Are we Saints or Sinners

Thank you guys for being so welcoming to me and my family, my wife Dana, and we’ll do they’ll come up here a little bit later. And John, James, and Jordan, three of our boys. We have six boys. We yes, we deserve every bit of that. Um, because we yeah, we raised six boys. They’re from 22 down to 17, and um, it was a lot of work, and uh they’re still scattered around the country. Got two in Florida, one’s still up in Denver right now, and anyway, we’re um very happy that you guys have been so welcoming to us, especially you know, the night we got here um at two o’clock in the morning, there was a wonderful homecoming uh tornado warning that that came through on our phones, and that just we get those in Denver, and so that just really made it feel like home. I I woke up and I’m like, tornado warning, what? And Dana’s like, what is it? And I’m like, it’s a tornado warning. She’s like, okay, and she just went back to sleep. And I was like, uh okay, I guess we’ll just, yeah, we’ll just go back to sleep. So it just felt like home. So thank you guys. We’re we’re very excited to be here. Um let’s pray, and then we’ll get started, okay? Father, you have loved us um so much, and we just receive that love this morning. We believe it, we choose to believe it, even if we don’t feel it. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Uh worship, thank you, worship team. You guys are awesome. I just want to say, I’m very absolutely. I my pet peeve, our pet peeve, is walking in and seeing lasers and smoke. Because that does not mean the Holy Spirit is is like moving in your church. You know, it’s like I was so blessed by the worship team, but I didn’t know I was walking right into the greatest controversy in the 21st century of the church. Is it sloppy wet or unforeseen? That’s it’s that’s not Calvinism Armenianism anymore. That is the only controversy left in the history of the church. But we just walked face smacked first into that one this morning. So loved it. You’re well, yes, thank you, Nate. Loved it, loved it. Okay, well, the main attraction today is not me. Um I will tell you a little bit about myself, uh, but the main attraction is the word of God. So we are gonna study the word of God. That’s gonna be what uh we’re known for, what we do, and we’re gonna we’re gonna be dedicated to that. Um but I’m 43, my wife is 43 and one day older than me. And um, we have yeah, six boys, and I have a weird red toe. Everything else you’ll get to know about me as we as we get going. So um, but yeah, have you guys ever seen the notebook? Yeah, all the women are like, Yes. And all their men are like, I I understand when he’s like, What do you want? Right? Well, the notebook is a is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should have by now, so I’m gonna spoil it. Is that okay? Is anyone like, don’t spoil the movie? Okay. So the notebook is like this story of like this really sweet old man, and he’s telling a love story to the sweet old woman, and then the whole movie is their whole life, and it’s so dramatic and lovey, and and just it hits you right in the feels, right? It gets you right there, and and and you’re like, oh, if only my love story could be as beautiful as the beginning of that story or the end, because the end is even more beautiful, like the when they’re old people and they they’re they’re remembering, and it’s it’s a whole beautiful story. But they didn’t make a movie about the 50 years in between. You ever notice that? They skip over all of that, and do you guys know why? Because it’s boring, it doesn’t make a good movie at all. But it matters because that’s where fidelity is, that’s where love really is, is not when it’s exciting, but when you week after week, day after day, meet with the person you love and spend time with them and cherish them when it’s not exciting and when it’s not boring. Okay, this church started three and a half years ago, and Matt has been the exciting beginning, like pastor of this church. We love him so much. It’s been great. You guys have been uh I’ve I’ve learned from you, I’ve gotten to know you a little bit, and um, that’s what attracts us so much to this church is just the passion for Jesus, and it’s beautiful. And you guys meet in a bar, couldn’t be any more just we are love Jesus where we’re at, and so it’s great. And in 30 years, 40 years, this church is gonna be changing the world in ways that we could not imagine. But what are we gonna do every week between now and then? We’re gonna notebook this. We are gonna love Jesus by studying his word, by loving each other. We’re gonna let Jesus live