Alba 1-19-2025
LIVE IN HARMONY
I Corinthians 1:10-17
Today's message is Live In Harmony. Here is something that was in Readers Digest. This person said, “To save money, I suggested to one of my grown sons that we all live together in one house. I could tell he didn’t think it would be cost-effective when he asked, Who’s going to pay the therapist?”
That is something to think about. We love our families, but if we spend too much time together in close quarters, it can be hard to get along. The same is true with our church family.
Last week, in the first part of First Corinthians chapter one, we saw that Paul was thankful for how God's grace was making a difference in the lives of the Christians at Corinth. Yet, it was a church full of problems.
If anyone thinks that everyone is perfect in church, they will be shocked by what they read in First Corinthians. In the first six chapters, Paul deals with all the problems within the church. And the church was FULL of them!
In I Corinthians 1:11 the apostle Paul says, “For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.” This is the only reference in the New Testament to Chloe. It has been suggested she was a business woman in Ephesus, with an office in Corinth.
Anyway, some of her family members and/or employees told Paul about the problems in the Corinthian church. He is not working from rumor or speculation, but rather, he is dealing with first hand truth. They were contentious. The original Greek word for “contentions” could also be translated “quarrels” or “factions.” Back in verse two, the church people there are referred to as “saints”. The problem is that while Christians are called saints in the Scriptures, the sad part is how often we act less than saintly.
Verse ten, in the New King James Version of our scriptures, begins with "Now...". Paul is saying, "OK, now let's get down to business." He calls on them to speak the same thing, and to not have divisions among them. The root problem is that people were losing sight of what was important: The unity we have in Christ. They were starting to become the “Me First” Church and were focusing on everything but what was truly important.
As Christians, we need to rid ourselves of any factions, prevent any factions from developing, and repent of any divisive attitudes we might have. So how do we do that? How do we make sure that contentions and divisiveness will not interfere with what God calls the church to be and to do and live in harmony? Well, first we must live:
1. Under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ
In verse ten, Paul begins his call to unity by making all of us to understand that call comes from the Lord Himself. He says, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is an outright appeal to them to seek unity under the lordship of Jesus! Do you see what He’s saying here? He is saying no divisions, no cliques, and no parties are allowed in the church of Jesus Christ. And he appeals to the authority of Jesus Himself. He is telling the Corinthians that this directive comes from the Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, if we all truly follow Jesus as we should, we will all be going the same direction. And there will be no room for disagreement or dissension or division.
Listen to this insightful observation of A.W. Tozer: “One hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other. They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship” (The Pursuit of God, p. 90).
The Greek word for “division” in verse 10 is “schisma” which means to “rip” or “tear”. If we allow division in the church, it is never a clean tear. It always leaves damage. If you’ve been in a church where there is division it is like tearing a piece of cloth. It is messy and hard, and it ruins everything.
In verse 13 there is the question, “Is Christ divided?” This means, has Christ been split up into different groups? Would He want His body, the church, fragmented? Of course not! We are unified in Christ, and the body of Christ is to fully demonstrate that wonderful oneness. Here in these verses we are being told to be united, not untied. And notice, the words united and untied are spelled with the exact same letters. The difference only depends in which position you place the "I." It is when we are in submission to the authority of Christ that our own wishes and desires take second place.
Our Leader, our Lord, is Jesus Christ. He became Lord and Savior by virtue of His death to atone for our sins. In His preparation for the cross, in John 17:20-21 Jesus prayed for the unity and harmony of His followers, and for all who would come to believe in Him. Here is His prayer. “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
There is a reason that Jesus prayed for our unity. This unity has a purpose. He prays it is so, “that the world may believe that you have sent me.” You see, our unity is a testimony to the world. When we are united in Christ, we reflect the relationship of Jesus and the Father, and point others to God. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are brothers and sisters. We are part of the same family. We are on the same side. We must not forget that.
We are co-heirs with Christ. We have a salvation that puts us in line for resurrection; a resurrection to live with our Lord forever. Until then, the authority of our Lord calls us to unity. Our unity is not based on cultural, social, or political similarities, but on the shared identity we have in Jesus.
Under the authority of Christ, Paul calls on the people in the church in Corinth in verse 10 to “all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” To be of the same mind is to come together to an agreeable conclusion. Another way to get rid of any factions, and prevent any factions from developing, we will live in harmony with each other and be of the same mind if we are led...
2. With the mind of Christ
Philippians 2:5 says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” But instead, divisions were caused in Corinth by believers following different leaders of the church. They formed cliques around certain men. In verse 12 Paul outlines the problem. He says, “Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” The Christians in Corinth are split into four factions. We cannot be sure what differences in beliefs or practices divided them, but they each identified themselves with a particular individual. There were quarrels, plural, between these groups. So in verse 13 Paul asks the question “Is Christ divided?” We are being reminded that we should be followers of Christ, not of human leaders.
