tonight we turn in the bible to first corinthians we started a study last week in the book of first corinthians and tonight we come back to chapter one and if you are looking for a page number that's found on page 12 10 in your pew bible 12 10 i'm going to read it verse 4 through verse 17 the text will be verses 10 through 17 Let's give our attention tonight to the Word of the Lord. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you're not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And now our text. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by close people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may be able to say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. I had many of you comment to me last week about how moved you were about the way that Paul began in addressing this church. It really is a remarkable way that he began addressing this church, a church that we know is full of problems. We would expect severe chastisement, maybe. We would expect anger maybe, maybe even bolstered, you know, an approach of yelling at a church like this. In fact, Paul poses this question in chapter 4, what do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love in a spirit of gentleness? Well, clearly chapter 1 tells us that his purpose and desire was to come to them in a spirit of gentleness, because that's what we have. Last week, we were moved because he began by calling them saints, and he reminds them right at the beginning that they are his separate ones. They're his holy ones. They're sanctified in Christ Jesus. That's what he's done for them. And that's how he's treating them. But this was a church not showing much of that at all. And yet Paul begins by saying, I am thankful for the grace of God that has been given to you. You were enriched. The testimony, it's been confirmed in you. We know that. We've seen that. You don't lack anything. And guess what? You're going to be kept to the end, guiltless until the day. I mean, what a moving opening to this. I learned something afresh. You know, what would have been my natural response to people who are living like this. It would have been, I'm not sure you've ever had grace. Your actions make me wonder if you've ever understood it. And if you don't wake up, you're not going to make it. That's what I would do. Paul is speaking to them under grace. It's powerful. And it's a lesson when God's children err. Sometimes Paul will say, do I need to come with a rod. This is the way. As sons, this kind of response has a wooing effect. When a father shows that kind of love to a son, the son says, how could I continue to sin against a father who loves me like that? Wonderful for parenting. I had to get that off my chest. Now we're going into the first problem. We're looking tonight at a serious problem in the life of the church, and he tackles a big one. Paul is dealing with this problem right out of the gates. He jumps into, did you notice this here? He jumps into this first major controversy. It's a controversy that I believe he uses to expose what is the underlining controversy in the church. It is that the church had adopted the world's wisdom. The church had slipped into using worldly wisdom to do its ministry and everything else, all the problems that come in a life of a church could be traced back to adopting the principles of the world in the life of the church. And Paul uses something that happened in the life of the church to begin with here to start in the exposure of that. What do you think that might be? I want you to answer for me a question. What do you think would be the most dangerous division in the life of a church? Of the church? Well, I think most of us think about division, and immediately we think about fighters. We think about the people who are nothing but fighters and who pick fights and beat people over the head in Romans with all their convictions. And those are the real divisions, we think, that are immensely destructive to the life of the church. They surely are. But what would be one of the most destructive divisions? Here we're dealing with a church that was ripped apart in division. And the way to answer that tonight as we look at this, you might be surprised, as you consider this with me, just how divisive you've been and I've been. Tonight, Paul is showing us what one of the most dangerous divisions looks like in the life of the church of Jesus Christ and something that is one of the most destructive problems. And it is so alive today, one of the most important for us to consider. So how does he address this? I haven't given it yet. We'll look at it. He first gives a plea. You'll notice that in verse 10. And then he demonstrates and explains what the problem is, what it looks like, and then he finally reorients them to what the purpose is. The plea, the problem, and the purpose. Look at verse 10. I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. You hear that, and notice how affectionate it is. Brothers, I'm pleading with you. I'm calling upon you that literally you speak the same thing. You agree. I don't want any divisions among you. You get this over and over in the Bible, don't you? And at some point, you realize this is such a big issue with our Lord. I mean, it is over and over and over again in the epistles. Even in something like