Pray together Father, we thank you that Jesus did indeed pay at all
Lord if he didn't pay at all I for one I'm lost Because I can't even make up the least amount of Righteousness that's needed to secure my sinful soul Oh how we praise you there what Jesus did on Calvary's cross is more than enough That he indeed saves to the utter most those who come to him That those who come to him coming in faith believing He will have no wise cast out Well father how our hearts rejoice that Jesus paid at all and his sacrifice is sufficient for all that we will ever need So that we can rest in our relationship with you we can grow in that relationship ever confident of his saving work Never fearful that we can mess it up
Father, we thank you That you have chosen by your grace to allow us to enter into an eternal relationship with you Lord we marvel for why would you want? to spend eternity with us and yet you see what you created and redeemed us to be What we are becoming by your grace and father we catch glimpses And all we can do is fall at your feet and praise you
Lord we come to you this morning giving you thanks and praise that you have lifted us up to heavenly places That we can sit with you and sit in your lap and you hold us close and we can simply be with you Be still and know that you are God and hear you say to us through the music through the prayers Through the service itself that you love us and You delight in us father. We give you thanks this morning that Julie Walton's Cancer is in remission Lord, we thank you that you have been gracious and we pray you would continue to be gracious in the days ahead And she finishes her treatments
Lord we give you thanks and praise that you're that good, but we also lift up those to you who Who haven't heard that word yet? Some who probably won't Others who probably will and some who they just don't know Lord you are no less good in their circumstances Just different you are no less laughing Know how we pray for those who struggle with illness That their illness would drive them to your heart There they would find what they could not have found any other way Fellowship of your suffering Lord we would pray for ourselves Those of us who seem to just model through life Lord remind us That yes, life is so daily But you are there in the details and if we don't see you and don't hear you It may be because we're not looking for you and follow their times when You have stepped away to strengthen our faith Not to abandon us not to desert us But to teach us how precious indeed is the presence of our God And we must never take him for granted now holy spirit of God we come to you word We didn't come to hear the words of me in all the words of a man But we came to hear the word of God so holy spirit of God empower the preacher Give hearing to our ears understanding to our minds And the desire to obey to our wills that we would be doers of the word and not hear them late Communicate to us holy spirit of God that we might be the people you've called us to be in this place That you might receive great glory and praise By what you do here through people like us and that we pray in Jesus name Amen at this time will dismiss the children to children's church While the children are leaving. I'll ask you to open your Bible. So first Corinthians chapter 10 First Corinthians chapter 10
We continue our study and Paul's official to the Corinthians His first epistle to the Corinthians. I've told you I believe chapters 8 9 and 10 comprise one unit Paul last week was expressing how he had been striving to live out before the Corinthians the love that Christ had shown that while he had the right to support from them He did not demand that right also was an Answer to those critics who were always Trying to discredit him in his ministry and you notice at the end of chapter 9 He closes in those last few verses with exhorting the church to run so as to receive the crown And he talks about himself that he does not flail away aimlessly But rather that he disciplines himself last while he preaches and teaches to others He himself becomes disqualified Now I believe that chapter 10 these first 13 verses are the illustration of that point And so as we pick up remember that we had to break because we ran out of time, but Paul did and so is the Corinthians read this letter they would not have had the gap that we have had and I believe this illustrates Paul's point This morning you've been seated a while. So why don't we stand for the reading of God's word? Let's stand together
First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact brothers that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all pass through the sea They were all baptized in the moses in the cloud and in the sea They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them and That rock was Christ Nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them. Their bodies were scattered over the desert Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did Do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did and in one day 23,000 of them died We should not test the Lord as some of them did and were killed by snakes and Do not grumble as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel These things happen to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come So if you think you are standing firm be careful that you don't fall No temptation has seized you except what is common to man and God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear