All of Life for God: Saints

[Music] Well, dear friends, it's so wonderful to be worshiping God with you this morning. Both our church members and many guests that we have today, we warmly welcome all of you. And now we will hear from the Word of God and our sermon text this morning is 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 1 through verse 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 1 through 9. We are starting a new sermon series on the book called First Corinthians, which was written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth. Paul had planted that church sometime during the year 50 through 52. We can find this story in the book of Acts chapter 18, where Paul goes from Athens to Corinth. And there he meets Aquila and Priscilla, fellow tent makers, and he preaches the gospel of Jesus to the people of Corinth. It was not easy. There was a lot of fierce opposition and attacks from Jewish unbelievers. But some people believed, including a man named Sastanese, who was, in fact, the ruler of a Jewish synagogue. And Paul stayed in the city of Corinth for a year and a half, serving as their church planter. So quite like how Pastor Wong is the church planter and the spiritual father of this congregation, something we will celebrate later today. That's the relationship that Paul had with the church in Corinth, of being their spiritual father and founder. A few years after leaving Corinth for mission work in other places, Paul wrote this letter, First Corinthians, guided by the spirit of God and with brothers Sastanese at his side, to deal with certain issues, certain problems happening in the church of Corinth. And there is no other letter written by Paul in the New Testament, where so many different issues are addressed. Now, most of Paul's letters have one main focus. For example, Galatians, as we heard last year, focuses on justification by faith and not by works in response to the false teachings of the Judaism about circumcision. The letter to the Ephesians focuses on the theme of the church. For the book of First Corinthians, the book that we're looking at deals with many, many issues. The church in Corinth was kind of a mess. It was a messy church. They were struggling with divisions, sexual immorality, lawsuits, questions about marriage and divorce, questions about food, disorder and worship, misuse of spiritual gifts, and even doubts about the future resurrection. Also, there were people who attacked Paul by comparing him to other preachers like Apollo's and Peter. It was really a messy situation in the church in Corinth. And it's hard to pick out one main issue that Paul deals with in this letter, except perhaps to say that the Corinthian church struggled generally with spiritual immorality, spiritual immorality. They had learned the gospel. They had learned some things about scripture, about the Bible. But they did not yet apply scripture to many parts of their lives. They still fought like the rest of the world in many ways. They did not apply the truths of God to their sexuality, to their marriages, to food and drink, to life in the church, to their evaluation of preaching and so on. So Paul had to teach them really how to live out their faith in all areas of their lives. That's why I named this sermon series, "All of Life for God." And I believe we can look forward, and I look forward to learning a lot from this very practical, very real life, very down to earth, book of the Bible. So how does Paul address this problematic church? Well, he begins, as he usually does, with a greeting. Please give your full and humble attention, brothers and sisters, to the royal and sacred words of God, beginning at 1 Corinthians 1 verse 1. Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother, Sosthenes, to the Church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ in every place, call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Now just by reading this greeting from the apostle Paul, it may be hard to feel the seriousness of the problems, the issues that will follow in the rest of the letter, because the tone of this greeting is so warm, so gracious. Paul, perhaps most surprisingly, calls the Corinthians sanctified people, holy people in verse two. He says 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. Now this is surprising if you know what follows in the rest of the letter, what comes next, because the problems mentioned in this letter will show shockingly low levels of holiness in the Church of Corinth. In fact, later in chapter five, Paul will scold them for tolerating a kind of sin that is not even tolerated by unbelievers. So with this kind of a situation, it's really quite remarkable for Paul to address them as those sanctified and as saints, and then to greet them with grace and peace. Verse three, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, graciously blessing this people. And at this point, Paul could have jumped straight into the issues like he did with the Galatians, but here he first gives, gives thanks for the Corinthians. He gives thanks in verse four for the grace of God that was given to the Corinthians, speaking of their salvation, they're being saved in Christ. And as Paul gives thanks, he is clearly thinking back to the time when he planted the Corinthian church. When