Lucid Maturity (1 Corinthians 3.1-4.7)

I love my job, and I’m happy to introduce myself as a pastor. But it always makes me a little uncomfortable when someone introduces me as “the pastor” of Connexion. First of all, because there are four of us elders here—I’m not alone. But even when I was the only elder in this church, at the very beginning, I didn’t care for the label of THE PASTOR of the church…

…for reasons we’ll see in today’s text.

The main problem we’ve been seeing in these first two chapters of 1 Corinthians (it’s not the only problem, but the first) is that the Corinthian church has divided itself over tribal lines. These lines are drawn around the leaders they esteem.

Everything that Paul says in today’s long passage centers around this problem. He’s going to say several things that seem to stray from the topic of this misguided allegiance to specific church leaders, but in reality everything he says here goes in that direction.

So this is a peculiar text to preach, because it is as much a message for leaders as for members of the church. This is a message for me, not just for you.

I. A Lucid Vision of Leaders (3:1–11)

If you remember, last week Paul affirmed that those who have been saved by Christ “have the mind of Christ” (2.16). And this must have flattered the Corinthians, who loved the idea that they knew what they needed to know. Their intellect and philosophical acumen were points of pride for them.

But then Paul drops the hammer. 3.1:

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?

So we need to see that Paul isn’t denying the Corinthians are in Christ; he’s saying they’re babies, infants in the faith. It’s really important that it’s okay to be a baby in the faith; new Christians often compare themselves to more mature Christians and feel bad for everything they don’t yet know. You don’t have to be mature in the faith for your faith to be genuine.

The problem comes when you think you’re mature, but you’re actually not. You say you’re spiritual, but you’re acting “merely human”, as Paul says in v. 4. And those problems will always be visible.

Paul gives the Corinthians proof of their spiritual immaturity. He says, There is jealousy and strife among you. Some of you say, “I follow Paul”, and others say, “I follow Apollos,” and you drawing those lines is proof of your immaturity. These aren’t theological disagreements—the division they’re creating is purely preferential, based on subjective opinion, and that’s how the rest of the world works. That’s how the world without Christ works.

So now Paul is going to lean really hard into this problem and show them why what they’re doing is so silly. He’s going to speak specifically about himself and Apollos (one of the teachers to whom some of the Corinthians are attached), and he’s going to use several different images to describe what exactly he and Apollos are doing.

V. 5:

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.

This is the basis of everything he’s going to say now: What am I? What is Apollos? We’re servants. You believed through us, because we shared the gospel with you; but we shared the gospel with you because God told us to. We’re servants, not “heads.”

The first image he uses to show this is the image of a plant, in v. 6:

6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

This image is simple enough for a child to understand. Plants do not grow themselves. And the gardeners who plant them and tend them don’t grow them either. Gardeners work, they help, but God grows plants.

Planting and watering matter, but growth does not belong to the worker. Leaders are important, yes—but they are not the source of life.

And that is where the Corinthians have gone wrong. They’ve attached themselves to certain leaders, and we can understand that: the leaders that have helped us are always going to be important to us. But no human leader—neither Paul, nor Apollos, nor any other human leader—is the source of life.

The next image Paul uses is that of a building. V. 10:

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

We see the same thing here. A building does not build itself. A foundation is laid, and then perhaps others build on it.

We are in a building right now. Is the person who built this building really important for us? Of course not.

What’s the most important thing about this building? The most important thing is whether or not the foundation is solid.

The foundation, Paul is very clear, is Jesus Christ. In regards to our faith, no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The Corinthians are dividing over their perceived “quality” of one ministry compared to another, based on their own opinions and reasoning. And they’re ignoring the fact that all of their favorite ministries—whether Paul’s or Apollos’s or Peter’s—all have the same foundation.

Let me give you an easy example.

D.A. Carson is a theologian who grew up in Canada and who now works as a professor of New Testament; he has written many books, he was the co-founder of the Gospel Coalition (along with Tim Keller), and he’s a world-renowned teacher and speaker. His ministry has been helpful to millions, including myself. It would be easy to consider his ministry—his “building”—to be of incredibly high quality, and I believe it is.

Now, compare his ministry with that of another man: D.A. Carson’s father, Tom Carson. Tom Carson served as a perfectly ordinary pastor in a perfectly ordinary church near Montréal, for over sixty years. He never wrote a book. He never had an online presence. He never established a ministry outside of his own small pastoral ministry.

And yet, his ministry was faithful despite the challenges of his particular place and time. He faithfully preached the gospel, and he quietly cared for the people under his responsibility.

So whose ministry is of higher quality? D.A. Carson’s, or his father’s?

That’s the kind of question the Corinthians are asking, and both Carsons would agree that it’s the wrong question. The question isn’t what is the quality or reach or impact of the ministry, but what is the foundation?

If the foundation is Christ alone, every other judgment we could render about a leader or his impact belongs to God.

II. A lucid Vision of Ministry (3.12-17)

This is the point Paul makes clear in v. 12-17:

12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

These verses have sidetracked a lot of people over the years, causing us to develop entire theologies of salvation and reward and judgment around them. And while some of these theologies may not be wrong, they’re not Paul’s point here.

His point is that the true quality of a ministry, or of a Christian life, can only be properly judged by God.

It would be easy to look at D.A. Carson’s ministry and consider it a building built with gold, silver or precious stones, because his ministry has been profoundly impactful on a lot of people all over the world. It would be easy to consider his father’s ministry as a building built with wood, hay or straw—because almost no one even knew who he was before his son wrote that book.

But it doesn’t work that way! People with hugely impactful ministries have built on other foundations than Christ—they’ve built their lives on the foundation of their own name or charisma. And other people have had very unimpressive ministries, very unimpressive lives—but they’ve remained faithful to the foundation that was already laid: everything in their lives and work was centered around Christ. So no matter how impressive or unimpressive they may seem, the eternal quality of their work will be revealed by God.

Some leaders are faithful to the gospel, and they will receive a reward for their work. Tom Schreiner says in his commentary:

Paul does not tell us what the reward will be. Possibly it is the satisfaction and joy of seeing the fruit of their ministry on the final day. Such a reading fits with what Paul says elsewhere: ‘For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy’ (1 Thess. 2:19–20; cf. Phil. 2:16; 4:1; 2 Cor. 1:14).

Other leaders have placed their faith in Christ—so their salvation isn’t in question—but they find themselves sidetracked by other concerns. They’ll be saved, but ultimately the substandard quality of their ministry will be revealed by God.

And yet other leaders are wolves disguised in sheep’s clothing; they build huge ministries, but ultimately serve to tear down the church, the temple of God. These people will be judged, not only for the value of their “ministries”, but for their lack of faith, and the way they misled others.

Do you see what Paul’s doing? He’s trying to get the Corinthians to look up to God, instead of across to the leaders they esteem.

God establishes his church on the foundation of the gospel—on the foundation of the finished work of his Son Jesus Christ. And every leader who faithfully builds on that foundation is a servant of God, not someone to whom we owe our loyalty.