through us, but the word of God is gonna be everything that that really is the identity of our church. We’re gonna study the word of God, we’re gonna believe it. Okay? So the structure that I have for us is we’re gonna begin in the book of First Corinthians, and so if you have your Bible, pull it out. If you have it on your phone, that’s cool, not quite as spiritual, but um, you know, if you have an old school Bible, I’m only half joking, um just kidding. We’ll put it up here for the heathens, and um it we have them three in the back too. So if you’re facing the bar as a true heathen, you got three of them you can see back there. Okay, so I have not stood up here, so if this looks weird, we’ll figure it out. Just go with me, give me some grace. Okay, so we’re gonna study the book of 1 Corinthians, and we’re gonna study it verse by verse. Uh, and you know how long it’s gonna take? I don’t know, but we’ll see. We’re we got uh I did the book of Genesis, it took like 65 weeks. So uh this may be twice as long. I don’t know. But we’ll we’re gonna study the word of God, we’re gonna study it verse by verse, and so we’re just gonna dive into that now. So today’s sermon is called Are We Saints or Sinners? Are we saints or sinners? And we’re gonna look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses we’re gonna go verses 1 through 9. So let me uh introduce this by by telling you that the Corinthians, okay, were people who were known for partying, drunkenness, and loose sexual morals. In fact, there was a term Corinthium Zomai, which I don’t speak Greek. So if you speak Greek, you probably know that, but I don’t. Corinthian Corinthians was a term for a people that meant to live like a Corinthian, which means to be out of control with sin. Okay? So they were anytime a Corinthian would show up in a play in ancient Rome, you knew you could tell because they appeared drunk. That was the character of the Corinthians, okay? So what does that city remind you of? I didn’t think that was a joke. I was gonna say Vegas, but uh that took me by surprise. Thank you guys. You guys are awesome. Okay. Well, I have an idea. Let’s let’s pick it outside of Corinth. You know, that’s gonna lead them all to Jesus with signs that say you’re going to hell. Let’s make commercials about how sinful they are. Let’s talk about how much better we are than them. It’s a good thing I’m not God, right? God’s idea is, hey, let’s put a church there. Let me live through some of the worst of them. Who’s the worst of them in here? You raise your hand first, you get the prize. You get 35 Jesus points. Just so you know, I will do Jesus points all the time. I give them out. They’re all fake, they don’t mean anything. It’s sarcastic because Jesus doesn’t give Jesus points, but I’m gonna give them out like they’re candy. So 35 Jesus points for you. What’s your name? William. Okay. That’s awesome. Yeah, Jesus says, Let me live through the worst of them because I love them, and they’re so lost and deceived by all their lies. And so that’s the that’s the context of what we got going on in Corinth. He wants to live through them. And so it says here the the verse starts like this Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So we’re gonna break that down, we’re gonna study it and see how it applies to our lives today. So it says Paul is called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. So Paul planted this church and spent one and a half years there just teaching them, building them up, you know. He did it half the time, bro. One and a half years, you took three. What’s going on? Then he left. Uh, and and they wrote they they started having problems, and so they wrote him letters, you know, they wrote him an email and said, Hey, Pastor, the new guy’s not that new pastor’s not that great. We’re doing bad. We have all these questions. So they wrote him all these questions. So Paul wrote one letter to them. We don’t have that letter. Then they wrote more questions. He wrote another letter to him. That’s this letter that we’re gonna study, and then it happened a third time, and that’s what we have a second Corinthians. So he’s responding and he tells them, Hey guys, I’m an apostle. Well, what is that? Well, for Paul, that means he’s a special ambassador, a special messenger. Um, we would think of them as like the top of the pyramid of authority, right? You guys know those pyramid schemes. Okay, well, there is pyramid schemes, and you the top person, you know, we think they have all the authority. But for Paul, it’s it’s kind of like flip that upside down, and he sees himself as the bottom because for