do you say we stand up? We begin to praise our God. Listen to the first line of this verse. Giver of every breath I breathe.
0:13
That's God. Author of all eternity, yes he is, giver of every perfect thing to you be the glory. I think it's a good time just to start by giving God glory this morning.
1:02
Over. King over all universe till you be the glory.
1:10
We're alive because we're alive in him. One
1:13
I'm alive because I'm alive in you. I'm so because of Jesus. I'm alive. And so because of the blood of Jesus Christ that covers me and raised this dead man's life. And it's all because, Jesus, I'm alive.
2:02
Let's take it from the top again. Okay? Amen. Can we pray together? God, we're thankful.
3:40
Thank you for a new day. Thank you for the sun that's shining in on us. Thank you, God, for your sun. Thank you for Jesus. And it all because of him, we're alive.
3:49
He is creator. In him, there is life, and and you give that life to the full measure. And so we wanna pause to thank you and and recognize who we're worshiping. You're the living God. And we wanna thank you, and we wanna come before you with a grateful heart and with a pure heart, confessing our sins before you, knowing that you're perfect and you're righteous and we're not, and we look to you for our salvation.
4:12
Amen. Amen. You can have a
4:14
Good morning, everybody. I'm glad that you're here and I am not recruiting for the First B men's basketball team. I am not just back from vacation and forgot to take the shorts off. I am here. We're doing a baptism this morning.
4:29
So, Blaze McDonald be baptized right after the announcements this morning but I've got a few weird ones and weird like seasonal ones and then I've got a few that are just the normal announcements and the band's going to sit down because it might take us a little while. So, first of all, there's a ladies Christmas luncheon that's happening December 12. I mentioned this last week that it's from twelve to two. That's a Friday. Please RSVP.
4:53
It'd be better sooner rather than later but no later than the tenth. Childcare will be available for that and you can either Email that JH Women's Bible StudyGmail. Com or you can just call the church office and tell us that you're coming. That'd be great. A ladies Christmas luncheon will be in this room and it's an outreach type event.
5:13
So, all of you have been coming to the studies. Great but bring as many as you want to but let us know who's coming. Thank you. Alright. Double take.
5:21
December 14. So, that's two Sundays from now at the nine and eleven. There's going be a kids Christmas pageant as it's going to be the story of Christmas as told by Matthew and Luke but there's a lot of humor injected into it and so, humor, mystery, and awe. It says and so we'll see how that goes. '9, '9, and eleven, December 14 and There's no children's church today.
5:48
That's that's weird. Weird and weird and weird announcements that I think that's the end of the weird ones though. There's no children's church this morning. Today is an all praise service. It's the fifth Sunday of November and so, I'll do a sermonette towards the end but we're going to be doing a lot of singing this morning.
6:04
So, I hope you came ready to praise almighty God. The normal stuff, Monday at 05:45, Awana is still going strong in this room and is it not? Okay, it's weird having that up there, isn't it? I'm going to try to just keep looking up here. Monday nights at first B, 06:15, that rolls on too.
6:24
Carl is in Matthew and are you taking a break for Christmas and going to Christmas stuff? Going into Christmas, talk, thinking about Emmanuel, God with us. Cool. Middle school youth is normally 06:30, Thursday evenings and that's the way it is this week and high school breakfast is 07:30, Friday morning right here at First B down the hall and that is going on this week. And I think that's it but even if it's November 30, it is the first Sunday of Advent and so I'm going to invite Eric, Wacham, and Colleen and therefore, girls up for a reading and candle lighting for this first Sunday of Advent.
7:01
We are very excited to begin the Christmas season here at church with the very first Sunday of Advent. And we're going to do the the candle of hope.