III. A Lucid Vision of Pride (3.18-4.7)

After this Paul makes what seems to be an odd segue, but it’s not a change of subject. V. 18:

18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”

The Corinthians are dividing over their own ideas of which leader is best: Paul or Apollos or Cephas or any others. They are dividing not because these leaders are bad leaders, but because they, the Corinthians, are prideful in their own estimation of them.

And if this seems silly, then we’re not really giving it much thought. It only takes a single conversation to see what this looks like.

Get two people together: one guy who is a fervent supporter of, say Emmanuel Macron, and another who is a fervent supporter of Jean-Luc Mélanchon. Get these two guys together and have them talk about the politician of their choice. Things will go awry really quickly.

The exact same thing can happen in regards to Christian leaders. Let’s say instead of a Macron supporter and a Mélanchon supporter, you have one person whose life was greatly influenced by the ministry of Tim Keller, and someone else whose life was influenced by Paul Washer. Both faithful leaders, lots of people met Christ through their ministries, and both are radically different in their styles and approach.

A mature Christian will recognize the value in both of these men’s ministries. But if the two people having this conversation are immature, then pride will show itself very quickly: they’ll start to show signs of clear disdain—not for Keller or Washer, but for the other person—because how could they possibly think Keller’s ministry is of more value than Washer’s, and vice versa?

That’s what Paul’s getting at. Human wisdom would find reasons to prefer one leader to another. Keller’s able to reason with people and get them to see the logic of the gospel. Washer just tells the gospel like it is, with no frills or fluff. Human wisdom would have us prefer one to the other. But the wisdom of this world is folly to God.

So what does it look like for the person “who thinks he is wise in this age” to “become a fool”? It looks like rejecting that kind of thinking altogether, and remembering that maybe Washer planted and Keller watered, but God is the one who gives the growth. It looks like setting aside boasting, because everything you have—the world and life and death and the present and the future and, yes, the leaders through whom God has brought you to him—they’re all gifts that God has given you. You are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s, and that’s what truly matters.

That’s Paul’s point, and that’s what he says in very simple and clear terms starting in 4.1:

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

The “mysteries of God” are simply the truths that were once hidden but have now been revealed in the gospel. Paul and Apollos and Peter all know the church does not exist for them—they are simply servants of Christ and stewards of the gospel, and that is how they should be considered.

Do you see what Paul’s doing? The Corinthians’ pride in their own so-called wisdom has resulted in two aberrant behaviors: the first is judgment against the leaders they think are inferior, and the second is arrogant division from one another because they follow the “inferior” leader.

Paul addresses the question of judgment first. V. 2:

2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

I’ve been a Christian for a long time and a pastor for a good while now; I like to think that if I have the pertinent facts, I can look at the situation and at what the Bible says and make a good judgment call about that situation. And there are moments when a church, and the leaders and members of a church, will need to make decisions—to make judgments—based on those sorts of observations.

But there is a difference between “judgment” and “judgment”, so to speak. I can judge facts that are presented to me, and how I should respond to those facts. But I can’t presume to judge what’s going on in any one of your hearts, or what God will do in your lives, because that information doesn’t belong to me. There’s no way I could know that. And Paul will make similar arguments later on in this letter.

So how ridiculous is it for the Corinthians—baby Christians that they clearly are—to presume to judge the eternal worth of one of their leaders! How arrogant! The Lord is the one who judges Paul; that is not the Corinthians’ job. You think Paul’s ministry, or Apollos’s ministry, is lacking, and is worth less? Fine—wait and see. When the Lord returns, he will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness; he will disclose the purposes of their heart and render a verdict.

For now, look at the facts: both men, both leaders, are building differently, but they’re both building on the same solid foundation: the life and work of Jesus Christ. Impressiveness does not designate worth. The only valid metric of a servant’s worth is faithfulness. An ordinary pastor like Tom Carson, if he is faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ, may well be worth more to the kingdom of God than the most influential Christian leader we can think of. God makes that call.

Next he turns to the question of division. V. 6:

6 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

Paul has used a lot of images in our passage today: teachers as gardeners, teachers as builders, teachers as servants and stewards. And he has applied these images to Apollos and himself so that the Corinthians “may learn by us not to go beyond what is written.” That is, he wants the Corinthians to learn to value what is truly valuable—faithfulness to the Word of God that was revealed in Jesus Christ. Scripture, not personalities, is the framework for truth.

But these personalities have become for the Corinthians, according to what each individual happens to value more, a badge for pride, and they’re using their own preferred leader as a cudgel with which to beat one another. So Paul gives them three diagnostic questions to help them see how unwise their wisdom is, and how immature they really are.

First question: What is your basis for comparison? “Who sees anything different in you?” Or, as the NIV says more faithfully: “For who makes you different from anyone else?” It’s not Paul or Apollos; it’s God! Isn’t God the one who saved you? Isn’t God the source of the good news that brought you life?

Second: “What do you have that you did not receive?” You think you’re wise? Okay, who gave you that wisdom? Was it not God? Whatever you have is a gift. What do you have that you did not receive?

Second: “If you received it, why boast?” They’re acting like children boasting about their Christmas presents: the kids are showing off, debating over whose new tennis shoes are the best, when they should be debating over whose parents are the best, because the parents bought the shoes!

Everything they have came from God! So any kind of boasting that is used to put Christian above another is nonsensical. The gospel leaves no room for superiority, and gives no reason for insecurity.

Conclusion: What Maturity Recognizes

It’s not lost on me that it may be uncomfortable to be talking about these things when we’re all together like this, because we can look around and see people with whom to compare ourselves. But this text calls us to self-examination, not examination of others—and having people around us with whom we would be tempted to compare ourselves is like having a good mirror for ourselves to look into. If we find ourselves wanting to compare ourselves with anyone in here (including one of the pastors or deacons or leaders), then we are struggling the same root problem as the Corinthians.

Of course it’s unlikely that in Connexion we will fall into this sort of clivage over our leaders. The elders of this church are pretty unified, and even if our styles are different, we are very much marching to the beat of the same drum. Most people here know that; in Connexion, I’ve never heard the sort of discussion that we see happening in Corinth.

However, the pride Paul is warning against here can show up in other ways.

For example: we can try to judge the church based on the form our services take. Should we allow women to lead worship? Are we too formal, not charismatic enough? Are our services too free, too open, not liturgical enough? These are all valid questions, and we want to be as faithful as we can in all of these areas.

But if we’re mature, we’ll recognize that even if we happen to find a church whose services take the form we think is right, that is not a guarantor of faithfulness to the gospel. If we’re mature, our primary basis for decisions will not be whether we think the building is being built with gold and silver and precious stones, or with wood and straw and hay. If we’re mature, we’ll base our decisions on whether or not the building is being built on the foundation of Christ and his work.

This can also happen on a personal, one-on-one level. We can compare ourselves to other Christians in terms of knowledge or right theology, what we have learned. It can be positive or negative: “How great am I, that I know so much more than this fool who doesn’t know what I know?” “How worthless am I, that I know so much less than these geniuses who know Bible by heart?”

But none of those things are valid marks of maturity.

Maturity shows itself, in part, by our recognizing that Christ was judged so that we don’t have to compare. Christ was given so we don’t have to boast. Christ is the foundation so that the church can finally begin to build. Christ is the sun so the church can be fed and grow.

