Glory in the Lord
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
I. God has chosen the undesirable
I. God has chosen the undesirable
a) God Chosen a people-
Paul starts to prove the point he has just made in the previous verses by giving the Corinthians a personal example of God turning the wisdom of the world upon its head.
He does this first by reminding them about the truth of God’s election.
He says in verse 26 “For you see your calling, brethren...” The in the next two verses he says three times “God has chosen.”
He reminds them that it is God who has called them. He was the one who made them able to respond in faith to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He reminds them that it is God who has chosen them. Before the foundation of the world God chose to save a people for himself from every tribe, tongue and nation. Here the Corinthians are reminded that God in his free grace chose them individually to be part of this number.
God is the first cause in their salvtion, its because God chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world that they were found in the Church at Corinth.
Immediately here Paul removes from them any cause for boasting.
Even before they are reminded of their undesirableness, they have all cause for boasting removed becuase the only reason they are followers of Christ is because God called them out of their sin, he chose them before the foundation of the world.
Application-
This great doctrine of election isn’t just applicable to the believers at Corinth. All who believe in Jesus Christ can take comfort in the truth of God’s election, God’s choosing of them.
This would have taken away the boasting of the Corinthians but it would have also given them comfort. Comfort because their salvation did not depend on them, they were chosen by God and they would be kept by God to the very end.
We can take the same comfort from these words this evening. We too have been called, we too have been chosen. This is comforting. This means that when as Christians we fall, we sin, we do not need to fear that God will forsake us, yes he will chasten us and we must confess and forsake our sin, but while we must forsake our sin, we can be sure that God will not forsake us. Before he chose us in Christ he knew the mistakes we would make even as Christians but yet he still chose us and saved us.
However, Pauls main point is to take away boasting and glorying in human ability. The Corinthians couldn’t boast and neither can we. The only reason we are in Church this morning worshiping the God we love and are not in bed with a hangover from last night, is because we have been chosen by God, not because we are wonderful people.
Paul uses the doctrine of election to take away boasting and then he goes further to show God’s wisdom compared with the worlds by reminding them exactly who God has chosen.
b) God has chosen the undesirable
Look with me at the credentials of those whom God has chosen-
v.26 “...Not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble”
“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world..., the weak things of the world..., the base things..., the despised..., the things which are not...”
In other words God has chosen the things that are the direct opposite to what the world would have chosen.
The Greeks prized themselves on wisdom. Before Paul planted the church ar Corinth he preached the Gospel in Athens. The intellectual centre of the world in those days. The place where all the philosophers promoted their ideas.
The Greeks admired and respected those with great intellects. Thats who they would elect, thats who they would choose.
Paul says but look at you, God has not chosen many wise has he (Notice the word not many, there were a few for sure but most were not.). There aren’t many phds in the Church at Corinth. God hasn’t chosen many wise instead he has chosen the foolish things of the world.
The Romans on the other hand prized themselves on strength. They were known for their warfare, for conquering by sheer strength and might. They were known for beating their enemies into submission.
roughly 200 years before this letter was written to the Corinthians their city had been destroyed by the Romans because of a revolt. It lay waste for a hundred years.
The Corinthians knew the Romans prized strength, Paul says but not many of you are strong and mighty. Romans would choose the mighty but God hasn’t chosen many mighty, instead he has chosen the weak things of the world.
Finally the Greeks, Romans and the Jews all prized stature in society, they prized noble birth, they were interested in your pedigree.
But Paul says look around, God has not chosen many noble.He has chosen the despised things, the base things, the things which are not.
The Corinthian Christians were guilty of thinking like the world at times, they were guilty of giving prestige to the things that the world gave prestige to. Wisdom, strength, standing in society. Paul says that is not how God works.
God turns the wisdom of the world on its head.
He has chosen a people for himself, and look at those he has chosen. The weak, the foolish, the uneducated, the despised things, those who are looked down upon by those in the upperclasses.
