One thing I know you can be thankful for
1 Corinthians 1: Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are [a]sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we come to the time of our message on this week coming into Thanksgiving season, I’m reminded of a little snippet of a story I read this week.
One morning R.C. Chapman, a devout Christian, was asked how he was feeling. "I'm burdened this morning!" was his reply. But his happy countenance contradicted his words. So, the questioner exclaimed in surprise, "Are you really burdened, Mr. Chapman?" "Yes, but it's a wonderful burden--it's an overabundance of blessings for which I cannot find enough time or words to express my gratitude!" Seeing the puzzled look on the face of his friend, Chapman added with a smile, "I am referring to Psalm 68:19, which fully describes my condition. In that verse the Father in heaven reminds us that He 'daily loads us with benefits.'"
Source Unknown.
The King James version of Psalm 68:19 says,
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.
Repeat that
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits
Isn’t that great? The picture that it paints of God is that He works daily to figure out what things will benefit us, what will bless us, and then He works to load us up with it, daily.
What that says to us is that God is daily about the business of loading us down with blessings. That is so much the opposite of what many of us may think of God. Sometimes we think that God is in heaven thinking of new ways to test us, try us, or punish us for our evil. But this verse says quite the contrary. He is loading us up with benefits.
Well, I had my doubts about that verse. I thought, “Well that’s old King James English. Let’s see what the Hebrew says.” It says, “Blessed be the Lord, day by day, who loads us.”
If you are not reading the King James Version, but rather for example the NIV, it says.
19 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.
Which again tells us that God is taking a daily interest in the load that we have to bear.
What an appropriate verse to start today with. Let’s start today, not by talking about all our burdens, but rather about our blessings.
So, today I wanted to remind you of one thing to be thankful for.
You might say, “I don’t know what benefits God is loading on me.” As we enter this week, we may have varying circumstances, some pleasant, some unpleasant. We may look on the holidays with joy or anticipation, or we may look on them with dread. We may be looking at a house full of people on Thanksgiving, which can be a blessing, or a curse, or we may be looking at an empty house, which can be its own blessing or curse. But, regardless of our circumstances, if we are in Christ, there is one Spiritual blessing I want you to be thankful for today. And that is what we are going to briefly look at this morning in the 1st epistle to the Corinthians.
No matter what is happening, I can be thankful for my position in Christ. My position in Christ. And we are looking at 1 Corinthians 1:1-3. My position in Christ; I am chosen, I am a saint, I have been given grace and peace.
My position in Christ; I am chosen, I am a saint, I have been given grace and peace.
Before we jump in, let me remind you why we are in the 1st epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. We are here because we are studying the New Testament chronologically and we have come to the place where Paul has written this letter back to the church he started in Corinth. Now, if you were with us last week, you know that I entitled this first letter, “Jesus is your Lord, now act like it.” And I entitled it that because this letter that Paul writes to them calls them out on all kinds of sins and problems in their church. As I said last week; this church was a mess. They had factions in the church, marriage problems, sexual immorality, false teaching, worship chaos, lawsuits, and insubordination.
And we’re not going to open that can of worms today. But there’s some good news for us in how Paul starts this letter. He starts the letter to this despicable church, not with a scathing diatribe for their immorality and stupidity. He starts the letter by saying to them; Praise God, you are chosen, you are saints, and you have been given grace and peace.
Isn’t that something? It’s like those home remodel shows, where the remodelers show up to a house they are going to work on, and it’s a total mess. There’s mold, and evidence of rodents. The plumbing and electrical and all wrong. It’s ugly. But inevitably the remodelers will walk up and say something like, “It’s got good bones.”
That’s how Paul starts this letter to Corinth. He walks up to the church and the Christian, with all their problems, and says, “Well, it’s got good bones.” What that means is that even though the external things, the things you can see about this church are a disaster, the internal life, the Spiritual life is solid. And the beautiful message we can take from that is, no matter how far we wander, no matter how much we may wallow in the mire, no matter how long a bad season we go through; if we are truly Christians, we are still chosen, we are still saints, and we are still given grace and peace.
So, let’s look at our position in Christ that we can be thankful for this season.
The first thing that describes my position in Christ is the word, “chosen.”
I. I am chosen. It’s God’s pick, and He picked me
Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
What this verse tells us is that Paul was chosen by God. Two things tell us that he is chosen. First it says that he was “called” an apostle of Jesus Christ. The word here means exactly what we think it means. Paul was called by God. God reached out to Paul. God sent the invitation. Paul became a believer and an apostle because God chose him. It was God’s will that Paul come to salvation, and that Paul become an apostle. And if it were not enough for you to understand that God initiated the calling of Paul, Paul writes, “called an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God.” God picked Paul. You say, “yeah, but Paul is Paul, God wouldn’t pick me.” Ah, but He did.
