THE CHURCH UNCENSORED

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

 “Introduction to 1 Corinthians”

Scripture: Acts 18:1-18

Teacher: Rev. Dustin A. Largent

 

One of the things that I always thought, I like to go from Old Testament to New Testament and New Testament back and kind of do the whole Bible because we believe the whole Bible is about Jesus. And so, we're in 1 Corinthians this time because we did the Ten Commandments before. That was an Exodus.

And one of the things as I got into 1 Corinthians, I was looking at it saying, people oftentimes will tell me, they use this as an argument for me for theological points. They'll say, well, that's the way the early church did it. I'll go, what do you mean the early church? Well, the New Testament church, this is the New Testament church. The New Testament church did it this way and so we need to do it that way.

And every time I hear that, I think to myself, what? The New Testament church, sure the New Testament church, but which New Testament church? The church at Galatia? The church at Philippi? The church at Thessalonica? What New Testament church are you talking about? The church at Corinth? We would have to be on crack cocaine to decide that we want to be like the church in Corinth. That church is a dumpster fire. We look at this church that we're going to look at here in just a little bit. This church is a train wreck. It's a dumpster fire.

It's a nightmare. There is not any intention for God wanting us to be like the early church of 1 Corinthians. Not at all. He goes and he basically is just one thing after another at this church saying, you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong, you're doing this wrong. What is wrong with you? And you know who planted the church that Paul's talking to?

This is the scary part. Paul did. Paul planted the church and then he's writing a letter to the church about three years later going what happened to this church that I just planted?

What in the world has happened to them? And so, we don't necessarily want to be like the early church in all the things that we do. There are some things about the early church that we like. We like vintage theology because when we look at scripture, we want things that are the oldest documents, but we don't necessarily want to do everything the way the early church is in the Bible in the New Testament did it. And 1 Corinthians is a perfect example of don't repeat. If you were doing some of the things that we're going to talk about in 1 Corinthians, these are things that would get you kicked out of our church, which is hard to happen.

Right? There's some really tough things here in this book. And so, what I want to do though is I want to kind of go through and look at this church and look at how it started. We're not going to be in 1 Corinthians much. We're going to see how did the church get planted? Now I know a little bit about planting churches because I planted churches before. And when I talk about church planting, I'm talking about going to a place or into a neighborhood or someplace. And there's not a church there. If there is a church, there needs to be another church. And you go there and you aren't taking people from other places that are saved.

You're not bringing people from here. You're leading people to Christ. And as those people accumulate, that becomes a new church.

And that's what Paul does in Corinth. I want to throw a map up and just show you where Corinth is. So you can see this is like an, there's like an Isthmus that comes. Corinth, okay, so you see the Gulf of Corinth. That's a big body of water. And then you'll see on the other side, there's the Gulf, the Theronic Gulf. And then there's about a five and a half to six mile Isthmus.

It's a place of land that's there. Now if you wanted to travel, let's say you got boats in the Gulf of Corinth. If you have a bunch of supplies, you've got a bunch of goods and things that you need to get to the other side, it would be about 300 miles of treacherous going out in the sea. I mean, there was a saying of people that would take that route all the way around this island. To make sure you make your will before you do it because it was treacherous. And so what they did in Corinth, this is a port city. And what they would do is they made this thing, you see it says Diacos.

Diacos. What they did is they made this little kind of a rail system. It's about five and a half feet to six feet wide. And it's like a track. And they would take these huge ships, and they would put them on these little trailers. Like the whole ship would go on a trailer. And then they would push or pull with animals this all the way across land to get to the other side.

Okay. But this was a port city. This was a port city. You guys ever live in a port city?

You ever live in a port city? Seattle's a port city. LA's a port city. Portland is a port city. Los Angeles is a port city. Do you see any kind of common denominators in these port cities? New York is a port city. What happens is you get people from all over the world end up being in a port city. So, you get people with all kinds of beliefs and all kinds of religions and all kinds of colors. They're all in this one city.

Okay. And they all believe all kinds of different things in a port city. So, what do they do in port cities? Port cities almost always adopt this idea that everybody's okay and everybody's right.

And everybody is tolerant of everybody else. So, if you believe this, that's okay. If we believe this, that's okay. We all believe contradictory things that are completely...

