Called to Be A Holy People
The Church of Corinth; Struggling to be in the world but not of the world • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 47:40
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Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
biblical counseling: questions about our parents to learn from their strengths and weaknesses re: marriage
Paul is continuing his argument about Christian liberty and he will eventually return to the problem of the Corinthian church in regards to them abusing their liberty.
Catch up:
We have observed starting in Chapter 8- Christian liberty demands love
He gave us an example as he deserves payment as an apostle but refuses that so that the gospel can be unhindered
We were challenged by Paul’s ministry how we too are called to be effective in strategic gospel proclamation in the places God has us.
Connecting then to his final statements in chapter 9 where he states
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
27 but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
Paul seeks to win the race of gospel fruitfulness. He is not just running to run. He realizes that as a Christian and church leader, this requires discipline. That discipline is being prepared to declare the gospel and discipline to be a holy example as you share.
Paul will now look back to the past to show us how God was faithful among an unfaithful and holy people. These OT ambassadors for the Lord failed to reflect the glory and holiness of their God as they dwelt among the pagans of the world.
Paul will connect their failure as a way to magnify the character of God and the call for the NT church to learn from the past and be holy in the present.
Big Idea: Learning from the past how to live in the present as God’s holy people
1. A Faithful God Among Unfaithful People 1-5
1. A Faithful God Among Unfaithful People 1-5
A Family of Faith “our fathers” and “all”
These first 5 verses are an amazing testimony for the church on the relationship to God’s covenant people of the OT. They as a whole were “our people” because God’s called them as a nation of people. All of Israel were our spiritual ancestors because God’s covenant included forming a nation of people and so all of Israel belonged to it.
But the church today is NOT a nation, but instead just a people from different tongues, tribes and nations. As a people who enter into this covenant with God by faith in Christ, then we are truly belong to the past because the same God called them to himself as he calls us. Their calling was physical and spiritual. They all experienced physical blessings from the Lord but only those by faith were recipients of the spiritual blessings from the Lord.
1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
Abraham received spiritual justification because he believed. Many of Israel died in unbelief and without the righteousness of God, even though they receive physical blessings from him.
Regardless, they all are part of our lineage as God was bringing forth his plan. Like the family reunion where we run into cousin David with his previous criminal history of adultery, aunt Sarah and he unbelief in God, or uncle Solomon and his loads of life wisdom, we can learn from them all.
Paul makes an incredible connection for us in their part of God’s story so that we can see what God was doing through them physically, he has done in the church today. This is an unforgettable connection of the OT and NT sagas to see it as GOd’s grand story. IN that story is the revelation of his faithful and glory as our One True God.
Paul looks back to the most foundational of all events in the life of Israel- the Exodus. The Exodus from Egyptian captivity was the foundation of God creating Israel as a nation. He rescued them by showing his power and might. He led them in victory over their enemies by His great power. He brought them from captivity to the promised land where they would flourish as his people. This is Paul’s point for us to first LOOK BACK.
1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
Notice what he is doing here. He is highlighting the theme of salvation in Israel’s day. They being under the cloud and passing through the sea was the route of God’s protection and salvation from their enemies. But he is using covenant language so that in those words, we do not only see the salvation that God provided but also a sign pointing forward to the church today.
They were “under the cloud” speaks of God’s glory that led Israel from Egypt as the cloud enveloped them and went before them to lead the way. This is the faithful protection, guidance, and the visible sign they were God’s people They were being clothed with his cloud glory in one sense.
39 He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to illumine by night.
This cloud is where Moses, the mediator for Israel, would enter into to talk with God. The people saw Moses enter the cloud, they saw the cloud by day lead them to the promised land. The people saw the cloud rest upon the tent of meeting as a sign that God was with his people. Israel, with their representative Moses, was under the cloud of God.
They also passed through the water, the Red Sea and that amazing miracle has profound implications in Paul’s mind as he writes these words. They being consumed by the cloud, and literally passing through the waters of the Red Sea, then point forward to the sign of the NT covenant- baptism.
Baptism is not salvation for the church in the same way that passing through the Red Sea was NOT their salvation. Their salvation was the Lord and passing through the Sea was the visible sign that the Lord was saving them.
So we must see the connection that Paul is making so we can see that the Lord is faithful to his people. Physically he saved them fro Egypt, passing them through Red Sea, which points the church forward to the sign of the New Covenant.
Paul says,
2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
This does not mean Moses was some equal to Christ, nor that He was their Lord. It means that Moses led them by the Lord’s power to their salvation in order to point forward to the spiritual salvation we all have in Jesus Christ by faith. The outward sign of that faith and salvation is baptism.
