A Real Church (1 Corinthians 1.1-9)

One of the quickest and most disconcerting things you learn when you first become a Christian, or when you grow up in church, is how broken the church actually is. Every church. Even the good ones. I grew up in several different churches—some were good, some were definitely not. As a teenager it was very difficult for me to reconcile what I saw in church and what Christians were supposed to be.

As I grew older, I noticed with some disappointment that many of the same problems I saw in the bad churches were present even in the good ones, although they were handled very differently. These problems were still present because, although God has saved us from our sin through the grace of Jesus Christ, we are still living in a sinful world, with sinful bodies, and sin is still present in us and around us.

It is very difficult to live in that tension. The Bible has a high standard for God’s people—and yet, from the very beginning, none of God’s people are able to live according to that high standard. So is it hopeless? How are we to go about navigating a truly Christian life, a life formed by the cross of Christ, when we are a group of people who will, sooner or later, not live up to the life to which he has called us?

That is the question of the book on which we’re going to be preaching over the next several months. Today we’re going to be starting our new series on Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

If this is your first time with us, then you should know that we make no effort to be particularly creative or innovative in our preaching and teaching; we would much rather be faithful to what the Bible actually says. We want every person who listens to a sermon at Connexion to be able to leave the building and say, “I can understand why he said this or that, because I can see it myself in the text.” And we believe the best way to do that—to remain faithful to the whole of Scripture, and not just the parts that we like—is to preach through books of the Bible from beginning to end, over the course of several weeks or months.

We’ll be in 1 Corinthians until at least the end of this school year (with a couple of breaks here and there). Today we’ll just be looking at the first nine verses, which serve as an introduction to the letter.

Introduction: Context

Corinth was a Roman colony in which many different cultures and religions mingled—and the worship of these many pagan gods of Roman society were fully integrated into the life of the city.

This was where Paul brought the gospel of Jesus Christ on his second missionary journey. He arrived around 50 A.D., and for 18 months, Paul and his fellow workers Priscilla and Aquila worked to share the gospel. They left to go to Ephesus not long after, leaving the brand-new church in Corinth to grow in the gospel.

But it wasn’t long after he left that Paul received word that the Corinthian church wasn’t doing so well. He wrote them a letter (which we don’t have, but which Paul mentions in this letter); all we know is that it addressed the problem of sexual immorality.

A little while after that, Paul received another report that the Corinthians had not only misunderstood his first letter, but that their problems had gotten even worse. They had become, in short, a pastor’s worst nightmare. Sexual immorality still abounded, along with division in the church, ranks among the members, and participation in pagan religions. On top of this, the Corinthians wrote Paul themselves and showed that they had serious theological misunderstandings around these and other issues—things like marriage and divorce, order within public worship, the holiness of God and his people, and even the resurrection of Christ.

If I had planted Connexion and then left, I can’t imagine how I would feel if I received word that Connexion had, in the space of just a few years, become a church like the church in Corinth. I can’t imagine sitting down to write a letter to such a church, in response to the mountain of problems they were dealing with. Every pastor dreads this possibility—to see the Christian church that they helped establish become so badly sidetracked by sin.

Now all that being said, I want to re-read v. 1-9:

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.

If you had no idea of the context of this church, and simply started reading the letter, from this introduction, you’d think they were the greatest church in the world. If you do know the context, then the introduction might sound almost satirical—the sort of thing you’d say to flatter an arrogant person before insulting them, to make it really sting.

We need to be clear that this is not what Paul is doing here. He’s not trying to stroke their Corinthians’ egos before exposing their hypocrisy. Despite everything wrong with this church, in Paul’s introduction to this letter, he is sincere with every word he says.

The question is, how could that be possible?

It’s possible because nothing he says here is dependent on the good behavior or perfect understanding of the Corinthians. Everything he says here is dependent on God’s faithfulness alone.

And that’s why he begins this way. Paul is going to write a long letter (16 chapters), he’s going to address a wide range of problems in the church, and he won’t pull any punches. He won’t tell them everything’s okay when it’s not.