7:16
Today is the first Sunday in Advent. We light the first candle, the candle of hope. We have hope because of the faithful promise of God. He sent his son and we receive our savior, A savior born to redeem the world from sin and death. Romans fifteen thirteen says, may the God of hope fill you with all the joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
7:46
Now, I'm going to invite Blaze on up and if you don't know, this is Blaze McDonald. He's been coming for eight or nine months now. About that, right? And he's bigger than I am. I'm I don't think I've ever baptized anybody taller than me.
8:01
This is kind of weird. It feels like home almost. My all my I'm average size for my family. This is great. So, we're going to get in the pool here and would you like to say anything?
8:13
No. He said, we talked about this last week. We went to lunch and he said, that the baptism is the proclamation and that is absolutely true. What Blaze is doing this morning is identifying himself with Christ. He has believed the message of the cross.
8:27
We've heard it in Corinthians. It comes up all the time. He has believed this message of the cross and it is the power of God that is changing him. So, we're going get in the pool. So, in our talking this week, I asked Blaise several questions and I have no doubt about it that he has put his faith in in Christ.
8:43
But I want to say right now that brother, this church wants to be here for you and help you grow in Christ. So as we are here right now, I'm going to baptize you, my brother, in the name of the father and the son and the holy ghost.
9:00
Ain't that awesome? Hey, would you guys stand up, greet one another? Say hi. Say hi to somebody maybe you don't know yet. We'll come back in worship.
9:10
Alright. We have a lot to be thankful for this morning. So what do you say we worship God and sound?
12:42
Got one that is going be weird for some of you. I know it. Means, I will praise you in English. If you try to sing in English with the little words in parenthesis, it will not fit. That's just the translation because whenever there's a tongue, there should be an interpretation.
12:57
So, if you can't say the Spanish or you don't think you can't try anyway, okay? There are lots of people in here that do speak Spanish as a first language and this is an all praise Sunday. Get used to it. We're gonna have fun. So, and Carl's gonna lead.
13:14
No, Florine is gonna lead. I'm just kidding. Florine is actually, Florine is actually from Romania but has served.
13:23
Get new
13:23
queen Jesus But he's gonna sing this
13:28
song. But the the words are great. The words are great, and this song
13:31
was written in Spanish. So that's what we're doing.
13:34
Your best. Maureen.
17:31
Ain't that great? I love it. I, you know, we're we're mixing cultures here, and it's it's been so good for us. I on Monday night, we cook a meal in there, and, we're we're getting this all these crazy flavors in these cultures just colliding together, and it's just beautiful. I love it.
17:48
I love it. Would you sing this with us?
19:40
Some handsome stained glass nearby the stone. Oh, praise the one who paid my debt. Oh, praise Hallelujah. Praise the one sending son. Oh, God.
22:41
Beholding there the risen lamb,
24:05
God, we do thank you. You are indeed the risen son of God. Thank you, God, that our life is hidden with you in Christ, that you are our righteousness. God, you are you are the one way to heaven, and we give you thanks for that. We give you thanks, God, for every good and perfect gift that comes from you.
24:23
And God too, we can give this monetary gift, but I pray that it would just be more than that. It would be an open hand to you. We're saying, thank you. You give all things. You sustain us.
24:32
You've created us. And so we we give back in thankfulness to you. And if not in a in a in a monetary way, God, in all other ways of life too. In the way that we work, in the way that we act, in the way that we're with our with our friends, with our family, that we're giving, we're loving, we're kind. You set the example For God's love that he gave, and we wanna be generous givers too.
24:54
And I pray that you would create that in our hearts, and you would continue to well up a spirit of gratefulness and thankfulness for what you've done. We recognize that all things, they're from you.
25:05
Amen.
25:06
You can be seated. And, how was Thanksgiving, by the way? We got to do the, Thanksgiving on Monday night, and it I with our church family, oh, it just doesn't get any better. Oh yeah, that that sun was really hot on the back of my head. But, if you recognize this old, hymn, would you you sing with us?
