In the last part of verse 2 Paul says, “to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” So the next thing that identifies someone as a member of God’s church is that they call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The fourth thing that we are going to look at is the church of God is made up of those who are in need of God’s grace whether they know it or not. I guarantee you the church of God did not realize it. When we think of grace we think, “Oh, that day when God saved me by His grace; I already have it. I don’t need it anymore. But boy, it was good enough to save me.” We miss the whole understanding of what grace is all about.
All humanity is born into eternal conflict, first with God and then with man. Because of Adam’s sin, we are born into conflict. We are at enmity with God the very moment you breathe the first time. It is sin that is passed down from generation to generation to generation from Adam.
The next characteristic of the church of God is they live eager for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ask you a question. Are you really living this way? People live as if He’s never going to come. They don’t live walking righteously before Him. They don’t live convicted by sin. All of us sometimes drift into that kind of apathy. We say that we look forward to the coming of Jesus. But our live doesn’t show it.
The eighth characteristic of the church of God is the church of God walks and lives in eternal assurance. Now if you have any struggle with the assurance of your salvation, you listen up to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:8, “who shall also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The final characteristic we will see in this passage is that the church of God is made up of those who have fellowship with Christ: “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
Paul is talking to a body of believers he loves, a body of believers that he, through the Holy Spirit’s power in his life, started and initiated there at Corinth. When he tells them, “be made complete” it has the idea of repairing something, mending something. It also has the idea here of fitting something together so that it comes back into unity and oneness.
We have physical bodies that have many members which are different. It’s that way in the body of Christ. Isn’t it amazing? The first thing that happens when you live surrendered to Him, not perfect but predictable, when you’re about His purposes in your life, is you become inclusive of others, not exclusive of others.
The church of Corinth, because of their fleshly living, were much divided, and it was because they weren’t living attached to Christ. They were attaching themselves to men. That was their problem. Paul is saying to them, “The fallacy of attaching yourself to me. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. There’s a fallacy in it.”
Wisdom, to me, is the right use of truth. You see, man without God is stumbling in the truth all the time. He finds the truth of laws of gravity, etc. He stumbles into truth. But when he does stumble into it, he doesn’t have the wisdom of knowing how to use it. Therefore, he never relates it back to God. Now wisdom is not just the truth, it is the right use of truth.
We want to begin looking now at the wonderful message of the cross. This message is seen by men as being utter foolishness which shows how foolish man is in his own wisdom. 1 Corinthians 1:21 says, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”
Oh, how God knows the heart and the mind of man. He knows what man thinks he can do. He knows what man thinks he knows. He knows what man thinks he is by what he has. And God has so come up with wisdom, the preaching of the cross that just puts all of this to shame.
When Christians live as if they are lacking, they are still immature. They don't realize who they are and whose they are and what they receive when they receive Jesus Christ. As a result, they attach themselves to a man or they attach themselves to a gift as if they are always lacking. We are not lacking, and when we mature in Christ, we will detach ourselves from these things and attach ourselves to Christ and live in the fullness that He offers each of us.
We have seen in Corinthians already that there are two kinds of wisdom. There is the wisdom of man, fleshly wisdom, and then there is the wisdom of God. Of course man thinks he is so smart, but he shows himself to be a fool when he looks at God’s wisdom and calls it foolishness. Man does not want to hear about God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom is wrapped up in a message, in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Spiritual babies are cute when they are babies, but they are not supposed to remain that way. We are birthed into the kingdom. We come in as new‑born babes in Jesus Christ. Then there is the growth process and the stages that God wants to take us through, one day to conform us even into the image of Christ Jesus. And to refuse to grow, to make a choice and say, “I am not going to do what you tell me, God. I am not going to grow,” that is sin.
God’s plan to use surrendered vessels; the prerequisite for men to be used as vessels; the partnership of God’s surrendered vessel; the proof of God using surrendered vessels; and the parity [equality] of God’s surrendered vessel.
One day we are going to stand before God and everything of our life that has been built will stand before Him. There is a house that is being built the moment we get saved. The moment you receive Jesus Christ into your life, the foundation is laid. And that foundation is Jesus Christ. Paul says to be careful how you build upon it.
We are the dwelling of God. Secondly, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. Thirdly, Paul says there are those who seek to defile the dwelling of God. Here is when God, through Paul, is going to say, “You had better not mess with my people!”
When you ask someone how tall he is, he can immediately respond. Do you know why? Because there is a standard by which he can measure himself. But when you ask somebody how beautiful or how handsome they are, that becomes a matter of one’s opinion. It is the same way when you ask somebody how wise you are. What man calls wisdom is foolishness to God. A man can deceive himself quickly in this area by thinking himself to be wise.
There are two things I want you to see. I want you to think clearly now as to what Paul is trying to say. Why in the world would you run around attaching yourself to man’s ways and wisdom when you can live attached to Jesus Christ Himself? We belong to Him and all things belong to us.
Paul says, do you want to regard a preacher? Do you want to esteem a preacher? Then there are some guidelines for you that you are going to have to follow. If you are going to regard Paul, or Apollos, this is the format you are going to have to use. These are the marks of a God called preacher. He says it so clearly in 1 Corinthian 4:15. Let’s get into it and just see: The responsibility of a God-called preacher; the requirement of a God-called preacher; and the reward of the God-called preacher.
What we are going to start seeing here in verse 6, to me, is very, very important. We are going to see a stark contrast between a conceited church and the humility of the apostles whom God had sent to them. The people whom God was using and the people who would not allow God to use them are going to stand out. It is as clear as a bell. We see the conceited Corinthian church and the humble apostles God had sent to them.
We are going to see the contrast between the conceited and the approved. Over here the arrogant, Corinthian believer is putting himself on a pedestal and exalting himself. But over here we are going to have the apostles, those men God singled out, approved and used to give us the New Testament. We are going to see the humility of those apostles. We are going to see a profile of those who have been approved.
It is a hard thing to be around arrogant people, but particularly when they are spiritually arrogant. The apostle Paul, as we have seen in chapter 4, loves the Corinthian believers. All that he has told them is from a loving heart. He has been very tough on them, but all of it has to do with people who have detached themselves from Christ and attached themselves to something else. He has said all those tough things to help them to understand that they need to come back and live by faith, come back to just attach themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.