These who are mentioned here are all good men, Paul, Apollos, and Cephas (better known to us as Peter). Each of them did a lot for the Kingdom of God and the church of our Lord. And many good leaders are around today. But we must follow Christ. Oh yes, Paul does say in another place, follow me. But he says, only as I follow Christ. (I Corinthians 11:1)
Whatever opinions people had about certain leaders should not be enough to cause the kind of division that was occurring in the church. It is clear that neither Paul, Apollos, nor Peter were encouraging anyone to be part of their faction.
But there also was a group that said “I follow Christ”. These people may have been saying, “We don’t need anyone or anything but Jesus.” They probably didn’t want to be known as followers of any man; they wanted to be called Christians only. That sounds a lot like our Restoration Movement. In the early 1800s there were people who decided that they did not want to be known by any other name than “Christian”. Now they said, “Were not the only Christians. But we want to be Christians only.” That is why we are part of a church that is called Christian, and not named for a person or practice.
Still, it is suggested in this text that even those who said, “I follow Christ” were divisive in the way they looked at others as less than them. Real harmony, being of one mind and being perfectly united as Jesus prayed that His followers would be, only happens one way, by holding on to God's Word. There is no unity in division, no harmony in discord, no togetherness when we determine to follow people over God's Word.
We need not to just believe everything someone tells us, and accept all of their opinions as fact. Instead, we need to be like the Bereans in Acts 17, and search the scriptures, study God's Word, to see if the things that are said are true.
Another reason to avoid following an individual Christian is that each leader is capable of falling into sin. When Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart got involved in sexual sin a number of years ago, there were thousands of people who quit going to church. And they gave up on Christianity because they were so disappointed at the moral failure of one or both of these men. We should never elevate or set another person on a pinnacle. Instead, we must fix our eyes on Jesus and have the mind of Christ who humbly offered Himself as servant of all. If we are to live in harmony, our focus must be on Jesus. And harmony will come...
3. By the truth of the gospel
In verse seventeen, Paul explains that it is the gospel that will keep us focused on what keeps us perfectly joined together. He says, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.”
This may give us a clue as to the nature of the dispute in Corinth. The lines of dispute may have formed around the leaders that first brought them to the Lord and baptized them. To say, “I was baptized by so and so,” was a big deal. So Paul is glad he had only baptized a few. Paul's point is simply that he is glad he had not baptized more than a handful of folks at Corinth because of the tendency people might have to put the person who baptized them on a pedestal. He points out that his commission was not to baptize but to preach the gospel.
And in I Corinthians 15:1-4, Paul outlines the basics of the gospel. He says, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures”
This does not diminish the importance of baptism, which identifies us with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. In Matthew 28:19 is the passage known to us as the great commission. Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
When Paul asked the questions in verse thirteen, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? His point is simply that Christians are not baptized in the name of Paul, Peter, Apollos, or any other apostle, minister or Sunday School teacher.
And he is teaching that one of the signs of Christian unity is that we have all been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. I think if Paul ran into a believer in Jesus who had not been baptized, he would be puzzled and would ask, "Well, why have you not been?" Throughout the New Testament, including here in these verses, the assumption is that Christians will have been baptized.
The matter of greatest concern for the Apostle Paul, and for the Lord Jesus Christ was this whole matter of unity. Or in this case, the disunity that was infecting the church. Sometimes before deciding to get upset because something is not the way we want it, we have to ask if the issue is important enough to stir up contention and division.
Our goal should not be to get everyone to do the things that we like to do and to do them the way we want them to be done. All Christians need to remember that what is most important is Jesus, not the color of the carpet or a song we sing or who baptizes us. We all serve the same Lord, because when we were baptized, we were baptized into Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.
But isn’t it amazing? God looks at you and me, and He sees all of our shortcomings. And yet, because of Jesus, God forgives us, and loves us, and saves us. That's really and truly amazing. That is the Gospel. And that’s the message Paul wants the Corinthians, and us, to focus on.
May it never be that we do anything that takes away from the message of the gospel. May we never distract someone from looking upward to Jesus Christ and finding salvation. May we never proclaim anything else to this lost and dying world than the salvation that is available through Jesus Christ alone.
Our unity does not come from having the same perspectives, opinions, or backgrounds. It is based on something deeper — a shared identity in Jesus Christ. Our unity comes from what Jesus has done for us. At the cross, He tore down every barrier, making us one in Him.
May we always remember that we are united because we share a Savior who loves us unconditionally. And even in a world full of division, when we focus on Him, barriers fall, we become one with each other, and we can live in harmony.
CLOSE:
Psalm 133:1 says, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!” The picture of unity is so warm and inviting. The reality of disunity is cold and chilling to the bone.
A young fellow had an old jalopy. Getting around in a town filled with hills was difficult. So in order to get up one of the steepest of these hills, the young man needed a running start.
As he approached the bottom of the hill at full speed, trying to get up enough speed to make the next hill, he saw two cars crossing the street he was on. He calculated that if he slowed down just enough for the first car to pass, he could gun his engine, and make it in front of the second car.
The only miscalculation was that he failed to notice the first car was towing the second car! He learned the hard way an important theological lesson; it is very difficult to divide things that are bound together.
Christians are bound together in Christ Jesus. When we remember that bond, there is strength for the whole church.