27:32
I'm gonna keep this on. It this is actually about the same time we always get through, Carl. But I've got a few, these are slides from Corinthians and all the songs actually, if you look through Praise God for the wisdom that he has been kind of providing through Corinthians. I was looking at the praise thing is great but this next song, Jesus paid it all. The very first part of Corinthians, Paul starts off with the same way exactly, almost exactly the same way start off with the Thessalonian church which we know is a church that was doing great, knocking out of the park, not having a problem with sin.
28:17
Apparently, they were doing a great job and he started off to the Thessalonians, grace to you and peace from God, the father, and the Lord Jesus Christ and then at the beginning of Corinthians, I pointed out that he starts off exactly the same way. Now, going through Corinthians, now y'all been through 11 chapters of it and as we go through, you see, my goodness, there's all kinds of sin issues, pride issues, divisions, factions, all kinds of issues, weeds. And he starts off exactly the same way. Grace to you and peace. From God our father and Lord Jesus Christ because that's the ground level.
28:50
That's where it starts. It's grace. It's not because we can earn it. It's not because we have a whole lot to do in the process except accept it and Blaze made that proclamation this morning. We accepted the grace of God in providing a savior for him.
29:05
So, the next thing I said, this was Paul's thesis sentence. It was one eighteen. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Do y'all know anybody who thinks the message of the cross is foolishness? I do.
29:18
I know a bunch of people think, come on, what does it have to do with me? This Jew from the first century. Come on. How can that matter at all to me? It's foolishness.
29:32
But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God and I came up with this slide that Sunday and then the next Sunday, I came up with this slide because it's the same thing. It's exactly the same thing and as we've gone through the whole 11 chapters, this slide's probably come up five or six times. I was going back through today to look for themes, big themes, and Corinthians is a very varied book. There are lots of different things that it covers. Divisions and factions in the first part.
30:03
There's the problem of sexual immorality and sin for a while there in the in five, chapter five, six, seven, somewhere on there. We went through this, a place where people who are physically ill go to get better is a hospital In a place where people who are spiritually ill go to get well is a church. This book has pointed out that there is sin in all of our lives. And there's a way to get through it. It's the blood of Jesus.
30:38
Get it behind you. Get it under the blood of Jesus first but in community, we can really really act as the body of Christ. God with us. Place where people who are spiritually ill go to get well. Corporately, Paul encourages us to be what we really are in Christ.
30:58
Once you have been made that new creature, be that. Pure, holy, humble, and looking to him as the great physician in the place that he called us for surgery. The takeaway slide, not all of them. I didn't put everyone. This is not the happy days clip show but do not in your own individual pride call something okay that in your life that the Bible calls sin.
31:23
There are some things that he says very very specifically. This is sin and you need to deal with it. We need to cut it out. It's like a cancer. We need to remove it.
31:34
We should not corporately expect the people of the world to act as if they know Christ. And we should expect those who call themselves Christians to act like they do know him. That's a lot of this middle section of this book. There's a lot about corporate worship. We all have some spiritual ailment ailment in church should be the place to come deal with it.
31:54
And then it's back to the message of the cross. This is how you deal with it. This is what Paul points to over and over and over in all of the epistles that there was a man. The God man, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, a life that was without sin. He owed no sin debt and yet, he was crucified.
32:16
By the plan of God, this is the way that he is made. That sounds like foolishness but to those of us who believe, we are being saved. That is the way that we're saved. That's the way God brought it up. Now, I also said that it wasn't just about salvation or justification if you want to use the the technical theological term.
32:38
It wasn't just about justification. Paul talks a lot about sanctification too and what he had seen, he started this church. He founded this church. Christ is building it but he heard some reports that things were not going well, that people had turned away from their first love, that they had started to decline. They were not growing spiritually because they had all these divisions, all these factions, all this sin, all this stuff was getting in the way and so when he saw that they were starting to decline on their upward trajectory, He sent this letter hoping to arrest it and one of the ways that he did that, he pointed out that yes, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
33:19
Don't be deceived neither the sexually more, the idolaters, adulterers, men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. He pointed that out and so he's saying, truth matters. We've got this scalpel of truth. We've gotta do that but then he points out that, hey, some of you were this way in the past tense. That's the way you used to be but you are wise pointing towards baptism but it's not salvific.
