Micah McCormick: Bible.
Micah McCormick: You can get that out or you can look at one of the Bibles in the pew there.
Micah McCormick: For those that might be visiting with us tonight, we have been going through a series on Sunday nights where each Sunday night we look at the next book of the Bible, so it's a message on the whole book of the Bible.
Micah McCormick: We're not going to go all night, so stick around if you're here visiting, but we're going to be looking at 1 Corinthians especially tonight, and I want to start in chapter 1.
Micah McCormick: I'm going to read chapter 1, verses 4 through 9.
Micah McCormick: 1 Corinthians 1, verses 4 through 9.
Micah McCormick: I always thank my God for you, because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.
Micah McCormick: In this way the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you do not lack any spiritual gift.
Micah McCormick: As you.
Micah McCormick: Eager's letter to the church of Corinth.
Micah McCormick: You'd be thinking that's a great church.
Micah McCormick: They have every spiritual gift, they're not lacking anything.
Micah McCormick: They have fellowship with Jesus and with each other.
Micah McCormick: This is the kind of healthy church that I would have wanted to be a part of if I was living back in Bible times.
Micah McCormick: And then you read the rest of the letter.
Micah McCormick: There's a guy sleeping with his mother-in-law.
Micah McCormick: There's division in the church.
Micah McCormick: They're suing each other.
Micah McCormick: People are getting drunk at the Lord's Supper.
Micah McCormick: Some people seem to doubt the resurrection.
Micah McCormick: Wait a minute.
Micah McCormick: That's not the church that I first thought.
Micah McCormick: But it's the same Paul who opened this way who wrote the rest of the letter right?
Micah McCormick: Paul has the amazing ability to see God's grace in messy situations.
Micah McCormick: He also has the willingness to challenge people where they need to be challenged.
Micah McCormick: Sometimes we tend to go in one direction or the other.
Micah McCormick: We can be kind of a bloodhound for sniffing out any little error in a church or our church or someone else's church, and Paul starts with God's grace is among you, and I see it active.
Micah McCormick: And then sometimes we can be so kind that we're not willing to say the difficult things that need to be said about significant sin in a situation.
Micah McCormick: And Paul does both.
Micah McCormick: We should aim to do both.
Micah McCormick: That was free.
Micah McCormick: Now onto the topic at hand tonight.
Micah McCormick: Before we get to the main idea, that's not going to be quite the way I framed the main idea for 1 Corinthians.
Micah McCormick: Let's look at the structure of the book.
Micah McCormick: Last time we met on Sunday night we looked at Romans.
Micah McCormick: Romans is more of a sustained argument.
Micah McCormick: 1 Corinthians is a letter, like Romans was, to a church, the church of Corinth.
Micah McCormick: That Paul writes under inspiration of God, but it's not quite the argument and the steps of Romans.
Micah McCormick: It's a bit more topical in nature.
Micah McCormick: Paul seems to be writing to respond to some questions the Corinthians had as they wrote to him.
Micah McCormick: Let me show you that.
Micah McCormick: So hold your finger here in 1 Corinthians 1, go over to chapter 7.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse 1.
Micah McCormick: Now, in response to the matters you wrote about, he says it.
Micah McCormick: He's going to address what they asked him about.
Micah McCormick: Look down to verse 25 of chapter 7.
Micah McCormick: Now about virgins.
Micah McCormick: Do you hear the same language of now about?
Micah McCormick: Now about.
Micah McCormick: Go over to chapter 8, verse 1.
Micah McCormick: Now about food sacrifice to idols, chapter 12, look over there at verse 1.
Micah McCormick: Now, concerning spiritual gifts, and then over to chapter 15, verse 35.
Micah McCormick: But someone will ask how are the dead raised?
Micah McCormick: So it seems like Paul's going to respond to in part the series of questions that they had for him, but he doesn't start that until chapter seven.
Micah McCormick: Why does he wait so long?
Micah McCormick: Well, he has some things that he is going to be confronting them about.
Micah McCormick: That he needs to talk about before he gets to their questions.
Micah McCormick: That's part of it.
Micah McCormick: But he's also setting the foundation for how he wants to help them approach those questions.
Micah McCormick: He wants them to see something precious and important, and here's the big theme I want to give to you tonight from 1 Corinthians.