Paul, the term apostle is a badge, not of authority, but of suffering and death that he has chosen to do for this people. Um every every uh apostle, and there was 12 of them, were brutally killed and martyred for following Jesus. You know, some of them were cut in half, some of them were their skin was taken off, all kinds of gross stuff, uh, except for John, but they tried, they boiled him in oil, but he didn’t die. Uh, so they just exiled him to Patmos, and then he got the book of Revelation revealed to him, like that he got that received. So that was a special situation, but all the rest of them were killed. And so Paul knows he’s gonna be killed, you know, he gets beheaded, eventually, spoiler alert, he gets beheaded. Um, but Paul says he’s freely giving himself to suffer and die for Jesus. So for him, living for Jesus is not a problem either. Okay, so he’s living for Jesus, he’s he’s got no idols in his heart, his heart freely belongs to Jesus. He’s got one goal, and that’s to serve and and to the church, to help the church grow, and to love and teach the church the gospel of grace. He’s got one strategy, and that’s gonna be grace, and we’re gonna be talking about that a lot. Paul doesn’t live for his own will, he he lives for the will of God. He allows God to live through him. So, does that mean that Paul or we don’t have our own free will? Do we have free will? Yes, we do have a free will, but we also have a new spirit, a holy spirit that lives inside us. And that spirit that lives inside us, it wants to do God’s will all the time. So when I’m talking to people and they’re struggling with sin, I tell them a lot of times, you know you don’t want to do this, right? You don’t want to do this. You’re a believer, you’re a Christian, which means your deepest desire is to do your father’s will. And that’s so much of a different motivation than you shouldn’t do this because it’s the rules. The Ten Commandments tell you not to do that. You’re being a bad person if you do that. This is about this is how the gospel works, the gospel of grace. It transforms us by his love and through the Holy Spirit inside us. We don’t want to sin anymore. When we choose righteousness, when we know that our father is pleased with us, guess what? We feel deep inside, we feel our Father’s approval. We know that He is pleased with us. And when we choose not to, we are grieved inside because the Holy Spirit, He doesn’t abandon us, but He is sad that we choose sin. And so we feel that sadness just leaking through us. And then I meet Christians and they’re like, I’m so depressed and I’m so sad all the time. And I’m like, well, you’re living in sin. But yeah, because I’m so sad. Well, okay, you don’t want to live this way. This is not who you really are, and that’s what we’re gonna learn in in Corinthians is the gospel tells you who you really are before it tells you what you should do. In fact, every one of Paul’s letters follows the same exact strategy. He tells you who you really are in the first part, half of all of his letters, and then he tells you what that looks like for your everyday life, which is what we’re gonna see a lot in this letter. So we do have free will. So if we use our free will to serve to choose our selfish way that we used to live, man, that’s called walking in the flesh. And not according to the Holy Spirit that lives inside us. So we get all messed up inside when we choose to walk in the flesh. We get sad and frustrated because we’re not walking with an agreement with what is deep inside us, who we really are. And um the gospel changes everything about us, he changes our spirit and he brings us in line with what the will of God is, what he how he would want us to live our lives. He he helps us, he doesn’t just help us, he lives through us, he makes it real in our lives. So that’s Paul. That’s what it means that he’s an apostle, he’s allowing God to live through him, and then he says, I got Sosthenes, our brother, with me. So Sosthenes was like dictating this for Paul. Now that’s interesting because Sosthenes was the ruler of the synagogue in Acts chapter 18. It talks about how Paul planted this church, and he says that there was this a guy ruling the synagogue, and then he got saved, and then you know, we planted a church, and he left the Jewish part, and then he became a Christian, and then after a year and a half, there was this big riot, and the Romans beat the ruler of the synagogue whose name was Sosthenes. So Sosthenes was the guy who was took the place of the first ruler of the synagogue that got saved, and then he got saved afterwards, apparently, because now