33:48
You are sanctified and you are justified in the name of our lord, Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of God. He's pointing back to that so that their trajectory can take back off again and start putting their trust in Christ again, not just to save em but to make them into the holy people that he would have them be and to have them be the light for the community for others. So, we went next into this and this comes up a lot. Who you love is more important than what you know. Is what you know important?
34:18
Yes. It's very important to have a good, crisp, clean theology that matters. It that is important but let's discuss that among ourselves and let's love people. Go to where they are. Bring them in.
34:35
Bring them in. Who you love is more important than what you know. The message of the cross comes up again. Paul's method is contextualization. He said, I've become all things to all men.
34:47
In hopes that I might win some. Not everybody that we share with is going to accept Christ but if we will be willing to go where they are, not all of us are equipped to do that to all different people. But if we will be willing to go where they are, who you love is more important than what you know. First Corinthians ten thirty one, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. This one hit me hard because of this, who you love is more important than what you know.
35:19
Everything that you do has to have love as its focus. Now, we're building up the chapter 13. Y'all heard it in almost every wedding you've ever been to but it's right in the middle of the next teaching on spiritual gifts from chapter 12 which is where we'll start when we pick up the study. Chapter 12 all the way up through the fortieth verse of chapter 14 is about spiritual gifts and how we should act in a body and right in the middle of that is chapter 13 where it's talking about love. Who you love is more important than what you know or what you do in a lot of cases.
35:50
Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all of the glory of God and I thought again of Bach and his solo deo Gloria. A lot of us have heard about that. Solo deo Soli deo Gloria is to God only be glory. The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. This morning, we're doing a lot of music and that's the goal for that music is to bring us together and looking up.
36:18
Because it is about the message of the cross and this is the way. If you do not know who Jesus is, every single time in scripture, anybody called out in him to him in faith, he answered that. Every single time that anybody called out to him in faith, he answered it. He's the only one that can give that perfect, sinless life. He's the only one who ever accomplished it and he's the only one that can give it and this is what we can do.
36:47
Turn to him and say, Jesus, help. And he will. The message of the cross is where it's at and that's the proclamation that Blaze made today in this baptismal pool is to say, I identify with him. I'm putting my trust in him. I put my faith in the one.
37:04
I think that's my last slide. Now, baptism is one thing. That's identification with Christ. I'm going to invite Eric who is the head chief elder right now. I don't know what we call that position but Eric Wachob is one of our elders and he is going to do a covenant ceremony and welcome in several new members.
37:20
This is identifying with First B as your church home, church family. I'll turn it over to Eric.
37:25
Good morning again. John and Kate, Mickus, and Emily, come on up. And the wins, Richard and Mary and Turner and Angela. Hopefully this isn't the first time you've seen their smiling faces, but if it is, we'll give them a chance to introduce themselves. As Pastor Ray mentioned, it is very exciting to celebrate with Blaise this morning in baptism, but we also know that as individuals we cannot live the life in Christ that we're called to.
38:01
We can't live to His standard or equipped by His spirit nearly as effectively as we're able to in community. And that's what's so special about First Baptist Church is the community that that we have. And it's not a community individuals. We are we are a family. So the covenant ceremony is just that.
38:27
It's a welcoming into our family. And so I'd like to give each of them an opportunity to to say who you are and and how you came to First Baptist Church or how you came to Christ, which is more important than First Baptist Church. You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you want to just share a little something about yourself, we'd love to hear, particularly for the folks out here that haven't had a chance to meet you yet. And then we're going to ask a few questions to establish their commitment to this body, and then we as a body are to have the opportunity to likewise respond, to make a commitment to these people specifically. And as we do that, I would encourage you to kind of think about your commitment to First Baptist in our church, because that commitment really does matter.