We look to him, and him alone, for our identity and worth and validation. As the old song goes, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

The Power of Our Folly (1 Corinthians 1.18-25)

So you’re a Christian and you want to share the gospel with someone. But you’re afraid to do it.

Most Christians have had this sort of experience—it’s scary to share the gospel with just about anyone who isn’t a Christian. But why is that the case? What exactly are we afraid of?

Generally, we’re afraid of two things. We’re afraid the person in front of us will respond with anger, or we’re afraid the person will respond with laughter. We’re afraid of being the subject of confrontational rejection, and we’re afraid of feeling ridiculous.

There’s a reason why we’re afraid of these things, and in today’s text Paul gets right to the heart of why that is.

This is our third week in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. If you remember, the Corinthian church is a church with a lot of very serious, very deep problems. Paul began his letter in v. 1-9 by reminding them of their identity in Christ—they have been saved, they have been sanctified, they have been gifted and they will be preserved by God. Then once their identity is solidly established, he moves to the first problem of their church, which is division among the members. This division is based on human teachers to whom the Corinthians cling: “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”

And what Paul said in last week’s text is that the root of the problem is not the human teachers themselves, but rather that the center of the church’s focus has shifted. When the cross becomes sidelined, and anything else takes its place, then our idea of our own identity shifts, and divisions follow.

In today’s text, Paul is going to begin tightening the screws before returning to the problem of division. He’s going to go one step further and say that the cross doesn’t get sidelined accidentally; it doesn’t happen on its own. It’s very difficult, in fact, for the cross not to get sidelined, because the cross contradicts how humans instinctively think about what makes sense and what is admirable.

So here’s the big idea: the cross does not merely save sinners—it dismantles every competing system of wisdom, status, and self-reliance. Which means that if we keep the cross central in our focus, that will inevitably mean living a life the world finds foolish.

The Gospel in the World (1:18-25)

Here’s where Paul starts: the cross always divides humanity into two different ways of perceiving it. V. 18:

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

We have here the same message—it’s “the word of the cross.”

Same message, two radically different perceptions of it. It is “folly” to some, and “the power of God” to others.

On both sides of this divide, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of disdaining those on the other side. We see it in politics all the time. People who fall on one side of a political divide get incredibly frustrated with their family members or friends who fall on the other side, because they just can’t fathom it—why can’t my family members see what I’m seeing?! It seems so obvious to us, and it makes those can’t see it seem…well, sort of stupid.

But when we’re talking about the gospel, the issue isn’t intelligence. It isn’t reason. It isn’t logic. The issue is spiritual orientation.

The word of the cross is folly for whom? Not for the unintelligent, but for those who are “perishing”—that is, those who aren’t Christians.

The word of the cross is the power of God for whom? Not for the enlightened, but for “those who are being saved.”

It has nothing to do with intelligence; it has to do with spiritual orientation.

Neutrality toward the cross does not exist. The cross necessarily divides, because it always produces two different perceptions. Either it’s perceived as folly, and rejected; or it completely redefines reality.

This wasn’t an accident; it wasn’t a sort of unfortunate side effect of the work of Christ. Paul quotes Isaiah 29 in v. 19:

19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

This was God’s plan all along: to show that the wisdom of the wise, the wisdom we humans naturally trust, isn’t really wisdom at all; the most discerning of men has no discernment compared to that of God himself.

This idea was a slap in the face for people who lived in a place like Corinth, because the people of Corinth prized philosophical wisdom. It’s not, in reality, all that different from what we see in Paris today. We put great philosophers and thinkers on a pedestal because of all they have contributed—and many of them did contribute a great deal. But where has all this elevated thinking brought us? It hasn’t brought us to God; it’s made us feel smart enough and resourceful enough to move away from him.

None of this was a surprise to God; he knew this would happen, and it’s been progressively happening for as long as human beings have walked the earth.

So God did the one thing no one would expect. He dismantled the “wisdom of the wise” by something we humans, with our “enlightened” reasoning, naturally find ridiculous.

V. 20:

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

The world did not come to know God through its own wisdom, Paul says in v. 21. So God chose a means of salvation that looks absurd—and that is a crucified Savior.

When I was nineteen I broke my ankle while leaving my final exam in my college psychology class. The stairs were extra wide, I finished early, and as I was walking down the stairs, in front of two hundred students behind me, I missed the last step and broke my ankle. I was out in the lobby before I realized how bad it was; I started to feel light-headed and nauseous; my friend had to sit next to me and hold a trash can under my chin while we waited for my mom to come take me to the hospital.

The worst part of that whole experience wasn’t the broken ankle. It was sitting there and having the two hundred students that finished after me walk out and see me like that: pale, in pain, with a trash can under my chin. I felt so stupid.

All I did was break my ankle in public, and I was ashamed. And most of us feel that way; we don’t like being hurt or vulnerable in front of other people.

That’s what made crucifixion so effective. There were far simpler ways to execute criminals, but the goal wasn’t mainly death; it was shame. Those who were crucified were stripped naked, nailed to a cross in a public place, and forced to hang there in agonizing pain until they eventually died of asphyxiation. Crucifixion forced the condemned to carry their shame into death; it forced them into a state of complete weakness, complete vulnerability.

And Christianity states that our Savior, the Creator of the world, was condemned by the Jews as a blasphemer and crucified by Rome. This is the message that Paul preached, at a time when crucifixion was still widely practiced. So from the perspective of those outside, from the perspective of the world, the message of Christianity proclaims something shocking: our Savior lost. Our Savior was defeated by Rome. Our Savior was publicly shamed. That’s what people heard when they heard Paul speak of Christ crucified. This is not the kind of Savior that anyone would seek.

What do they seek?

Well, the Greeks—that is, non-Jews—sought “wisdom”, Paul says in v. 22. They sought extensive and persuasive discourses of philosophical insight. Even if the teachings of Christ were widely available at the time (and they weren’t, for most people), much of what Jesus said didn’t sound like philosophical wisdom. (“Those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” It’s tough to find the logic in that.) And to have him finish in such a shameful way… The message of the cross seemed like folly.

What about the Jews? They sought “signs”—they looked for displays of power. The Jews were waiting on their Savior, the Messiah, and their point of reference for what that Messiah would look like was someone like the great King David, who defeated Israel’s enemies and brought the kingdom to prosperity during his reign. A Messiah who commits blasphemy by saying he’s God and allows himself to be crucified… Such an idea wasn’t just folly to them, but outright offensive.

“The Jews seek signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.” The gospel takes all of our ideas of what is powerful and desirable and worthwhile, and turns them all on their heads; it flips the world upside-down.

And strangely, this is what many people who call themselves Christians today still stumble over. Many Christians come to the faith mainly for what they can experience—through what they think God can do for them. They want to solutions to their problems; they want to see signs of power; they want to experience something incredible. But Christianity has never been defined by the experience of visible power. It has always been defined by the cross.

That is why experience-based ministry can never produce saving faith. If someone has already been saved by the gospel of Christ, then a miracle can be a helpful encouragement, and thank God that he does still do these kinds of things. But they are not the center of our faith, because experiencing a miracle will never save a soul. Only those whom the gospel saves, and only those whom the gospel has saved, see the gospel’s power.