Micah McCormick: If we're thinking about our own takeaway in light of how Paul speaks to the Corinthians, corinthians, the more we understand God's eternal plan to unite people to his son, the more we'll be able to answer every question in life.
Micah McCormick: Now, I know that's a big claim, I realize that.
Micah McCormick: Let me repeat that again the more we understand God's eternal plan, the more we grasp it, enjoy it to unite people to his son, the more we'll be able to answer every question in life.
Micah McCormick: Wait a minute, I just took a calculus test.
Micah McCormick: The Bible didn't help me one bit with those questions.
Micah McCormick: We could.
Micah McCormick: If you want me to modify, you know the thesis the more we understand God's eternal plan to unite people to his son, the more we have the foundational material to address every question in life about knowing and pleasing God.
Micah McCormick: Now, that's a mouthful so I shortened it, but really aren't the questions about knowing and pleasing God the most important questions.
Micah McCormick: I mean, you can build the Brooklyn Bridge, but if you don't know how to live a life while pleasing to God, that knowledge of building the Brooklyn Bridge only is so valuable, right?
Micah McCormick: So those are the most important questions, and you see this right at the outset.
Micah McCormick: So go back to the verses we were looking at that.
Micah McCormick: I read for you 1 Corinthians 1.
Micah McCormick: We've got these two foundation pillars of union with Christ that believers have, and then God's eternal plan, especially as it involves the future coming into the present.
Micah McCormick: So first, look at union with Christ.
Micah McCormick: So Paul says there I thank my God for you.
Micah McCormick: Verse number four because of the grace given to you in Christ Jesus.
Micah McCormick: So there's union with Christ.
Micah McCormick: Now, in verse number five you were enriched in him in every way.
Micah McCormick: Verse number nine you were called by him into fellowship with his son.
Micah McCormick: Union, union, union.
Micah McCormick: You've got to understand your union with Christ.
Micah McCormick: He's starting with that.
Micah McCormick: What about eternity?
Micah McCormick: Look at verse number seven.
Micah McCormick: You don't lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: That's talking about the second coming, when Christ is revealed and returns from heaven.
Micah McCormick: And then he goes on to say in verse number eight, he will strengthen you to the end, eternity approaching, so that you will be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, again, the end.
Micah McCormick: So right from the outset he's got these connected foundation pillars of union with Christ and looking to the future and God's eternal plan, and those two themes are going to be woven throughout the letter as he addresses their problems and responds to their questions.
Micah McCormick: So I'm going to try to prove that to you tonight by walking through seven examples from this book of how Paul brings the eternal plan of God to unite people to his son, how he brings that to bear on their lives and the questions they're facing.
Micah McCormick: So seven examples of that from the letter.
Micah McCormick: Here's the first example division in the church.
Micah McCormick: They didn't write to him about that one, but he heard about it and wanted to talk about it.
Micah McCormick: So look at chapter three, go over chapter three, verse number three you are still worldly.
Micah McCormick: For since there's envy and strife among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans?
Micah McCormick: Whenever someone says I belong to paul and I belong to paul's, are you not acting like mere humans?
Micah McCormick: There there's the problem division.
Micah McCormick: Look down at verse number 11.
Micah McCormick: No one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down.
Micah McCormick: That foundation is Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: If you're a believer, paul says you're built onto Jesus Christ.
Micah McCormick: You're not built onto Paul or Apollos or you're built onto Christ, but if you're, this building stacked on him, if you're united to him, then you have to be united to others.
Micah McCormick: You can't put bricks down and the bricks don't go together.
Micah McCormick: If they're part of the same foundation, they do go together and the bricks don't go together.
Micah McCormick: If they're part of the same foundation, they do go together.
Micah McCormick: That's his logic here.
Micah McCormick: Look down to verse 21, chapter 3.
Micah McCormick: Still so, there's union with Christ.
Micah McCormick: By implication.
Micah McCormick: Let no one boast in human leaders.
Micah McCormick: This is part of their division, as they were elevating, idolizing certain human leaders.
Micah McCormick: Let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present or things to come.
Micah McCormick: There's eternity, there's the future.
Micah McCormick: Everything is yours and you belong to Christ.
Micah McCormick: There's union again.
Micah McCormick: So think about division in light of who you are in Jesus and what's coming, and you'll be helped.
Micah McCormick: Example number two lawsuits among fellow believers.
Micah McCormick: Over to chapter six, verse number one.
Micah McCormick: If any of you has a dispute against another.