39:19
The the commitment that we make when we're standing up here is brief, but, hopefully, it's something that we are reminded of because we are sinful people, and we all make mistakes. And when we sin against each other, sometimes we have to rely on that commitment that we have already made to call us back to fellowship, to call us to forgiveness, to extend forgiveness and grace when that's merited. So these these commitments are important. But please share who you are, who you're married to, and and how how you ended up here on on this stage.
39:58
I'm Turner Wynn, and I'm married to Angela Wynn here. And basically, we moved back to Wyoming four years ago and we went to several different churches. One was teaching that what is sinful is okay, so we got away from that. And we tried another one and they weren't the nicest people, they were kind of mean. And then while I was away working, my wife and my mother found this church and everyone here is just so nice and respectful and we we feel at home here.
40:37
We we really enjoy coming here and hearing the sermons. Pastor Ray, Carl, ever everyone here is just excellent And I'm working at the airport now, and so traveling is over with. And I was raised Christian, but I guess what really woke me up, was young and wild and kind of straying away. I had a catastrophic motorcycle crash and that brought me back to the Lord.
41:07
Hello. I'm Angela Wynn and I'm married to Tono Wynn. And I guess my family and friends brought me to Christ. And so yeah, we found this church and I work in preschool and childcare in Jackson and we just fall in love with this church and so we decided to become members and we thank you for that. Hi, I'm Mary Winn and well, my parents brought me to the Lord and I've always loved the Lord and as my son said, we tried several churches and this was, I told my husband just this morning, this is a happy church.
41:51
People are happy to be here, they're involved, lots of young people which is a good sign and we're just blessed to be here.
42:03
Hello. I'm Richard Nguyen, my wife Mary. We tried, like my son said, several churches and God blessed them all and and we hope the Lord works with them. But when we came here, the love of Christ radiates from this place. And I'd like to thank all of you for allowing us to join you.
42:28
Thanks. I didn't have anything prepared, but here we are. To start about history as far as coming to Lourdes, Kate and I both moved here in our 20s and definitely did not know Christ. Thanks to a lot of people that are even in this room and in this community and even deceased, we've come to know Jesus and now we want to give back. Another thing I want to say is when we look for body to be in covenant with, I'm just very impressed with the leadership that we see here of people laying down their lives for the kingdom of God.
43:14
And it's just so inspiring. So I want to be like them. I want to do things with them. And one last thing before I hand this off to my wife Kate or my daughter Emily should they decide they want to say anything, is as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. And at 02:30 this afternoon, we will also be watching the Green Bay Packers at our house.
43:47
If anybody would like to join us, please talk to me after the service. Love to have you. Alright. Thanks.
43:57
Hi. I'm Kate Micas and my husband John, our daughter Emily, and, yeah, I think I agree with what Richard said. One of the things we I feel like we moved back here six years ago, we lived in Bozeman for five years and we'd lived here previous and both came to know the Lord here in Jackson, down at Jackson Hole Christian Center, and when we walked in here, when we moved back, it felt to me like it did when I came to know the Lord, just the love and the community and I'm looking at some people who probably know what I'm talking about and so anyhow, that's it it feels like family here.
44:51
Hi, I'm Emily Micas. These two lovely people have raised me up in a very loving Christian home and so that has been amazing, but yeah, there's been a lot of searching for churches through our lives and through our moving, and this place really feels like home, and I'm down in Laramie right now at school, and it's really hard searching for a church there because I have such high standards now from this church and whenever I come back it's just I'm welcomed back in with loving arts and it's amazing so I'm proud to be standing up here right now and just being welcomed in by everyone.