Colossians 3:12 “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Repeatedly Christians are called the elect.1 Peter 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,
He knew us ahead of time…Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son,
Now, you may say, “I don’t like the idea that God chose people. Because, in my reasoning, that means He didn’t choose others.”
Some people struggle with the doctrine of election. It makes them uneasy, because then they begin thinking thoughts about God that they can’t reconcile in their minds. They think, if God chose me, does that mean that I had no say in the matter? If God chose me, does it mean that He didn’t choose others? And does that imply that He arbitrarily picked who would be saved or condemned?
Now, it’s not the purpose of my sermon today to try and answer all those questions. The truth is, nobody can fully answer those questions, because nobody knows the mind of God.
Romans 11:34 “For who has known themind of theLord? Orwho has become His counselor?”
But I approach it like this. When I started helping my children with their math homework, I didn’t crack open a Differential Geometry, or a Computational Finance book to get them going. We started with one plus one and two plus two. And, do you know that most people will never get into higher mathematics. They don’t need to. Their life will function quite nicely without it. And frankly, my friends, the doctrine of election is higher mathematics among Christian doctrines. You don’t have to understand it to be saved, or to live life as a Christian. To tell you the truth, most days I am content to understand how to add and subtract.
But even though I don’t fully understand what it means that I was chosen, I am happy about election. Do you know why? Because, if my salvation depended on my merit, or my being good enough, or staying good enough for God to notice, I’d be in trouble.
I am thankful for my position. Let’s look, not only at the fact that God chose Paul. But God chose Paul.
Let’s put it this way. Have you ever felt intimidated in a group of people? You go to some meeting that you are called to, and you look around at all the others who are called, and you think, “I’m in the wrong room.”
And then there are times you go to a meeting, and you look at the riffraff around you, and think, “Ah yes, these are my people.”
A. God picked Paul.
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.”
It is such a blessing, it is such a reason to be thankful that God picked Paul. Who was Paul? Paul, before he was Christ’s apostle was a persecutor of the church. He was the most feared enemy of the church in the first century.
1 Corinthians 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Galatians 1:13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
Get this, God chose the churches greatest enemy, to become the greatest preacher of the gospel.
He not only took Paul into the fold of salvation. He was made one of the apostles; God’s personal 1st century witnesses to the resurrection of Christ.
God picked Paul. And not only did He pick Paul, He picked Sosthenes.
B. He picked Sosthenes.
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,”
Paul is saying that this letter is not only from him, but also from Sosthenes. Who is Sosthenes? Well, we know that when Paul wrote his letters, he often used an amanuensis. That’s just a first century term for a secretary who took dictation of a letter or manuscript. Paul is saying that this letter is not only from him, it is also from Sosthenes. So Sosthenes must have also been a believer, and possibly a leader that the church in Corinth would recognize. But who is he?
In fact, there was a Sosthenes in Corinth that they might know. You remember that some of the Jews of Corinth brought charges against Paul in the court of Gallio, but Gallio threw them out of court because the nature of their complaint was religious, not criminal. But then something interesting happens outside the courthouse.
Acts 18:17 Then [a]all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. But Gallio took no notice of these things.
When Paul first came to Corinth, the ruler of the synagogue was a man named Crispus. Crispus believed on the Lord with all his household (Acts 18:8), and was saved. So, he was fired from – or quit – his job as ruler of the synagogue!
His replacement was a man named Sosthenes. And after the Jews had their case thrown out of court, somebody beat Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue. Now the textual evidence is unclear as to whether it was the Roman officials who beat him for wasting the courts time, or possibly the Jews beat him for botching the case against Paul.
But get this, most would agree that the man who was beaten in Gallio’s court in Corinth and Paul’s secretary and coauthor were the same man. The poor Jews of Corinth couldn’t keep a ruler of the synagogue, they kept getting converted. But just think of it. This letter is written to Christians from Paul, a former persecutor of Christians, and Sosthenes, a former persecutor of Paul.
The letter is from them both. And God chose them both, despite where they came from. I am so thankful for my position in Christ. I am chosen, and I was not chosen because I was among the best and brightest. That’s a lot of pressure. I was chosen along with Paul and Sosthenes, the most sinful of individuals in their day.
No matter where you come from, you are welcome. And remember that if you are in the faith, in Christ, you are chosen.
What else does my position in Christ tell me? I am chosen, and I am a saint.