But when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so that you can stand out under it and may the Lord bless the reading and the preaching of his word to our hearts this morning and you may be seated See as Lewis noted a man is never so proud That's when striking an attitude of humility. Do you hear that? A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility Paul's great concern for the Corinthian church Was the unwarranted pride that he saw Beginning to creep into that fellowship In fact was beginning to permeate that fellowship and color that body If you think back with me to what we've already studied in chapter 3 verse 21 He exhorts so then no more boasting about man There was boasting as people had Saggerated themselves under this teacher and that teacher Then you go to chapter 4 and chapter 4 verse 6. He says Then you will not take pride in one man over and over Once again the address is the pride that they have In verse 8 of that 4th chapter he says already you have all you want already you have become rich You have become kings and that without us Paul tells them you've become arrogant and proud you think you've arrived when you've only started It's like I was telling somebody I'm trying to teach myself a little bit on the guitar It's something I've always wanted to do and so I said I'm gonna do it and I can play a Yankee doodle Paul thing Lee Well what Paul was saying in these verses was simply this you people are Haltingly playing Yankee doodle and think that you are playing like these people we heard this morning That's pride arrogance and Paul said this spiritual arrogance is deadly. It's dangerous And then in verse 18 he just flat out says some of you have become arrogant So you see the thrust that he's already made There were many in Corinth who were proud of their religion Why they participated in the sacraments these were people who now had knowledge that maybe their families and people Didn't piece that possess as they had been delivered from paganism They had received the promises of God. They had seen and experienced an outpouring of God's Holy Spirit So that most commentators agree that in Corinth there was a seeing of gifts Like was not evidenced in any other New Testament church
everybody Who was anybody? Had been to Corinth to preach or to teach If that wasn't on your resume you hadn't arrived
These people were becoming proud As I said these verses are an illustration of Paul's comments in chapter 9 verses 24 through 27 Here is an example in these verses of people who were disqualified from receiving God's best Why were they disqualified because of their sin? We're not talking about those who are lost and not part of the kingdom These were people who had experienced God's deliverance But they did not enter the promised land save for Caleb and Joshua because they were sinful They were proud and they were disobedient And they did not experience the best God had in mind for them They became disqualified
Paul is concerned that the church in Corinth Will become like their ancestors the Israelites And become disqualified for God's very best
We too need to hear Paul's message Last week Who are affluent and free The inheritors of a great line Of faithful men and women Who have left to us the faith intact Last we become arrogant and proud
We find that we are disqualified from God's best Paul's illustration begins with the premise He states what he's about in verses 1 through 5 So verses 1 through 5 give us the premise for this illustration Paul's premise is simply it is that though the people of Israel had the covenant blessings And were miraculously delivered and sustained Yet most of them died in the wilderness because of disobedience and unbelief They were the people of God They had been saved from the tyranny of Egypt Paul is speaking to a church Who had been delivered from unbelief
They are the possessors of life eternal The gift of God the power of God at work in their midst Their eternal destiny is not in question
But will they wander in the wilderness Or will they cross over and enter the Promised Land I have often used that illusion in talking to him I said my goal is to get us out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land In the wilderness you just wander around and it's dry and you eat the same thing every day And you wear the same clothes and God provides But it's a rather mundane existence And you fight snakes and scorpions And you fight yourself because you're just wandering in a circle You see God called us to live in the land of promise You say you mean we're going to have heaven on earth no Those people weren't going to have heaven on earth in the Promised Land There were giants there There were walled cities There were challenges But there was the land God had promised them I don't know the pastor I don't know the missionary I don't know a zealous Christian who doesn't long to dwell With the body of Christ in that land of promise Where we quit wandering And we are looking out how may we claim our community for Christ How may we build bridges Relational bridges So that we are no longer the enemy of every body and everything But people begin to look upon us As people who care People who love People who make a difference Because of Christ See we're not promising ease We're just promising the best God has to offer here Let me tell you there's nothing like conquering walled cities So that what Paul tells the church When he says the weapons of our warfare Are