Sincere Devotion to Christ
Do not be Deceived • Sermon • Submitted
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Intro:
Most of us this morning like to occasionally spend an evening with the family or our spouse watching a movie together. The type of movie we watch usually all depends on who is picking the movie. If the ladies our picking the movie most often I would imagine that they would prefer to watch a romantic movie.
Most romantic movies have some interesting plot. Unless it is of course a Hallmark movie. Hallmark movies are the only movies who can successfully produce romantic movie after romantic movie with only 15 actors, four settings, 2 writers and one plot.
Many romantic movies have a marriage seen that gets interrupted for some reason. Or for example like in the movie Run Away Bride the marriage continues to be interrupted because the bride keeps running away.
In our Text for this morning while writing to the church at Corinth the apostle Paul imagines himself as the father of the bride who is arranging a wedding for his daughter. He uses this wedding imagery to talk to the church about the importance of the covenant that they have made.
But before we jump into this text to see what he is trying to communicate by using wedding imagery lets refresh ourselves about the importance of both covenants and weddings in the Bible.
In ancients times Jewish weddings were most often arranged by the parents often times when the bride was still very young at least by our standards today.
Once the bride was set to be married to her future husband it was the father or in some cases the brothers responsibility to make sure that she remained pure until she was married. According to Deut. 22:13-21, if the bride was found not to be pure at the time of her marriage, the bridegroom would call the father or brother into account.
Outside of the covenant that one makes with Christ the marriage covenant that both the bride and the groom make with one another and with God is the most important covenant that they will ever make.
As we think of marriage as a covenant relationship what we see in the Bible is that God was the first to initiate covenant relationships with his people.
All the way back in Genesis chapter 15 we see God establishing a covenant with Abraham and his descendants.
As part of this covenant God promised to always be faithful to his people but unfortunately his people frequently broke their promise to be faithful to him, but through it all, God remained faithful.
Throughout the Old and into the New Testament God used the symbolism of marriage to show the people how serious God was about the covenant that he made with his people.
With Christ willingness to live, die and be resurrected, He became the living embodiment of the bridegroom and a faithful husband who was willing to give up his life for the one he loved.
Scripture teaches us that the one that he loved was the church. Christ promised to be faithful to the church and thus he expects his bride the church to return the favor and be faithful to him.
In Ephesians 5:21-27 we learn, that as the church, we are to submit to Christ as the bridegroom because he loved us enough to die for us.
So now that we have hopefully seen the importance of the marriage covenant when it come to our relationship with Christ let’s look at our text for this morning found in 2 Corinthians 11:1-6.
I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!
For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.
Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.
As I mentioned earlier Paul imagines that he is a father arranging a marriage for his daughter. The Bride that Paul is referring to in this passage is the church in Corinth or all those that he has brought to Christ, and the bridegroom is Christ.
In this scenario it seems that everything had been arranged. The bridegroom is excited to be married to the bride but then all of a sudden the father begins to worry that the bride is eyeing other men and is potentially going to run off with one of them before he has a chance do present her to be married to the bridegroom.
Paul explains that he is afraid that the Christians at Corinth are going to be deceived just like Eve was deceived and that the deception of a few will cause them to runaway and not remain pure for the bridegroom.
Obviously Paul is not talking to the church about running away with another woman but we see from verses 4-6 that Paul is warning them about breaking their covenant with Christ by following a different Gospel.
It appears that there have been some people in the church who were claiming to be super apostles in that they were claiming to be better than Paul.
They were offering the people a new way of thinking about Christ and the Spirit which they recieved when they made the commitment to follow Christ.
Just like Satan deceived Eve by calling into question the sufficiency of God’s provisions, there were some within the church who were trying to entice the members with another Jesus, as if the the Christ that Paul preached about was not enough.
Satan in the garden offered Adam and Eve the false promise that they could provide for themselves without consequences.
Bunt here these Super Apostles were offering the people the promise that the real Christ would provide for them health and wealth.
Paul is deeply concerned and troubled about this teaching because he knows that it would destroy the Corinthians’ marriage with Christ in the same way that Satan spoiled Adam and Eves relationship with God.
If the Christians in Corinth allow themselves to be deceived by this false teaching they will be separated from Christ.
Church many people may read this message from Paul and think that this warning doesn’t apply to them.
But quiet frankly this deceptive teaching that Paul is warning about is probably the most dangerous lies that a large percentage of the Christian community is teaching today.
Many so called churches are presenting a new Jesus by teaching the prosperity gospel or you may have heard of this as the health and wealth Gospel.