what we commonly designate the seven deadly sins. You ever thought what number seven is? One who sows discord among his brethren. Look at this. I want you all to speak the same thing. And you say, what in the world? That seems like an absolute impossibility. You've got to be kidding me. I mean, sometimes I look at these passages and you look at them and you feel, God has given us an absolute impossibility. Speak the same thing, no divisions whatsoever. And I believe what happens is that we begin to think and accept that we'll never really achieve that. That's an unrealistic expectation in the life of the church. I mean, how many opinions are there tonight here about how things should be done in the life of the church? How many opinions if I went around? And if you all force them on me, I'd go gray. Hey, that's already happened. Opinions. And I want you to imagine this situation here. I mean, is the Lord saying, I want absolutely no thinking differently among you? I'm not convinced he's talking about those kind of things. in Philippians they were disputing over practices they were disputing over things like that and Paul didn't come along and say you can never think differently never said that as a matter of fact he said that's a possibility you will think differently the key to unity in those kind of things is moving forward in your gospel fellowship and not dividing in those kind of things but having a servant's mind the mind of christ and when you have that mind if there is anything as you pursue that mind in which you do think differently god will reveal that to you as you strive for unity he'll bless you and he'll help you with that that's his commitment be a servant don't push your will work together we're not talking about little squabbles in first corinthians whatever he says i want you to be of the same mind there's no room on this one none no room for exception on this one you all speak the same thing and you say about what about what are you talking about let me help you by looking at corinthian life for a minute there was an immense cultural challenge happening there do you know what dominated the ancient city life of Corinth, Corinth was full of factions. You had all sorts of philosophers running around at the time, and he'll even say this in this chapter, the Greeks seek after what? Wisdom. And everyone had their own personal favorite philosopher. I mean, you still have loads of books from these people today, don't we? And Corinthian life had this problem. Students would gather around, and it was a culture of study, they would gather around their favorite philosopher and they would hang on their words. And whoever could use the most clever and even fallacious argumentation, even if it wasn't true, but you could woo them with trickery, they drew the crowds. You had guilds of fantastic orators. I mean, oratory. Cicero wrote, de oratory. He wrote a whole epistle on how to speak and we'll get into that in the next chapter these guys could speak and they could draw massive public followings officials and communities would all gather around this i mean this is like heading off to the football game you think that's crazy no it was big deal and all these factions developed in the ancient city life of corn allegiances you had partisanship. Partisanship dominated Corinth. Well, what happens in a culture like that? You're trained in it. You're trained in what appeals to you or your family upbringing and your likes, your convictions, and you view things only through that lens, through the lens of your favorite orator, your favorite sophist. Corinth was scary because it looks a lot like an american city doesn't it we're taught party spirit that's what dominates our culture it's ingrained in us i'm a republican i'm a democrat and we pull on the we turn on the news and it's the same old reruns it's the same old fights it's the same old arguments it just gets worse and worse and worse in character attack of the in the hero of that party is the hero and what do we do what i'm amazed with in our culture is now we've come to a point where truth doesn't matter it doesn't matter anymore what people actually believe it's all about being in the best interests of your party and when people splinter out you know it's all about proving your side now you don't realize tonight how ingrained that is in all of you You have no idea. You're taught that. You're trained in that. I'm about to show you. So trained, you have no idea how that's carried over into the church. No idea. Do you understand what was the most divisive behavior in the life of the early church and today? Paul looked at Corinth and says, this is what dominates you. What dominated this church? What happened? Paul receives in verse 11 correspondence from a certain person in the church, a household. And it was a letter to him, probably a letter, and it spelled out, Paul, this church is ripped apart in division. And when a pastor gets a letter like that, that is just distressing. It's the worst kind of letter to get. Fights and divisions and these sorts of things. And everyone ends up taking sides and people sit there mad and it just begins to collect. I mean, remember the tongue this morning, like a fire, it just begins to collect and you have nothing but discord and bitterness. And finally, the devil has so