Well, we laugh when humorists get like that,
and we weep as well, because it's a lot of fun
when these humorous things tear a picture. But
we're like, don't be. So after he came home from
his office one day, and as he came in the front
door of the house, he heard his children yelling
and screaming at one another upstairs as they
were running up the steps to see what the problem
was. He went into the bedroom and said, what's
going on here? A little five -year -old looked
up at him and smiled and said, oh, daddy, it's
okay. We're just playing church. Well, you see
another situation how we smile and laugh, but
yet too often it represents us, doesn't it? It
represented certainly the church that we're studying
in our exposition of First Corinthians. Hope
was a large and cultured cosmopolitan center
of If people were therefore comparatively well
off, and in addition to that, they were wealthy,
they were religious, worshipping pagan gods and
goddesses like Aphrodite, who we described last
week. However, through both preaching, the living
God had moved into the city of Corinth. God had
called out a number of people into the fellowship
of Jesus Christ about four or five years after
Paul's ministry there, he writes to the church
to answer their questions sent to him and to
address some concerns that he had. He thanks
God for their past because as believers they
share in the grace of God. He thanks God for
their future because they will share in the glory
of Jesus Christ and his revelation. But he does
not thank God for their... Someone has said in
the church where there's a will, there's also
a won't. And that is true in the church at Corinth,
just like Grace Church, Roseville, and in every
other local church. When you see in the city
of Corinth, the people were saints, but they
didn't live like it. They were behaving in the
flesh and not in the spirit, and as a result
of that, they were divisive and critical of one
another. They were self -centered and nasty.
So they try to make it all seem very spiritual.
John McCartyre, in his quote, says, Quarles are
part of life. We grow up in them and around them.
Infants are quick to express displeasure when
they're not given something they want or when
something they like is taken away. Little children
cry, try to control tantrums because they cannot
have their ways. We argue, fight over arrival
of another. in a football, in a position on the
football team or in a cheerleading squad, then
in business, PTA or politics, friends fight,
husbands and wives fight, businesses fight, cities
fight, even nations fight, sometimes to the point
of war, and the source of all the fighting is
the same, man's depraved, egoistic, selfish nature.
I say that quarreling is a reality of the Church
because selfishness and other sins are realities
of the Church. Because of quarreling, the Father
is dishonored, the Son is disgraced, his people
are demoralized and discredited, and the world
is turned off and confirmed in unbelief. Fractured
fellowship robs Christians of joy and effectiveness,
robs God and glory and robs the world of the
true testimony of the Gospel. That's a high price
for an ego trip. That's what was taking place
in the church. That's what was taking place in
literally every church in the last 2 ,000 years.
We must say it to shame and with weeping. The
Apostle in verse 10 begins a new tone in his
letter after rejoicing in and expressing thankfulness
to God for the past and the future of the Corinthians.
He says, but I exhort you. Our translation God
using the New American Standard says, now I exhort
you, but really it's but I exhort you because
he is turning 180 degrees in his stone. He says,
now I exhort you brethren by the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree. and that
there be no divisions among you, but should be
made complete in the same mind and the same judgment.
For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren,
my glorious people, that there are quarrels among
you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is
saying, I am of Paul, and I am of Paulus, and
I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ. Was Christ
then divided? Paul was not crucified for you,
was he? Or were you baptized in vain, Paul? I
thank God that I baptize none of you except Christus,
yes. That no man should say you were baptized
in my name. Now, I did baptize also the household
of Staphanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether
I baptized any other. For Christ did not send
me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not
in cleverness of speech, but the cross of Christ
should be made void. And there the apostle begins
introducing the next theme here, but he spends
actually the first four chapters of this book
on this one problem of the contention in the
fellowship of God's people, the infighting, the
quarreling, the fracturing that was going on
within that church. In fact, it's interesting
to me that that's the very first thing the Apostle
Paul talks about when there was false doctrine
in the church as well. Then he finally gets around
to the chapter 15. That suggests to me that Paul
was more concerned about the spirit of the people
in the church than he was about the little bit
of false doctrine. that he was more concerned
about the lasting result of the divisive spirit
of the people than he was about the fact that
they believed something wrong regarding the resurrection.
It's so difficult to launch his envy as reason
for the letter in these verses in order to correct
their carnal and fleshly attitudes and to instruct
them that how Christians ought to behave. And
yet the apostle does this gently. As concerned
as he is, he does not begin with a scolding at
all. He begins gently to exhort them. This word
exhort is a word that's related to the word comforter.
