1 Corinthians

Relevant instruction for the modern church from an ancient church’s example. Come and learn what God intended for His church, the gospel in the believer’s life, and His calling upon us to walk in holiness.

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Sermon Preview for Sunday, May 4, 2025

Jesus Christ loves us with an everlasting love, so much so that he willingly laid down His life for the glory of the Father that we might be saved. Did you know Jesus did not do this for yours or my benefit alone? Through obedience to Jesus’ new commandment (John 13:34-35), the beneficiaries of Christ’s love to me are those whom I love in Him. They do not have to deserve it, they do not have to work hard to earn it, they do not have to reciprocally treat me the same way. They simply benefit because Jesus Christ loved me even while I was actively sinning against Him and commands me to love others the same as He loves me. When we love others like 1 Corinthians tells us to the fuse to my explosion of anger and revenge towards them is extremely long and very easily broken. It takes a whole lot to cause me to lash out and every time I take a time out and get alone with my Savior before I get to that point, the long fuse is broken off and neutralized in His love. This allows me to continue displaying the glory of God in my life towards that person. But if I make a practice of enjoying unrighteousness, if I hold on to each and every wrong they have done to me, and actively look for anything else they may do to deserve my wrath, I will have a short fuse that cannot be extinguished and I will have not loved that person, no matter how many times I have told them I do. Oh, how we desperately need the Holy Spirit of God for this to be accomplished in our lives towards others so that “all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Sermon Preview for Sunday, April 27, 2025

Here is what we have studied in the last two weeks. From last week, Resurrection Sunday, there is no greater love available to humanity than when someone lays down their life for a friend, from John 10. From two weeks ago, even if somebody delivers their body up to be burned, but does not have love they will gain nothing, from 1 Corinthians 13:3. When you look at the surface of these two verses one may see a bit of a contradiction, if laying your life down for another is the greatest love, then how is it that one could deliver himself over to be burned but still not have it? Our actions are not the entire definition of it. John tells us very plainly “anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” 1 John 4:8. Our deep desire for God and His glory precedes our ability to love others and act towards them in a loving way. It is not love, as the Bible describes it, if it is separate from God and if it does not have as its ultimate goal to bring Him glory. Therefore, I can give my life in order to boast, or I can give of myself only to put someone else in my debt and neither of these would equate to love. Love does not boast, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, and it certainly is not resentful. It is time for us to be honest about the word love, and whether or not we truly know its meaning. For the sake of those who are being destroyed every day by all kinds of false impersonations of the term, let us commit to nothing less than God’s clear definition. May God change the world through us in our understanding of, and obedience to, the love that was first shown to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.