got in and destroyed and run amok with it that a separation is brewing. It will come. The body will break. Well, news is getting out from this godly family to Paul that something has happened. And now Paul says it in verse 11. For it has been reported to me by close people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. Okay, quarreling. What kind of quarreling? What I mean is each one of you says, I follow Paul or I follow Apollos or I follow Cephas or I follow Christ. There are schisms among you. now you should be of the same mind on this one what happened everyone in the church was aligning around their favorite pastors now i find it so interesting that paul's not ultimately talking about beliefs here he's not saying i hear that some of you are fighting about the second coming or some of you are fighting about sanctification in the christian life or some of you are fighting about this and that some doctrine it's not it it had turned into a church of cliques and it's really interesting how it went you're all aligning around men now this is important why well when you align around men what begins to happen doctrinal division is no longer about truth i want you to think about what a problem this is in the life of the church today uh division is no longer about truth division becomes vindicating your hero doesn't matter what the hero says doesn't matter what the hero teaches in other words if my favorite teacher said it because he wrote the most books that's truth and that other guy he's wrong this is the there's a spirit here some of you are saying says Paul. Ah, you're of me. Well, when you start going through these, think about this for a minute. Think about the different personalities that are here presented. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul had a dramatic conversion experience. Paul was the last apostle. He's the one we identify with. But I want to focus in here for a minute on Apollos. There was a group in the church that formed around apollos i follow apollos what do the scriptures tell us about apollos if you were to go back to acts in acts 18 verse 24 you don't have to turn there but if you want this is the verse 18 24 listen to this language now a jew named apollos a native of alexandria came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus. This was a preacher, competent in the Scriptures. He could wow in preaching the Scriptures. God had given this man a remarkable gift. It says he was eloquent, literally skilled in speech. When Apollos spoke, you were glued. You said, that's awesome. Now, a lot of pastors didn't have that kind of ability from God. God had given Apollos a real special gift. In fact, Paul didn't have that ability. You know, Paul struggled with speech. He was not a good orator. The great apostle Paul, you would have not found very interesting in terms of speaking ability. So everyone thought, I'm identifying with that. I mean, that's what you want to identify with, right? Paul goes on. Some of you are running around saying, I follow Cephas. That's Peter, isn't it? Why was Peter so attractive? Well, Peter was the one, if you remember, the apostles. Here was the one who was the strongest of the Jewish apostles. Remember what Paul did with him in Galatia. Peter had the problem of separating out to the Jews and avoiding the Gentiles. And Peter was a hero among the Jews. Here's my assessment of Peter. There were a number of Jews in this church and Peter made them feel most comfortable with their old Jewish traditions. I'm of Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Cephas. But then we come to the most shocking, deliberate, mind-blowing. Some of you are running around saying, I follow Christ. and you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's the one we want to follow, Paul. What do you mean? How could you say something like that? If I'm picking any one of these in this list, it's Christ, isn't it? That's the one to follow. He's the Savior. And you stand back and you say, what in the world was behind that? Well, that's not so foreign to us. All of you guys are following men, but we, we're following Jesus. We preach Jesus. You're following men. You hear the pride behind that? We're about Jesus and you're not. We're all about Jesus. That's what we do. One pastor says, they had just reduced the head of the church to simply another faction. Well, what had happened, the church is being ripped apart and everyone's picking their own pastor and what begins to happen, it's no longer really about Jesus, it's about self-justifying you. Jesus is a cover-up to self-justify you. When anyone is overly always saying that it's all about Jesus, it may be that it's all about them. Everything had turned into celebrity followers. and it's important to say none of those mentioned here wanted that none of those these were faithful pastors that they weren't they in this list here these were god's gifted preachers god set them apart some of more effective than others but but but the people were unable to separate out the partisan mentality that had developed in the life of corinth and they drug it right on into the church forgetting what this was all about. You've become tied to sentimental things. You've become tied to a personality of the man, and you've made existence in the church tied to mere