When Jesus said, I will send a comforter to you.
And so the apostle Paul is using the word that
means to come alongside a person. And to sit
down next to that person and to look them in
the eye and to communicate genuine concern. It's
the word of a coach that comes alongside his
player who's not playing well or is defective
in some aspect of his teammanship. And the coach
ought to be concerned for the player, the team
gets close to that player and says, well, here's
what you need to do. And then pats him on the
rump as he goes back into the... He says, now
look, do I need to come to you with a rod? Do
I need to come to you with a spanking stick?
In other words, or do you want me to come gently?
It's what he feels very deeply about what he
writes of them. And he takes this action of exhorting
them, as he says it, in or by the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, he is doing
this as an official representative of Jesus Christ.
He is coming to them as one who has been appointed
by God, and he wants them to realize that how
they respond to him and to this land was how
they were going to respond to Jesus himself.
because he was Jesus' representative. So there's
a crisis of contention in the Corinthian Church.
The story is told about a stubborn old farmer
who was plowing his field with his mules, and
a neighbor of his was watching him in this process,
and he noticed that he was jerking the reins
on the mule instead of speaking to the mule,
and so he went to his neighbor and says, look,
I don't like to butt in. But couldn't you get
a lot further with your mule by saying, gee,
and paw, by speaking to the mule rather than
jerking on the reins? The old timer looked at
his neighbor and said, yeah, I know that. But
this here mule kicked me six years ago, and I
ain't spoke to him since. How do you deal with
contention? How do you deal with a disagreeable
situation? The best way to deal with contention,
when the mule kicks you, is to confront the contention
directly, as the Apostle Paul does here, ignoring
it only helps the conflict to grow. But the question
is raised, how then do you directly confront
contention? The Apostle Paul, it seems to me,
lays out some models for us here. First of all,
he appears... for unity in the body. He appeals
to them for unity in the body. The unity of a
church is its glory. If you remove that unity,
a church is disgraced. Guarding the unity of
the fellowship of God's people is the job of
every member of a church. Ephesians chapter 4,
the apostle writes to them, I the prisoner, the
Lord, treat you to walk in a manner worthy of
the calling with which you've been called with
humility and gentleness, patience, showing forbearance
to one another in love. And as they're doing
all of that, he says, being diligent to preserve
the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.
So you see it as the responsibility of all of
God's people to guard and to keep the unity of
the Church. He also appeals to them to take three
actions. He first of all says, I appeal to you,
I exhort you, that you all agree. Literary says
that you all say the same thing. But Paul cannot
mean or expect that the Corinthians are going
to agree on absolutely everything. Because later
in chapter 8 he acknowledges that there will
be differences of opinion among God's people
and matters about which God has not spoken clearly.
But when he says that we are to all say the same
thing, he is saying that we all need to agree
on those things where God has clearly spoken.
God has clearly spoken on many things. And he
says on these things, Don't disagree. And don't
bring in secondary, non -essential matters into
the fellowship of the Church. There's an expression
in the Greek political life that kind of gets
to this, and it's one that really speaks to our
contemporary political life in America. The Greek
expression was, drop the party prize. Drop the
party prize. You can see how that applies to
the Church of Christ. because they were divided
up into parties around personalities that the
police wanted. But today, in our political process
in this country, partisanship has become so deep
and so bitter that those who've been elected
to do well with people can't get along well enough
to see things progress, to see something introduced
and reasonably debated and compromises to be
made and then for them to come together. They're
always looking for the difference. They're always
looking for some way to gain some advantage for
their party. That is not to their credit. And
we give out to people wise enough and smart enough
that they recognize that and vote out partisanship.
What the apostle states here is that partisanship
has no place in a church. He says there ought
not to be in the church people dividing themselves
up into parties over secondary non -essential
matters. All of you agree the second action is
that there be no divisions among you. This word
divisions is where we get our English word sizzle.
It refers to a tear or to a crack that is used
in Matthew 9, 16 of the tearing of a garment.
It's a word that was used in the secular world
on that day of the spreading of wood, or the
plowing of ground, opening up ground. He uses
it again in 1 Corinthians in chapter 11 where
he says, for the first place when you come together
as a church, I hear there are divisions existing
among you. And in part, I believe it. Sisms.