But it doesn't matter. We live in a port city and we have to get along together. And so there is an amazing amount of tolerance in port cities. Even though maybe not everybody agrees with everybody else, there is a tolerance. There's a willingness to allow people to do all kinds of things that maybe you don't even think are right. But you know what? We have to be tolerant.

We have to accept it. So, you get places like Portland and you get places like Seattle and you get places like LA where everything is about tolerance. The state of California, everything is about tolerance.

Everything is acceptable because we have to get along. That's Corinth. Corinth, if I was to give you an example of Corinth, take Seattle and Portland and Las Vegas and throw them together. And that's Corinth. When people were immoral in other places around, people were loose in their living, they would say that a person had been Corinthianized.

Right? That's the term they would use. Like the term Corinth was used to say immoral. A person is immoral.

So this is crazy. It's a port city. And so Paul is going through how he starts this church in this port city of Corinth in the book of Acts chapter 17 and 18. And so if you've got a Bible, go ahead and pull it open.

Turn to Acts chapter 18 and we're going to look a little bit just at what's happening here. This is the start of a missionary journey. Paul takes three missionary journeys. He gets saved on the Damascus Road and then he goes off and he starts leading people to Jesus, planting churches. On his second missionary journey, he is going to plant.

Go to the next map for me real quick, if you don't mind. He's going to plant. So this is his second missionary journey. And so you can see he goes all the way up to Antioch. He slides all the way around.

He goes up. He's up by Troas, Neopolis, Philippi. That's the Philippians, the book of Philippians.

He goes down Thessalonica, that's the book of Thessalonians. So he was there. He's planting churches in those places. He's telling people about Jesus.

He's talking specifically to Jews in particular, trying to explain to them that the Messiah that they've been waiting for is Jesus. Well then after he's done at Berea, he goes down to Athens. And you can see the island where Corinth is way down here.

And in the corner it says Sparta Corinth right there. That island going around that is the treacherous trip that people would take if they didn't go through that little isthmus. After he's at Athens, he heads about 50 miles west. And he shows up in a little place called Corinth. And so, when you look at Acts chapter 8 verse 1, here's what it says. It says, after this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.

Because Claudius has commanded all the Jews to leave Rome and he went to see them. So, let's throw the other map up, the next map up. So, there's Corinth over there. This couple that's known as Aquila and Priscilla. Aquila is from way over here.

See where it says Pontus? That's where he's originally from. Then he moves to Italy and then something happens when he's in Rome. In Rome, when he's there, there's this kind of a showdown that happens where all the Christians are all the Christians and Jews because the leadership doesn't really know the difference between Jews and Christians. They're all the same to the Romans. They kick them all out of Rome. They just give them the boot, and they say you can't go there. So, they end up having to leave and when they leave, they go to Corinth.

That's what's going on here. Now, Claudius, this Claudius guy will go back to Christmas. Remember Julius Caesar? How many remember Julius Caesar? Remember him? And then he had a great-grand-nephew who was Caesar Augustus. Claudius is the great-grand-nephew of Caesar Augustus.

So, you can see kind of how the relationship is going. So why did they boot them out of Rome? That seems kind of uncalled for, doesn't it? Why are you kicking all the Jews out?

I mean, that's not very tolerant. Well, there's a historian named Suetonius and he's writing about Claudius and he says this. He says, since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Crestus, he expelled them from Rome. Now, it says Crestus, but most scholars believe that when it says Crestus, it means Christ.

That that's how they were spelling Christ. So, in a nutshell, what's happening is that there are disputes between the Jews and the Christians are starting to fight over whether Jesus is the Messiah or not. They're arguing in Rome and it's causing unrest there. And so Claudius' solution is just to kick them all out of Rome and says, well, if you're going to have trouble, then you can just go to have your trouble somewhere else. You can't be in Rome anymore. And so, he kicks all the Jews and all the Christians out of Rome. And so Aquila and Priscilla from Pontus, they ended up moving to live in Rome until Claudius kicks all the Jews out of Rome and that includes all the Christians. So, it goes on, it says, and he went to see them because he was the same trade and he stayed with them and worked with them for they were temp makers by trade. So, we don't know exactly what the relationship of Aquila and Tequila are to Quilla.