II. I am a saint. I am a saint among saints.
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are [a]sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours:
The previous verse tells us who the letter is from. This tells us who it is to. “To the church of God which is at Corinth, called saints.
Did you know that if you are a Christian, you are a saint? Now, we often take our cues from our society when we define saint. Saint, to our society either means some super goody two shoes person, who always makes the right choice, always thinks the best of people, “don’t swear, don’t drink, don’t chew, don’t go with girls that do.” Or, we think of a saint as an individual whom the Catholic church has officially canonized as a saint. The Catholic church has designated about 11,000 individuals through history to be saints. And it is an arduous process to get that title. The person has to have been determined to live a life of service to God, to have had heroic virtue, and you have to throw in a couple of miracles.
Under those qualifications I don’t think I would make it to water boy.
But look at who Paul calls saints.
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are [a]sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours:
Who are “called saints? There are two qualifications; they are a part of the church of God at Corinth, and they are sanctified in Christ Jesus.
A. The Church of God at Corinth
They are called the church. We have come to regard the word church as some holy assembly. But all the word “church” means an assembly of people. So, the “saints” in Corinth are those who assemble, or get together, or meet at Corinth. But the assembly of people that he is writing to is the one that assembles in Corinth, identified as God’s people.
So, you mean that the first qualification for being called a saint in Corinth is if you gathered with a group of people who identified as God’s people? Yes. That’s it.
So, what’s the second qualification? They were sanctified in Christ Jesus. They were sanctified. “set apart.” To be sanctified simply means that you are set apart by God for His purposes. So, when I think of that idea of being set apart, I think about how people used to have a good set of dishes and a set of everyday dishes. Now, we have every day paper plates, and we buy the heavy duty Chinette when we are having company. But there used to be the idea of the “good dishes.” And you only got out the “good dishes” for special occasions, for special guests.
So, the Christian assembly in Corinth was “set apart.” But let me ask you this, “how were those dishes set apart?” Did those dishes one day say, “man, am I pretty!” “My rose pattern is exquisite.” “I ought to be reserved for special occasions.” Did someone say to those dishes, “you are beautiful.” And so the dishes removed themselves from the circulation of everyday dishes to be reserved for special guests. No. What’s my point. The dishes didn’t make themselves special, and they did nothing to set themselves apart.
And Christians are set apart, not by themselves, but by God, in Jesus Christ.
It is our position in Christ. We are saints because we identify with the church and we are sanctified in Jesus Christ.
You say, “If you are calling me a saint you don’t know me very well.” And that’s the point, you don’t achieve being a saint. You are a saint in Jesus Christ.
This is important that Paul says this at the outset of the letter.
Notice the words to be are inserted by translators. The Corinthians were called saints, not called to be saints.
Hold on. Paul says of this crowd at the church in Corinth, that they are saints. Didn’t we begin the study of this book describing how sinful and messed up the people in this church were?
We might also think saying called saints is mere flattery, Paul’s way of preparing them for coming rebuke. It isn’t. The Corinthian Christians are called saints, but this was not based on the outward performance of the Corinthians. It was founded on a promise of God, when He said for I have many people in this city (Acts 18:10).
Thankful for your position in Christ
Romans 1:7 To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
Colossians 1:2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours:
Both their Lord and ours: In his first few words, Paul lays the foundation for a fundamental issue he will address in this letter: Christian unity, based on the common Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Corinthian Christians are called… saints, but this isn’t exclusive to them. They are saints together with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus is both their Lord and our Lord, and because they share a common Lord, they share an essential unity.
III. I have been given grace and peace. The extra blessings of grace and peace
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace to you and peace: The greeting including grace and peace is typical of Paul’s letters, and draws from both Greek and Jewish customs. Paul uses this exact phrase five other times in the New Testament.
“Grace is always first, peace always second. This is due to the fact that grace is the source of peace. Without grace there is and can be no peace, but when grace is ours, peace must of necessity follow.” (Lenski)
Grace verses
Romans 3:24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
Peace verses
Grace and peace at salvation
Grace and peace during Christian life
We are thankful for the grace that saved us, and the resulting peace with God and peace that passes understanding.
I can be thankful today for grace and peace because they are mine regardless of my circumstances. God’s grace was extended to me at my salvation. And it is unconditional. He didn’t offer it to me because of anything I did. And I don’t lose it because of anything that I do.
And out of that kind of grace comes peace. I have peace with God because He covered my sin in Jesus Christ. He no longer counts it against me. And I now live in a constant state of peace with God because I am forgiven. That is our present blessing.
We are thankful for spiritual blessings. Our calling, our position, our present blessing.
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