As a family of faith, we also come to see the faithfulness of the Lord’s physical provision with Israel. Through their escape from Egypt, a place where they were slaves, under forced labor to build Egypt’s great structures, the Lord always gave them what they needed to sustain the journey. We see more of the same powerful miracles mentioned by Paul where God not only gave them escape but gave them all their daily provisions in their journey to the Promised Land.
Two key examples are the accounts of God giving them manna from heaven and water from a rock to drink. Both of these examples are God miraculously ordaining his created order to be a source of provision for his people. The manna from heaven was provided for them daily so show Israel that God is faithful in giving us all we need. Everyday, by faith they collected that days rations of manna and birds for meat.
Similarly, he did not lead them to thirst but provided a way of water coming forth from a rock. Now someone mnay question water coming from a rock since in mountainous regions, we see waterfall originate from beneath the surface, appearing to be produced from the rock itself. But this was at Mount Horeb, also called Mount Sinai. Horeb in the Hebrew means a desolate and dry place. Finding water at Horeb was an impossibility and therefore the nature of the miracle shows the power of the Lord to do the impossible once again so that his people would have their provisions met.
Now it is not hard to see where Paul is going with this once again for the NT church. Just as baptism was signified in Israel passing through the waters, it appears Paul has the Lord’s Supper in view as well. The aspect of food and drink given to Israel points forward to food and drink in the New Covenant that is the sign of spiritual nourishment that is found in Christ. Paul makes that connection by saying that as water came from the Rock “that Rock being Christ.”
The church must recognize then that as the Lord gave physical salvation and physical provision, he was sovereignly pointing forward to his redemptive work whereby the Messiah would come to offer up himself for His people to meet their spiritual needs. He is the faithful God who saves his people and yet his people reject him. Look in v 5
5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
God was not pleased with them because they rebelled against him. This verse stands in contrast to the faithfulness of God and it links the next section of God’s response to the unfaithfulness of his people. God was not well pleased because, as Paul will show us, they rejected the loving-kindness of the Lord and committed idolatry. They violated the laws of God and thus declared by their actions, we are the Lord, not you.
This is Paul’s point for the church to see, to learn from these lessons of our past church family that the holiness of God requires his people to also live holy. Without Christ, it is impossible to live holy for the change in heart must precede the any attempt to live holy in obedience to the law of God. But with Christ as our Rock, we can live holy lives, turning from sin and living by faith in God and his living in obedience to his commands.
So then, we are called to be holy as we look back to the past at his faithfulness among unfaithful people.
2. A Just God Among Unfaithful People 5-10
2. A Just God Among Unfaithful People 5-10
Secondly, Paul turns to Israel facing the judgment of God for their rebellion. verse 5 is the bridge from Paul’s comment in verses 1-4 and the following verses 6-10. He mentions a few more examples of Israel’s failures for the church so that we can learn from them. He will state twice in these verses,
6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.
They were models as to what not to do. The word TPYOS in the Greek is used in Phil 3:7 in where Paul says that he is a pattern or model to be followed. In 1 Thess. 1:7 Paul praises the Thessalonians for being faithful believers and examples to other NT churches. Now here Paul says that Israel is a poor example and their action help the church learn how to live in holy and avoid “craving evil things.” It is the depravity of the human heart that does not just tolerate evil but it craves and lusts after evil. Our society is such a clear example that the insatiable lust for evil is ever growing more and more in a person.
Therefore, as a holy God who called Israel to be set apart from the evil of this world, God judged Israel. His judgment came in the form of death in this earth and an eternity of his wrath in hell. Paul mentions a few examples of his judgment against Israel’s sin along with connected commands to follow to avoid just a judgment.
Flee Idolatry and Immorality
Here Paul points to the most well known of Israel’s idolatry, the story of the golden calf. What seems like immediately after God’s miraculous rescue of Israel, once they make it to Mt Sinai where Moses meets with the Lord, Israel falls into idolatry.
First, idolatry violates the second commandment of the Lord and offers worship to a substitute god. Israel had just seen the miraculous work of the Lord over pagan Egyptian deities and they responded with offering praise to a false god.
Not only does Israel begin worshipping the golden calf that they fashioned as a substitute for YHWH, but they worshipped him much like the pagan worship they learned in Egypt. They included in their worship sexual immorality. Paul quotes Ex 32:6 where they “sat down to eat, drink and play” and play here does not mean team sports and board games. It means that Israel fashioned a false god and began worshipping it while involved in perverted sexual immorality as a group.