Which is what Paul says in v. 24:

to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God.

It’s not a question of intelligence—it’s not at all surprising that the Jews and Greeks outside the church rejected the gospel, because for them the gospel is folly, it’s offensive. But to those who are called, to those whom God has saved, the message of the cross—this ultimate display of weakness and vulnerability—is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

And the church itself is the first picture of that reality.

The Gospel in the Church (1:26–31)

Paul does not pull his punches. V. 26:

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

Let’s just be honest: none of us are as great as we’d like to be. And that’s fine—that’s actually intentional. Thank God, there are in the world some people in positions of power who are Christians. But in most churches, you won’t find presidents or prime ministers; you’ll find ordinary people. People who have ordinary jobs and who live ordinary lives, people whom the world may not see as wise or powerful or noble.

God does this on purpose: he populates churches with ordinary human beings whom the world will typically not think much of. The question is why? V. 27:

27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

V. 27-28 are tricky, because they’re a little cryptic. What are the “foolish” things in the world that shame the wise? What are the “weak” things, the “low and despised things,” the “things that are not”?

The answer, I think, is two-layered. The first layer is Christ. We’ve already seen why the world would consider Christ weak, low and despised, of no account. Through the wisdom of Christ, God will shame the wise. Through the weakness of Christ, God will shame the strong. The message of the cross will ultimately show that all of the foundations on which we have built our ideas of our own greatness are in fact worthless.

The second layer, though, is the church. Of course, Paul’s not saying that the church will shame the wise, shame the strong, nullify the significant, in the course of our lives. He’s speaking eschatologically—he’s speaking about things that will happen at the end. When Christ returns to judge the world, the wise and the strong and the powerful, who depended on their own strength to save them, will be proven weak and foolish and low. Those who will not be brought low will be those who have placed their faith in Christ—the ordinary human beings in our churches, who have trusted in him alone for their salvation.

The point Paul’s trying to help the Corinthians to see here isn’t that the strong and the wise and the powerful will be put to shame. His point is that no one in the church in Corinth has anything in themselves to boast about. No human being can boast in the presence of God, because through the cross, God dismantles all of our ideas of what greatness really is. The cross shows us that the only thing we have to boast in before God is God himself. V. 30:

30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

God has brought us into Christ by his own power. And he has shown to us that our crucified Savior, who paid the price for ur sin (that’s righteousness and redemption), who gave us his perfect life (that’s sanctification), who was raised from the dead and who now reigns in heaven (that’s power), is what true greatness looks like. He is our wisdom; he is our sanctification. He is our redemption.

The composition of the church proves the message of the cross.

And lastly, since the church itself displays the power of God in weakness, Paul wants to display the same principle through his ministry.

The Gospel in Ministry (2:1–5)

Chapter 2, verse 1:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

We saw this a little bit last week, but now Paul brings it up again. He did not come to Corinth with displays of rhetorical brilliance (even though he probably could have). He did not come proclaiming the gospel with “lofty speech or wisdom.” He preached a simple message in a simple way.

The center of his message was Christ crucified, and he proclaimed it in a way that didn’t seem convincing. His speech and message weren’t in “plausible words of wisdom,” but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”

In other words, the messenger matched the message. Paul let God do all the work. We’ll see this more in next week’s text, but the demonstration of the Spirit and power he speaks of are not mainly seen in miracles. They are mainly seen when someone hears this crazy message Paul is preaching—folly to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews—and instead of responding with rejection, they say, “Wait—this is true. The gospel is the truth! This is how I can be saved—through a crucified Savior!”

The only way any human being will come to that realization is through the power of the Holy Spirit. A crucified Savior will convince no one outside of God’s intervention. Paul preached one unified message, without rhetorical flourishes, in weakness and trembling… And the result was faith that rested not on human persuasion, but on the power of God.

Conclusion

The Corinthians wanted a Christianity that kept the cross but upgraded it with worldly wisdom. But the moment you try to upgrade the cross, you lose the cross.

If a ministry relies on the charisma of its leaders, the technique of its teachers, or some other sort of branding, it contradicts the message it claims to believe. Paul’s model goes the other way: he displays weakness in himself, while preaching the cross clearly and depending entirely on the Spirit to do the work of saving people.

Same thing in the church. Programs, activities and social engagement are not bad things in a church. But if a church needs these things to look impressive, then it has already drifted from the cross. A church shaped by the cross will look strange, because it will be filled with people who don’t seem all that exceptional. But because they are depending on the Spirit and keeping the cross the center of their lives, what will we see? We will see power; we will see people come to Christ through this crazy message we preach.

And it’s the same thing for each one of us. If we still feel the need to prove ourselves, then we betray the fact that the cross actually isn’t central in our lives. If our lives are shaped by the cross—if the cross defines us—then we no longer need to prove ourselves. We no longer need to be exceptional. We no longer need to seem wise. We no longer need to be convincing. All we need to do is trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross, and live lives that are shaped by that grace we have received.

That will radically change everything we do as individuals, as a church, and in ministry. Because none of it will be about us. Everything will be from him and through him and for him. And we will be overjoyed to let him take center stage.

30 And because of [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

The Absurdity of Division & the Cross of Christ (1 Corinthians 1.10-17)

One of the truths the Bible teaches about marriage is that whatever should happen in a church, should also happen on a smaller scale in the home. So I’m going to start by using marriage as an example. Most of you know a little bit about my marriage to Loanne, but it’s just too appropriate an illustration to not use it today.

Loanne and I have been married for longer than some of you have been alive—it will be 23 years in April. Our marriage happened very quickly: we met in mid-February 2003, and we were married at the end of April—nine weeks later. So we didn’t have time to actually get to know one another before we get married.

We should have, because if we had given it a bit more time, we would have realized that we have nothing in common. We like some of the same music, some of the same books, but pretty much nothing else. In our day-to-day lives, it’s an easy bet that if I would do things one way, Loanne would do that same thing the opposite way.

So reading what the apostle Paul says in v. 10 can seem almost ridiculous, in the context of our marriage.

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.

Loanne and I agree on almost nothing. We do not have the same mind, we do not have the same judgment. So how can we possibly obey what Paul says here? How can we not be “divided”?

And when we take this verse in the context of the entire church (which is its proper context), we could ask the same question. How could any church ever truly be “united”? When you have this many people, there are bound to be disagreements—even profound disagreements—among our members. How could we ever really be united in the same mind and the same judgment?

That’s the question of today’s text, and it’s a question we’ll keep coming back to over the course of the next weeks and months.

If you remember, last week Paul began his letter to the Corinthians by affirming the work of God in their church. God has shown them his grace in Jesus Christ, he has sanctified them and called them to be saints, and he has enriched them in every gift they would need to persevere until Christ’s return.

All of these things are true, and will remain true. But it is possible to live with a deep disconnect between what is true about us and how we’re actually living. And that disconnect is woefully present among the Corinthians.

So now that he’s established what is true about them, Paul is going to begin addressing the many problems in their church. The first problem Paul highlights in his letter, following his encouraging introduction, is that of division in the church.

Be United (v. 10-12)

Paul makes no transition. He reminds the Corinthians in v. 9 that they have been called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And because they are all in fellowship with Christ, because they have all been saved by Christ and are in Christ, that necessarily implies that they should be in fellowship with one another.