not carnal They're not the weapons of this world We don't fight fire with fire But the weapons of our warfare are spiritual To the pulling down of what Strongholds walled cities Where do you think Paul got that idea Was planted long ago And Paul is concerned that the church in Corinth Becomes so consumed with their pride and their arrogance And who they are and what God has done for them That they will simply wander in their own little circle And never experience his past Some in the church were grumbling against Paul We saw that last week in chapter 9 Some had become arrogant In the knowledge they had received Some were gloating because As they compared notes with fellow believers In emphasis Or in Colossian Or in Philippi they saw that These churches did not quite experience The wonderful outpourings of God's giftedness Like they did The Paul's warning is clear All the Israelites Experience these incredible blessings of God But they were not exempt From his righteous judgments They all ate the mana They all lived under his law They all experienced his deliverance And all the two died Under his judgment One writer says he was not pleased with their unbelief And he scattered their corpses in the desert One of my professors Set down and took the approximation of the scholars Of how many people were in the wilderness And he said you take those numbers You divide them by the number of days in the 40 years You come out with roughly 91 funerals a day That throughout this wandering body There had to be on the average 90 funerals a day
You see wherever they went There was death in that wilderness Because of their unbelief Until that generation died out They never did cross over Paul warns the Corinthian church And he says don't you be like that Five times in these four verses He says all of them experienced that Rather than respond in love and obedience to God for his blessings They became arrogant and disobedient Their hearts were not turned toward God And that's Paul's concern for the Corinthians You see they were becoming incredibly religious But their hearts weren't turned toward God Go back and read about Caleb It says about Caleb That his heart was wholeheartedly turned to his God And it says it more than once I'll get it marked in my Bible His heart was wholeheartedly turned toward God Wholeheartedly turned toward God The Holy Spirit did not want us to miss it That the difference between Joshua and Caleb And those who died of their generation Was that they were wholeheartedly devoted to God Wasn't just a ritual they went through Was the assets of their being Their relationship with God And that's what worried Paul about the Corinthians Is one writer has noted postmodern faith Has left us with a Christianity of tips and techniques Three steps for a good quiet time Four habits for effective marriage communication It does not take your breath away And if Christianity does not take your breath away Something else will When you live in a Christianity of tips and techniques You trivialize sin Sin is something external It's running stop signs It's drinking too much It's smoking But God calls sin a adultery of the heart It is what you give your heart away to Other than the heart of God What have you given your heart away to It could be religion It could be the cultural folk religion of the South Which I believe to be a perversion of Christianity It happened in ancient Israel It happens today The Christian faith is not about externals It's about internals Because what you are on the outside Is an expression of who you are on the inside Why do you think Jesus says in John's gospel abiding me And then you'll bear fruit He never tells us to bear fruit Yet all my life I have been beat upon By pastors who meant well And said you gotta go out and bear fruit I cannot bear fruit I have no ability to bear fruit Apart from abiding in Christ So I don't tell you to do What God didn't call you to do I'm telling you to do what he called you to do And that's abiding Christ If you see Jesus Christ as the lover of your soul With all your heart You don't have to worry about the fruit And let me tell you the fruit of the spirit Can't be towed on a board But the results will be seen In the lives of the people Who bear that sweet and precious fruit Now secondly Paul Looks at the history of Israel In the wilderness And issues some prohibitions Verses six through ten we see the prohibitions We saw the premise now we see his prohibitions Notice in verse ten Paul's very clear is to his purpose He says now these things occurred as examples To keep us from setting our hearts on evil things As they did What happened to them Instead of setting their hearts on God They begin to think about all other kinds of things You see these people didn't start out saying Oh today I'm going to be evil Do you ever do that? If you do you are wicked But at least you're honestly wicked You got me beat You see I don't get up in the morning and say Oh God can you give me a day off I want to be evil You don't either Wow we got more sense of that We're not going to be that blatant about it What happens if our hearts are not Wholeheartedly turned toward God We will drift away And anything that is not of God is evil These people didn't wake up one morning And say we're tired of man and we're going to be evil No they just began to drift And it won't matter God's busy He's got all these people out here to worry about He's not concerned about me Boy if that's not a lie from the pit He