he’s with Paul doing a great job. Um, so he got beaten, Sosthenes got beaten for defending Paul, for becoming a Christian. So speaking of God’s will, is it the will of God that we get fired? Sometimes. Or go through pain. He he got fired and went through pain, Sosthenes did. Sometimes we do have to go through pain. In fact, yes, that is God’s will for our life that we go through pain. But it’s not because he’s mad at us, it’s because he has something beautiful he wants to make. So I want you to to look at 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 1. It says this Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, let us arm ourselves with the same mind. For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. Suffering is necessary and good for us, but not fun. Nobody says suffering is fun, but it is actually very good because it conforms our mind to his will. And our mind does need to get fixed. Our mind has it’s kind of broken in the way that we it our mind just thinks about ourselves all the time, and it’s kind of just natural. But when our mind is fixed, it lines up with the real joy and peace that Jesus offers us. Um, and we get that when we do the will of our Father. And so suffering is actually helping us. And sometimes our mind needs to learn that our our father loves us, even when we don’t do his will. Because what do you feel like and what do you think when you screw up? My my father is mad at me. I’m in spiritual timeout. God doesn’t want me near him right now because did you see what I just did? Did you see what I just said? I really messed up. And so if I were God, I wouldn’t want to be with me. I’m ashamed of myself, and I’m sure God is disappointed with me because he’s holy and I just wasn’t holy. And so we struggle with this idea. What does God think of me? And we think that he wants distance when that’s actually the furthest thing that he wants. He wants us to run to him as our children when we mess up. He wants us to come into his arms and let him hold us and just say, Sorry, Father, that I did that. I should not have done that. But I believe that you love me. And this is getting to what the whole point of today’s message is is are we sinners or are we saints? Verse 2 says, To the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, who all, with all, who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. So he’s writing to the church, which is the people of God. Did you know that God doesn’t fill buildings anymore? You’re like, Amen. Have you seen our building? In the Old Testament, God would God liked to fill up buildings. So there was this temple and there was a tabernacle, and he would fill him with his glory, and it was, you know, but he does not do that anymore. I’ve heard churches, God come and fill this place. And I understand what they’re saying. I’m not like mad at them, but that’s not how he works anymore. Because he fills people now. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, right? No matter where we meet, he never. Leaves us or forsakes us, which is great. Now, this church in Corinth was messed up. We’re going to find that as we read this. We know more about this church than any other church in the old ancient world, mostly because of the letters that Paul writes to them that we’re going to be studying. And so we we have these really long letters that basically air out all their dirty laundry because we can learn from it. In fact, some would say they’re a sorry excuse for a church. They met in a bar. They they it’s funny. So all the all the other churches talked guff about them behind their back. They were the redheaded stepchild of the churches of Asia Minor. Bet you never heard, thought you’d hear that in church, right? Or were they? Or were they? Do you see how easy it was for me to just be all judgy? I’m an American. I’m so used to judging people that it just flowed off my tongue, right? I can I can so easily speak without mercy and love. I just used my human eyes and the human understanding to assess what was true about them. I called them a stupid church, but they’re not. Some of those things are real that they’re struggling with, but the truth, and the church really was falling into a lot of sin, uh, but that doesn’t, and that really does need to be corrected, but that is not their identity. So what is Paul’s strategy gonna be when dealing with this church? Is he just gonna give them a bunch of rules on what they need to change? No, he’s not, because that never works. Do you know a rule has never changed a single person? I can prove it to you. What’s the speed limit south of Whataburger?

75.

