Here we are on the third week of 1Corinthians. It was a letter to the church at Corinth written probably from Ephesus. Paul was on his third missionary journey and around 51AD he is at Ephesus as recorded in Acts 19. This letter is clearly responding to information Paul had received.  So the letter is mainly Paul speaking about problems he had heard of and matters that had been raised by the Corinthians for him to answer.

What we have is an insight into the working of a young church in the 1^st Century, coping with the problems of living in a pagan world and with itself. Which , if you think about it, is just what we are having to do, 2 millennia  later. That is live in a world that is alien to our gospel and sort out the problems of living together as Christians.

 

 So, what sort of problems did Corinth face?

Division in the church, sexual immorality and legal action between church members. Well, nothing’s much changed, and we are pressured by different pressures but on similar issues today.

 

 Today we pick up on one matter that was playing havoc in Corinth. Paul raises it in 1:10-17 and develops his answer in3:1-23

We are guided to understand that this is God’s Church not man’s church, that it is the temple of the Holy Spirit not the arena of the celebrity worship we read in every Metro and Evening Standard you pick up. What are called to do is build together, recognising that this is a holy place, a spiritual temple to be build in eternal materials.

 

But let’s begin in ch1:10-17 READ

 

 Is it relevant, today? Here is a crude statistic of the church worldwide. We even see one section of the church at war with another, as happened to our shame in this country in Tudor times right through to the 19^th Century. The visible divisions of the church reflect our history rather than our practice. Most of the denominations began in a real passion and seeking after God. Most have deserted the starting point and hang on to the traditions that were built up as the new church established itself. That is true of Catholicism, Anglicanism, Methodist, the Baptists, Congregational, Jehovah Witnesses, Pentecostal, Charismatic and particularly the Brethren, who began believing in the movement of the Holy Spirit and then denied much of the gifts of the Holy Spirit as relevant. Sadly, established churches become resistant to the Holy Spirit, directed by men rather than God. SRCF is an established church with 70 years of traditions, so BE WARNED!

 

But at a local level you can find the divisions written large. You only have to try to connect up with other churches to discover how divided we are. Try as we do, we find it difficult to build a strong sense of unity, in fact, we hardly communicate with our neighbouring churches!

 But are we united as a church? Without wishing to open division, here are a few hazards we face as a church. Opportunities for Satan to break us and weaken us and destroy God’s precious church. That is a particularly urgent matter with respect to the future leadership of the church. When we are in the appointments process we need to be clear that whatever our personal thinking at the time,, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will appoint the right person for the job, even if it was not our choice. They will not be like me, thank goodness, or Brian,  nor will they be superman, but they will be God’s choice, if we are committed to pray and seek his face on the matter. And this is a key point about unity. We need to talk together and pray together. The proverb “The family that prays together, stays together, applies to the church. If you were at the prayer meeting this morning or on Thursday or on House Group night, you would share in seeking God together and have an understanding of  why we are doing what we believe is God’s plan.

 

The division in Corinth seems to be in styles of ministry. Paul, Peter and Apollos don’t appear to have tried to compete but they were used as banners for bashing others.  The last two weeks subject matter are part of Paul’s answer. Get back to the cross! Put Jesus in the centre!

And he continues in chapter 3 to tackle the divisive slogans so let’s read what God has to say to us about unity.

 READ 3:1-23

 

 Grow up!v1-4 – it was not Paul, Apollos or Peter who were promoting the division. It was childish people who were more interested in what they liked than what God was saying to them. And they fell back on human wisdom instead of the wisdom of the Spirit. So personality, charisma, style, particular doctrinal position, use of particular words or thought forms and so on were valued rather than Jesus and what the Holy Spirit was saying to the church at this time, for this day, in the context of  this culture.

 

 Servant leadership v 5-9 It comes down to forgetting that our God is moving on. He is not stuck in a rut whether it is style of worship or expression of the gospel. Each leader brings their service to God’s work and we need to appreciate it but not make an idol out of the particular teaching. So Paul  church planted. Apollos nurtured these early days of the church and Peter wrote letters from Jerusalem to encourage them.

 

The key point is that  God made it grow.

This is a very important point because you can read lots of church growth manuals much of them is good stuff. However, if they are any good they will point out this principle,  - that God makes the church grow - the leaders and the church are servants doing the masters will. God makes it grow. It is God by his Holy Spirit that stirs people to realise they need him. It is the Holy Spirit that convinces people of sin and righteousness and judgement. You and I will tell the Good News but it is God who gives new life and new birth. It is the Holy Spirit that turns a sermon into a message from God. It is the Holy Spirit that sustains faith in the life of the believer. It is the prayers of Jesus before the Father that keeps us united in the face of every attack on our unity. We do the master’s bidding and to do that we need to be seeking his face. God knows the plans he has for us, plans for our good and we need to come in repentance and faith and call on him to know his command and do it.