But he is able to do that with hope and love, rather than bitterness, because his hope for the Corinthians doesn’t depend on their ability to get things right. His hope for them depends on God. So he opens his letter by reminding them of who they are, that no error in theology or practice can change. Paul needs them to know who they are, so that when he begins correcting them, they are ready and willing to hear what he has to say.

So who are they? That’s where we’ll begin.

A Real Church… (v. 1-3)

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.

Paul begins in the classic way—at the time, the writer of a letter introduced himself at the beginning rather than the end; Paul introduces his associate Sosthenes as well, a former leader of the synagogue in Corinth who was possibly serving as Paul’s scribe. Paul introduces himself in this way to remind the Corinthians that he’s not just a teacher with some renown—he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, called by the will of God. So what he’s about to write carries divine authority: this is what God is telling the church, not what Paul wants to say.

Next, he tells them to whom he’s writing—and it’s pretty astonishing. He says (v. 2) To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.

A little explanation may be helpful here. When Paul says that the Corinthians were “sanctified” in Christ Jesus, he means that Christ has already done the work necessary to fix every problem that Paul is writing the Corinthians to discuss. “Sanctified” means to be brought into a state of holiness. Holiness in the Bible is both a moral and “ritual” state. To be holy is to be set apart for God’s use (that’s the ritual side); and anything set apart for God’s use must be kept pure, undefiled (that’s the moral side).

Paul arrived in Corinth to find these people to whom he is writing living in sin, separated from God. He shared the gospel with them—the good news that the Son of God took on humanity, lived a perfect human life, took the sins of his people on himself, died in their place for their sins, and was raised to apply that work to their lives. And these people in Corinth accepted this good news—they believed the gospel and trusted Jesus alone for their salvation.

From that moment on, in God’s sight they were holy—set apart, made pure—because their sin (past, present and future) was all covered by Christ’s death on the cross. It’s done.

So why would he remind them that they are “called to be saints” (that is, called to be holy)?

Tim Keller told the story of a king who went out into the streets and adopted an orphan child living in the slums. He brought the boy into his palace, got him cleaned up, dressed him in royal robes, and told him, “You are my son now. Everything I have belongs to you. Now, you must learn what it looks like to live as a prince of my kingdom.”

When God saves us, he makes us holy. But there is often a gap between the status of being holy and the practice of being holy. We are saints, but sometimes we forget that, and we continue to live like sinners. That’s why Paul says it this way: sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints.

What’s more, he says that what he’s writing is mainly for the Corinthians, but not only—v. 2 again: to those…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…

What Paul is writing here is God’s divine word for the Corinthians, and for us as well, if we believe in the same Jesus Christ they did (which we do).

He assures them of the grace and peace that they have from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, he never once pretends that he’s speaking to anything but an actual, real church—a church that is legitimate in the eyes of God. And they are legitimate because they didn’t save themselves; they are saved because God saved them, and nothing Paul is going to write afterward is going to change that.

So that’s who they are. What comes next? It’s not correction; it’s grace.

Lacking Nothing (v. 4-7)

First, we see Paul’s reminder of God’s past grace to the Corinthians. V. 4:

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…

I have a hard time picturing myself writing to a church that I planted, that has veered so off course, and saying, “I’m so grateful for you.” But this only shows my immaturity compared to Paul’s. He is genuinely grateful—but it’s really important that we see that Paul is not grateful because of them; he is grateful for them. He is grateful that God saved them; he is grateful that God showed them his grace in Jesus Christ. His gratitude isn’t because of what the Corinthians have done, but because of what God did for them.

And he goes on to describe that grace, saying that they were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge. Most people, when they meet Christ, need to take a long time to grow in their knowledge of the Bible and their ability to articulate the truths of the gospel to others. That’s totally normal—that’s why we have Bible studies and training days and preaching every Sunday. But every pastor knows that occasionally, someone will meet Christ and grow really quickly in these areas—in a very short amount of time, they can speak about the gospel and engage in theological conversation as if they’ve been believers for years.

It seems that the church in Corinth had many people like this; they were particularly “enriched” by God in their speech and their knowledge, and the work of Christ was evident—the testimony about Christ was confirmed among them. Paul does not question their salvation—something that we are very quick to do when we see someone drifting from where they should be. The issue here is not conversion or regeneration, but formation.