Rules don’t change people’s hearts. It’s impossible. That’s called the law. That was the old covenant. We’re gonna study a lot about the difference between trying to make people change through rules versus the gospel, which changes people, and then we help them discover their new identity, and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about. So, what is Paul’s strategy gonna be? Uh, it does he ignore their sin? Does he just say, You guys are perfect in every way? Paul, that would have been a short letter, postcard. No, he does not ignore their sin. He has a very open, honest discussion about it, and he’s gonna reveal to them how grace should apply to their lives, that they’re just not applying grace, but we’ll get to that. He’s brutally honest. He he he’s gonna is he going to call them sinners and hoping to shame them into changing their selfish ways? He’s not gonna do that. He says, those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints. And the words to be, if you look in your real Bible, they’re in parentheses or they’re in they’re in italics, and that means that they were added by the translators to help you understand, but they actually messed it up right there because it what it means is they were called there, it’s the words are in Greek, they’re called saints. That’s just what it says. They’re called saints. To all who in every place call in the name Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours. Paul calls them saints. Is Paul lying? These guys, remember, these guys are sinning a lot. So is Paul confused about what a saint is? I mean, in our world today, saints are Catholic.

Right?

And they have all their own definitions of what a saint is. But in the Bible, a saint is someone who’s been sanctified, set apart by God, filled with the Holy Spirit, so that’s every believer is a saint in Paul in the Bible definition. Are they perfect saints? Paul says if you’re a saint, you’re a saint. There’s no big saints and little saints. You’re just a saint if you believe. Saint means sanctified. You’ve been set apart for God. How is this possible that this dumb church that is really struggling with sin, Paul can just say you’re all saints? The way it’s possible is only by the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. God isn’t pretending or faking it or lying to himself when he says, You are my child, if you’ve asked me to forgive you, if you believe in Jesus. You are a saint. He’s not joking around. This is what the gospel is, and the gospel is true, and the gospel is why we’re here today. We believe it. We believe the blood of Jesus has cleansed us from sin and that we are saints. All the sin stuff that they’re participating in, that’s the lie. The devil likes to come to us and say, You are a sinner and you want to sin, so don’t stop sinning. Keep it going. God says, That’s not who you are anymore. You’re a saint. And this gets into what we’re talking about. Paul is establishing their identity. The identity of the Christian is a saint, not a sinner. The sin part of our life was dealt with on the cross. Now, getting their eyes off of themselves is the key. He’s getting their eyes off of themselves by putting them on Jesus. That’s what the fix is. That’s what the whole solution to this Corinthian church. And Paul starts it in the first sentence that we’re reading. He’s given the foundation of what we’re talking about. So he’s like, get your eyes off of yourself onto Jesus, and this is what good pastors do, and this is what the Bible does is you put on glasses, like gospel glasses. Okay. I have never worn glasses in my whole life until I turned 43. And I’m so sad. But now I have to wear glasses because this is blurry to me now, and now I can see. So thank you. Welcome to being old. Um, so Paul, what Paul is doing is he’s wants the people to be able to see clearly who they really are. So they need to put on like these gospel glasses. And he says, You are sanctified in Christ. That means they’ve been set apart and changed. No matter how old they are in Christ, you are perfect. God has saved you, He has transformed you. We just need to learn how to walk in it. And um, I am not gonna get through my whole sermon. So I know that my notes are longer, so I’m trying to, in my mind, figure out how to make this shorter. So I’m working on it. You warned me, I know you warned me, but I like to study the Bible, so sorry. I’m very excited about all this. Um, okay, so if we’ve been saved, if God has saved us with the gospel, then why do we still sin? That’s the question that I know rolled around in your heads as I’ve been talking. It’s like this guy really believes the gospel has transformed us. He really thinks he knows me. I still sin all the time. Why do we still sin? Why do we still struggle? Because he didn’t transform our brains, he transformed our hearts. That’s the process of growth we have to go through is to line up what we believe and what we understand and our thoughts to what he says is true in the Word of God. What he says is true, and when we believe it, we will live it out. It’s already true. What he says is already true. So we have been sanctified in our spirits, but our whole lives, our