1 Corinthians 1:1-9
1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
2 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, both their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This opening to 1 Corinthians is full of stunning praise. Paul mentions that the believers in Corinth were being sanctified and made holy in Christ Jesus which is why Paul calls them saints. They, like you, are calling on the name of their Lord Jesus Christ and confessing that Jesus is their Savior. After mentioning that, Paul begins to give thanks for these Christians. Listen to all the things Paul thanks God for. He thanks God that the Corinthian Christians have God’s grace given through Christ. He says that they are not lacking in any spiritual gift. Paul is thankful that God will sustain them in their fellowship with all believers until the day Christ returns. Again, it’s an amazing greeting.
Listening to the opening of this letter, you might think that Corinth was the perfect congregation who had it all together. This introduction makes it sound like they figured Christianity out and had no problems. Maybe we should model what we do here at Christ the King by what was going on in Corinth. But then, in the verses that follow, we see that not everything in the church at Corinth was so great.
There were divisions in the church (1 Cor. 1:10-11). Some of the Christians in the congregation were saying, “I follow Paul,” some said, “I follow Apollos,” some, “I follow Peter,” and some piously bragged, “I follow Christ,” figuring no one could beat that.
As you keep reading this letter, you find out about all sorts of problems in the church of Corinth. You learn that a man was boasting about fornicating with his father’s wife (1 Cor. 5:1). The members of the church were suing each other in court (1 Cor. 6:1-8). Paul has to address the fact that marriages and families breaking apart because of immorality among these believers (1 Cor. 7). And it didn’t stop there. The congregation was having trouble at Communion. People were trying to get to the front of the line so that others weren’t able to receive the Sacrament, and some were even getting drunk in the church at the altar (1 Cor. 11:21).
Even their abundant spiritual gifts were becoming a problem because these gifts were making their worship services chaotic each week (1 Cor. 14:26-33). Whenever anyone had a thought enter their head during the service, they would stand up and interrupt the liturgy or the sermon to say it, and a lot of the time what was being said was in a foreign language that most didn’t understand. And maybe most troubling, some of the members there didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, and some didn’t even believe that Jesus rose on Easter (1 Cor. 15)!
Considering all these things, we might judge that this wasn’t even a Christian congregation. With everything that was wrong in the Corinthian church, you’d think Paul would simply start his letter by laying into them, but he doesn’t. Instead, Paul says, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.” And the fact that Paul starts this way should make us consider how we look at things within the church.
There are two ways we can look at things. With our physical eyes, we can look around, see how things are outwardly, gauge, and evaluate. And we should do this with our eyes. With our eyes, we can see a lot of good things. We can see the beauty of the fall colors and acknowledge the creativity of God. We can see all the beets on the road and know that the harvest is coming in much better than last year. With our eyes, we can see and know there are a lot of bad and evil things. We can see the riots and looting and division that is going on in our nation. We can see how politicians can’t agree on how to rule and recognize that all of this is bad for our country.
But our physical eyes have limitations. Our physical eyes cannot see how things are spiritually. You cannot look an individual or a congregation and see how they are doing spiritually. A church could have hundreds or even thousands of people attending each week with seven pastors and dozens of staff while running all sorts of programs and have seemingly unlimited funding, but none of that means the church is doing well spiritually. And maybe most importantly, you cannot even look at yourself and see how things are spiritually. You could have the entire Bible memorized, be reading the Scriptures every day, going to church every week, and giving 30% of your income to the church and still be on the road straight to hell if you don’t have faith in Christ. Because we cannot gauge how things are spiritually with our physical eyes, God has given us spiritual eyes.
Spiritual eyes understand the world, not through what we see, but through what we hear. Spiritual eyes see things as Jesus sees them. And it is when we stop looking at everything in a merely physical way and learn to look at everything through the cross of Christ, then we will be upheld and sustained. That is why later in this chapter Paul says, “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:22). In fact, when we consider everything in light of Jesus’ cross instead of what we can see with our physical eyes, we are comforted. Because of Christ’s cross, we have the comfort that God will sustain us guiltless, completely guiltless, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of the cross, when God looks at us, He sees us differently. It is easy to look at ourselves and see that we do not keep the two great commandments that Jesus talks about in our Gospel lesson (Mt. 22:34-46). We do not love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength nor our neighbor as ourselves. Because we can see that, it makes us wonder what God, who is everywhere and knows and everything, sees. But when you have faith that Christ has died and risen again for you, God looks at you through the lens of the cross. When Jesus died on the cross for you, He took all of your guilt, all of your sin, all of your shame, all of your sorrow. Because of the cross, God does not see you, believer, in your sin. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). Christian, you are clothed with Christ, as Galatians 3:27 says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” This is foundational to our faith and can sustain us in our weakest moments.
Also, when we believe and trust that God sees us through the cross of Jesus, we see God differently. In this world full of evil and trouble, we are tempted to think that God is angry and frustrated and distant from us. If your impression of God is based on what you see in the news, you will probably think that God is just waiting for the right time to smite you. But that is not where we should look to see what God thinks of us. Remember at the Last Supper, Phillip asks Jesus to show him and all the disciples the Father. And Jesus says, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:8-9). If you want to know what God thinks of you look to Jesus and to His chief work of the cross. Because of the cross, we see that God has come to rescue and save us. We see that God has died and shed His blood for us. We see that God loves us. We see that nothing can separate us from His love. The crucifixion stands as the irrefutable proof of God’s love for you.
And Scripture also opens our spiritual eyes to see that this Good News, this Gospel, the cross of Jesus, isn’t just for us, but it is for all the other sinners in the world as well. The Gospel changes how we see our neighbor because Jesus was on the cross for them too. Jesus died for the sins of the world. God desires that all sinners repent and believe and be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Everyone you meet is loved and precious because everyone you meet is someone for whom Christ has died and shed His blood.
Dear saints, when it comes to your spiritual life, it is dangerous to trust what you see with your eyes. Satan loves to throw all sorts of things in front of you that will make you doubt God’s love for you. The devil will try to point you to every flaw and failure so that you do not trust what God promises.
Dear saints don’t fall for the trap. Trust what you hear in God’s Word and view everything through God’s promises. If God promises it, believe it without fail. Faith always relies on God’s promise, and without His promise there can be no faith. No matter what happens, this fact remains. God loves you, and He has sent Jesus to die and rise again for you. what Jesus has done, God will sustain you blameless until the coming of your Lord. This is not a presumption, dream, or speculation. It is God’s sure and certain promise to you. So be confident, be upheld, be sustained in what Christ has done for you. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Pastorsamwise 