That’s why Paul says (v. 10):

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.

This appeal Paul makes is not a suggestion; he’s not giving advice. He appeals to them by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he’s invoking Christ’s authority as Christ’s apostle: this command is non-negotiable. Divisions among you are unacceptable, he says: Be united.

And the unity to which he calls them well-defined, not vague. He says, “be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”

It’s important to understand what he means here. He’s not talking about uniform personality or identical opinions: he’s talking about shared identity, and shared trajectory.

Let’s come back to the example of my marriage to Loanne. Like I said, we could not be more different. We disagree all the time. And we’ve had some hard periods in our marriage because of that; no one said it would be easy. So how is it that we’re still married today? How is it that we really are “united”?

Because no matter what things we don’t have in common, there are two main things that have united us, from the very beginning.

First, we have a shared identity. We are both disciples of Christ, children of God, saved by grace through faith, united to one another as brother and sister in Christ. Our identity comes from the same source, and it doesn’t at all depend on similarities of personality or opinion.

We also have a shared trajectory. From the very beginning, for everything on which we disagreed, we have always agreed on the one essential thing: what is the goal of our marriage? If you’re newlyweds, of if you’re engaged, or if you’d like to be married one day, listen closely, because this is important. The goal of marriage is not to make one another happy; it’s not to fulfill one another’s needs. The goal of marriage is to glorify God by displaying the gospel to the world through the life we live together.

That is the goal. We are coming from the same place, and we are going in the same direction, and we are using the same means—the grace and gifts God has given us in Christ—to do it.

That is what it means to “be united in the same mind and the same judgment”. The goal of marriage is also the goal of the church. It is unity in the way we live out the gospel with one another, for the sake of the glory of God. This means being united in our identity and our trajectory. It means having the same basis for judgment (which is what God has revealed to us in his Word). It means having the same authority that guides our decisions (not our own opinions or reason, but again, what God has revealed to us in his Word).

Today, churches tend to normalize division, because fighting for unity amongst diversity is hard work. If it gets hard, just find another church. Paul doesn’t do that. Paul doesn’t tell the church to “try to get along.” He treats division in the church as a contradiction of their calling, a contradiction of who they are in Christ.

And we can see this is what he’s getting at—that the division is coming from mistaken identity rather than simple disagreement—when he explains why he’s saying these things. V. 11:

11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

We don’t know who Chloe or her “people” were, and it doesn’t matter—the point is that Paul names his source. The problem is public and verified. This isn’t a rumor; it’s a problem the Corinthians can observe among themselves, and that they can’t deny.

12 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.”

Apollos was a well-known Christian teacher at the time, whom Paul knew personally, and Cephas is another name for the apostle Peter. The point isn’t whom these people claim to follow; the problem is that they are identifying with whom they claim to follow.

Even those who say “I follow Christ” are part of the problem, not because they follow Christ—he’s the one we should all be following—but because they say they follow Christ in comparison to everyone else. In the church of Corinth, little clans have popped up, clans that identify with specific people rather than with the message of the gospel.

And if we think things are better today, we are hopelessly naïve.

Loyalty to celebrity leaders, adherence to certain teachers as a way to signal status… These things are alive and well in our Internet age, and in the context of evangelical churches in France—a world which is relatively small. It’s easy to “follow” a hundred different teachers, and even feel loyal to them, to the detriment of the gospel.

I hesitated before bringing it up, but it’d be sort of strange if I didn’t: a couple of years ago, this church was nearly divided because of just this sort of thing. A group of people in the church felt an aberrant loyalty toward another pastor, and tried to sow division in our church by pitting their group against those who wanted to stay in Connexion. We didn’t care that these people didn’t feel loyal toward us; we cared that they were pressuring faithful church members to leave, by suggesting those who remained at Connexion were actually being unfaithful. We cared that they had turned the situation into “us versus them”.

God was gracious, and we came out of that situation stronger, but it was incredibly painful.

Christians today still build identity around leaders, tribes, platforms and traditions. To be clear, we’re not talking about having different types of churches built around different types of theology. There are many churches with whom we disagree with them on some secondary but important theological points. It would be very difficult, and ultimately harmful, to just combine and form a single church together, because this sort of clan-thinking would quickly surface.

But we are not divided from our brothers and sisters in these churches; there are good churches with whom we disagree on secondary issues. Our disagreements would make common ministry difficult, but we still share the central beliefs of the Christian faith; they are still our brothers and sisters.

That is not the “division” we’re talking about. We’re talking about division in the midst of a single local church, based upon different ideas of who we are, and where we are going. This sort of thinking is natural, but for those who have been saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ, it makes no sense. And Paul shows that it makes no sense by asking three surgical questions.

The Absurdity of Division (v. 13-16)

We find all three of them in v. 13; we’ll take them one by one.

First:

Is Christ divided?

Of course not; the idea is absurd. We have one Jesus Christ, one Savior, one Lord, who has saved one people. If Christ is not divided, neither is his church.

Second:

Was Paul crucified for you?

Of course the answer to this question is also no. But Paul isn’t asking the question because he thinks the Corinthians don’t know the answer; he’s asking the question to redirect their loyalty.

Loyalty in the church is never meant to be directed toward a person, or a tradition, or a theology, or or a culture. Loyalty belongs where salvation occurred. Christ saved his people by living our life and dying our death and being raised again to give us life. He saved us at the cross. So Christ and his work alone deserve our loyalty.

Third:

Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Again, no. When anyone is baptized, they are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism explicitly names ownership. Christians belong to God, not to pastors or preachers or ministers.

His point is that division within a local church isn’t just bad behavior; it’s theological nonsense.

And Paul shows how little sense it makes by downplaying his own role. V. 14:

14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)

I love that Paul can’t remember exactly whom he has baptized; that ambiguity in his own mind is exactly the point. It doesn’t matter who baptized whom. It doesn’t matter if he’s the one who baptized, or if it was someone else. Paul refuses to let baptism become a badge of pride. There is no cult of personality here, no “my pastor is better than yours.”

Paul makes much of Christ and little of the church’s leaders, even himself. And that’s the way it should be.

When I was a young Christian, no pastor was more helpful to me than John Piper. I found his ministry online, and Piper’s teaching was one of the foundational pillars of my faith in those early years; John Piper is the pastor who taught me how to read the Bible.

So you can imagine what it was like for me when I became a pastor and had the opportunity to meet John Piper for the first time. And then, some time later, I had the chance to spend time with him, to have dinner with him! (And he remembered me!) I’m not too proud to admit there was a good bit of hero worship there.

It took me a long time to realize that my admiration of John Piper, while not inappropriate, could easily have sent me in a direction similar to what we see in these verses. And it would have gone completely against everything I’ve ever heard Piper say, because all he’s ever wanted is to point people to Christ, and his work, and his glory. It’s the double-edged sword of being a good teacher: all you want is to make much of God, and people begin making much of you.

We do need leaders, and there’s nothing wrong with being thankful for the faithful leaders God has provided. But we do not draw our identity from the leaders who have helped us. Ministers in the church are not figureheads; they are interchangeable servants, pointing us to the work of Christ.