flesh, our mind, our will, and our emotions is being sanctified as we learn to walk in the spirit. And so that’s where we got to grow, right? And he says here, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. How did we get this Holy Spirit? How did we find such amazing grace? It was exactly the same for every true believer. We believed in the name of Jesus, which means we believed that Jesus is who he said he is and did what he said he did. We simply believed it, and then that belief became real when we called upon him. Either in your heart, in your mind, or with your mouth, you said, Jesus, I believe in that you are who you said you are, and you did what you said you did, and I’m asking you, do it for me. Make it real for me, give it to me. And he, of course, did. So when I’m counseling somebody, and we want to discover, and and I’m counseling them, and a lot of people doubt their salvation. Am I saved? Am I a real Christian? Am I gonna go to heaven? Do I have the Holy Spirit? I simply ask them this question: Do you believe that Jesus is God and He died for you and He rose from the dead? You know what they say? Yes, I believe that. And I say, Did you ask him to forgive you and live inside you? Giving you the Holy Spirit, and they say yes, or they say no. And I say, Well, if not, why don’t you ask him? Okay, and but usually they say yes, and then I say, then it’s done. You have it, he lives inside you. And they’re like, but how do I know? And I said, Can God lie? And they think about it, and they say, No, he can’t lie. And I said, Well, God says, anyone who asks, he gives it. It doesn’t say you have to be good, it doesn’t say you have to be perfect, it doesn’t say you have to be awesome, doesn’t say you have to be anything. Just ask, and you will get his gift of the Holy Spirit. And that’s why we can boldly offer salvation to anyone in this world with urgency and sincerity. He’s asked us to take this grace to the ends of the world or at least to the winter Texans. All right, verse four. Says, I thank my God always concerning you for the what? The grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus. Notice he doesn’t say, for all the good things you do, for all the tithes. He doesn’t say that, for all the wonderful, you know, he doesn’t say anything. He says, for the grace that was given to you. That’s what he’s thankful for, that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly awaiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he says, I thank my God for the grace of God that was given to you. Jesus gives grace. That sounds simple, right? But what does it mean, and what is grace? Well, we’re gonna unpack that for the next 30 years. But for now, let’s just observe what this text says about it. It says, Grace is given. That means grace is always a gift. It’s always a free gift, it’s never earned, it’s the opposite of wages. The church right now is struggling all around the world, and I teach peace to pastors in Nepal and Pakistan and India, all over the world, the church is struggling with this. They think you have to earn your position with God or you have to earn his favor. They know that you’re saved by grace, but when it comes to being changed, sanctified, or you know, serving God, they think it’s all about what I do for God. Instead of realizing that everything is a gift from God, his grace can never be earned. It’s the opposite of wages. Who in here actually has a job? Okay, so there was a lot less than I was expecting. So when you actually get a paycheck, when you get a paycheck, how many of you walk in to get the paycheck? And your boss, let’s say Wendy’s your boss, just like you. And Wendy gives you your check, and and she says, here, Taylor, is your check. I humbly give you all of this as a free gift. You I out of the goodness of my heart, I give you this paycheck. And Taylor’s like, you’re crazy. I earned every penny of that. Did you see the turtles I had to mess with and what I had to do with these turtles? Unspeakable things I had to do. But I earned that paycheck. Give me my paycheck, it’s mine. And Wendy’s like, no, I give it to you. No. See, that’s the difference. When you think God owes you something, that’s not how it works. He freely gives you everything, and he refuses to deal with us on the principle of law or wages, where you earn something from him. And that’s so vitally important for us to understand. Here he says, Grace was given by Jesus Christ. Every time you see the word give in your Bible, just highlight it, underline it, because that’s speaking of grace in the new covenant. Every time you see wages earned, those words are referring back to the law or the old covenant that we have been set free from. So Jesus gives grace. And grace means that God freely gives for his own reasons, and grace is from Jesus. That’s the second thing we learned from this verse about grace. It’s from Jesus. In other words, he’s the only source of grace. There’s no one else even offering grace to us. Like Buddha. He’s not offering grace to you. Muhammad’s not offering grace to you. They’re wanting to take from you. Jesus is the only one who just wants to give his grace, which is really his life. He