men. And the most shocking thing about it is that same divisive spirit can be found in one who says, I'm all about Jesus. Wow. One of the most grievous statements is made in verse 14. I had to really ponder this. I thank God I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I baptize on my own. Yeah, I may have baptized the household of Stephanas. I thank God I'm not baptizing? Whoa, wait a minute. It was Jesus' command. Preach and baptize. What do you mean you thank God you're not baptizing? Do you know what happened? This partisan spirit so dominated the church, the apostles had to stop baptizing. Why? Because these groups would run around and say, well, we were baptized by Apollos. That's the true baptism. We were baptized by Paul. We were baptized by Cephas. Can you imagine if Jesus, during the course of his ministry, had baptized a whole bunch of people? Can you imagine in the first century what would have happened? We were the ones baptized by Jesus Himself. So instead of baptizing, they had to delegate baptism out to no-name officers in the church so that this wouldn't happen. Now, let's pause and think about what this looks like today. Apollos is an eloquent man. How much is the American church caught up in eloquence we'll put sports players up on the stage and think that's where the power is we're wowed by a man that can hold us oh this is a real problem in the reform world i'm not going to beat up on everyone else this is a real problem in the reform world i love conferences i've been to conferences all my life we host conferences and we it's not their fault we bring out the best reform pastors for the conferences and people fly out and they go to the conferences and we get the best speaking abilities at the conferences and what happens people get all spiritually charged up they get all revved up and then they go back to their little church that's full of problems and a pastor that has been there fighting in the trenches a long time and an entire disgruntled spirit fills that member because he thinks my pastor is the junior high pastor but those guys they're the professional pastors oh man that's alive and well how eloquent and mighty you can be and you know do all this you can get them then there's peter well i connect with his jewishness how real of a problem is that pastors who are most tied to the ones that fit our culture the best are the ones that we're going to go after what do i mean who fit our tradition the best we most who most identify because they belong to us our tradition our way of doing things they look like us they act like us they most fit us and because of that the preaching may not even matter they may be a secondary that may be a secondary issue the preaching to the cultural comfort that the man brings you. The pastor fits the bill. That's what we want. Those others don't fit the club. And the others never get into the club. You think that's a problem? How about this one? I'm of Christ. All those others out there are following mere men, but we preach Jesus. it's all about jesus when we open the bible that's what we're doing you know i fell into that i'll confess that in my early years in ministry i fell into that and you know what the model was right but i fell into thinking that that was some kind of way of saying, I'm the one really doing it right. And what began to happen? There was a spirit there. It was right. But there was a spirit there. I told you Corinthians could have been written today. Isn't it something that the sacrament of baptism's raised? How much sentimentality dominates baptism? That's the most sentimental thing that we do in the life of the church. The greatest pressure is for that to become an event, a sentimental pressure, my own special moment for mom and dad and the family and everyone to come, and it's all about everything else under the sun, how we're going to make it our special event that day. And you rob Christ of His glory. I remember an old lady told me once, she'd never leave a church that was so compromised on the truth because all of her children were baptized in that building i'm of that building you got to be kidding me the building wasn't that attractive i'm of that preacher and i'm of that preacher and we align around it and what begins to happen is we only hear that voice and we're not hearing the voice of christ i could put water on my child and it's all been about and it has never been at once about God's mighty declaration in the gospel and His power to give life, but about my special moment. I can say I'm of Jesus, I preach Jesus, while at the very moment I've forgotten Jesus. See how wicked the heart is? Now you understand why Paul's saying there's no room on this one, you guys. There's no room for division on this one. You don't get that kind of prerogative in the life of the church. You gotta be of one mind on this issue. No schism on this one. I heard the sad story recently of a church that was so ripped apart in factions and so many problems with the pastor that they got rid of the pastor and then half the church said, he leaves, we go. Imagine that. Well, he begins to give you the answer in verse 17. This whole thing is so sad, isn't it? Christ didn't send me or any other faithful preacher, you could put this here, to baptize. Now, what does that mean? What that means is