The Center of the Ministry: The Cross of Christ (v. 17)

And that’s what Paul says last, in v. 17:

17 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.

Paul’s mission is not to become the figurehead of the early Christian church by baptizing as many people as possible; his mission is to preach the gospel.

And the way he preached was just as important as the content of his preaching.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he mentions one criticism that was often pointed at him. 2 Corinthians 10.10:

For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.”

In other words, the guy writes well, but when he speaks, he’s fairly unimpressive.

Paul says here in v. 17 that this is intentional. He says, “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom.”

The culture of the city of Corinth valued eloquence; they valued rhetorical showmanship; they valued someone’s ability to make a good speech. If the speech was well-prepared and well-delivered, it was generally more convincing.

And of course, we see this today as well. The person who is able to find the best punchline is the person everyone will remember.

Paul wants to intentionally steer clear of this kind of mentality. He refuses a ministry whose efficiency is based on performance. He refuses to rely on his education (which was extensive), his oratorical skills (which, we see in the book of Acts, were sharp), or his personality. When he preaches the gospel, he does it simply, in a manner that’s not eloquent or impressive.

Why? “Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power,” he says. That is his controlling concern.

The good news of the finished work of Christ is enough. The work of the Holy Spirit to take the gospel that is proclaimed and use it to wake people up, to bring them from death to life, is enough. Christ doesn’t need Paul to be eloquent. He doesn’t need Paul to be a good preacher.

He needs Paul to be faithful in his proclamation of the good news. That’s it.

Conclusion

Division amongst Christians happens all the time. And 99% of the time, that division makes no gospel sense.

How can a marriage like my marriage with Loanne work? It can only work if our marriage is not the center of our marriage. It can only work if Christ and his cross are the center of our marriage.

The same is true with every relationship, every endeavor, every aspect of our lives as Christians. And that’s what the Corinthians have not understood: the church fractures when anything or anyone other than Christ and his cross becomes the center.

We can see now why Paul began his letter the way he did, in the verses we saw last week. He wanted to remind the Corinthians of what God has actually done for them, because that’s where their identity truly is—and if that truth is kept central, the tracks will be laid for the gospel to do its work.

It won’t happen easily, and it won’t happen on its own; keeping the cross central is very hard work. But it’s the essential work of the church. Every problem Paul will address in this letter has that same root cause: in the church in Corinth, the cross has been displaced as the center.

The cross should level all markers of status. But in the church in Corinth, there’s division—their identity is built on human teachers rather than Christ crucified. This produces competition, pride and comparison.

The cross should remind us that Christ died to make a holy people. But in this church in Corinth, there is open sexual immorality and boasting about the sins they tolerate—their identity is built on cultural sophistication rather than holiness in Christ. This produces pride in sin rather than grief over sin.

The cross should absorb wrongs rather than retaliate. But in this church, Christians are suing one another publicly—their identity is built on personal rights and honor. This produces a public disgrace of the gospel.

The cross should remind us that Christ redeemed our bodies; we belong to him. But in this church, there is deep confusion over sexual ethics and the body—their identity is built on their idea of freedom, and their own appetites. This produces the feeling of Christianity with none of its substance.

The cross should show us that our worship is for him, not for ourselves. But in this church, worship is a disordered means of showing everyone else how good they are—their identity is built on gifts or spiritual experience.

I could go on. Every problem we see in this church—and most of the problems we’ll see in any church—is the same disease wearing different clothes. When something other than the cross becomes central, identity shifts. And when identity shifts, communion fractures, and sin gets the upper hand.

We can see this on a large scale, on the level of an entire church, but we can also see it in each of us as individuals. Every pattern of sin we see in our lives, in our relationships, in our jobs, in our pleasures, can always be traced back to something else slowly but steadily edging the cross of Christ to the margins and taking its place in the center.

It’s subtle, because most of the time, the things that edge out the cross of Christ are not bad things in themselves. We want to be happy in our homes, so we make happiness into an idol, and end up abusing our parents or our spouses or our kids. We want to be secure in our lives, so we make work into an idol, and end up making our careers the central goal of our lives. We want to feel good about ourselves, so we make validation into an idol, selfishly working for others’ approval rather than resting in the approval we already have in Christ.

No matter the sin, it’s the same problem with a different mask, and Paul’s solution is always the same: keep the cross central. Find your identity in Christ. Grow in your knowledge of the gospel, and let nothing eclipse the good news of Jesus Christ.

This is not easy to do, and it will require sacrifice—most often, that sacrifice is quite simple, and looks like staying and persevering rather than leaving when things get unpleasant. But that is our calling.

That is our job, and it is a job we cannot do on our own. We need one another to remind each other of what is true, and what is central. Keep your eyes on the cross. Help others keep your eyes on the cross. And let yourself be helped by them. We do not follow a leader, we do not follow an idea. Our loyalty belongs where our salvation was born. It belongs to the work and person of our Savior.

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.

Seeing God in the New Year (Ephesians 1.15-23)

Happy New Year, everyone!

I don't know if you received any surprise gifts for Christmas.

My wife was going to get me a tea pot. In fact, she accidentally sent a message to a family WhatsApp group I’m in too saying that she was going to buy that.

But I still got a surprise, because in the end she decided not to buy me anything!

Sometimes there are gifts that change our lives.

Like, for example, these glasses for colour-blind people that finally allow them to see colours better.

See the impact on this young colour-blind man in this video.

Moving... but question: through what glasses do we see the year 2026?

Some may be motivated by the start of a new year.

It's a new beginning, you have new projects. A new job, perhaps a wedding, perhaps a baby on the way.

Your outlook is tinged with optimism.

For others, it's different. There's a kind of dark cloud. Perhaps because of trials you're going through or anticipating. Your outlook on the coming year is tinged with anxiety or pessimism.

Through what glasses do we see the year 2026 unfolding?

This is not a trivial question, because how we view the world and ourselves determines how we live.
We all know Edith Piaf's famous song:

When he takes me in his arms

He whispers softly to me

I see life through rose-coloured glasses

And seeing life through rose-coloured glasses, she sings:

A great happiness takes its place

Troubles and sorrows fade away

Happy, happy to the point of death

Our outlook on life determines how we live.

Through what lens do we see the year 2026 unfolding?

We wanted to begin this new year by talking about prayer and meditating in particular on a prayer that concerns... our outlook on life.
It is a prayer from the Apostle Paul for the Christians of the city of Ephesus, who too could be tempted to adopt an anxious and fearful view of the world.

Fear and anxiety weighed heavily on all the inhabitants of Ephesus in the first century.

It was a city known for its practice of magic, through which people sought to obtain prosperity and protect themselves from demons.

It was also home to one of the seven wonders of the world, the immense temple of Artemis, goddess of fertility, who was worshipped to ensure her favour.

We read in the book of Acts that when people began to believe in Jesus and abandon Artemis, a riot broke out. If you angered the goddess, you put yourself in danger.

And the Christians who had turned their backs on all her magical practices and on Artemis, but who still saw them before their eyes every day, must have wondered if they had lost all protection against the forces of evil.

It must be the same today for Christians in regions where other religions dominate. Every day they are confronted with temples, mosques and crowds of people who believe that those who abandon their religion bring misfortune upon society.