He says that there be no sisms, no one. plowing
the ground to create an opening, a lift, a tear
in God's people. The thirdly says that you be
made complete, that you be perfectly united,
is how the NIV puts it. That what it means to
be put in the good order is a word that those
of you who are craftsmen with wood would enjoy
because it means It means to frame something
together, to join two pieces of wood in such
a way that the joint is not obvious. It's a word
that is used in Hebrews 11 .3 when it says, By
faith we understand that the worlds were framed
by the word of God. That is, that God caused
the universe to come into existence in the order
that it is, so that the world is framed, it's
brought forth. together in such a way that it
testifies to the wisdom and the power of God.
It is a word of the great physician whose name
happened to be Galen, the use of setting a bone.
When a bone is broken, you bring the pieces together,
you set the bone, and it's used in the Bible
again in Matthew 421 of the mending of nets.
It means to take the pieces of the fishing net
that have been torn to the rocks and to sew them
together so as to preserve the net. All of those
weren't pictures to say that that's what the
fossil was from these believers, that they be
made completely united. That instead of being
torn, instead of being like broken bones, they're
out of place. That they be locked together. in
their thinking. And so the apostle appeals to
them for unity. And he asks for evidence of this
unity in two very specific ways. He says, in
the same mind and in the same judgment. Two related
but different thoughts. To be of the same mind
means to be in aloneness in thinking. To have
harmony in attitude. to be united in ideas. But
he's talking not only doctrine here, but beyond
doctrine here. He's talking about what we think
about ministry in the terms of a local church.
He's talking about what might be called a philosophy
of ministry. What you do and why you do it. He
says the evidence of the unity I'm appealing
before is that you will come together and there
will be a harmony and attitude. But not only
in the way that you think, he says, also in the
judgments you make. That is, in the decisions
that you make, in the direction that you take,
in the strategies that you employ to carry out
what you say you want to do. He says in these
things that there may be unity. There's not a
place, he says, for misunity in them. So the
first action he takes is that he appeals to them
for unity, but he takes the second action when
he anticipates the response in verses 11 to 12.
You can almost hear the Corinthian church saying,
well, Paul, how do you know what's going on here?
How do you know? And so, with those two questions
in mind, Paul seems to answer them. when he says
to them what he does in verse 11, Paul, what
makes you think we have problems? He says, well,
I've been informed concerning you, my brethren.
The word informed means that he has been set
clear regarding them. He's had a report, you
see, from the household of Chloe, the delegation
of Chloe's house, whether it was his servants
or his family, we do not know. I said his, Chloe,
is a woman's name. It was a woman who was apparently
well -known among the grandkids. So that when
he mentioned her name, she would be immediately
recognized. They were the ones who had brought
to Paul the letter that they had sent that caused
this letter to be written. And in addition to
the letter that they sent, they also had some
verbal things to say to Paul. And so based upon
their report, He is writing these things. They
are the ones that said to Paul, Paul, there are
problems in Corinth. The church there is divided.
I asked the question, was this a righteous act
for the part of those people? Or was this gossip
on their part? To pass along in a prayer request
as we saw earlier what the real situation was.
The moment I ask it this way, is it ever right
to tell? Is it ever right to squeal? Well, the
answer to that is that we have to ask three questions
before we squeal. The first question we have
to ask is what is my motive in wanting to tell
this? The motive needs to be that of course of
love. Secondly, I need to ask the question before
I tell somebody what I know. Am I willing to
be identified with this message? Am I willing
to be known as the one who passed this along?
If I'm seeking the anonymity, then I need to
really go back and check my motor again. And
the third question is, am I telling someone who
could intervene and do something? Because if
I'm passing along a report to somebody who can't
do anything about it anyway, and what is the
real benefit. You see, as a household employee
would ask those questions, they could answer
them all in a positive way. They were part of
the church, they loved the church, they were
willing to be identified, and they were bringing
the issues to the one man that God had appointed
as the apostle to answer these questions. The
report was that there were quarrels among them,
he wants them to know them. The word quarrels
means contentions or debates. And we know from
what Paul writes in Galatians chapter 5 that
when there are debates among the people of God,
somebody is in the flesh. Because contentions
is the work of the flesh, of the sin that still
operates within our universe. Zodiac says, in
his words about this text, a quarrelsome spirit
is a carnal spirit. But there is somebody who
wants to fight. But there is someone who wants
to quarrel, or to take issue. Then that person
needs to check his spirit. I don't know why jokes
about this, you know, you're always told on the
choir. I suppose they aren't always with so many
choir that I read just recently that I thought
was rather new message. Although if you're a
choir member, you probably won't think so. A
new choir member said, no, what is your position
in the choir? And the experienced choir member
said, neutral, idle side with either faction.