Illustration- When you were at school can you remeber when they would pick teams for football and the ones who were no good were always left till last. Paul is saying its like God has picked a team and he has filled his team with people who are slow runners, people who cannot kick straight, people with no ability.
He has chosen the undesirables.
Application-
We too have to be careful that we dont commit the same sin as the Corinthians. We must not judge and think by the worlds standards, their is a danger in the church of putting people above others because of their eductation or their social standing intead of their spirituality and their holiness, their love and their selflessness.
Why would God choose peole like this?
Another point of application for us is that fact that we should be humbled by the fact that God did not choose us because of anything good in us. it wasn’t because we were smart, or strong or well respected. Actually we are underserving of the slightest of God’s grace, the only reason we receive God’s love is because he has decided to show us his love inspite of our unworthiness.
Maybe your not a Christian and you are thinking God could never want someone like me. I’m not good enough, im not smart, I’m not a high standing memebr of society. The message Paul is sound loud and clear here is that you don’t have to be. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, God is interested in people that others are not intersted in.
Paul tells us in verse 29
The question that now presents itself is why? Why would God choose such people?
Two reasons are given.
c) To put to s
c) No flesh should glory
The question that now presents itself is; Why would God choose peole like this?
It is to shame those who are proud.
God has chosen the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to same the strong, the things that are not to shame the things that are.
Paul tells us in verse 29 “that no flesh should glory in his presence.”
The reason is so that no one can boast before God.
For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.
The reason is so that when believers stand before God they will not be able to say any good thing about themselves but only praise him for his free grace.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
If God had chosen people according to the worlds standards then maybe people could boast before him. But God chose people according to the riches of his grace and not according to anything in the person.
He did this so that no one can glory in his presence but instead that he should receive all the glory.
Application-
I wonder if you give God all the glory for your salvation? If so do you live for his glory everyday?
Can you say as with Paul, by the grace of God I am what I am.
The correct understanding of God’s election and our unworthiness should lead to use being humble before God and deeply grateful, it should cause us to surrender our lives totally to him. We should say I am not my own for I am bought with a price.
I wonder if that describes the way you live your life this evening?
The Corinthians were becoming divisive and were becoming proud, what we learn in these verses remind us that we are all on equal ground before God. Those of us who are Christians, we are sinners saved by grace, that and no more.
You might be a doctor or you might be a cleaner, whatever your vocation, you are a sinner saved by grace.
This way God gets all the glory.
Paul is reminding the Corinthians not to think like the world thinks and in doing so he reminds them about some encouraging truths for the Christian. God has chosen the undesirable. But the truth keeps coming and Paul gives them further reason for humility and further reason to glorify God alone.
Next we see that God makes those who are undersirable, desirable in Christ.
II. God makes them desirable in Christ
II. God makes them desirable in Christ
Again Paul begins in verse 30 by reminding the Corinthian believers of God’s sovereingty in salvation.
He reminds them that God is the one who put them in Christ
a)God put us in Christ
look with me at v.30, God’s word says “But of him are you in Christ Jesus...”
Here Paul tells the church at Corinth that it is of God that they are in Christ Jesus. In other words the reason they are united to Jesus Christ by faith is because God has made them to be so.
God has done a work of grace in them and now they believe in Jesus Christ. It is God’s doing.
It is of Him that they are in Christ Jesus and receive all of the spiritual blessings that they do.
Jesus said in “No man can come to me except the Father draw him.”
Paul is saying the same truth here but in a different way. The reason you Corinthians are in Christ is because God drew you to him by his Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel.
It is because God called you with an inward, effectual call that you believe.
Application-
Those of us who believe in Christ this evening the same applies to us. The reason we are saved this evening is because of the gracious working of God’s Holy Spirit. He has made us alive in Christ.
Again this is cause for great humility and deep gratitude to the God who saved us.