45:46
We're very glad to hear from each
45:48
of you, and congregation, I hope you will take a special moment today to welcome each of them, particularly if you haven't met them yet, to to live up to what we've heard from each person saying that we are a warm and and loving church. That just underscores the importance too of welcoming people who you don't recognize, who may be here for the first time or the sixteenth time, but you haven't met them yet. Put that in practice because it matters. It really matters. I have a few questions, and they they sort of underline what we think as a church is important.
46:25
They they define what our church is, what we believe, and that goes as far as to what we do. So after I ask the question, if you'll respond with we do, as long as you you agree. So we believe at First Baptist Church these things. Please respond if if you do also. Have you personally trusted in Jesus Christ as savior, believing that he died for our sins and rose from the dead?
47:03
Do you believe that God has led you to join First Baptist Church as an evidence of your desire to grow in the grace of Christ and in your love and service for his glory? Do you recognize the authority of scripture in your lives and endeavor to live by its teachings that express God's purpose for our lives in worship, fellowship, Christ likeness, service, and outreach. As members together in the body of Christ, do you endeavor to open your hearts to ministry, both serving others as well as receiving service from them? Do you endeavor to grow in faithfulness to one another as you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Now this is our portion of the commitment that they're making today.
47:52
If you agree with this, when I'm done reading, you can respond with, We do. Do you, as a church body, pledge to receive our brothers and sisters into this fellowship to lovingly and mutually encourage each other to become more like Christ? If so, please say. It's my pleasure to welcome you as members of First Baptist Church with all the amazing perks that that brings.
48:19
You can have a seat.
48:26
I think we should sing again. How about you? Should we stand up? I'm gonna close this song once again. It's all because of Jesus, the cross of Christ.
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That, you know, that's why these folks can say that. It's not because Ray or I or anybody here. It's because of Jesus. We love because he first loved us. Right?
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Alright. Give her every breath. Give her every breath I breathe. After I'm bold, we turn into. Give her every perfect thing till you be the Make your own bed bend ever.
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No one can comprehend your word. King never burst till you be the glory.
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We're alive because we're alive in him.
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I'm alive because I'm alive in you. And so because Jesus, I'm alive. And so because blood of Jesus Christ, that covers me raised this dead man's life. And so because Jesus, alive.
50:32
That's all I got, Rick.
50:36
I was expecting another verse when I stopped playing bass. You thought it was over, actually, I'm looking for Colossians three twelve through 16 as a benediction. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you and over all these virtues, put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity.
51:07
Amen. Wanna start it back up? One more time. Okay, tell over it is. We've got two more minutes.
51:15
That's great.
51:17
Let's do it.
51:19
Okay. We sing it? Alright.
55:09
Amen. Amen. May God bless you all. Amen. Join us.
56:38
327. 327. Join us. I just looked back through this week and I, all week long, I knew this was coming. I knew the service was coming and in the first service, Carl and I have been talking about it and he planned the whole service around what we have gained so far in first Corinthians, kinda.
59:17
He he was looking at him and thinking about him and praying through it and a lot of them just lined up. There's a lot of wisdom to be gained because this is a varied book. It's not all about the same thing. It's a long book, and we've been going through it now since July, I think the third. So it's been a while.
59:34
That's a pretty long series, but there's a lot to be gained. I started off by comparing the Thessalonian church and the Corinthian church. Now, the Thessalonian church, we went through it and it was fertile ground for the gospel and when they accepted it, they took off running with it and they were spreading the gospel to other nations and lands and peoples. They trusted Paul's authority. They didn't there was no sin emphasized in that book at all.
59:58
Not at all. If people say about Paul, he was always wagging his finger and he was always no. He was encouraging the Thessalonians, no doubt, because they were doing what they should be doing. They were very sincere and not pretentious but the Corinthian church on the other hand, whoo, goodness. That full of weeds.
