God's Moving To Corinth! Series

God’s moving to Corinth!

Acts 18:1-18

Pastor Allan Kircher

Introduction:

As he arrived in the City of Corinth, he was weary.

 And I don't suppose there's anybody at our service that doesn't get to that place.

 I don't suppose there's any Christian who could say, "I've never been discouraged," or "I've never been disheartened."

 We've all been there, and maybe we've all been weary in well doing.

I suppose all of us at some time or another get depressed, or want to give up and quit.

 In the heat of a moment we’ll say, I’ll just leave this job, this church, or this family,

 And they’ll miss me…they’ll wish they had treated me different!

Often we have some of these feelings:

• “There’s no use/harder I try, worse things get

• No one listens/just spinning wheels

• Keep trying/get people involved/church/nothing happens

• Daily stresses and problems are all vanity

• Ever find happiness? daily grind”

(Life is just mundane, repetitive, like Chinese water torture!)

The devil, according to legend, once advertised his tools for sale at public auction.

 When prospective buyers assembled/one oddly shaped tool, which was labeled “Not for sale.”

• Asked to explain why this was, the devil answered, “I can spare my other tools, but I cannot spare this one.

• It is the most useful implement that I have.

• It is called Discouragement, and with it I can work my way into hearts otherwise inaccessible.

• When I get this tool into a man’s heart, the way is open to plant anything there I may desire.”

If there is one thing that is constant/we all are subject to discouragement.

• There is no shortage of discouragements to hinder the work of God.

• The Bible is full of men of God who at times became discouraged.

• And you and I get discouraged from time to time

Moses: The Greatest leader, handpicked by God!

Had God’s power on his life, but in Numbers 11:15 he said to God, “If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”

Joshua: Greatest General, handpicked by God to lead Israel into the Promised Land…

But in Joshua 7:7, he said, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan (so this is what we get for serving God, he said, after a great defeat!)

He felt like quitting! He got over it, thankfully!

Elijah: Greatest prophet of OT

• willing to challenge the idolatry of his day

• called fire down from heaven

• Won a faceoff w/ prophets of Baal,

• But in I Kings 19:4 after it was all over, he requested for himself that he might die, and said, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life!

Job: We talk about his patience and faith, and he was truly a great man…

 He had a great beginning and a great ending

 but in-between, when he lost everything, he wished he had not been born

 Became suicidal, extremely depressed for a period of time!

Job 3:3 he said, let the day perish in which I was born!

Jonah:

He wanted God to kill him, and was spiritually depressed and not even happy for the all the souls that just got saved in Nineveh!

Sermon:

Paul: In Acts 18 we find Paul in his 2nd missionary journey, arriving from Athens to Corinth experiencing a low time in his life (of depression)

 Now, when we saw him in Athens last time, in chapter 17

 We saw him in the intellectual city.

 in a city that is the university type city.

 A city of culture. A city of information, of learning, of astuteness.

 Had a sense of failure (not much success in Athens/called a “babbler” (bird brain)

And he's gone from Athens to Corinth.

 And if Athens is the city of learning, Corinth is sin city.

 At best, we could probably name it that.

 It was the most debouched/debased city in that world of that day.

The reputation of Corinth from a moral standpoint was so bad at the time the Apostle Paul visited it that if a woman was conspicuously immoral, they said of her, “She is a Corinthian.”

If a man was unusually vile or wicked, they said, “He Corinthianizes.”

That in itself is enough to show what a wicked, ungodly city Corinth was. If you were from Corinth, you were drunk and immoral.

 Paul arrived there, he was really discouraged.

 He was at the point where he was weary.

 I mean let's face it:

 You get chased halfway around the world and hated by everybody, and hassled by everybody, and frustrated.