The Barna Group reports that about 10 million self-proclaimed born-again Christians have not been in church the last six months. Nearly all of these 10 million people say their faith is important to them, but their spiritual life has nothing to do with church.
Bono, lead singer for the rock group U2, has campaigned for the church to become more involved in the fight against AIDS. Bono emerged as a star example of the unchurched Christian. Having once been involved in a loosely structured Irish fellowship, Bono now seldom goes to church. He does pray. He likes to say grace at meals. He has a favorite Bible translation. But he doesn’t want to be pinned down about a commitment to church: “I just go where the life is, you know? Where I feel the Holy Spirit. If it's in the back of a Roman Catholic cathedral, in the quietness and the incense, which suggest the mystery of God, of God’s presence, or in the bright lights of the revival tent, I just go where I find life. I don’t see denomination. I generally think religion gets in the way of God.”
Virginia Slims cigarette ads from the 1970’s were famous for telling women, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” One 1978 ad in particular showed a woman hanging laundry out to dry and the text said: “Back then, every man gave his wife at least one day a week out of the house. You’ve come a long way, baby.” To the right of the haggard women and her laundry is a well-dressed and sexy women smoking his cigarette. It’s more than thirty years since the ad displayed itself on billboards around our country. The church has come a long was as well. Yet, I’m not sure if all our changes have given us reason to celebrate.
“Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:1-3)
1. Think about Church.
Let’s think about church for a few moments. Note to God is an app on the iPhone. Note to God is a place where people can upload their anonymous notes to God. One person posted the following: “I need healing. My heart is breaking. My pastor has been involved in porn the whole five years he’s been at our church. Please help me.”
Another person writes: “I have no idea what to think about the huge split happening in our church – [he names a church in OK]. Who is right, who is wrong, who is honest, who isn’t… I almost feel betrayed. And I really don’t know how it will ever feel the same again. It’s going to take a miracles… Nothing less than a miracle.”
Let’s be honest with one another for a few moments. Church can be a place where incredible hypocrisy exists. It’s always been this way. Nearly 1,800 years ago a North African bishop named Cyprian criticized believers who recanted their confession of Christ to avoid persecution. After the persecution had ended, they wanted to be allowed back into the fellowship of the church. Cyprian’s words are tough and have endured until our day: “We are not interested in what he teaches, since he teaches outside the Church. Whatever and whatsoever kind of man he is, he is not a Christian who is not in Christ’s Church… He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother.” (Cyprian, a North African bishop, in the 3rd century.)
Cyprian’s words were especially pointed as he declared this during a severe persecution upon Christian in the city of Carthage. He resisted reinstating those who had failed Christ during their persecution.
I’m not sure what your experience is with the church, but today I want to answer the question, “Why Bother with the Church?” I’ve had wonderful, humbling experiences with people in church in states all across our nation. I’ve even been blessed by international churches. Yet, I’ve also left church hurt by its people. I’ve left wondering, “What good is it to be with these people?” Churches, much like families, are places where people sometimes quarrel.
That’s one of the reasons Paul wrote this letter in front of us. Chloe’s people had reported that there was quarreling going on in Corinth (1:11). Throughout the sixteen chapters of this letter, Paul deals with hypocrisy among the people who claim Christ. The idea of Rethinking Church is really a focus on the question of how to deal with hypocrisy among God’s people.
Candidly, there is a lot of hypocrisy in this church. It’s easy to spot grumpy people… Irritable… Unfaithful… and selfish people. Hypocrisy is the difference between what I say I am as a believer in Christ and what others see in me. There is a large margin between those two for many of you
Even for those who manage their morality well, I find that we often become too possessive of small things and too casual about great ones. We become too defensive about ourselves and ignore God in the process. We often talk about love but give ourselves over to hate.
How does the Bible deal with hypocrisy and the church? There are two words in verses two and three that form a see-saw for us. Those are the words “grace” in verse three (3) and “saints” in verse two (2). These two words operate in tension for our thoughts this morning. Yet, they should exist in harmony, in a perfect balance that is rarely achieved for most of us. This balance cannot be achieved by individual Christians in isolation from one another.
I want to instill within us the important of achieving this balance not in individuals but in the entire gathering, called the church. In verse two, we see that Paul writes this letter to a church. He didn’t write this to a movie producer, who would in turn, shape our thinking through an important media production. He didn’t write this letter to Senators who would provide legislation for our needs. He didn’t write to few individuals within the church. Instead, he wrote the letter to the church.
The church is more important that you think.
Here is a correction for most of our thinking about Christianity and God Himself: “To the church of God that is in Corinth” (1 Corinthians 1:2) He didn’t write it to simply one person but a collective group of people, called the church. Yet, he didn’t just write to a church, He also tells us something else very important. The church doesn’t belong to a person; it belongs to God.
Later on, Paul will refer to the church as: “For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.”
(1 Corinthians 3:9)
The word church is originally from a Greek word which stressed the call to assemble together as a people in God’s presence. The word doesn’t refer to a building as there is no historical evidence for a church building for another century after this letter was written. Again, the church is more important that you think.
I have two important Scriptures I always go back when I get down about the church and the challenges the churches faces in our day. It’s these two passages that help frame for me the importance of the church in God’s mind.
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…”
(Ephesians 5:25)
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)
“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…” (1 Corinthians 12:21-22) God looks at His church and says, “These belong to me; they are mine. I have a special concern for them.” The church is His creation, His concern. This raises the stakes. The church is more important that you think.