1:00:16
That garden is full of weeds. Some of them questioned Paul's authority. There were divisions and factions among them. There were multiple sins all throughout but especially up about the fourth or fifth chapter, he really gets into sexual immorality and things like that. They were probably pretty pretentious.
1:00:35
They were had an elevated opinion of themselves but the reason I have this slide up here is because grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ is the way he began both books. If we can, people, please, let's always start with grace and peace. Always start with grace and peace. There is a segment of Jackson that has seen church done before. And they did not experience grace and peace.
1:01:07
Can we be a church that will lead off with grace and peace? Try to communicate to them in a language that they can understand. Be willing to go there. I mentioned this as Paul's thesis sentence for the first chapter for sure but actually for pretty much this whole book. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God.
1:01:34
That's Paul's thesis sentence for this book. For definitely for this section but I think for the whole book And I came up with this slide that week. That was the one that y'all seen a bunch of times since then. Because it always comes back to this, to those who are perishing in his mere foolishness. Do you know anybody who thinks that the cross of Christ is a silly thing that doesn't make any sense?
1:01:54
What does it matter to me if a Jew in the first century died on a cross? What big deal is that? How is that supposed to affect me and my life today? Do you know anybody that feels that way? They would say that the cross is foolishness, and Paul would say that they are the ones who are perishing because they have not taken the way that God made.
1:02:11
The message of the cross is, it is available. Christ lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death and made it available to all of those who would believe, and it'll be the power of God to change their lives. Not just to get them into heaven, but to just to not just to justify, but to sanctify and help them in their life move towards holiness every day closer to being what God would have them to be. So, you saw it the next week, this color, same thing. I talked about this.
1:02:42
Paul mentions that church, corporate worship, and how we get together, I compared it to a hospital. It's a place where people who are physically ill go to get well but a church is a place where people who are spiritually ill go to get well. Now, once you have been justified, absolutely, you're righteous. Before God, he sees the righteousness of Christ but there is something that is still spiritually ill in all of our lives and this is the place that God has ordained to take care of that. The continuing body of Christ.
1:03:13
Carl is going to preach about Emmanuel, God with us. As the body of Christ and Paul is going to use that analogy over the next couple of chapters when we come back to this study, 12 through fourteen forty is a study of spiritual gifts and he mentions the body analogy multiple times throughout that. The body of Christ right now on Earth is is the assembled church of God, capital C church. The way that we can know one another is through his word and through his church. The way that we can know him and see him act his way out.
1:03:48
Corporately, Paul encourages us to be what you really are in Christ. You are a child of God, so act like it. Pure, holy, humble, looking to him as the great physician in the place that he's called you into for surgery. The truth of the of the gospel, the truth of the Bible applied to our lives is like a scalpel, but he's got the grace that is like an anesthetic. It makes it less painful because we don't suffer under the penalty of it but we want him to remove that cancer of sin in our life.
1:04:21
The takeaways from that Sunday, I don't know why these hit me long enough. I won't do it for every Sunday but do not in your own individual life or in individual pride call something okay in your life that the Bible outrightly calls sin. There are multiple lists, multiple places. If we start to try to skirt the issue or make it alright, it's not alright. It's not okey dokey from last week, okay?
1:04:44
Do not in your own individual pride call something okay in your life that the Bible calls sin. We should not corporately expect people of the world to act as if they know Christ and we should expect that people who call themselves Christians to act like they do know him. That's very apparent from the text that Paul believes that and we all have some spiritual ailment and the church should be the place to come deal with it and we'll see further along in the Paul's writing to the Corinthians. We'll see that he struggles with this thorn in the flesh and he's asking God to forgive it. We are all going to continue with some spiritual ailment.
1:05:17
We don't need to run from the place where God means to help us with that illness and the message of the cross. That's what it comes back to every time. Putting your faith in Christ not just for justification but for your sanctification. I think that's where we got into this. Sanctification, Paul had seen them accept Christ and start to grow in their faith and they were starting to grow in their holiness, we'll say.
