1 Corinthians

Relevant instruction for the modern church from an ancient church’s example. Come and learn what God intended for His church, the gospel in the believer’s life, and His calling upon us to walk in holiness.

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Sermon Preview for Sunday, March 30, 2025

With all of the differences, including our different gifts, how is it possible for there to be unity within the “coming together” of the brothers and sisters that make up the church? We have looked at this question many times and we come face to face with the answer to this question once again. So often our main focus in all our studies on the topic of Spiritual Gifts revolves around the gifts themselves and my receiving them. The victim in this consequently is our unity, especially because our unity as brothers and sisters is already under attack by the things that we naturally have to guard against such as: each of us insisting upon our own way, or the comparison game we play with others to make ourselves feel better. So often the topic of Spiritual Gifts can serve to accentuate these sinful attitudes within our hearts rather than what the gifts are meant to accomplish in the church. Praise God when He opens our eyes to these ugly realities within our own hearts. Let us repent of them and move forward in obedience putting Christ first in the church for His glory alone. We stand on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets and thus benefit from the gifts God gave to them, we benefit from the teaching and prophesying in the Word of God given to the church, we benefit from the evangelists, generous givers, encouragers, those able to distinguish between spirits, leaders, and shepherds to only name a few. However, we only benefit as God designed us to when each one understands he or she is not gifted the same as everyone else, AND more importantly, when each of us all drink from the same Spirit in everything we do (1 Corinthians 12:13).

Sermon Preview for Sunday, March 23, 2025

Paul says this regarding the expression of the local church God assembles in his wisdom and power. “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” Romans 12:4. The truth is “we are many” which is to say we are all different. We all come from different backgrounds and circumstances and yet we are all held together as one body only because we serve the same Lord, have the same mission from our Father, and receive the same power and help from the same Spirit of God. When we are completely committed to Christ and the Word of God above all other things, we are free to be who God has made us to be in the church for God’s glory knowing we will fit into the place in the body of Christ that we have been created for. We must be filled by and led by the Holy Spirit of God in all that we do, for it is only in Him that we find the unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ needed to serve along with them as one. While we look at the various gifts given, as they are listed out in the Scriptures, we see the individual design God has for each of us and yet we understand these things were given to me for the benefit of others, and when everyone in the church understands this and acts upon it then we see what Paul described in Ephesians 4 happening in our lives today, “we grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whole the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (verse 15-16)