That's a city in Seattle. Aquila and Priscilla, we don't know exactly what their relationship with is, but with God is, but we're pretty sure they probably were Christians already because otherwise I think Paul would have given the account of how he led them to Christ. So they're Christians, they're in this town, Paul shows up, and when Paul shows up, he finds some people, he starts doing his job, right? Being a pastor is not his job. His job is he makes tents. So, he's a tent maker. And so, he finds some people that are Christians that just happen to have the same job he has.

They make tents also. He tells them, hey, I'm sharing the gospel. I'm here to tell people about Jesus. I'm an apostle because I met God on the Damascus Road and they said, why don't you live with us? You can live with us, and we'll be in this together.

And so that's what happens. It says, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked for they were tent makers by trade. Verse four, and he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks. So, during the week, he's making tents. He's with his guys. He's making tents during the week. When Saturday comes, which is the Sabbath, he goes into the synagogue. And the synagogue, it's all Jews, but he goes in there and because he has been a prominent Jew in the past, they give him the ability to talk and to speak and he's arguing and he's trying to explain to all these Jews that their Messiah has already come and been crucified and has risen that his name is Jesus. And they're not liking what he's saying.

They're struggling with that. But he goes back every single Saturday and he's preaching and telling them. And he's trying to persuade both Jews and people that aren't Jewish. He's trying to persuade all of them. There are some people probably coming that aren't Jewish, but they're listening to Paul and they're thinking, this guy's a pretty interesting cat and they're trying to figure out what's going on. So let's start with the next map up.

In Acts 17, it tells us that before Paul went to Athens and then Corinth, that Paul had planted some churches. It's just the right map. I might have gave you the wrong map. Well, if we go back up, remember how they'd come down from Thessalonica and some places up north. He had planted some churches up there. Paul had been there. He'd got some people saved there.

He'd left the church there. But he also had some buddies that were kind of co-pastors with them up there. One was a guy by the name of Silas, and another was a guy by the name of Timothy. And he ended up leaving those guys when he went down to Athens and then popped over to Corinth. And so he's preaching in Corinth, but those guys are still there. Well, eventually those guys have had, they think they're done up there. They don't need to be up in these places where they planted before, and they come down to where Paul is.

And that's where we pick up. It says when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, or Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word testifying to the Jews that Christ was Jesus. So when they show up, what's Paul doing? He is preoccupied with this trying to tell people that Jesus is the Messiah.

Over and over and over. He's preoccupied with this. And he's testifying about Jesus. And so it goes on, it says, and when they opposed and reviled him, who?

Who are they opposing and reviling? Paul. Why? Because he's interjecting about stuff that he don't agree with. They think that he's teaching bad theology in the church, that Jesus is the Messiah, and so they're getting abusive and they're getting angry and they're threatening him and they're doing stuff.

And it says that he shook out his garment and said to them, you are blood beyond your own heads. I am innocent. Think about that for a second. You have a pastor come into your church.

Okay? The pastor comes into your church and he's there for a while. And while he's there, he starts preaching something and you don't agree with him at all. And finally, he just has had enough, and he goes up by the door and he shakes out his coat and he says, May all of your blood be on you. I'm done with y'all. I've had enough of this. You guys can just go to hell.

I'm done. That's what Paul does. And what does Paul do? Where does he go? Where's he going to go? I would think he'd leave Corinth, right? Right? He's done with Corinth?

No, no, no, no, no, no. It says, Your blood be on your own heads. I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. Well, where are the Gentiles at? And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justice, a worshiper of God. Well, where's his house at? His house was next door to the synagogue.

This is awesome. So, he picks up, he says, Listen, forget you Jews. I've had enough of you. I'm going to go to where the Gentiles are. He leaves, goes out the front door. He goes next door to a guy that's not a Jew that is named... What is it?

What did it say here? Yeah, yeah, he goes to his house. This guy becomes a Christian. He becomes a Christian. And all of a sudden, now Gentiles want to become Christians. And so it looks like they start a church right next door to the synagogue. And Paul is like, This is great. I'm loving this.