1:05:42
They were starting to be more and more what God wanted them to be but from the reports that Paul got from a letter and from the reports from Chloe's household, Paul saw that they were starting to decline. They were declining in their spiritual growth and they were losing their first love. They were getting away from the message of the cross. They were dividing into factions and worrying about other things. He said, let this teach you not to exceed what is written.
1:06:11
And then he goes back and I say, he does use the truth along with grace. He does use the truth and he says, or do you not know that unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral, the idolaters, adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And he also encourages. So, that's the truth and then, this other part, he's saying, I know that you believe this already.
1:06:42
I know that you've been justified and you are growing in sanctification. You're growing in righteousness but you've turned back to your old ways and he says, and such were some of you. Past tense. That's a great thing to see. Such were some of you but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.
1:07:01
The name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of God. This morning, we had a young man, 16 years old and taller than me. He's huge. If you see anybody in the church taller than me, congratulate him on his baptism. Blaise McDonald was baptized this morning and he was symbolically washed in baptism, symbolically.
1:07:20
It's just a symbol, but he has been justified and he is being sanctified by Jesus Christ. He has turned away from his old way, buried with Christ, and raised to walk in newness of life. So, Paul's hope is that this letter will arrest that and let them start to look back to the message of the cross and grow again in sanctification. We got to this point next. Who you love is more important than what you know.
1:07:49
That's hard for somebody who loves the Bible as much as I do. I wanna tell people about it, but I wanna love them more than I wanna tell them my opinion about something. I got a text last night about pre trib, post trib, mid trib, at trib, whatever, a millennial, all the different possible outcomes, and I've never texted anything so long in my life. But answering those things back with her, I was thinking, if you're sharing this with somebody and trying to push your view, why don't you just love them through it? Why don't you just love them through it and say, you would have to go more places.
1:08:25
You're saying, I don't see that. I can't see that. I said, there are a lot of places where you can see it but let's love one another and get together. Who you love is more important than what you know and that one comes up a lot. Message to the cross again.
1:08:37
Paul's method, I've mentioned this a few times even in the operatory prayer. When God met with Abraham, he did his covenant with Abraham originally in a Hittite ceremony. Is that something to y'all? Does that say something to y'all? This has just hit me this morning that God said, split this bullocks, split the parts, and go in between these pieces of this body and this will be my covenant to you.
1:09:03
He did it in a language that he could understand. This is the reason we have this center aisle in this church, in every church. The body is being split and God walks between these pieces. Contextualization is loving people enough to go into where they are to draw them out. Who you love is more important than what you know.
1:09:28
Sometimes, our theology and our traditions and our way of doing things is such a a contrast to the world outside that we do need to go and bring back in and some of us are going to be more comfortable with that than others. Who you love? More important than what you know. Ten thirty one, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Amen.
1:09:50
That one brings this out again, who you love is more important than what you know. You're bringing glory to God when you are seeking daily when you wake up to serve him and go to those who don't know him. Whatever you do, that reminded me of the JS Bach piece. Every piece when he signed off at the end, he would sign off solely, Deo, Gloria, which means to God alone the glory. He felt y'all know his work.
1:10:18
Right? J. S. Bach's work is incredible. But what he wanted was for God to get the glory for every piece but what he started off with at the beginning, I've heard this a lot of different times, the solo Deo Gloria because he usually wrote that out.
1:10:32
If he didn't, he wrote SDG. At the beginning, he wrote JJ, which is which means Jesus help. That's the only way. The message of the cross is where it's at. That's what Paul grounds his whole theology in.
1:10:48
The message of a sinless savior willingly giving up his life for sinners who would trust him. He gave it in grace. There's nothing that you can do to earn it. Half the songs we've sung this morning have mentioned that. We're going to go right now and sing more songs.
1:11:04
That's the end of the sermonette and let's worship together some more.
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