we're not here to produce that. We didn't come to produce this kind of sentimental following of men. We didn't come. That's not what we're here primarily. We're not doing that. And I have to say, this is so hard because we're human. There's a lot of fine lines here I'm nervous about. I told you, I did a lot of funerals up north, and you know, I have a special bond with those widows and widowers, a real special bond. And it's natural. I buried their husbands, you know. But I also knew that there was a real danger for them to be tied to me. I did so many baptisms and professions, and over time, those emotional ties can stand in the way have a right relationship with your true pastor. Even with visitation, I'm all about visitation. So if anyone hears that I'm not about visitation, you heard me wrongly. Did we get that out? Okay, I love visitation. It's always bothered me, you know, that if the domine doesn't go see so-and-so, it's not a real visit. Even if the elders went. I had a pastor tell me the other day of a young man in ministry, and I've had this story told to me more than a few times, who is not a good preacher, not a strong preacher, but he was out being the chief visitor in the life of the congregation. And everyone loved him for that. Man, this guy was a good pastoral guy. But what he ended up doing was build the church around him. Because everyone loved him because he was out eating buns with the older people you know and at the end of the day he did nothing for the profit of their souls because the greatest thing you need is the preaching of the gospel and that can turn into campaigning it's sad that i used to hear in the ministry well so and so is is not a good preacher but he's a great visitor, and I said, that's a catastrophe. They said that about our president, by the way. He's a great campaigner, but you know. What does Paul say here? Ultimately, we came to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words, not to draw you to us, lest, and this is so powerful here, and this is what we're closing with tonight, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. Or this version, our version tonight says, lest the cross of Christ is emptied of its power. In other words, we're not purposely trying to use great techniques and wisdom to wow you. And pastors need so much encouragement. I think that's one of my weaknesses. I look for affirmation a lot. But I'll never forget John Bunyan reading. I was there, but reading about it. That John Bunyan was standing at the end of the church and somebody walked up and said, Pastor, great sermon today. And he says, yeah, the devil already told me. What we do in preaching is not using all the worldly wisdom and the best stories of the day, the best jokes to craft it so that you walk out saying, man, I really, really was engaged today. We preach Christ, which is the right thing to do. We preach the gospel in humility. We're convincing, reproving, rebuking with the goal that your faces would be turned to Him. That you would love Him. Not pride that I am of Jesus, but that we would focus your eyes and hearts on the person and work of Christ as a Savior of your sins. And that you would marvel and say, that is a wonderful, he is a wonderful pastor. If you or I do that and it becomes about me or it becomes about another man, we miss him. And so here's the main point. That schism, that divide, when it happens in a church, guess what's lost? The worst thing is lost in the life of a church. Here's something you never want to happen in the life of a church. The cross of Christ no longer has an effect in that place. What a tragedy. one of the worst things I saw was a big-name pastor in Seattle and a bunch of young people run down and were so tied to that man that one day it snapped. And to this day, they're still disillusioned. They are still disillusioned. The cross of Christ is God's answer. And when this kind of problem dominates a church, when this kind of worldliness fills a church so that people like Ezekiel, son of man, They're all coming up to hear you today. A sad thing happens. The cross of Christ is not having the effect in your lives and in your children's lives as it should. And when it's no longer about Him and all about us, you've ripped the church apart in schism. I plead with you, says Paul, be joined in the same mind and same judgment we should realize that faithful ministers and be thankful for them and encourage them boy do we need that faithful ministers are ambassadors of jesus christ alone and through men you hear him the wonderful message of christ through the man the holy spirit takes and bears witness and power so that the cross of Christ has an effect in your lives and you're saved by God's mighty power and His wisdom. And that's what we need to be about in the Escondido URC. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we confess that in our lives we've been very schismatic and that we've followed men and that this has dominated the church of Jesus Christ in this country. We ask that you would bring that to nothing and that the glorious head overall would be exalted again. Forgive us for that sin, this schism, and in this place may it always be in humility about the cross of Christ and never about the man who preaches it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.