Micah McCormick: How dare you take it to court before the unrighteous and not before saints?
Micah McCormick: So we don't know the situation.
Micah McCormick: Imagine you know, somebody gives someone else their plow to borrow for something and they return it and they say wait a minute, you broke my plow, you need to fix it.
Micah McCormick: No, when you gave it to me it was already pretty much shot.
Micah McCormick: You need to fix it yourself.
Micah McCormick: Oh yeah, well, I'm going to sue you.
Micah McCormick: Oh yeah, go ahead.
Micah McCormick: I'm making that up.
Micah McCormick: But in your own mind, imagine what it's going to be.
Micah McCormick: And Paul says don't do that.
Micah McCormick: And he could say don't do that because that's not very nice.
Micah McCormick: But it's actually not what he says here.
Micah McCormick: He says in verse 2, don't you know that saints will judge the world?
Micah McCormick: Verse number 3, this is even more interesting Don't you know that we will judge angels?
Micah McCormick: If I was a member of the church of Corinth I would have said no, I didn't know.
Micah McCormick: That.
Micah McCormick: That's news to me.
Micah McCormick: Where does Moses say for all the righteous, in the future, when angels are judged, you'll get to judge them too.
Micah McCormick: Where is that in the Bible?
Micah McCormick: And Paul says he doesn't just say I got something to inform you.
Micah McCormick: He says don't you know that says he doesn't just say I got something to inform you.
Micah McCormick: He says don't you know that?
Micah McCormick: Well, it's possible.
Micah McCormick: When he helped establish this church he had extra revelation he gave, and that's possible.
Micah McCormick: I think what's more likely here is he's making a theological deduction that he says and thinks they should have made.
Micah McCormick: Doesn't Jesus say when the Son of man comes in his glory and sits on his glorious throne to his disciples, you too will sit on thrones.
Micah McCormick: What do you do when you're on a throne?
Micah McCormick: You're a king.
Micah McCormick: You make pronouncements and judgments.
Micah McCormick: Isn't it true that Jesus one day is going to judge the living and the dead and angels?
Micah McCormick: But if you're united to Christ, you'll be right there with him.
Micah McCormick: Now, I don't know the mechanics of it.
Micah McCormick: Is that Jesus makes his declaration against the sinful angels who rebelled with Satan and then we say amen, or do we actually verbalize some pronouncement?
Micah McCormick: I don't know the mechanics of this judgment, but Paul is bringing in both the future and the reality that if you're belonging to Christ, what Jesus is going to do, you'll be a part of that.
Micah McCormick: So you're going to be before all the created order, judging heavenly beings, and you're going to take your fellow church member to loss over a tractor, a plow, come on, that's the logic here.
Micah McCormick: Example number three sex, marriage and singleness.
Micah McCormick: I'm cramming three things into one example.
Micah McCormick: They are related in Paul's mind.
Micah McCormick: So go over to chapter five.
Micah McCormick: So here's a man that Paul needs to confront, given the especially grievous nature of his sin.
Micah McCormick: And Paul says, verse number five hand that one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, but notice the reason so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Micah McCormick: There's a looking to the future in the judgment that's being given to this man.
Micah McCormick: There's still the hope that he's going to be saved eventually through God's grace.
Micah McCormick: Look down, if you will, to chapter 6.
Micah McCormick: Further down, verse 14.
Micah McCormick: God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Micah McCormick: Don't you know that your bodies are a part of Christ's body?
Micah McCormick: Should I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of a prostitute?
Micah McCormick: Absolutely not.
Micah McCormick: So.
Micah McCormick: It's not just that this form of immorality is icky or wrong.
Micah McCormick: Paul could say both of those things.
Micah McCormick: But he's saying you belong to Christ and you can't separate, as a human, your body and your spirit, your one being so when you take your body and sin in this way because you're united to Christ.
Micah McCormick: It's as though you're bringing Christ into that and consider that as you're facing these temptations.
Micah McCormick: And he even goes a bit further than that, verse 16,.
Micah McCormick: Don't you know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her?
Micah McCormick: For scripture says the two will become one flesh.
Micah McCormick: But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
Micah McCormick: There's something so sacred about our intimate union with Jesus Christ that that's the ballast and ground and help for us to face other kinds of temptation, though in some ways maybe a little different in nature.
Micah McCormick: There's an intimacy there of union with Christ is a reality of our relationship.
