Don't Point At Me

1 Corinthians 1:10-18. Paul points to Christ and his cross for proof of our salvation, not to the people in the pews. 

Transcript

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So Paul wrote to the Corinthians, I appeal to you brothers and sisters by the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. Grace, mercy and peace be with you from God, our father and our Lord and savior. Jesus Christ, You may be seated. The last Sunday we heard the voice of John the Baptist izer, proclaiming to his disciples Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world on. We talked about the fact that that is the god to whom we point, especially amongst those were dealing with disasters, whether global or local or personal. When somebody asks, why is God letting this happen to me? Why is God doing this to us? Our answer is always to point to Jesus, to point to the cross and say, Here is our God who suffered and died for us and is not unfamiliar with what you're going through or what we're going through. But this week we learned from Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth, where not to point not to point at each other and not to point at me and not to point at the things that are not Jesus, the Christ that are not the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So a few weeks ago, when I was in the Yale University and talking right before I got up to do my presentation, there was a representative of Ravi Zacharias, International Ministries. Now I really like Robbie. Zach arrives. He is a great apologised for the Christian faith. In fact, he played a heavy hand in the part of my conversion and coming to confessional Lutheranism auras. We heard it for way. Not so much conversion, but awakening to the fullness of the Christian faith. But as he talked about all the different places to point to see evidence of God's work in the world, I was a little troubled by the last one that he gave. He pointed to Christians. You want to show somebody the truth of Christianity, point to Christians point to their change. Lives point to how their hearts have become more open to love and concern for other people. This is evidence, he said of God's work in the world. And in fact, it was the last evidence that he pointed to. And a little bit later, when I was talking with the Roman Catholic chaplain for McGill, Father Joe Machine at the Newman Center and he said, Well, you know what what were things like a the presentations? And I pointed out that I was a little bit troubled by using this as a proof for God's existence. He had a bemused look on his face and he said Why? And then I remembered I was talking to a Roman Catholic, and they also believe that changed lives, especially the change lives of the scenes are evidence of God's work in the world. In some ways are evangelical brothers and sisters and a Roman Catholic. Brothers and sisters are very much alike, it wanting to see in people and in our hearts evidence that God is indeed in charge of the world and at work in Christ. Now, what could possibly be wrong with this? You might yourself be thinking, Well, isn't that in fact, evidence of Christ being the redeemer of the world, that people who were formerly criminals or murderers or slanderers or libel ER's suddenly turned their life around on account of Christ It can be, but it's sort of a mixed bag, as Paul points out in Corinth. Now Paul was preaching in corn, starting in the synagogue from which he was kicked out, as often happens and then ended up taking a small group from that Jewish synagogue to form the first Christian Church in court. But this church in Corinth, I don't think, was a place that Paul would point to to say, Look, here is evidence of the truth of Christianity. The church in Corinth was a mess, and he certainly Paul was not seeing evidence of all of the changes that he perhaps would have liked to have seen within this small group. A baptized believers. First, we have Chloe's people. I don't know Chloe Waas. Nobody really does. But she had people, apparently, and they came to Paul with the deep concern about what was happening within the congregation, for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people. Paul writes that there is quarrelling among you, my brothers and sisters quarrelling. That's such a polite word we tried to polite when we translate things out of the Greek, but really, it meant strife, bitter contention, even to the point of violence. Christians. And they're going at it, maybe even during the worst of service. And Paul has to deal with this. This was on the disagreement, you see, over the color of the carpeting. This was mean and it was nasty. There shouldn't even have to be Chloe's. People think about that for a moment already. It's a sign of the division. It wasn't like the elders sent a delegate to go and talk to them. It's this faction within the church. The only people there should be within the church are Christ's people. As Paul writes and acts Chapter 80 or Luke Records and the Lord said to Paul, one night in a vision, Do not be afraid. But go on speaking in Corinth. And do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are mine people. Jesus knows who are hiss, but apparently so does Chloe, who knows who are hers. And there are certainly many quarrels in courts, and Paul's gonna get to all of them in turn in his letter Sexual immorality in Chapter five. Lawsuits between believers and Chapter six. Ah, false understanding of divorce or of being unmarried in first Corinthians seven. Food offered toe idols in first Corinthians ate and who can and cannot eat them. Lack of good stewardship and bad tithing in first Corinthians nine. Dispute over the Lord's Supper and who can take it? And with whom? In first Corinthians. 11 Spiritually gifts and who has the better ones in First Corinthians 12 and even a dispute over the resurrection of Our Lord in first Corinthians 15. That's a lot of quarreling. So Paul is out there in the marketplace, in corn, proclaiming Christ and wanting people to see evidence that in this man, Jesus of Nazareth, God has reconciled the world to himself. I do not think that the people in the church in Corinth, where the people to whom he was pointing as evidence of the message the gospel that you were sharing in Corinth, Greece. Now what was the source of the quarreling in today's particular reading? First Corinthians one. We haven't even gotten very far into the letter. Well, Paul writes What I mean about this is that each one of you says I follow Paul or I follow a Paulus or I follow Cave See fous Peter or I follow Christ. What's basically happening here is that these Corinthians, inasmuch as their Christian, are also still Greeks. They haven't really left their home culture completely yet. And so they're thinking like Greeks and Greeks, air usedto having itinerant traveling speakers, teachers, philosophers and everybody followed their favorite. I like Bob. He is the best teacher. He's got the best PowerPoint slides. I like Sally. She is powerful and full of conviction. She really knows what she's talking about. I don't like either of them. I fall Claire because she's logical, rational. Everything sort of makes sense. And everybody in Corinth had their favorite teachers or priests or priestesses or philosophers. And so now that they're part of the Church