The second question that may have come to the
Corinthian believers was, well, Paul... What
contention are you writing about? And so the
Apostle makes it very clear in verse 12 what
he's talking about. Here's what I mean. He says,
each one of you, indicating the breadth of this
problem by the way, each one of you, he says,
is saying, I'm a fall of all of Cephas in Christ.
The problem in the church was that they were
divided over personalities. There were some who
liked Paul best because he was the founder of
the church. Eve was the one who had come to preach
the gospel there. He was the apostle of our Lord
Jesus Christ and he was the first on the scene
and therefore they were loyal to Paul. But there
were others who liked Apollos better. Apollos
who was the pastor of the church when Paul left.
Apollos was a very eloquent speaker. Apollos
was a man who apparently loved Greek philosophy
and he was able in his oratorical ability to
bring in all kinds of aspects to his preaching
that some people like to bring deal. And so they
said, well, we like Apollos best. And then there
was a group who liked Peter. Now, what Peter's
relationship was there, we don't really know.
He may have ministered in Corinth, or perhaps
there were others who came to Corinth later,
and who had known Peter. But there were some,
apparently, who thought, well, Peter was one
of the originals. He goes all the way back to
the 12th. Maybe this was a Jewish element, and
they said, well, Peter is the apostle to the
Jews. Therefore, we're in Peter's party. And
then there were some who said, I am with Christ.
Notice that Paul does not commend them, because
these people were saying that they were of Christ.
They had the right name, but they had the wrong
spirit. Apparently these were a very super spiritual
group that disavowed any human leader. They might
even have plain, some special relationship to
Christ, but they had a holier than thou attitude,
apparently. And so he includes this group as
among those who are devising, even though they
use the name of Christ. And he talks to them
very bluntly. He anticipates what their response
is going to be. And he says, look, here's how
I got the information and here's what I know.
That's what you have to do. You confront contention.
You have to have your facts in order. You have
to know what you know, and you have to explain
what you know. By the way, as we think about
the division that was in the Quintin Church,
there's a word of warning that we have to bring
to our contemporary church, and that is, beware
of celebrityism. We are invaded because of mass
media, for one thing, but just because of the
the spirit of the age when certain preachers
are exalted. Someone listens to a certain radio
preacher and everything that is said in their
hearing from them on their Sunday school class
or their Bible study group or their church is
measured in light of what their idol on the radio
says. I have one pastor friend who has a John
MacArthurite And believing John MacArthur puts
up with none of this, but how do you control
people who have these attitudes, you know? And
so, he follows John MacArthur to the letter,
and after every Sunday's sermon, this man is
waiting in the back of his church to say, well,
now what you said today was good, but John says
this about it. That would take me about two Sundays
before I would invite him to find a little pastor.
Because that spirit is wrong. And those who worship
celebrities and worship preachers are wrong.
Those who divide themselves up over personalities
are in the flesh. That is not of God. That is
not of God. All of us don't want these people
becoming his disciples in that narrow party spirit.
And he goes on to show that by what he says in
verses 13 through 17. For here he now admonishes
them for their attitude. He appeals to them.
He anticipates their response. He's willing to
tell them what he knows and how he knows it.
And now he admonishes them for their attitude
of divisiveness. He does this really in two ways.
First, he asks rhetorical questions. He says,
has Christ been divided? Now, you stop and think
about them as a rather impulsive fiction. He
says, has Jesus' body of resurrection, body been
divided up? Some of you have his arm and some
of you have a leg. And some of you have his head.
He says is Christ divided? Most rhetorical because
obviously Christ is not divided and nobody has
a piece of Jesus. We all have all of Jesus. But
then he asks a second question. Paul was not
crucified before he was. The way to put it is
he expected it. Notice he doesn't mention Apollos
catered here in these questions. He does this
out of reserve about why you further inflame
people in court, but he points to himself. But
neither Apollos nor Peter were crucified for
the name. He asks a third question, were you
baptized in the name of Paul? Well, of course
they were not. And then he moves ahead to remind
them of what unites them. He mentions baptism.
Baptism is one of the things that should unite
them. Baptism is a picture of them being placed
into the body of Jesus Christ. Baptism is an
illustration of the fact that they belonged to
Jesus, that they died with him, they were raised
from the dead, that they were one body in Christ.