Paul also mentions in v 8 the story in Number 25 where Israel fell into idolatry and participated in sexual immorality again with Moabite religion and God destroyed 24,000 in one day.
Theses are the things that Paul states in relationship to Israel craving evil. Engaging in sexual immorality and idolatry is finding substitutes for what God created us to be and do on this earth. We were created to have intimacy in the context of marriage, not in groups or with someone others than our spouse. God therefore judged Israel so that thousands perished because of this sin.
God has a right to judge sin and he in fact must judge sin as an expression of his holy and just nature. He does not overlook violations against himself and his name. Instead, the Lord punishes those who act violently against him in doing evil. He is fair and right in killing all the generations of Israel who worshiped the golden calf. We know that only two, Caleb and Joshua, from that generation made it into the Promised Land. The rest perished before seeing it.
As the church, we must acknowledge that we too face the temptation to immorality and idolatry in this American context. We must be aware of the temptation to take something created and worship it like the creator. We see examples in our culture such as vocation, hobbies, relationships, political agendas as different gods of this world. They all receive people’s physical and mental time, receiving their financial gifts, and taking away from any true worship of the Lord in their heart. We must identify these idols in our lives and cast them out. Like Josiah, we must tear down their places of worship that have been set up in our hearts.
We also must be careful with the accompanying immorality that idolatry demands. When we worship our bodies for example, as a false god, they demand that we engage in ways to satisfy the lusts of those gods and engage in immoral acts. We work hard to do so to achieve acceptance from society which is a expression that we are truly worshipping ourselves.
Testing God in our Grumbling
Secondly, Paul addresses Israel’s past discontentment. Discontent is a failure to be satisfied in the Lord and what He gives all people in their place and time of history. To be discontent with the Lord is to say to him, I need more or I need different from what you have provided. Discontent leads to grumbling verbally or inwardly towards God’s good gifts.
Paul reminds Corinth about Israel’s discontentment and grumbling towards God.
2 All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 “Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”
This is after the spies return to Moses with the report of giants in the promised land. Notice how their fear led to discontentment instead of faith leading to courage. Faith says the Lord will protect us and do whatever he set out and promised. Fear says “we are doomed” in the face of trials and tragedy. That fear leads to grumbling against the Lord.
Let’s look at another instance of discontent and grumbling before God.
5 The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” 6 The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
Notice also with these passages that their discontent because of a lack of faith, no only led to grumbling but it led to disconnect from reality. They actually believed that they would be better off back in captivity under their oppressors, in a pagan-led society than with the Lord. This is how discontentment warps our thinking so that we can forget the greatest victories that the Lord has accomplished for us and we can fall into fear and grumbling against him.
Therefore, Israel was judged with the fiery serpents and they deserved that judgment to fall upon them. Paul mentions this swift chastisement from the Lord as God’s people faced the wrath of God for their sin.
Paul states,
6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” 8 Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. 9 Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. 10 Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
The Lord is the destroyer of sin and those who commit it. His fierce wrath is never to be doubted nor questioned for consistency. He will always judge those turn their backs on God in rebellion and go their own way.
There is no greater example of God’s fierce judgment than when he turned his back on his own Son upon the cross. This judgment was not for the sins committed by the Son but for whom the Son became the substitute for. The Son, Jesus Christ, stood in the place for His people and he took upon himself the wages of sin that His people committed. Jesus bearing that guilt and shame, willingly died upon the cross in the greatest moment of agony and pain upon the cross, a pain not from nails and scorn from the audience, but pain from His own Father pouring his wrath upon the Son for sin.
This is why we need Jesus to save us. We are guilty of sin and doomed to eternal punishment in hell for all eternity, but Jesus provides the way of escape.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Friend, if you have never, put your trust in Jesus Christ as the only way of escape from sin
Brother or sister, turn away from evil and live a life holy unto the Lord. He despises evil and he will bring chastisement upon his children who fall into snare of sin. Turn from him and live lives worthy of the gospel.
Do not grumble but instead live in contentment with what God has given you. You are not being mistreated by God with what you have been given. You have all you need. Trust the Lord that his gifts are good gifts according to His great plan
Turn from craving evil. Flee idolatry and immorality that distracts you from he true worship of God. If something is keeping you from your relationship with your Lord and Savior, then you must remove it for the sake of your own soul. Instead of protesting The Lord, praise his holy Name.
3. A Gracious God who creates faithful people 11-13