In their place, I too would be tempted to look around me and feel that the world is against me!

What glasses are we wearing this year?

I'm not talking about Ray Bans or EnChroma glasses for colour-blind people.

This morning's passage invites us to ask God for a new pair of spiritual glasses.

To see life in its true colours.

So that it transforms the way we live this year.

Ephesians 1:15-23 – let's read it again together:

That is why I too, having heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus [and your love] for all the saints, never cease to give thanks for you as I mention you in my prayers.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him. I pray that he may enlighten the eyes of your heart so that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power, which he has worked effectively through the power of his strength towards us who believe.

He demonstrated this power in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above every rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in this age but also in the one to come. He put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Approaching a new year with joy and confidence does not begin with resolutions to think more positively and have more self-confidence.

According to this text, it begins by asking for...

1. “Glasses” to see God

This is our first point.

The key to a changed outlook on life is first to ask God for help in knowing Him more deeply.

Verse 17

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him.

The Ephesians had every reason to feel fearful, anxious, powerless, small, and perhaps even forsaken.

Paul says they need to know God better.

I speak for myself. I worry easily about things. Perhaps especially at turning points like the beginning of a new year.

I think about the challenges ahead, I get anxious, and my first instinct is to think about how to overcome them.

Paul prays for more knowledge of God.

Why? Is it just an easy answer?

'Whatever your worries, you need to know God better' – is that just the 'Christianly correct' answer?

No, to help the Ephesians change their perspective despite a very anxiety-provoking context, more knowledge of God was exactly what they needed.

Now, I know that when we say someone sees life through rose-tinted glasses, we imply that they are a little naive.

But why does Edith Piaf see life through rose-tinted glasses?

Because she is in love!

She feels cherished and secure, and that colours her whole outlook.

Perhaps you have experienced the same thing!

You fall in love, and the more you get to know the person, the more you fall in love and the more your outlook on life is flooded with light.

It doesn't have to be romantic love. Some friendships, as they deepen, have a similar effect. You feel secure.

Our relationships colour our outlook on life, except that in this case, the one we need to get to know better is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.

Why call him the Father of glory? Paul chooses his words carefully.

Glory in the Bible refers first and foremost to the manifest presence of God. It is when we see that he is there with us!

Think of Mount Sinai. The glory of God descends among the people. He comes to dwell in relationship with them.

Glory also refers to God's splendour. Literally, it is his weight! It shows that with God, we are dealing with something heavy!

When God saves the Israelites by parting the Red Sea, he reveals... his glory! He shows that he is the one and only God who fights for his people.

Then, when the people sin by making an idol, Moses wants to know how to prevent God from leaving them, and he says to God: show me your glory! And God responds by saying that what makes up his glory, his supreme splendour, is his love and forgiveness.

When the Israelites learn this, when they perceive his glory, their hearts are changed, they stop complaining and they give themselves to him to serve him.

Their outlook is transformed!

But Paul knows that with Jesus, this glory took human form, came to dwell among us to show us God's love and forgiveness.

The Father of glory is also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ!

So, in asking that the "Father of glory give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him," the apostle Paul prays that we may see more clearly the presence and splendour of God.

It is a prayer that our eyes may be filled and transformed by the reality that the God of the universe, the one and only creator of heaven and earth, the God of Jesus Christ who fights for his people... is with us and is for us!

It is more than just storing up information about God. It includes that. We need to know who we are dealing with. But it goes further than that.

Knowing someone in the Bible means having a close and intimate relationship.

When a man knows a woman, it refers to sexual intercourse.

So Paul is praying that our relationship with God will deepen, be more informed by truth, more intimate, and characterised by more trust, more gratitude, more wonder, more love.

He wants us to see God, to fall more in love with him, so to speak, so that it colours our view of life.

A small analogy would be the family.

It often strikes me that children who know that their parents love and encourage them, and for whom that love is self-evident, have an impressive stability and security.

They have a perspective on life shaped by their parents' love.

Sigmund Freud, who said that we imagined God to be the father we would have liked to have, is wrong.

But where there is some truth in what he says is that just as our relationship with our parents shapes our outlook on life, so does our relationship with God.

Not everyone has had a close relationship with their parents, but God offers us an even more real and perfect one!

So the key to a changed outlook is first to ask for a more accurate vision and a deeper relationship with our Father.

It is not natural for us to know God in this way.

Many things distort our view, and Paul knows this because he asks God to give us "a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him."

In other words, if we don't feel like we appreciate our relationship with God for what it's worth, welcome to the club!

It's not natural for us.

But the first thing to do to correct this is not to start a Bible reading plan or decide to be more diligent in our community group, even though these would be very good things to do.

The first thing to do is to pray... as Paul does.

Ask God to give us new glasses.

How much time do we spend praying for this?

It is a request that God is happy to grant, and he gives us this passage to tell us to do so... because it really is the key to everything.

The problem with comparing life to rose-tinted glasses is that if you are not cynical, you will accuse those who see life through rose-tinted glasses of lacking realism. 'At some point, harsh reality will catch up with you'.

The Bible is not lacking in realism!

What Paul prays for is precisely that the ultimate reality – God and the fact that we belong to him, if we are Christians – shapes our view of everything else.

At the beginning of 2026, it all starts here!

When we have a correct view of God, everything else falls into place!

Knowing how to approach challenges... it starts with glasses that see God.

Fighting sin... begins with glasses that see God.

Facing our worries...

Our motivation to serve, read the Bible, evangelise, or love our family... it all starts with asking for these glasses that see God!

Are we praying for this?

Because the better we know someone, the more we begin to share their perspective.

Perhaps you have noticed this.

At the beginning of a relationship, we are polite and reserved.

The deeper it gets, the better we see how the other person sees things and, in particular, how they see us!

I have a much better idea of how Anne-Sophie sees things and how she sees me today than I did before we got married!

That's why asking for glasses to see God is also asking for...

2. “Glasses” to see how God sees us.

This is our second point. Knowing God better allows us to see how God sees us.

This week, I looked at Fnac's bestsellers in the personal development category.

A common theme in these books is freeing yourself from the gaze of others.

If you want to be free and confident, stop worrying about what others think of you.

But according to this passage, there is someone else whose opinion we need to share.

God.

Paul prays that by knowing God better, we will come to share his perspective on three things

• Where we are going

• Who we are

• How to be sure

First...

• Where we are going

Verse 18

I pray that he will enlighten the eyes of your heart so that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you

In The Lord of the Rings, the four hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin meet a character they know as Strider.

At first they mistrust him, but then they discover that he is on their side and that Strider is actually called Aragorn and is the heir to a great kingdom where he will one day reign and which he will share with them.

As they get to know him, their eyes are opened to see how glorious their future is.

Paul prays that as we get to know God better, our eyes will also be opened to the future he will share with us.

Hope is the life that God has in store for us in the new creation he is preparing.

Sometimes we talk about going to heaven.

But if we imagine that we will spend eternity sitting in the clouds, dressed in white and playing the harp, we are mistaken.

Ephesians says that we are waiting for Jesus to reunite heaven and earth.

A physical earth, without all that spoils this one, where Jesus reigns visibly.