of Christ, they're still thinking the same way. It's not good enough just to be a Christian. You've gotta have your favorite. I like Peter Disease rock. Nobody shakes Peter. Well, except for the gentle eyes. Well, I followed Paul because while he can't seem to actually get a whole paragraph out when he's talking in public. His letters are phenomenal. You don't believe me, read. But Paul writes about himself. People accused him of being a great letter writer, but not so great as a public speaker. And any of you have been a university know how this works? People tend to be either really great. Writers are really great speakers. You don't often get both at the same time. One of my favorite Lutheran writers is a horrible speaker. He is one of the most boring people I could think of to listen to. But his books are fantastic. I think that was Paul, and then some people are sort of getting it perhaps and saying, Well, I follow Christ least I follow the one who died from my sins, Paul says. Just as you should not be pointing to the people in the pews as proof or evidence of the work of God, you should neither be pointing to the pulpit in second Corinthians because Paul is dealing with this problem over and over and over again. He writes, for what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake for God, who said Let light shine out of darkness has Sean in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, not the face of Peter or Paul or Mary, but the face of the one who died for you and for me and for our sins on the cross. That is who Paul says continually, We must point not to each other and our hearts, which so often are small and black, and not even to the one standing up, wearing the all and stole, but collectively with one voice as one people, we point to Jesus the Lamb of God for Christ did not send me to baptize, Paul wrote, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, less the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Well, we just had a big discussion about baptism. How come Paul say it's not important? At least seems to be what he's implying. That he wasn't sent out to do baptisms. What? Paul's getting bad, too, is how baptism can be abused when it is once again disconnected from the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world and the cross when it takes on a life of its own, disconnected from the word that gives baptism its power, which is the gospel Paul could see already with these factions in the church and Corrine and the Key Fist followers and the Paul followers in the Apollo's followers how baptism could become just one more thing that divides the church rather than unites it in Christ. Well, I was baptized by Pastor John I was baptized by Pastor Frank. I was baptized my pastor. Final swap pulses. I thank the Lord that what I came to preach to you first was the Gospels, that you might Onley understand that baptism has its power through that same gospel and not apart from it. If we ourselves are baptized and say that we're baptized, but we do not connect that baptism with the blood that Christ shed on the cross for you and me, then we miss the point. If we do not see that baptism is the application of Christ Atonement from the cross to you and me that we don't really understand the power baptism at all. And then baptism becomes emptied of its power. How can water do such great things? Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with water does these things, along with the faith, which trust this word of God in the water For without God's word. The water is plain water and no baptism. You'll hear it again and speak it with your own lips. Next week, Every gift we have comes from Christ and his gospel, whether it's baptism or absolution or the supper or the scriptures. Everything points back to the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, the same Christ to whom we point our friends and our neighbors that they, too, might be delivered from sin and safe policies. Quarreling in Corinth and what he wants is the opposite. What is the opposite of division and quarrelling unity and peace, which is precisely what Christ wants for his people. It is what he prayed before he was handed over to death. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them and I am no longer in the world. But they are in the world and I am coming to you. Holy Father, Keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one have the same mind and judgment in you that is in Christ. Jesus, What Paul writes of the Philippians and is what we strive for as the church as well. Not that it's gonna make our hearts perfect. Not that we strive every passerby identical and interchangeable. But what we do want is that all of us pastor and people grow together to have the same mind and the same judgment, pointing to the same cross and the same Christ. The reason why our churches practice what we call closed communion, that only those who have confessed a common faith in Christ is precisely because we want to preserve that same judgment and that same mind in each other. When I was in my very first parish, they had gotten sort of lazy and gotten to the kind of sense that anybody who came up to the altar could take the Lord's Supper, whether they made a commitment to the faith being preached from the pulpit or not. And when I started introducing them to the idea of close communion, the verse that I put in our bulletins was precisely our epistle reading. From today I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same line and the same judgment. Now. When I did that, a lot of people said, Pastor, I don't understand how that has anything to do with the Lord's Supper. It is no accident that Paul writes these words at the very beginning of a letter where one of the deepest and most significant problems in the same church is precisely holy Communion, that people don't know what they're doing when they come to the Lord's Supper. And Foch Paul has to write in first Corinthians 11. In this, I cannot commend you because when you gather together, it is not the Lord suffer that you eat, for each one goes ahead of the other, as if it was going out to a restaurant. My food comes first. I'm gonna eat before you do. The rich ate together. The poor ate together and they did not see themselves as one body with one mind and one judgment pointing to the same lamb of God. And that is the point of closed communion. It is the point of everything we do. It is the point of our evangelism. It is the point of our mission that together with one voice with one action, we point to the one same Christ that we don't find ourselves pointing some of us over here, some of us over there, some of us in here, some of us out there. But if we gather together and someone were to stand in front of us right now and said, What is it that makes you all Christian? We were together with one action and one voice point to the cross and say we confess, Jesus Christ, our savior, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. That is where we point on Lee and always not often different directions, not into our hearts, not to the pastor, not to the beauty of the church building, not to the comfortable nous of the pews, not to the wonderfulness of the council. We point to Christ, as Paul urges us to do, and as Jesus himself commanded of us the name of Jesus Christ.