Micah McCormick: Over to chapter number seven.
Micah McCormick: So now we're getting to their questions.
Micah McCormick: So we're still in my third example of trying to prove this argument about what Paul's doing in Corinthians, showing us how all the questions of life they can flow back to.
Micah McCormick: We're united to Christ.
Micah McCormick: The future is present.
Micah McCormick: God's got an eternal plan that reshapes our thinking.
Micah McCormick: So I'm an example number three.
Micah McCormick: But now in the letter he's going to turn to some of their actual questions, and marriage and issues related to marriage are part of their questions.
Micah McCormick: He's got throughout chapter seven a refrain.
Micah McCormick: So look at verse number 17.
Micah McCormick: Let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him.
Micah McCormick: Verse 20.
Micah McCormick: Verse 24.
Micah McCormick: Verse 26.
Micah McCormick: In which he was called Verse 26,.
Micah McCormick: Because of the present distress, I think it's good for a man to remain as he is.
Micah McCormick: Do you hear that theme?
Micah McCormick: Stay as you are.
Micah McCormick: There's a theme, but that refrain is, in light of what he's already developed, that you belong to Jesus.
Micah McCormick: The most important union you could have has already been established if you belong to Christ.
Micah McCormick: So you don't have to be overly distressed about whether you were converted after you were converted after you were already married and now my spouse is not a believer and this could be horrible what about the influence on the kids?
Micah McCormick: And remain in the situation in which God's called you.
Micah McCormick: Now I could imagine a 20-year-old coming to me and saying Micah.
Micah McCormick: I could imagine a 60-year-old saying this, but it's a little more pressing as a 20-year-old for most people.
Micah McCormick: I could imagine a 20-year-old saying I hear what Paul is saying.
Micah McCormick: I've experienced union with Christ.
Micah McCormick: I want to enjoy that intimacy with Christ more.
Micah McCormick: I can extrapolate, you know, when Paul says don't visit a prostitute, I shouldn't be in my college, ending up in someone else's dorm room.
Micah McCormick: I don't want that.
Micah McCormick: I've got that.
Micah McCormick: I understand the future is going to be here sooner than I think and in the future it's a different situation.
Micah McCormick: We're not given a marriage in eternity.
Micah McCormick: I understand those things, but there's the here and now.
Micah McCormick: We're not living in the future and there are days I feel like if I don't get married in the next 30 minutes, something terrible could happen.
Micah McCormick: I could end up in someone's room where I shouldn't be.
Micah McCormick: Paul's got a response to that.
Micah McCormick: He says get married, he makes an allowance for that and it's a happy allowance, it's a joyful allowance.
Micah McCormick: Now, I don't think Paul would have said to every 20-year-old get married within the next 30 minutes.
Micah McCormick: I don't think he would have said that, but he's got an allowance for that.
Micah McCormick: But the allowances and the situational specifics of all these different things that he goes through here, that's not what's animating his heart and his mind fundamentally.
Micah McCormick: He acknowledged and addresses it.
Micah McCormick: But what he's still trying to do is reshape their whole frame of thinking, regardless of the decisions they make in the course of their life, in the present or in the future.
Micah McCormick: And he says as much here.
Micah McCormick: Look again at chapter 7, look at verse 29.
Micah McCormick: This is what I mean brothers and sisters.
Micah McCormick: So he even signals he's going to summarize something important.
Micah McCormick: This is what I mean brothers and sisters.
Micah McCormick: The time is limited.
Micah McCormick: So from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had none.
Micah McCormick: Those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they didn't own anything.
Micah McCormick: There's some hyperbole here.
Micah McCormick: This is the same Paul who said husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.
Micah McCormick: He's the same Paul who said wives love your husbands.
Micah McCormick: It's the same Paul that said provide for your family.
Micah McCormick: That's a command.
Micah McCormick: So there's exaggeration here.
Micah McCormick: But he's making a point.
Micah McCormick: No matter what your situation in life, there's a mentality of how you approach that.
Micah McCormick: And it's not only the nearness of eternity, it's not that only our life is a vapor and soon it'll be over.
Micah McCormick: It's that the future is already present.
Micah McCormick: So keep reading what he says here.
Micah McCormick: So there's a union with Christ as the foundation.
Micah McCormick: But keep reading what he says here, verse 31, those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it, for this world in its current form is passing away.