(This is going to be really important as we move forward in the coming weeks. The church in Corinth was a mess—but it wasn’t because there was some mysterious gift from God they were lacking. They were a mess because they were misusing the gifts that they had. At some point they started thinking about their gifts as their gifts, as gifts that belonged to them and existed for them, which led them into pride and selfishness and error in the way they lived for God together. We’re going to have to keep reminding ourselves that gifts and grace do not equal maturity.)

They have received everything they need, and the past grace God has shown them flows into the present. He says that today (v. 7):

…you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ…

One of the ways the Corinthians went off-course was that they started treating the gifts of God to his church as an end in itself; but God’s gifts are never a goal; they are always provisional. This explains a lot of the tension in this letter. The Corinthians lack nothing…but they’re still waiting to arrive at their destination, the day when Christ returns for his church. It seems like they’ve totally grasped the first part, but forgotten the second.

Paul wants them to keep both things firmly in mind. You have everything you need, right now—you’re lacking nothing—and what you have received in Christ is sufficient to carry you through to the end. But his return, his revealing, is the end you must have in sight. Everything that happens now is merely preparation for that day.

Sustained Until the End (v. 8-9)

So God has shown them grace in the past, which flows over into grace in the present. And he will continue to show them grace in the future. V. 7 again:

…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.

This is such good news for doubting Christians. It is such good news for struggling Christians. It is such good news for sinful Christians. Paul is reminding the Corinthians that God’s intentions toward them have not changed one iota. “He will sustain you to the end,” he says. Whatever problems need addressing or correcting, God will correct them. And he will do a better job than any apostle or preacher or teacher could ever do: he will sustain you and make you guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Will you be perfect? No—but you will be guiltless. Christ has taken your guilt, and God will bring you into that guiltlessness. You have been sanctified, and called to be saints; God has done that work, and he will finish it.

This seems almost foolishly optimistic, in the context of the huge problems in the church at Corinth. But it’s not optimism; it’s a promise. It would be foolish if it were up to the Corinthians to make it happen, but it’s not; everything Paul is saying rests on God’s faithfulness to his church, not on the church’s faithfulness to God. It doesn’t depend on their consistency, their insight, or their unity (the first problem Paul will address). It doesn’t depend on their humility or knowledge or order.

It depends on God’s faithfulness. They—and we—were “called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Fellowship with Christ is both the greatest gift and the highest calling imaginable. And it’s the same as everything we’ve seen today: we have been brought into fellowship with Christ. Now the question becomes, are we living in line with this fellowship?

Conclusion: Why Start Here?

My dad wasn’t perfect, but one thing he was very good at was disciplining me and my brothers. When Dad corrected me, his correction hit very hard. Not because he was harsh or violent with me—he’d get irritated with me over minor things, like any parent—but when it came time to give me a serious correction over something weighty, he was always very calm, and he always began by reminding me that I was his son. That he loved me, that nothing I could do would ever change that, and that he would do everything he could to help me moving forward.

His correction hit hard, not because he was so good at telling me what I’d done wrong, but because he was good at reminding me that I was his son. His correction hit hard because what I had done wrong flew so hard in the face of his love for me that I felt the weight of my sin, and wanted to change.

It is essential to see that Paul begins this letter in just this way. He affirms identity before giving instruction. He expressed grace before correction. He gives hope before confrontation.

The rest of the letter will expose pride, division, sexual disorder, misuse of freedom, abuse of gifts. But it will all flow from this fundamental truth: The Corinthian church is flawed, yes—but they are gifted, called, and kept — just like us.

The Bible is filled with commandments—with God’s instructions concerning how he wants his people to live. And we will never respond to these commandments correctly if we don’t first understand that we are in Christ. If we have place our faith in Christ alone for our sins, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and everything else is founded on that reality.

1 Corinthians is not a letter to a good church about how to become perfect. It is a letter to a real church about how the gospel of Jesus Christ reshapes everything.

So as we proceed in the following weeks and months, I want to encourage you to keep this truth firmly in mind: if you have placed your faith in Christ for your salvation, then you are secure in Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And he will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.