he came and preached in Corinth, he was able to witness this surprising grace of God among the Corinthians. Now, Corinth was not like any other city, right? Not just like any other city. You had a big name. It had a lot of wealth, a lot of money, a lot of sophisticated human wisdom, grade, cultural and social influence. And along with that was a lot of corruption and wickedness in that city. In fact, the city of Corinth was so notorious, so infamous for its behavior, and especially for its sexual immorality that a word emerged in the Greek language that turned the name of that city into a verb. So in Greek, to "corinthize" means to act like a prostitute. So Corinth really did not have a great reputation. as far as their morality and their ethics was concerned. Thus for Paul to come to such a city, to preach the gospel among this sort of people, and to have both Jews and Gentiles respond by saying, "I believe that Jesus is the Savior." For them to come to faith, that was an amazing, supernatural work of God. So Paul gives thanks to God because of this, because of the grace that was given to the Corinthians in Christ, such that the testimony about Christ, verse six, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among them. And Paul is not only thankful that God has brought the Corinthians into salvation, but he is also thankful for the assurance that God will keep them in salvation. Not only that God give them a beginning in grace, but he also supplied them with the gifts, with the spiritual gifts that they needed to continue growing in grace. Verse five says that they were enriched in all speech and all knowledge. And verse seven says that they were not lacking in any gift as they waited for Christ to come again. This shows that God would most certainly sustain the Corinthians to the end. Verse eight, guiltless in the day of Jesus Christ. And Paul is sure of this because, verse nine, God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The faithful God, the faithful God who called the Corinthians into fellowship with Christ and with all the saints in the world will certainly show his faithfulness also to the church in Corinth. He will sustain them. He will complete. He will bring to perfection the work that he began in the Corinthians. So it's a beautiful greeting, isn't it? It's full of thankfulness and hope for the Corinthians. But also as usual, Paul within his greeting starts to give some hints about what is to follow in the rest of the letter. Paul was really a master at this. And this God-given ability of his was certainly put to good use. Paul's greetings are often more than just a greeting, serving as an introduction to the whole letter like a teaser, a trailer, or a summary, or an abstract. His greetings are often the whole letter in seed form. So when Paul calls them saints, for example, he is encouraging them, but there is also a sense in which Paul is challenging them. Paul is challenging them, reminding them that they are called to be holy. And therefore whatever unholiness is happening among them should be repented of. Paul also reminds them of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Notice how many times Jesus is called Lord in this short greeting, quite a number of times, right? And this is no coincidence because no letter of Paul uses the word Lord more than first Corinthians. So first Corinthians uses the word Lord more than any other letter of Paul, more than 50 times in this letter. So again and again, Paul reminds the Corinthians that Christ is Lord and that they are not their own, but were bought with a price. An important theme as we will see later in this letter. And even as Paul gives thanks for their spiritual gifts here in this greeting, he will later come back to the issue of spiritual gifts, how the Corinthians were misusing their gifts in the church. So even with the warmth, the warmth of this gracious greeting, there are deeper layers here pointing to the lessons that Paul will later unpack. What do we learn about God? What do we learn about God from this passage? Four brief points. First of all, brothers and sisters, we are reminded that God's grace and peace is for the undeserving. God's grace and peace is for the undeserving. I mentioned what kind of church Corinth is and what messy things were happening in that church when this letter was written, but still God does not withhold his grace and peace, you see, through the apostle Paul, God blesses them with grace and peace. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace, which is really a summary of our salvation, God's grace resulting in our peace, God's undeserved favor towards us sinners, reversing the effects of sin in our lives. So God continues to give grace and peace to people like the Corinthians and to people like us. Despite our sinfulness, secondly, God gives sinners the status of saints. God gives sinners the status of saints. Like the Corinthians, we all have our share of problems. We have mess and we have filth and darkness in our lives. Don't we? We don't usually think to ourselves. I don't think, we don't usually think I'm a saint, right? We don't say that to ourselves. And yet, when God comes to us, he calls us saints. So it's not like what they think in certain traditions, where only the extra holy people, only