Micah McCormick: He doesn't say it will pass away, he says it's running through your fingers right now.
Micah McCormick: Eternity is already present right now.
Micah McCormick: So you've got to come to grips with that, regardless of your life situation.
Micah McCormick: That regardless of your life situation.
Micah McCormick: Example number four food offered to idols.
Micah McCormick: Chapter eight.
Micah McCormick: They bring this up.
Micah McCormick: There's some delicious hamburger.
Micah McCormick: Maybe the butcher had a ceremony to Zeus before he brought this hamburger out of the back.
Micah McCormick: And if I eat this hamburger, am I somehow worshiping a false god?
Micah McCormick: Maybe I shouldn't eat it.
Micah McCormick: And someone else is like ah, it's a piece of meat.
Micah McCormick: I'm not worshiping Zeus, it's delicious.
Micah McCormick: Pass the burger over to me, I'll have it.
Micah McCormick: This kind of thing.
Micah McCormick: How does Paul respond to this?
Micah McCormick: Well, his burden is to say you need to give up your rights for others.
Micah McCormick: You need to love others.
Micah McCormick: That's the overarching principle.
Micah McCormick: Your rights for others, you need to love others.
Micah McCormick: That's the overarching principle.
Micah McCormick: But look at what he says in verse number 12 of chapter 8.
Micah McCormick: If you're not careful about the conscience of other Christians verse number 12,.
Micah McCormick: When you sin like this against brothers and sisters and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.
Micah McCormick: But Christ doesn't have a weak conscience.
Micah McCormick: We can't tempt him to do anything wrong.
Micah McCormick: Yes, but because the people you interact with are united to Christ.
Micah McCormick: When you trouble them you're troubling the Lord.
Micah McCormick: So keep in mind that union with Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Down in the next chapter, chapter number nine, verse 25.
Micah McCormick: He gives many examples here of how he is willing to give up his own right as an apostle for the sake of others.
Micah McCormick: Still kind of on this theme of beat out for the idols, but verse 25.
Micah McCormick: Now, everyone who competes exercises self-control on everything.
Micah McCormick: They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable crown.
Micah McCormick: When do you receive that In the future?
Micah McCormick: He's living his life and he'll give up all kinds of things because he's got the end in view.
Micah McCormick: He's got God's eternal plan in view.
Micah McCormick: That burger sure is tasty, but it doesn't have the immediate in view.
Micah McCormick: He's got loving others in light of God's eternal plan as the center thing in his mind.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 10.
Micah McCormick: Look at verse number 11.
Micah McCormick: He's talking about Israel in the past and the nature of if you do eat food offered to idols in the context of a worship ceremony.
Micah McCormick: Now that's where Paul says don't do that, because there's the union element.
Micah McCormick: You're taking just like if you were visiting a prostitute the warning back from earlier chapters if you go into the context of a false pagan worship ritual and you participate in that because you're united to Christ.
Micah McCormick: You're bringing Christ into that and you're in danger of bringing the forces that are there to bear on your life in some unfortunate way.
Micah McCormick: But again he argues from the future.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 10, life in some unfortunate way, but again he argues from the future.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 10, verse number 11.
Micah McCormick: These things happened to them, the Israelites, as examples, and they were written for our instruction on whom the ends of the ages have come.
Micah McCormick: What does that have to do with anything?
Micah McCormick: In light of Christ's coming, everything is collapsing.
Micah McCormick: The future is here, eternity is present Not fully and finally, as it will be one day but the coming of Christ into the world was the biggest change in world history and if you've got that change in the back of your mind, you can see the meat offered to idol for what it is in light of that and you can see loving others in light of what it is for that.
Micah McCormick: Next example, example number five, the Lord's Supper and their behavior at the Lord's Supper, and this actually overlaps some with food offered to idols.
Micah McCormick: But chapter 10, we're still here.
Micah McCormick: In chapter 10, look down at verse 16.
Micah McCormick: We're still here in chapter 10.
Micah McCormick: Look down at verse 16.
Micah McCormick: They had some divisive behavior even at the Lord's Supper.
Micah McCormick: And he says in verse 16 of chapter 10, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?
Micah McCormick: The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?
Micah McCormick: Because there is one bread, we, who are many, are one body, since all of us share in the one bread.