Everything is going just as planned. And so, it says, Christmas, the ruler of the synagogue, verse eight, believed in the Lord. Now they just left the synagogue. He just left the synagogue and said, You guys are all, all your blood is on your own head. He leaves the synagogue, goes next door. The next thing we read is that the leader of the synagogue, for some reason, decides, I think we were wrong about this guy. I think Jesus, this was, he goes next door over to Titius house. And when he gets over there, he gives his life to Jesus. And now there's no synagogue leader because he's left to go over and be in the church. All right, let's keep going.

This is fun. It says, and many of the Corinthians heard Paul believe it. Oh, it's not just, it's not just Christmas, but his entire household gets saved. The whole house gets saved.

Everybody in his house, kids, right? They're all saved. And so, and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.

So, he's not making any kind of headway in the synagogue, goes next door. All of a sudden people are getting saved. People are getting baptized. The church is growing.

And he's like, wow, this is incredible. We're starting to see a church in Corinth. So, watch this. And it says, and the Lord said to Paul, one night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you. Because that's what it looked like in the synagogue. They were attacking to harm him. He didn't leave the whole country.

He just went next door. And he says, for I have many in the city who are my children. people. So, I got a lot of people that are mine. There's a lot of people that are going to be mine that you're going to preach to that are going to, we're going to have a big church here. And it says he stayed there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. And so one person at a time, people are getting saved, people are getting baptized, they're meeting together, and he forms this little church. That little church is the church of Corinth. The letters of 1 Corinthians and the letter of 2 Corinthians are written to this little church. And Paul stays there after this little church starts for the whole time he's there.

It's about 18 months, one month or one year and six months is about how much, and it grows and the Jews aren't happy about it. The Jews are saying, listen, there's this church right next door to us and it's growing like crazy. And we're in all kinds of problems. We lost our synagogue leader. We had to go find another guy to be our synagogue leader.

So, what are we going to do? The Jews aren't happy. And so they think that Paul's teaching heresy right next door and they say, we got to get rid of this guy. We got to get rid of him.

Same kind of stuff they talked about with Jesus. We got to get rid of this guy. And so they make a plot. They plot, they create like a conspiracy to get Paul busted with the feds. So it says, but when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews, well, let me go, let me, yeah, proconsul of the Jews. So that's like the judge. He's like the guy that you'd, you know, you're going to take somebody to jail. You're going to take them, put them before a court.

You take them to this cap. But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought before, brought him before the tribunal. Okay, so they come up with a conspiracy. Let's all agree that this is the argument we're going to make against this guy and let's get him booted or let's get him put in prison saying this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law. But when Paul was about to open his mouth, so they've got him, they've got him at court and Paul's about to defend himself. Galio said to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, oh Jews, I would have reason, I would have reason to accept your complaint. But since it's a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourself. I refuse to be a judge over these things, and he drove them from the tribunal.

So, the judge says, listen, this is stupid. I don't have anything to do with religious stuff. And this is a religious thing. This has nothing to do with it, like it's not even a crime in my way.

I'm done with you guys. So, the Jews are so upset that they conspire together and put a case together against Paul in a civil case before a judge named Galio. But after all this fuss and prep, Gallio won't even listen to their case because it's religious in nature and it isn't something he thinks matters a hill of beans. So, he dismisses the case.

Now watch what happens. Crisis averted, right? For Paul.

This is great. Watch what happens. This is going to show you how dysfunctional the Jewish synagogue is. And they seized Sosthenes. Who is Sosthenes? When Christmas left as a synagogue leader, they had to get a new pastor.

They appointed a guy is Sosthenes. I don't know if he was in the church or whatever. He becomes the new synagogue leader.

He is a part of this whole plotting against him. It doesn't go their way. And so, what did the Jews do? And they seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue. And they beat him in front of the tribunal. Listen, if I make a mistake, okay, don't beat me out in front of the church, right?

They take their synagogue leader, and they beat the crap out of them in front of everybody. And here's the great thing. It says, but Gallio paid no attention to any of this after this Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of his brothers and set sail for Syria and with him Priscilla and Aquila.

So, after planting the church and staying there a year and a half, Paul moves on and the church is left to be the body of Christ in Corinth. I'm going to say one more thing. This guy Sosthenes who gets the crap beat out of him. When you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, you got it real verse one, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes. Both Christmas synagogue leader and now Sosthenes who got the crap beat out of him because he didn't do a good job in the synagogue.

