Sermon Manuscript:
Our Epistle reading this week begins with chapter 1, verse
1. It is at the very beginning of a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the
congregation that existed in the Greek city of Corinth. It is customary that we
go about doing these kinds of things in a certain way. Among us we might begin
a letter or an email by saying, “Dear So-and-so…” And then, before we get into
the subject at hand, we might talk about things that are a mutual concern of the
author as well as the recipient. One farmer might write to another farmer about
the weather and how the crops have been growing. Old friends might begin a
letter by talking about mutual acquaintances that they had recently come
across. You get the idea. It is quite common for the beginning of a letter to
speak to things that both the letter writer as well as the ones receiving the
letter would find relevant.
With the writing of Holy Scripture the Holy Spirit by no
means despises these sorts of things. The vast majority of the Bible is quite
ordinary in the way that it speaks. Only some of the prophetic works like
Ezekiel or Daniel in the Old Testament or Revelation in the New Testament speak
in a more exalted way. Otherwise you might say that the Holy Spirit wears
everyday clothes when he inspires the authors of Scripture. The letters of Paul
that we have in the New Testament certainly follow this typical pattern.
Whenever Paul addresses a letter he is immediately thinking
about the connection that exists between himself and those he is writing to. It
is not surprising that he talks about Jesus Christ and God the Father and the
Holy Spirit, for this is their shared interest. Already in the very first
verses of the letter he is foreshadowing and preparing the ground for what he
would like to say to them. He often lays out divine truths at the very
beginning that he will apply to his hearers so that they can gain a greater
understanding of them.
Although Paul has not addressed a letter specifically to any
one of us, nor to our congregation, what he says can also be applied to us because
we have the same connection to him as these people to whom he was writing 2,000
years ago. We believe in the same Jesus Christ and God the Father and the Holy
Spirit as they, so what Paul says to the Corinthians also applies to us.
With that in mind there is a lot that we can learn from this
little introduction to his letter. Therefore, today we will look at what Paul
says to the Corinthians with the idea of also applying it to ourselves.
First of all, Paul says where the letter is directed: to the
church of God in Corinth. Then he adds a phrase that describes them. He says, “Those
who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, who are called as saints.” The
important word behind “sanctify” and “saint” is “holy.” To sanctify means to
make holy. A saint is someone who is holy. Holiness is something that is
strictly limited to God and is only available through an association with him.
There is no way for anyone or anything to be holy except by being in a
relationship to the only source of holiness, which is God. So what Paul is
saying is that the members of this congregation have been made holy in Christ
Jesus, and that they are holy. This is the reason why the Father sent his Son.
It was to make sinners into saints.
Then Paul adds this: “along with all in every place who
call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” The
congregation to which a person belongs is important. It is not by accident that
certain people end up in certain congregations. It is the Holy Spirit who calls
us and gathers us into congregations. But the Holy Christian Church, the
fellowship of saints, is larger than any individual congregation. As Paul says,
it is made up of all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ as their Lord. Another way of saying this is that what makes a
person a Christian is faith in Jesus as his or her Lord. For without faith, it
is not possible to call on something. You must first believe that you will be
helped, otherwise you would not call out to him.
Then follows words that are quite familiar to us: “Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” There is
more to those words than we might suppose. Grace means gift or help or
blessing. Peace means comfort, tranquility, rest. Pronouncing this to someone
is offering it to them. The reason why anybody can say, “Grace and peace to you
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” is because this grace and peace
is actually available to them. The reason why it is available to whomever might
hear it is because Jesus has died for the sins of the whole world. It is
available to all, and God wishes for all to embrace it by faith, saying, “Yes,
this grace and peace is mine as God’s gift to me.”
Blessings naturally serve as a kind of concluding statement.
Our church services end with a blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you, the
Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up his
countenance upon you and give you peace.” There is also often blessings like
“have a good week,” that we say to one another. So when Paul pronounces the
blessing “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ,” this concludes his opening greeting to the church of God in Corinth.
Then Paul gives thanks: “I always thank my God for you
because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. You were enriched in
him in every way, in all your speaking and all your knowledge, because the
testimony about Jesus was established in you.”
It is amazing how thankful Paul always was. Some people are
born with a cheery disposition where they are almost always bright eyed and
bushy tailed. They have a smile for everyone. But it is obvious that Paul’s
thankfulness is not just of this sort. It is not like Paul is a cock-eyed
optimist who cannot be down on life because he isn’t able to see deeply enough
to notice anything discouraging. Paul is keenly aware of failings and
short-comings and tragedies of all sorts. Therefore his thankfulness is not a
matter of his personality, but is rather intertwined with his Christian faith.
When Paul looks at any Christian, no matter how weak or
troubled, he is moved to give thanks. Such a one has been called out of the
darkness of slavery to sin, death, and the devil, to the light of being known
and loved by God. Even if the Christian is still weighed down by the flesh,
harassed by the devil, afflicted with disease and death, the victory has
already been won. By faith in Jesus Christ the Christian will overcome all
these things and more. The grace and peace that is given to us by God is such a
great and powerful gift Paul is moved to thanksgiving every time.