Paul wants us to understand that this is where we are headed!

Why?

Because the way we see our future determines the way we live our present.

Lucie's French teacher asked the pupils to watch a documentary called "2050, le monde d'après" (2050, the world after), which depicted a catastrophic scenario of how the climate in France will change in the coming years.

I'm not qualified to comment on the content. I simply thought that if we believe our ultimate destination is inevitable disaster, it could cause anxiety and paralysis in the present.

On a smaller scale, perhaps we look at the challenges of this new year—finding a job, finding a place to live, succeeding in our studies—and we already feel overcome with worry.

Paul prays that we will see that our ultimate destination is not disaster. It is heaven on earth.

That doesn't mean things can't go wrong before then. It means that our ultimate horizon is bright, and it is guaranteed by Jesus. There is no doubt about it.

I recently heard about a Christian man who had just learned he had cancer.

His response: the best is yet to come!

His eyes were open to the hope that comes with his calling!

OK, some might say, but that's a long way off!

I need reassurance right now!

That is why Paul also prays that we may share God's perspective on...

• Who we are

Verse 18 again

I pray that he will enlighten the eyes of your heart so that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, and what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints

What does it mean to be part of the glorious inheritance among the saints?

The word "inheritance" could give the impression that we are always talking about what God has in store for the future.

In that case, he is still talking about our hope.

But when we read this verse more carefully, we get the impression that it is saying something else.

Look again. To whom does the inheritance belong?

It is his glorious inheritance. It belongs to God.

It is among the saints: it is made up of Christians.

And Paul wants us to know how rich this inheritance is – how valuable it is.

In other words, he wants us to see that we are... God's precious and glorious inheritance!

We are His treasure!

In the Old Testament, Israel is described as God's inheritance.

With Jesus, it is the Christian church. Us.

Paul wants us to see how valuable we are to God.

The way we measure our value is so crucial.

When I was a teenager, I played a lot of music. Some teachers would say, 'You are only as good as your last performance'.

What does that produce?

Insecurity.

Some people are constantly overwhelmed by the feeling that they are never good enough.

Am I where I should be compared to others my age, etc.?

It becomes overwhelming.

Paul prays that we see ourselves as God sees us.

This is beautifully explained in the children's book, "You Are Precious".

In this story, little wooden men called Vémiches spend their time sticking stickers on each other.

The most beautiful and talented ones receive gold stars. The others receive grey circles.

Punchinello is very sad and convinced that he is a bad vémiche because he only has circles.

But one day he meets a vémiche who doesn't have any stickers sticking to her because she spends time with their sculptor, Eli.

So Punchinello goes to meet Eli. Eli puts his hands on his shoulders and says, "You are mine. That's why you are valuable to me." From then on, the stickers placed on him by others begin to fall to the ground.

He is freed from the gaze of the other vémiches.

Eyes open to who we are.

Ah, but how do I know I won't walk away and lose all this?

We are weak! And life is difficult!

Thirdly...

• How can we be sure?

Verse 19
"I pray that he will enlighten the eyes of your heart so that you may know ... what is the infinite greatness of his power, which is effectively manifested by the power of his strength towards us who believe."

What we believe about power also determines many things: what we fear, how we live, whom we trust, etc.

The Ephesians were in danger of believing that power belonged to Artemis or to evil spiritual powers or to the crowds who saw the church in Ephesus as a threat to society.

Today, we may believe that power belongs to the strong men of this world, or to tech bosses, or perhaps just to the blind forces of chance.

Even if we believe that power belongs to God, our view may be tinged with the suspicion that God will use it against us.

Paul prays that as we come to know God better, our eyes will be opened to see the extent of his power—his infinite greatness—and that it serves our good! It is effectively manifested through the power of his strength towards us who believe.

We can be sure of where we are going and that God will not lose his glorious inheritance along the way, because he deploys the infinite greatness of his power on our behalf!

During the holidays, I went ice skating with my 5-year-old nephew.

He was completely relaxed the whole time, skating along without a care in the world, because my brother was standing behind him to hold him up and, above all, because he was also holding on to a big plastic penguin that prevented him from falling.

In our case, it is not a plastic penguin that keeps us standing. It is the infinite greatness of God's power!

So, be careful. Paul is not talking about a power that can potentially help us stand.

It's not that when we feel a little weak, we can pick up the phone and ask God to throw in a little more power.

No, Paul prays that we will see the power that is already at work for our good.

Verse 20

He displayed this power in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above every rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. He put everything under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

The power that works in our favour today in 2026 is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and placed him at the head of the universe, from where he rules over all things for the good of his people, who are also his body. X 2

What does a head do for a body?

Our head takes care of our body, seeks its good, and nourishes it.

Perhaps in recent weeks, our head has nourished our body a lot! Perhaps a little too much!

God has placed Jesus at the head of the universe so that he may direct everything for the eternal good of his body!

If you are like me, believing that God is constantly and powerfully working for our good is the hardest thing to believe.

Our hope, our value, we might say, okay...

Believing that God acts in everything for our good... our physical eyes often tell us otherwise!

But the reality is that the world is not ruled by impersonal, random or hostile forces.

It is ruled by Jesus!

God must impress this upon us!

The One who rules the universe, who tells the galaxies which way to turn, rules the universe for the eternal good of His church; us, if we are Christians!

Amazing!

That is why Paul does not pray for God to give us more power.

He prays that as we contemplate Jesus, risen and reigning, the eyes of our hearts will be opened to the power already at work for our eternal good.

Some people are interested in what is known as spiritual warfare or spiritual combat.

This is the idea of doing things to prevent the forces of evil from harming us.

Ephesians is the book to explore if you have questions about this.

But it is striking that in a city as marked by magic and occultism as Ephesus, Paul does not ask God to protect Christians!

He asks that they see spiritual reality as it is! Jesus, risen and reigning, for our good!

He asks that we have glasses to see how God sees us!

How do we see the year 2026 unfolding?

Some may have high expectations for this year. Beautiful things await them.

Perhaps not everyone. It is possible that some feel more pessimistic.

Our society asks: what do I need to do to feel better?

Should I exercise more or eat healthier? Sure, why not!

But the Bible asks: what glasses are you wearing?

God's glasses... or other ones?

There is a world of colour and beauty to discover when we put on these glasses.

Not that nothing difficult will happen to us. But when we look through God's glasses, everything is put into perspective and the vision they offer is ultimately very, very good because the first thing we see through them is that God is very, very good.

What glasses are we wearing?

The view they offer may seem very different from our normal way of seeing things.

Perhaps we are tempted to think that seeing things differently is beyond our reach.

But everything is there for us to see!

Everything is there!

It is not a fantasy!

God wants to give it to us!

We just have to ask!

Connexion, let me say, that to pray in this way... we are weak!

We pray for our job interviews, our studies, stress at work. That's excellent. God tells us to pray for those things.

But when it comes to praying for the change this passage talks about, we can do better. We must do better! I include myself in that. So much depends on it.

May I encourage us at the beginning of this year to aim for that?

To pray that God will take what we read in this book and make it the lenses in our glasses... even if you don't wear glasses.

Perhaps if there is one good resolution to make this year, it is this.

To pray, without ceasing, as Paul says, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him.