So its because of God that they believed in Christ Jesus and received every spiritual blessing, but what exactly are these spiritual blessings?
b)In Christ we have all we need
Look with me again at verse 30 “But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God- and righteousness and sactification and redemption-.”
In this verses Paul is saying God has put you in Christ and in Christ you have all you need.
You are undesirable in the eyes of the world. But by God’s grace in Christ you become desirable in the eyes of God.
Here Paul lists four things that believers receive from their union with Jesus Christ when they believe. Four things they have in Christ.
Firstly, Jesus Christ has become for believers wisdom from God.
The Lord Jesus gives to the believer a true knowledge of God and of his will. In Christ the Christian can know of the living God.
says of Christ “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
In him we can know God’s will and we can understand
The New King James Version. (1982). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Secondly, they have in Christ- righteousness
The Lord Jesus gives to the believer his perfecrt righteousness. In Christ the believer is justified before God. Their sin has been delt with by Christ on the cross and his spotless righteousness is given to them.
Christ takes their dirty coat of sin and gives them the white robe of his righteousness.
This means that their position before God is one that is as though they had never sinned. God sees every believer as though they were as righteous as Jesus Christ himself.
says “For he made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
Thirdly, they have in Christ- sanctification
The believer in Christ is set apart from sin. They are progressivley becoming more and more like Christ. They are becoming more holy each day.
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
The New King James Version. (1982). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Fourthly, they have in Christ- redemption
They have been bought back from the penalty of sin. They have been freed from the bondage of sin. One day they will have the redemption of their body, they will have glorified bodies. Saved to sin no more.
Here we see that in Christ the believer is given a knowledge of God, they are saved from the guilt of sin, the power of sin and one day they will be saved from the presence of sin. The believed has been justifed, sactified and one day glorified.
In a sentence Paul is saying in Christ you have all you need.
He is teaching what he taught in “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
Application-
If you are a believer this evening then in Christ you have all of these things. Apart from him you have nothing but in Him all these spiritual blessings are yours.
In Christ we have true wisdom, we have a perfect righteousness, we are being sanctified, we are redeemed from the bondage of sin and one day we will be free not just from sins power but also from its presence.
We who are seen as undesireable in Christ we are made desirable. In Christ we have everything but apart from him we have nothing.
If you are not a believer this evening then your greatest need is the Lord Jesus Christ. What I have been describing is what you need.
Without Christ you cannot know God is a personal way.
without Christ you stand before God as a guilty condemned sinner without any righteousness of your own.
Without Christ you are totally under the bondage of sin, you a re a slave to sin. With out Christ you will never be redeemed but will forever be seperated from God.
But if you trun from your sin and come to Christ by faith, if you believe in him and trust in his death and resurrection to take away your sin, trust him to give you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption then he will certainly do it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
Christ has
God has put believers in Christ and in him they receive wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
The queastion that faces us again when we learn these wonderful truths is why? Why has God done this?
c) For God’s glory
When we ask the question Paul immediately replies with the answer v.30 “that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.”
God has done all of this for his glory.
SO that he would receive the honour and worship and praise that is his due.
Paul puts it like this in “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved”
God has done all of this to the praise of the glory of his grace.
The New King James Version. (1982). (). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
The reason that God chose the foolish, weak, despised things and made them wise, righteous, sanctified and redeemed, is so that he would receive all the glory and honour.
Application-
The question that faces us this evening is again do we give God the glory?
Do we live for his glory each day? Do we live lives of holy, joyful obedience?
Do we live to make Christ known and to promote his cause?
Do we live lives of worship?
are our lives marked by a humble gratitude that God has saved us by his free grace and not because of anything good in us?
Do we love the Lord Jesus Christ with all our hearts? Is he our waking thought ?Is he the theme of our thoughts before we go to sleep? Do we spend much time with God inPrayer and in his word?
All of these things should be our rightful response to the free grace of God.
Prayer and in his word?