This is especially noteworthy when we consider the
congregation to whom Paul is writing. If you are at all familiar with 1 and 2
Corinthians, you know that there were a lot of problems in this congregation.
There was a lot of disorder, a lot of jealousy. Some were even talking bad
about Paul and the Gospel of Christ the crucified that he preached. They said
it was too gloomy and weak and unimpressive. To such a crowd it seems that
denunciations and curses would be the more natural choice, especially since
many of them were opposed to Paul. But the fact that Paul does not deal with
them in such a way, but actually gives thanks, shows that his thankfulness is
not personal. He is thanking God for what God has done in them. He has the eyes
to see that God was powerfully at work, in spite of their blemishes. The
goodness that God has worked is so great, that their faults are hardly
noticeable, even though they are opposing Paul himself.
This is something useful for our life together and our fight
against the devil. Without a shadow of a doubt I can say that the devil does
not want you to be a part of this congregation. He wants you to be away and
stay away. So it is with all Christian congregations and schools and wherever
else Christians might gather. There’s hardly a more effective way for the devil
to achieve this purpose than to turn Christians against one another. Instead of
thanking God for the grace he is worked in your fellow congregant so that you
hardly notice the faults, the devil will turn it around. You become so aware of
the faults that you can’t hardly believe that the other one can be a Christian.
I have known congregations where they become so poisoned and
toxic that feuding becomes more important than praying, praising, or giving
thanks. On the other hand, where there is humility, gentleness, bearing with
one another in love, this covers over a multitude of sins and weaknesses. When
the flock stays together it is a lot stronger against the wolf. He wants to
divide and scatter so that he can pick us all off one by one. So Paul’s
thanksgiving to God is important, not because he is making it up with rose
colored glasses, but because he has the eyes to see the goodness of God even in
the midst of much trouble.
It is also important to hear what he gives thanks for. He
says that they have been enriched in every way, in all their speaking and
all their knowledge, because the testimony about Christ was established in them.
Given their troubles, it might be easy to think that they were poor rather than
rich. But for that to be the case, they would have to cease being Christians
altogether. For if anyone is a Christian, then he or she can’t help but be
filled to the brim particularly in the way they speak and think. A Christian
knows that God has saved the whole world in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus
Christ. A Christian knows that this world will not last forever. A Christian
knows that evil will one day be segregated and punished once and for all in
hell. A Christian knows that what is truly good about life is not money or
glory or all the things that the unbelievers go after, but rather love. All
these and more make up the tremendous wisdom that God gives whenever he works
faith in Jesus. There is no such thing as a poor Christian when it comes to
knowledge. If a person is a Christian, then automatically he or she has been
given more than anybody could hope for or even imagine. It does not matter if
they are clever and quick or slow and dumb. There is one Lord, one faith, one
baptism. We all have one Savior, one knowledge. We all have the same gift
whereby we overcome death and grave and will enter into eternal life.
Eternal life is the name of the game. We are not a country
club. We are not a public service organization. Our congregation is a gathering
of Christians who work together so that the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ may
be made known to us and to whomever crosses our path, and so that the sacraments
which Christ has instituted for our salvation may be offered to those who
desire them. All this is done so that we may stand redeemed and holy, forgiven
of our sins, when Christ comes again in glory and inaugurates the fullness of
his heavenly kingdom. When Paul speaks about the way that the Corinthians are
rich and overflowing, it is with this endpoint in mind. He says, “because
the testimony about Christ was established in you, you do not lack any gift as
you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul is
speaking about the last day.
If there is anything that has made Christian congregations
deteriorate all around us, I think it is the loss of this end times perspective
that has done it. When congregations are seen as places for people to socialize
or do volunteer work or what-have-you, and they no longer see themselves as
places where we are being prepared for the last day, then they cannot help but
lose sight of the Gospel of Christ the crucified. Indeed, this is one of Paul’s
concerns with the Corinthians. They were losing sight of why we are Christians,
and so Paul speaks of this divine truth at the beginning of his letter and will
explain it more thoroughly as the letter goes on.
Finally we have some encouragement at the end of the portion
of Paul’s letter that was read today. He says, “God will also keep you
strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord
Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.” In many and various ways, sometimes by rather
strange circumstances, each one of you has come to be part of this
congregation. This includes me and my family too. This is not by accident. The
Holy Spirit has gathered us together.
So also the Holy Spirit gathered together the congregation
at Corinth in Paul’s time. So what Paul says of them is also true of us. The
reason why we’ve been gathered is so that we can be kept strong until the end,
so that we may be blameless on the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been
called into fellowship with Jesus Christ. You are in communion with him by
God’s working. Although we are not nearly so faithful as we would like to be,
God is faithful. He has given us his Gospel. He has given us his sacraments. By
continuing to use them we may be assured of our faith being strengthened, of
our ongoing sanctification, until the end.
In conclusion, I hope that you can see from Paul’s words to
our congregation today that we are something special. We are not just religious
consumers, and this church happens to be the store at which we happen to be
shopping at the time. Our eternal lives are already bound together in our
shared story of salvation. We are together being sanctified and kept in the
true faith. Our interactions with one another are important and powerful—either
for the good or for the bad. Thus we are responsible to one another, to help
one another. God help us to be faithful. Amen.
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