They both are our believers and now Sosthenes is the guy that's taken notes for Paul and it looks like he's the one right in the letter. That's incredible. So, remember Christmas? Christmas is a Christian too. So after playing the church, he stays there a year and a half, Paul moves on and the church is left to be a body of Christ in Corinth. Who's leading the church now that Paul is gone? Probably a group of elders.

There are people that they think would be good leaders. They're within the body and they're like, these guys are going to lead the church. But the church that Paul leaves is in a really, really corrupt and a really sinful city. They're in Corinth. They've got a church like that's in Portland or a church that's like in Seattle or LA or Las Vegas. They're in a really immoral sex fueled city. And the big question that we're going to face is this, will the church influence the city for Christ, or will the city influence the church?

That's the same question we always have to face as a church today. Are we going to influence Atkinson? Are we going to influence the state of Illinois? Are we as a church going to influence the Quad Cities? Are we going to influence Genesee? Are we going to be an influence of the people that are at work with us? Are we going to influence them or are we going to be transformed and changed by the environment that we're in? That's the real issue that we face. And the problem with the church of Corinth is that they are totally, they're totally affected and changed by their community.

They're unwilling to repent and leave the lifestyle that their city was all about. When we become Christians, we are to change. God comes in us. He becomes like we can't live the Christian life that he calls us to without God coming into us. But there should be change in genuine believers.

And when there's not, there's something very, very, very wrong. And so Paul leaves this corrupt, sinful city. And within three years, this church is a train wreck.

It's a train. Within three years, he's not even gone. Now, I came here in 2019.

So it's seven years coming, this coming up. The church as a whole at the time we're getting here is about 20 years old. Jesus rose from the dead and ascended. The church as a whole in the whole world is only 20 years old. Paul plants this church. He thinks he's got it established. He leaves it in the hands of what he thinks are capable elders. He leaves for three years and all of a sudden he's here and stuff.

Right? Because people are talking and it's traveling long distances and they're hearing stuff that's going on. Do you know that they're doing this in that church? You might even hear that in Atkinson. Did you hear that that church is doing that? Did you hear the church didn't do this? Did you hear the church didn't do that? Do you hear that they believe this? Did you hear that they're a bunch of bigots? Did you hear that they and making stuff up?

There's all kinds of stuff. So, you got to try to wean through that. And so, then some people it looks like actually go to see him. And so if you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 it says in the following directives I have no praise for you. For your meetings do more harm than good. Look at that for a church. Can you imagine a church? Paul comes right out talking about the church he planted. He said your meetings when you guys get together and have church, you're doing more harm when you show up for church than if you hadn't showed up at all.

That's not a church that we should model ourselves after. They're a dumpster fire. They live wrong. They believe wrong. They treat each other wrong.

They tolerate what is wrong. But let's finish with 1 Corinthians chapter one verse 13. He says this, Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes. So you got the history of how this thing started. Where this church came out of. I mean just it's a young religion, 20 years old. Church is only three years old. But they had Paul as their pastor. So you know if you get a chance to have Paul as your pastor fire the guy you've gotten out and hire him. But the church isn't doing so well. And it looks like our second synagogue leader got saved and converted to. So who's he writing to? It says Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes. Two, look at who he's writing to. This might shock you given everything I've just told you.

To the church of God that is in Corinth. Come on. Really? You're going to call these people Christians? Do you realize some of the stuff that we're going to see that these people are doing?

They're doing horrible things. You got a guy in this church that's sleeping and sleeping with his own stepmom. And the church thinks it's fine. There's some really bad stuff going on in this church. And here look at how Paul describes them.

He doesn't say that he says later that your meetings do more harm than good. I hear of churches sometimes I'm like man that's not a real church. That must not be a real church. You'll see something on Facebook, and you'll see you'll go that must not be a real church because this is going on there. This is going on there. I get it.

I feel the same way about it. I'm like how could those people really be Christians in being doing those things? And yet here I can't help but notice that the word of God says this to the church of God that is in Corinth. Paul says that these people are Christians. That dumpster fire of a church.

They do more harm than good. But watch what Paul says. He says to the church of God that is in Corinth to those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints. Now if you read this in the original language it doesn't say to be saints. I can show what it means about the church about you and what it means about me is that though we have struggles here. I mean I know we love being a part of this church. Most of us love being a part of this church. We're like man this is a great church but there's problems here too.