the superpious people are called saints. In scripture, every believer, every Christian is a saint, God calls us sanctified. Even though most of us probably don't feel very sanctified, right? How can we make sense of this? Or we can only understand this by remembering, as it says in verse two, that we are sanctified in Christ Jesus, sanctified in Christ Jesus. It is not because we are so holy in and of ourselves, that God calls us holy and affirms us as saints. Rather, God considers us as holy, because we are in Christ. And Christ is perfectly holy. It is only in Christ that we are saints. In theology, we call this positional sanctification. Please bear with me as I use some bigger words here. Positional sanctification. Usually when we talk about sanctification, we're thinking about progressive sanctification, where I grow in holiness more and more over time. That's what we're thinking about. Now, that's a real thing, but that is not what Paul is talking about here in verse two. Here, Paul is talking about positional sanctification, where someone who is united with Christ through faith is counted as holy, because of Christ's perfect holiness. So, this is what it means. Dear believer, do you trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation? Do you trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? If you do, you are a saint. You are a saint, in spite of all that you are, and all that you have done, because God has graciously clothed you in the holiness of Jesus Christ. And that's incredible, isn't it? That's wonderful. Thirdly, as we see in verse nine, God is faithful. God is faithful. God does not call people into grace and then leave them to carry on by their own strength, to use language from Galatians. God does not make us begin by the Spirit, just let us be perfected by the flesh, those whom God has called, he will sustain to the end. It says in verse eight, "To make us guiltless in the day of Jesus Christ, we persevere in faith because God preserves us by grace. We persevere in faith because God preserves us by grace." And all the while, he supplies the church with gifts, with the gifts that we need to keep, growing, maturing, making progress in holiness. Paul says elsewhere in Ephesians chapter four, that when Christ ascended on high, he gave gifts to men. When he ascended on high, he gave gifts to men. To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now that gift-giving of Jesus Christ continues to this day. He continues to supply us with gifts that we need because the project of growing the church into maturity is first and foremost God's project. It is his project. He will make sure that it happens. He will provide what we need. And even though we so often prove faithless, he remains faithful, having committed himself to save us to the uttermost and to love us to the very end. Number four, Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. With the repeated mentions of Christ's Lordship, Paul reminds us that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to the risen Christ, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. He is the master of the universe who will one day return in terrifying glory when he comes again to judge the living and the dead. That's who Jesus is. So what an awesome privilege, brothers and sisters, for us unholy people to be called into fellowship with this majestic being. Not only to be his servants, but to be his friends, to have communion with him, to be made one with him, such that we now wait for his revealing, verse 7, not with dread, not with fear, but with hope and joy, knowing that he has freely given us his perfect holiness and will welcome us graciously, mercifully, into his eternal kingdom of light. Truly, brothers and sisters, we are so blessed, startly, to belong to this Lord whose grace and peace is for the undeserving, who gives sinners the status of saints and who is faithful to the very end. We are so blessed to belong to him. How then should we live? Firstly, if Jesus Christ is Lord of all, then he is also Lord of every area of my life. And that might seem like an obvious thing to say, perhaps, but it's important to think a bit more deeply about this, because what happens every time I sin is that I am saying no to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Every sin is a denial of Christ's Lordship. It is me saying, actually, I'm the one who is in charge of my life. Not you, Jesus. Thank you for your suggestion, Jesus. But I'll just go ahead and do what I want to do. That's what our hearts are saying to the Lord of Lords who humbled himself as a servant and redeemed us at the price of his own blood. And that's really awful, isn't it? So it's good to remember that Jesus, despite his graciousness, his gentleness, he is my Lord, my master, my king, my boss, my God. I belong to him every part of me, in a way that I belong to no one else. He owns me. And he has the authority to speak into any part of my life and your life and say, this must change. It is his right. He has the right to tell me how to think, how to feel, how to use my time, how to speak. Now, Jesus is not physically here with us to tell us every little detail about what we should do in life. But he has revealed his will and continues to reveal his will through his word, through the