 And we do it as a team! V8 points the way, each of us has one purpose which is to be obedient to the heavenly vision. And each will be rewarded according to his work. Now stop for a moment. Last week we read about spiritual wisdom, so don’t read this as human beings but as spiritual. This is not a bonus culture where goody-goodies get blessings and strugglers get nothing. It is the spiritual principle that sower and reaper rejoice together and are blessed by the evidence of God at work. Is that not your greatest joy? When you hear that God has saved this one or that one?

 

Listen to the parable of the football game. Who scores the goal is not the key player, quite often they simply trip over the ball and it goes in. A goal is normally the result of a series of good, accurate and imaginative passes. Each member of the team is playing his or her part in the goal. Only commentators and foolish celebrity worshippers count the last boot to touch the ball as if were the cause of the goal. So it is in the spiritual world. The church is God’s team, He is in the dugout (well, I know the parable falls over at this point because he is very much on the pitch!) yelling instructions to the team. When we get it right power from in high flows and people are saved.

Paul , not being football mad, talks of farming. This is God’s farm, we are his fellow workers – isn’t that great, not slaves or employed but fellow-workers. Or if you are like John next door we are God’s building and builders, plasterers, electrician, plumbers and the like working together under the guidance of the architect to build a strong, useful and beautiful building.

 

 Jesus is the foundation v10-11

Grace here is about God allowing you to be part of the team. Paul had that privilege and used it to God’s glory. But now he has moved on and Apollos has that task of continuing the project. But both Paul and Apollos have only one purpose to continue to build Jesus in the lives of his people. To teach the words of Jesus, to encourage the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believers, to encourage the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be expressed in the life of the church. We are back to the cross, Christ the wisdom of God. There is no where else to go. Only in Jesus can we be complete and fulfilled.

 

What follows is a warning and an encouragement.

 The test of fire v12-15

Sometimes we allow ourselves to think that God is some indulgent grandparent. We rightly emphasis his love in an age where he is seen as an enemy but we forget that the cross speaks of the high standards that God expects of us and our failure to meet his quality control standards. Jesus died because we have messed up. Grace means we are forgiven and cleansed made holy and acceptable to God. Our actions, powered by the Holy Spirit should reflect his glory. So Paul challenges us. Are our lives evidently kingdom lives or are they wandering along aimlessly, hoping God does not ask too much of us? What are you building? Is it fireproof? Will it last? The Victorian age was the period of great church building, and now we are surrounded with redundant buildings because we have failed to build the eternal church. It is not the physical building that matters but the spiritual building. So how do we build an eternal church?  First, on the foundation of Christ. We are living stones because we have received spiritual life by grace from God through Jesus. Secondly, through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is as he directs and pours himself into us that we are transformed into the radiant place of worship that God is building. So the challenge is to examine day by day before the Lord what we are doing, so that our lives truly express the presence of Jesus.

 

 The temple of the Holy Spirit v16-17 These verses were written before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Yet they remind us that the Temple was transient. Jesus was quite clear that his body was the true temple. You, as members of God’s church, are part of the body of Christ. Listen to what God says about you. You are so valuable that an attack on you is an attack on him. Being set apart by God is a real privilege. While attacks on the church, like the one parliament conjured up over marriage, may not be the cause of flooding, we need to understand that a nation that turns its back on God will face self-destruction. The flooding is natural, the stupidity of building on flood plains is evidence of our long-term disregard to the way rivers work – a blindness to God’s creation.

 

But enjoy this, Together, we are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you. Wow! This morning God sees a temple, not made with hands but our transformed lives in which our praises ring true and beautifully. And he has always said “ I will dwell in the midst of you” . Does that not take your breath away. The living God, Jesus himself is standing among us this morning receiving our worship and praise.

 

 The wisdom of the Spirit is Christ. 18-23

Finally in this passage, Paul returns to the theme of wisdom. It is a misunderstanding of what spiritual wisdom is that leads to divisions in the church. When we concentrate on Jesus and what he has done, the things that irritate us about others or the strange rituals we do as our tradition become irrelevant because we are taken up with Jesus, our fellow Christians are brothers and jewels of faith that adorn our Saviour.

Wisdom of this world does not ever understand grace. It reduces us to mechanisms and biological processes. It has no justification for morality, no guidelines for community because it begins with “I think, therefore I am.” And really gets no further. The wisdom of God on the other hand, builds for eternity and has a reason for community in time.

 So how are we to go forward from here? First standing on the complete and finished work of Christ in salvation. That is why we meet week by week to celebrate Communion. Jesus told us to so that we would not forget the main thing about our faith. That is in the cross of Christ. Salvation and forgiveness and new life flowing from his sacrifice for us.  Secondly, seeking the Holy Spirit to transform us to be Christ-like, God’s temple, standing out in the community as a beacon of God’s love. We will get it wrong, often. But we need seek forgiveness from God, to forgive ourselves and forgive one another. The Bible has a lot to say about relationships and most of what it has to say is about forgiveness. Disunity starts with a lack of forgiveness, an impatience to do it my way, instead of doing it ‘our’ way and ultimately, and most important, God’s way.

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