He says, will you back? and the name of all of
that takes him in a little bit of a diversion.
He wants to remind them that he hadn't baptized
many of them. The second thing that he wants
to remind them of, not even baptism, is a picture
of their unity. And they have been baptized,
they shared baptism. He said, they all believed
the same message. He said, I came to you to evangelize,
to preach to you the gospel. That gospel will
be defined very clearly in the next few weeks.
verses, is the gospel of Christ crucified, for
our sins risen from the dead. They had all believed
the same message, and now here they were dividing
themselves over creatures. And so the apostle
is admonishing them that he brings the point
of his whole paragraph to this agonizing exhortation,
and he sits down as it were beside them. He puts
his arm around them. He looks directly in their
eyes, and He tells them, look, you were baptized
just like most people were. When you were baptized,
you said that you belonged to Christ. You said
that you were His disciple. You said you were
under His Lordship. When you were baptized, it
pictured the fact that you were one. When you
were baptized, you said you believed the gospel
message that I preached. That's what He's saying,
how did it? How then can you justify the divisions
that exist within you? But they didn't. And so
often, don't we justify our divisions? We wrap
our contentions in spirituality. And we say,
well, here is my position. Here is my opinion.
And we do that. turns to that we identify that
as though it were exactly what Jesus would say
if he were here. But Jesus isn't going to say
two or three or ten different things. Of all
the people who are the most dangerous perhaps
in the Trinity Church, it was most visible by
the Christ. It was this very spiritual In this
paragraph, the apostle Paul gives to you an example
of how you also can seek to in your marriage.
Perhaps it is with your married children. Perhaps
it is with your employees at work. How do you
do that? Well, the first thing that Paul gives
by example is this appeal. And he says, gently
approach, at least at first. Don't carry the
big stick and question and ask the questions
later. He comes with an appeal that is gentle,
expresses deep concern for them. And then he
anticipates their response. He tells them what
he knows. He tells them how he knows it, which
they can't deny. And then he admonishes them
for their wrong attitudes. All of us, all of
us are responsible for the health of this church
that we're part of. Or if you're visiting today,
you're responsible for the health of your church,
whatever it is. As unity, as freedom from strife
is your responsibility as much as anyone else
in the church. Though we may not be able to correct
the other person's contentious spirit. Paul wasn't
successful in everybody carrying it. But what
we can do is arrest our own contentious spirit.
We can bring our own to quarrel under the lordship
of Jesus Christ. And we can determine in our
own hearts that we will do what we need to do
in order that there be no strife among the people
of God. During the hike through some woods there
was a boy scout group that came upon some railroad
tracks. So they began to dare each other as boys
would do to walk. certain distance on the track.
And each of the boys got up on the railing and
they began to walk, and some got a step or two,
and some got several steps, and yet ultimately
they all fell off. And then told them they had
an idea, and they said to the whole group, we
bet you we can do this, that we can walk on this
railing. And they made some sort of a deal among
each other. And then the two of them held hands.
They each got on a railing and began to walk.
They walked the full distance. And the reason
was that they were trying to do it by themselves.
They were doing it in unity with somebody else.
They were holding hands. And that's what we did.
And instead of saying, well, this is our thing.
This is my thing. This is my problem. You say,
well, who are you talking to at this point? I'll
tell you exactly who I'm talking to. Paul said,
here's why I'm saying this, and here's why I'm
saying, I'm talking to all of us. All of us.
Because there's not one of us here who's incapable
of bringing salvation to the Church of God. When
we get to chapter 3, we'll see what a dangerous...
There's the unity of the Spirit and the bond
of peace. Let's pray together. Lord, in a day
when division in churches is so common, in a
day when strife and quarrels are justified and
wrapped in spiritual language, biblical rationale
can be given for why one person does this, or
says that, or believes this, or takes that position.
Lord, would they like to just help us to be part
of the answer to your prayer, that we be one,
that wherein we have the quals of spirit, and
then devise it. Give us words to deeply repent
of that. To confess our sin. And to bring ourselves
out of the lordship of Jesus Christ. Just make
me pray. Amen. I like us to stand and fall on
the cliff and we sing that last chorus, soft
in my heart, Lord, soft in my heart, from all
the nymphs. Let's stand, please, let's stand.
Hope you can sing from memory and soften my heart.
Soften my heart.