Micah McCormick: Communion is not merely a ritual, it's a participation, not that the bread or the cup somehow automatically just gives us more of Christ, but, as we're believing and trusting and calling to mind the truths that symbolize there, it's a spiritual experience.
Micah McCormick: It's not just a ritual.
Micah McCormick: And because it's a spiritual experience and you're meditating on and exhibiting your union with Christ and his death and resurrection, how could you rush ahead and selfishly take when others are hurting and they're not arrived?
Micah McCormick: How could you greedily drink and you drink so much, you get drunk at the Lord's Supper when this is supposed to be a spiritual experience of who you are as belonging to the Lord?
Micah McCormick: Chapter 11, still the Lord's Supper example, but we've got union to Christ and we see again the future.
Micah McCormick: Invoked chapter 11, verse 26 as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes.
Micah McCormick: Communion is a chance for us to proclaim all that Christ is, and we're doing that always with anticipation that he's coming.
Micah McCormick: He's coming, he's coming.
Micah McCormick: That's part of what we say when we celebrate the Lord's Supper.
Micah McCormick: Two examples left.
Micah McCormick: Number six spiritual gifts, chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: Now, concerning spiritual gifts, that's how the chapter opens.
Micah McCormick: Look over to verse number 12 and 13 of chapter 12.
Micah McCormick: And you hear a similar argument from the division he addressed at the beginning of the letter.
Micah McCormick: Just as the body is one and has many parts and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ.
Micah McCormick: For we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink.
Micah McCormick: How should we exercise spiritual gifts, paul?
Micah McCormick: He doesn't say go out into the woods and ask God to show you your special spiritual gift.
Micah McCormick: Maybe you could use it, maybe not.
Micah McCormick: It's a horrible idea.
Micah McCormick: But he begins with now remember, even though there's different gifts, you're one body and that's the body of Christ.
Micah McCormick: You're united to him.
Micah McCormick: So, in all the ways you exercise your spiritual gifts, you're trying to build up the body because you belong to Jesus and he's built you up, and don't you want to build up others who belong to him.
Micah McCormick: It's all together, it's all one.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 13, read at weddings, and a wonderful exhortation for new husbands and wives has application even beyond that.
Micah McCormick: He's still talking about spiritual gifts, because in chapter 12 he does.
Micah McCormick: In chapter 14 he does too.
Micah McCormick: What he says in 13, though, is yes, there's spiritual gifts, but, again, love is this crowning virtue, and his argument is the reason why love is the crowning virtue is because it lasts longer than some of these spiritual gifts will last.
Micah McCormick: Chapter 13, look at verse number eight Love never ends.
Micah McCormick: As for prophecies, they will come to an end.
Micah McCormick: So you can prophesy Good, great, wonderful.
Micah McCormick: Paul tells the Corinthians, but that has a timestamp.
Micah McCormick: Love doesn't have a timestamp.
Micah McCormick: As for tongues, they will cease.
Micah McCormick: As for knowledge, it will come to an end, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
Micah McCormick: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
Micah McCormick: When I became a man, I put aside childish things, for now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then, face to face, the revelation of the day of the Lord Jesus.
Micah McCormick: The same thing he opened the letter with, he brings out here.
Micah McCormick: Christ is coming back and the things that are effective in these days and these ages.
Micah McCormick: They won't always be here, but love will always be here and Christ is coming.
Micah McCormick: So exercise your spiritual gifts in light of the love you have for the body of Christ and pleading with God that he give you a love that surpasses even the great insight or wisdom or other kinds of gifts that you might have.
Micah McCormick: Finally, resurrection hope Over to chapter 15.
Micah McCormick: Apparently, they've got questions about the resurrection and some, it seems, perhaps are even unsure if believers will have bodily resurrection.
Micah McCormick: And Paul says yes, absolutely, you can anticipate if you know the Lord Jesus, christ, your body is going to be raised out of that ground.
Micah McCormick: And look at his arguments here.
Micah McCormick: Look first there at verse number 12, where you see him even phrase the question this way If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead.
Micah McCormick: And I take Paul to be making this theological argument, like he made back in chapter 6 with the lawsuits and the judging the angels to be saying more than well, one guy rose from the dead.
Micah McCormick: So you can't say no one ever rose from the dead.
Micah McCormick: I take him to be saying Jesus rose from the dead.
Micah McCormick: And haven't we been saying all along you're united to Christ.