2. We Do Not Make Ourselves
I want you to see that describes the church in verse three it’s the word GRACE: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:3)
Grace - Nothing is deserved and nothing is achieved. You are who you are because of kindness and rich mercy of Jesus Christ. Grace is bound up in Jesus Christ (notice the mention of His name in verse two and three).
“God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:28-31
Corinth was a deeply disturbed church. Two weeks ago, I described the city of Corinth as a sex-obsessed city.
2.1 Sexual Sin
To call the city “sex-obsessed” would not be too much to say. Aphrodite (Roman god Venus) was worshipped in Corinth. She was called the “Goddess of Love” and her worshipers made use of the Hierodules - 1,000 consecrated temple prostitutes. Aphrodite was worshipped by sacred prostitution In 464 BC a man named Xenophon, a citizen of Corinth, an acclaimed runner and winner of the pentathlon at the Olympic Games, dedicated one hundred young girls to the temple of the goddess as a sign of thanksgiving. A museum is now in Corinth were nude statues of the god Apollo can be seen. This was to stimulate the male worshippers of Aphrodite to homosexual acts. Corinth was a center of homosexual practice.
Slang terms connected to the city included the words, “Corinthian” – anyone known for loose, extravagant, living and “Corinthianize” – wild partying – think of Las Vegas or of New Orleans during Mardi Gras. A Corinthian girl was a prostitute.
Yet, the grace of Christ doesn’t just forgive you of past sins, grace transforms you. In Paul’s thirteen letters he almost always begins by telling us who he is in relation to God and who we are in relation to God.
This is very different from what you see on television.
Automobile commercials want you to think of your life in relation to things you have.
Beer commercials want you to think of your life in relation to the brotherhood at the pub.
And a hundred soaps and deodorants and shampoos and foods want you to think of your life in relation to your body.
The Relentless Testimony of Scripture
But the Bible is relentless in this one thing: it calls us back again and again, not to deny the existence of things like cars, or friends at the cafe, or families, or our own bodies, but to give these things their true meaning in relation to God.
The Bible defines everything in relation to God. Everything has its true significance or insignificance in relation to God.
2.2 Before and After: A Portrait of Grace
Verse 1: “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus…” He knows who he is — Paul, and there was none just like him. He knows why he is here — to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, an emissary, a spokesman with inspired authority. And he knows how he got here — by the will of God. He knows where he comes from — from a God whose will governs the world and guides the affairs of men. He knows where he is going — to speak the truth for the King of kings and call men to submit to his lordship. And he knows whose he is — Paul, with his thorn in the flesh, with his Romans 7 failures, with his persecutions and sleepless nights, and with his undaunted faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him.
This is Grace. Grace is far more than having your sins forgiven. Grace is having your life radically transformed. I believe God wants every one of his children to have that kind of solid, strong, clear self-understanding.
Can you put your name in verse 1 with the appropriate changes? A tremendous stability comes into your life when you let the Bible define who you are in relation to God. You won’t be the slave of fads or fashions or trends. When the world attempts to leverage your decision by defining you in terms of a body or car or bank account that you don’t have…you will not crumple with insecurity and dissatisfaction .
3. Grace Leads to Collective Holiness
The second word that forms our mental seesaw this morning is found in verse two: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…” (1 Corinthians 1:2)
Churches have standards. Christians are called by God to live holy lives. This would have been debated the Corinth church as they were getting drunk during the Lord’s Supper part of their worship services. They were doing whatever they pleased and expected God to embrace their alternative lifestyles.
Can you imagine a cop who works together with the district attorney to manufacture false evidence? Do you think the police would allow an officer to continue on the force? Should a church allow hypocrisy without correcting its people? 1 Corinthians 5 is Paul’s correction of a man committing incense where the Corinth church brags about its grace. The church is not a museum for saints; instead, it’s a school for sinners.
The word “saints” calls on us to live lives blameless of corruption…. blameless of hypocrisy.
Paul is telling us, “You have not arrived.” Paul would stress how these two words work against hypocrisy: the words “grace” and “saint.”
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 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 our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) Note the change in verse eleven.
Create a new mental concept in some of your minds. November of 2009 marked the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was an historic event, and the world has changed drastically in the two decades since that iconic symbol of division crumbled.
But things haven’t changed for everybody. For almost 30 years, the Berlin Wall separated two populations of red deer living in the forests encompassing the border between Germany and what is now the Czech Republic. When the wall was dismantled in 1989, the physical barrier between those populations was removed. But when wildlife biologists began studying the deer in 2002, they quickly realized that the deer living in Germany were not migrating into the Czech Republic, and the deer living in the Czech Republic were not migrating into Germany. In other words, both populations of deer were still behaving as if the wall remained intact. One deer in particular has become a microcosm of the entire population. Her name is Ahornia, and her movements in the forests of eastern Germany were tracked for several years by a GPS collar fitted to her neck by a biologist. During the time she was monitored, Ahornia's location was tracked more than 11,000 times in Germany—but not a single time in the Czech Republic.
She was tracked at the border of the two countries several times, but she never crossed over. Two elements of Ahornia's story are particularly noteworthy. First, she was born 18 years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall. She has no physical memory of the wall’s existence, and yet she is still blocked by it. Second, the land formerly occupied by the wall and its guard towers has now been turned into a large and thriving nature preserve. In other words, the land beyond the wall has become a haven — the perfect home for deer like Ahornia and her family — and yet she will not enter. One wildlife filmmaker, who often works in the area, says, “The wall in the head is still there.”
“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14
This holiness is given by Jesus Christ. Grace alone forgives ongoing sin and empower you for a new life in Christ.
Notice how this can begin for you: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…” (1 Corinthians 1:2)