We have struggles. We have people living how they ought not live. We have people that are saying what they ought not say. We have people that are struggling.

Your pastor has his own problems and struggles. Right. We have our own issues.

We are in some areas of our church a dumpster fire. Right?  And we're like man we got to put these things out.

We're trying to figure out what's going on. But though they're immature and though in some ways we need to grow as a church Paul calls us saints. He calls us the true church. Their failures as a church our failures and as a church don't cancel out the work of God. First Corinthians chapter 1 8 when we go a little further it says who will sustain you to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So even though even though we're not there yet even though we don't act like the church sometimes even though we don't function even though we make mistakes and we do things that aren't exactly what Christ wants us to do.

It's not because we don't want to but sometimes, we don't want to. We are still the called saints and in our immaturity, God still calls us saints and he says I am going to work through you. I'm going to give you my spirit and I'm going to make you more and more and more mature and so what we need to be doing as we evaluate our church is we get to the first of the year here and I'm evaluating us and I'm looking and I'm being very critical about a lot of things at the church and critical of myself and critical of our worship services and critical of I'm looking at all this very very honestly and I'm saying yes.  Yes we don't have it all figured out yet but we are a true church. God is sanctifying us. We are saints. God is doing something.

I can't deny that God is doing something great at sunrise. And it says to those sanctifying Christ Jesus call to be saints who will sustain you to the end who God sustains us. God is the one who will take us and make us better.

Make us more faithful that will lead us as we trust until Christ comes. The Corinthian church is causing real real real harm but Paul's intention is this letter is not to abandon them. Okay, that's what I would have expected.

I would have expected that Paul would look back at this dumpster fire or church he started and said listen I did everything I could do and you guys blew it. And so, you know what? Why would I spend any more time messing around with you guys? I'm out of here. I've left. You guys figured out on your own.

I've already told you everything I know. That's not what Paul does at all. Paul starts to write letters. He doesn't abandon them, but he wants to restore them.

He wants to bring them. And so my question for us today is God has called us to be saints in Atkinson. He's called us as a church. We're not perfect. You're gonna see imperfections as we go through. We're not perfect but God's called us. He's redeeming us. We're getting better. And our question is going to be are we willing to conform our lives to him according to the gospel. As we go through this I'm finishing in just two minutes so don't leave yet.

Don't leave it. As we go through this, he's going to go through one problem at another after another. Problems with how they do their worship service. Problems with relationships.

Problems with division. They're divided over some people are big fans of so and so pastor and so and so they're all followers of different people. And what Paul does he corrects them, but when he corrects them the correction that he brings upon them is not just to change your life do it differently. It's this is why the way you are living and what you're doing is not congruent with the gospel.

Let me explain with that again. He doesn't just tell you to change your life. He says you need to fix this because what you're doing is a contrary testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It says something contrary to who Christ is and so you need to change it because the gospel the gospel is different than the way you live. What I'm going to do is we go through this as I'm hoping not that I can say hey you should change this in your life or you should change this in your life but that you'll see the gospel and by seeing the fullness of the gospel say wait a second this thing that I'm doing over here is not congruent with the gospel. I'm not living in accordance to the gospel.

I'm living separate and outside of the church and the gospel by the way I live. That's how Paul approaches this and I think it's a brilliant way for us to do it and so that's what we're going to do. One at a time we're going to go through this and we'll start this next week we'll get into it and see if we can't make some forward progress. All right let me pray for us and we don't have a last song because my piano player went down as playing with children. God in Jesus name I thank you for your word. God we're gonna get into first Corinthians and I don't want us to throw stones at the Corinthians because if we throw stones at them, we got to throw some stones at ourself.

God, I want us to be real honest with ourselves as we go through this book. I want us to have hearts that are willing to be moved and changed and transformed. God, I want us to I want us to learn from the mistakes of our forefathers that were in this church that we wouldn't repeat their mistakes. God that we would that we would be transformed by your word.

God and I pray for the week that we're about to enter into. God that you would bless us. God that you'd prepare us. God that you'd take care of us. Guide us. Protect us by the power of your spirit. I pray in Jesus name.

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*Feel free to use this information any way that brings glory to Jesus and leads people to faith in Him.