says he knows the very number of hairs on your head He knows you intimately in detail He loves to be in fellowship with you And he's big enough to be an intimate fellowship With every one of his children So when that comes is a cop out And excuse to do wrong Not God's fault because he's not big enough to keep you Look at the prohibitions All speaks very clearly As verse 7 do not be idolaters Verse 8 we should not commit sexual immorality Verse 9 we should not test the Lord Verse 10 and do not grumble All those things the Israelites did and received great swift painful judgments But they are all expressions of a heart That's not turned toward God Where is your heart turned You see we probably don't have a little statue that sits on our desk And we say you are my God how may I please you But it may be a myriad of things that pulls you away From time with God Or that mentality that says This part of my life is forgot I did that I read my chapters in my devotion I prayed my prayer I went through my list God I'm done with you knowing live my life That's the folk religion I know it well That's the tendency of my spirit You see being Christian is not what you do It is what you are All lists those prohibitions And he says look at your life Do you see these things I'll preach I'm not immoral You know what my counselor says He says 80% of the men in America struggle with lust And the other 20% lie about it Yeah, we're immoral You can't watch TV today and not be touched by it And have to battle with it We just lie about it in the church and pretend it doesn't exist As Tim said sometimes our teenagers are ripping off the mask Oh I don't test God Let me tell you When you live as though he doesn't exist You test him You say well I pray and God didn't answer my prayer the way I wanted to I'm not going to pray anymore you test God Because either if he is God or he isn't If he is Bow your knee before him Humble yourself before him And understand that he has wisdom that you do not have He has knowledge you do not possess And the final chapter for us He's yet to be revealed I told you this before but it's helpful to me and I want to hear it again When I think of God's wisdom and sovereignty I remember being a little boy and saying daddy I don't understand why you did this I remember he picked me up and he says son You wouldn't understand it if I explained it to you It would only make it worse Someday you'll understand till then you gotta trust daddy That's all I need to do I don't even remember the issue now I just know that my dad in that moment had the wisdom To say you won't understand you don't have the ability to understand You're going to have to trust me And because I knew my dad I knew he could be trusted Sometimes that's what God says to us But it's only in our humility that we were we see that And that's what Paul was worried about for the church at Corinth That they'd become arrogant and proud and said we should understand all that God's doing And if we don't understand it then it can't be God And where's the end is faith And most of us know very little about faith Because we're not about to live that tenuously And so we have little joy We have little anticipation We have little excitement Because when's the last time you got saw God do something And you knew it was God You got a situation this week Tim need to deal with something and he says how you think I should deal with I said here's what I think you should do And I said before you go let's pray He said you know there's no way that's going to happen Yeah we're going to pray anyway He says you know God can do this I said yeah he can But I think he was saying it more for me Because You know we're going to do this because that's what we supposed to do But the God I don't know if you're going to do it I doubt you will do it and we'll deal with the alternative You know what he went he made a phone call and he comes down Sting and some great him with the church He said uh oh God did it I said he did it didn't he says Yeah I said well there's something else I need would you pray since your line is hot
You know what I've lived all weekend on that answered prayers Other issues arise that I've struggled with And thought through us at God You did do so you can do it I've landed before you You see Paul was so concerned because In their pride and in their arrogance The Corinthians Would not think to turn to God because they would equate Their thinking with God's thinking and oh how wrong They were Paul sounds a final word of warning and gives us a word of encouragement And therein we see the promise of verses 11 and 13
Once again Paul reminds us that these things were given to us as examples They're given to us as examples so that we don't make the same mistakes