Micah McCormick: So if you're united to Christ and his body came out of the grave to live forever, why would you even think that your body wouldn't come out of the grave and live forever?
Micah McCormick: That's impossible because you belong to Jesus.
Micah McCormick: Look down to verse number 22.
Micah McCormick: Verse number 22.
Micah McCormick: Just as in Adam, all die, we come into the world united to Adam in a legal sense, in a moral sense and bearing his sin, nature and the consequences of all those things, which is death.
Micah McCormick: But in Christ all will be made alive.
Micah McCormick: There's no hope of the resurrection apart from Christ.
Micah McCormick: God doesn't owe us new bodies, but if we belong to Jesus, christ has earned and accomplished all that we could ask for, including the right to adoption and new bodies in the grand and glorious future.
Micah McCormick: Go over to verse number 58.
Micah McCormick: We're skipping down here some, but Paul is going to move from this question about resurrection to encouraging them in their day-to-day labor.
Micah McCormick: Paul does care about day-to-day life.
Micah McCormick: So don't hear what I'm saying that Paul doesn't care about the questions of life.
Micah McCormick: He does.
Micah McCormick: He just wants them to view them with an eternal lens and with this lens of your union with Christ.
Micah McCormick: He ends this whole section in verse 58,.
Micah McCormick: Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work, because you know that your labor is not in vain.
Micah McCormick: But I skipped something.
Micah McCormick: Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Yeah, your labor has value every day, even though heaven and hell are pressing in on us.
Micah McCormick: Eternity has already arrived in the future and your labor still has value, but that's because you belong to the Son.
Micah McCormick: I hope this gives you hope.
Micah McCormick: This was great getting into this in Corinthians this week and the last couple of weeks for me because, again, this is a resource and a way to approach all kinds of questions in life.
Micah McCormick: The way that Paul does it so regularly in this book should suggest to us it's not just about these questions they had, but how we think about all kinds of questions.
Micah McCormick: Let me start with I'm united to Christ.
Micah McCormick: How does that reshape the way I think about it?
Micah McCormick: And the future is here, it's coming, it's near.
Micah McCormick: How does that reshape how I think about these questions?
Micah McCormick: Last passage, we didn't hit this earlier, but go back to 1 Corinthians, chapter 2.
Micah McCormick: Or, I'm sorry, chapter 1, chapter 1 still.
Micah McCormick: So I read that opening.
Micah McCormick: Or, I'm sorry, chapter one, chapter one still.
Micah McCormick: So I read that opening of Paul setting the foundation.
Micah McCormick: And then he reiterates that again.
Micah McCormick: And just look down to verse number 30.
Micah McCormick: It is from, and I'll close with this First of all, it's from him, god the Father, that you are in.
Micah McCormick: Christ Jesus, god's got an eternal plan to unite people to his son.
Micah McCormick: And it's Christ Jesus who became wisdom from God for us, the most important kind of wisdom, wisdom for every life, day-to-day life.
Micah McCormick: But wisdom even beyond that, who became wisdom from God for us, our righteousness, sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it's written, let the one who boasts boast, boast in the Lord.
Micah McCormick: Let's pray, lord.
Micah McCormick: We want to grasp this more.
Micah McCormick: We, if we're honest, we confess we've only begun to see the tip of what this means for us to be united to the Son.
Micah McCormick: That it's forgiveness, it's restored fellowship with you, it's intimate union and communion.
Micah McCormick: It's the knowledge of things present and things to come, it's life and death and angels and judgments and disagreements with fellow believers and everything in between.
Micah McCormick: So, lord, give us a humility that we would not ever boast in ourselves, but boast in the cross, through which the world was crucified to us.
Micah McCormick: And we've been crucified to the world, but we're alive in Christ.
Micah McCormick: Lord, help us to take stock of every relationship, every decision that comes our way, every anxiety or fear, in light of what it means to belong to Jesus.
Micah McCormick: And it's of you that we're in Christ.
Micah McCormick: It's him who is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption, and we thank you that in one real sense, we can sing as we will.
Micah McCormick: And we thank you that, in one real sense, we can sing as we will the gift of grace in Jesus.
Micah McCormick: What more is there for heaven to give?
Micah McCormick: Having given us your son, what more could we own or ask for that you freely give to us all things, because you've given Christ to us.
Micah McCormick: So let us wait that in our hearts tonight as we rest, as we go to sleep, in Jesus' name amen.