Bible, through the scriptures. Our situation in this life, brothers and sisters, is very much like what Jesus describes in a number of his parables, his stories, where a master goes off on a journey, the master of a house, goes off on a journey, and he leaves his servants with various tasks and responsibilities to do business with some money, as in the parable of the talents or the talents of the minus, to do business or to keep watch of the door, or to feed the household responsibilities. The master is away, but the servants know what the master wants. The only question is whether or not the servant will do the will of the master or whether he falls into the temptation of thinking to himself. My master won't come home so soon. I can do what I want. And Jesus in these parables always warns his disciples that the master will come back suddenly, and that each servant must give an account for what he has done. That's the situation that we are in. And as Paul says in verse 7, we are those who wait for the revealing of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are waiting for our master to come back. And in the meantime, as we enjoy the many graces and gifts that he has richly lavished on us, we have the responsibility to respond in thankfulness and to carefully consider what our Lord, our master, wants us to do instead of acting like the Lord's of our own lives. So that's the first thing. Secondly, since God has graciously made us saints, we should seek to live more and more like saints. When God calls us holy ones, again, it's an encouragement, but it's also a challenge to us to be holy as he is holy, to continue working out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God is the one who is working in us. I think that sometimes we let ourselves off the hook too easily by thinking, oh, you know, I'm just a normal person. I'm just a normal person. I'm not some kind of holy person. You know, I'm not a saint. And perhaps we think this way because we don't want to be like a kind of holier than thou arrogant, self-righteous person, which is of course an attitude that we want to avoid. However, because we think this way about ourselves, we often don't really expect ourselves to lead holy lives. We expect ourselves to be worldly almost. But the Word of God tells you, brothers and sisters, that you are saints. If you are a Christian, you are sanctified in Christ. You are counted by God as holy because you are one with Jesus, who is perfectly holy. And that is a tremendous grace, as mentioned, but it also comes with great responsibility. You have the status of a holy person. And so since you have that status, you should act that way as well, knowing that you are not seeking to grow in holiness by your own effort, by your own strength, but are depending on the resources of a faithful God who is glad to make you holy in every area of your life. We are saints. We are sanctified. And so by God's grace, let us make every effort to become pure in our lives, pure in our thoughts, pure in our desires, pure in our speech, pure in our actions, pure in our relationships, all for the glory of God's holy name. Well, as we move on in future servants about through this letter, Paul will start to address the many sins and problems that are in the Corinthian church. But it all begins with this, doesn't it? It all begins with the grace. and peace of God which has called sinners into the fellowship of Christ to become saints, to become holy like Jesus is holy. And that is where we must begin. If we do not begin there, we can begin nowhere else. Only by God's grace to us in Jesus Christ, can we learn to lead holy lives and to become the saints that we are? To become the saints that we are? It has been said that while every other religion in the world tells you by effort, become what you are not, by effort, become what you are not. Christianity alone tells us by grace, become what you already are. By grace, become what you already are. As we go through first Corinthians this year, I hope and pray that we will indeed be encouraged in this way to become what we are, saints in Christ, who continue to become more like Him, being sanctified daily in body, soul and spirit until every part of our lives happily submits to the Lordship of our most loving and merciful master and Savior. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your great mercy, shown to us today in your word, that you greet sinners as saints and welcome us with grace and peace. Lord, we do not deserve this. And how often, Lord, we have presumed upon your kindness and patience, taken you for granted. And yet, you continue to be patient with us. Lord, we thank and praise you for this. Who is like you, O Lord, a bounding and steadfast love? You continue to lavish upon us, your boundless love, and to show yourself our faithful God to your church. Lord, we ask you that you would sustain us to the very end, even as you promised. Please be with us in the days ahead, through every trial and difficulty experienced by each one here. Lord, you know all things, you know each one. And all these things, Lord, please be working, everything for good, and always be drawing us into closer fellowship with you, Father, and with your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose holy name we pray. Amen.