We have experienced the fullness of God's revelation in Jesus Christ Even more than the Israelites of all who know the truth of God They had to Holy Spirit with them the Holy Spirit now and dwells us as believers We've experienced God's grace we have experienced His covenants His blessings And we must be careful That we don't become proud and arrogant And careless in our relationship with God and that's exactly what Paul is saying One writer says the warning amounts to this Do not be smug in your stand for Christ Keep alert lest you fall Keep alert Because we are all prone to pride Keep alert And then verse 13 Paul gives this word of promise This word of encouragement he says look guys every believer is tempted in these ways You're not facing something uniquely concocted just for you Everybody wrestles with these things as they seek to serve Christ Now God has set a hedge God has set the parameters he set the limits And that's as far as you can be tempted Remember Job's story God set the parameters Satan could go so far and no further That's the message that Paul gives to the Corinthians He says God has set the parameters and then he will not let you Be tempted So that you fail But he will make a way out Now for us We believe and we want to believe that a way out means we're plucked out Instantly delivered life is once again roses That's not what he says One commentator says the escape is that the Christians are able to endure the temptations The temptation does not leave them but it is conquer Another writes God will help he will provide a way out Not to avoid the temptation but to meet it successfully and to stand firm under it God will not allow you to be tested to the point that you are destroyed But he will give you grace and strength to see it through And the best example I can think of is the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus understanding what he was facing Said Father if it is at all possible made this cup pass from me But it wasn't possible And God delivered him through the cross not from the cross And thank God he did For in the cross is our redemption The promise of God is that you don't fail Because the enemy is bigger than you you fail because you choose to fail You choose to disobey You choose not to believe If we are disqualified from God's best It's not because God failed and God set up a course that's impossible It's because we like the Israelites of old Have taken for granted God's goodness and we've chosen to disobey And you know some folks had rather live in the wilderness. They've grown comfortable
was so concerned That that would happen In Corinth his concern was valid. It's valid today We who possess the word of God we who possess the covenants of God the salvation of God We have a tendency to become self-righteous and smug and proud
Yet we know that all these things are ours not because we're good not because we're better not because we're sitting This building or living this town, but rather because God has been gracious to us It's not our worthiness It's his worthiness and his goodness that has given us all those things And the only thing that disqualifies you from God's very best Is your refusal to walk with him and my theory is that you think God's very best is always the yellow brick road
I look back and I see that the best Was the time when I went to hell His clothes as I think I'll ever come
I haven't told you this because I had felt led today you but Most of you know the story of my last church and One elder and I who were very close and then I confronted him about an issue and Things became very bad. I generally he looked me up and he hugged my neck and he says let's forget the past seven years of praying That somehow God would do exceeding abundantly above above all that I could ask for
They were our family And I have mourned for seven years. He says I want you to know how much I love you How much I miss you is the taste of life in the promised lab
Where the gospel changes parts
Not because I'm good, but because he is
Let me close with a little story that illustrates how we can Loves our perspective The visitor came to a church probably a church much like that was Parked his car as he was getting out of the car or another car drove up fellow leaned out the wind and said hey, that's my parking place You took my place Visitor went on into the church. He's better than I would have been because I'd gone on He goes in the church finds a Sunday school class. He goes. There's an empty seat. He sits down the young lady approached him Mr. That's my seat. You took my place
he Was having thoughts about this church, but he decided he'd stick it out. So he went up the sanctuary found an empty pew and he slid into the pew Sure enough somebody tapped him on the shoulder and said mister. That's my pew You took my place. I said he's a lot better than I was or he'd get out and walked out but he stayed And in the course of the service the people began to plead that Jesus would come and dwell in their midst That they would experience his power and his grace and the visitors stood and miraculously wondrously These hideous scars appeared on his hands and on his sandal feet Someone noticed him and says what happened to you He said I took you place must learn from those who have gone before or we will repeat their mistakes Experience not the best that God has But the judgment of God Father, thank you that Paul cared enough about the church at Corinth and that you care enough about my soul to tell me the truth Oh, God help us when our hearts are prone to wander because they are And yet greater as he who dwells within us than he who's in the world And father help us to get away from all this cop out theology that it was our parents or it was our school or it was our neighborhood or our church or our pastor It was somebody else's fault. No, it isn't. It's me. It's me oh lord standing in the need of prayer So that by your grace and your power that you move in my heart that you would move in the hearts of these people That we would be the people you've called and redeemed us to be in this thing in this community For your glory, oh lord, we thank you that you took our place May we never root you out And that we pray in Jesus name