just wants to give it to you. He’s offering himself to you. Verse 5, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and knowledge. So that means that grace completely changes every part of our lives. Grace does. We are saved by grace, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg because grace goes way beyond forgiving you of your sins. How many of you remember the day you were forgiven of your sins? That was a great burden that was lifted off your shoulders, right? I am now new and holy, and I’m a child of God. Nothing was better than that day, except that was just the beginning, maybe 10% of all that Jesus would do for you. And all that he has given you. And that’s what we’re going to learn about grace. It is a gift that enriches every part of your life. It is our whole life. We are forgiven by grace, but we’re also transformed by his grace. That’s where we talk about the word sanctification. We are that’s the process of being transformed in our daily life. He changes what we proclaim, that’s utterance, and what we understand, that’s knowledge. So he changes how we talk and what we think. I used to proclaim myself. I used to talk about myself, I used to think about myself. I was completely self-focused like every single other child that’s born in this world. But when Jesus’ grace comes into our life, my old life dies. And now he lives in me, through me, as me. And so I start to let him live through me and speak through me. And that is how to be a Christian is three letters, L-E-T, let. Let him live through you. He already lives in you. It’s already gonna happen. Just let it happen. He wants to live through you. He’s offered himself to live through you. The only thing that stops us from walking with him is when our eyes are on ourselves instead of on him. And that’s that’s where we get stuck. So verse 6 says, even the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is the testimony of Christ? What does Jesus say? That’s what does he say about you? He declares that you are holy, you are righteous, you are forgiven, you are accepted, you are beloved, you are pure, and people start saying amen and amen, and they start getting excited, right? This is when you participate, and that’s good stuff. I’m I can’t believe he says that about me. Or you’re thinking, I really don’t believe he says that about me. I think it was some of us maybe there. Where we’re still struggling to believe that about ourselves. All of these things that he promises us are free gifts that we do absolutely nothing to obtain. You can’t. These are free gifts. Again, if you walk into his office and say, I’ve earned holiness, he will laugh in your face and kick you out. Because that does not work that way. In fact, it says, We come short in no gift. There is nothing that heaven could possibly give you that Jesus has not already given you. You do not need to pray for God to do more for you.

What?

You can pray for God to do more, but for you, He has already given you everything. This is blasphemy. I don’t know how can you say this? Well, let’s just read 2 Peter 1:3. His divine power has given us all things, has given us all things, has past tense, given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us through glory and virtue. Everything we have is found through our union with Jesus, through him living through us. We have everything that we need. He promises that that is all that we need. But we’re gonna see that the Corinthian church maybe isn’t using their gifts for God, but for their own purposes. In other words, they’re focused on themselves instead of other people and instead of God, which is why this letter is so long. Because we need to see our lives through the lens of his grace, and that’s what Paul is gonna teach them. So he’s gonna go through every area of their lives, and he’s gonna say, you’re looking at it like this, which is selfish, and instead, here, I want you to take the glasses of grace, I want you to put them on, and now you’ll see the world differently. And instead of being selfish and stealing, you’re going to give generously because of what God has given to you for for one example. Okay. Another thing I do is I do these things called Spurgeon quotes. Spurgeon is basically basically like the original gangster of preachers. I love him. He’s amazing. He was in England in the 1800s, and he would just he was the boss, okay. So I will try to hide Spurgeon quotes in all my sermons, but I’ll give you a clue when I’m about to do a Spurgeon quote, because I’ll sing a song. Spurgeon quote, Spurgeon quote. That’s the song. That’s the only, that’s the only hint you get that a Spurgeon quote quote is coming. Spurgeon quote, Spurgeon quote. He says this should it not show us that our gifts are nothing unless they are laid at the altar of God? That it is nothing to have the gift of oratory or nothing to have the power of eloquence. It’s nothing to have learning unless it is, it is nothing to have influence unless they all be dedicated to God and consecrated to his service. Okay, so God has freely forgiven you and loved you and given you all that you need for spiritual life. It’s already done, and we still choose to act like fools? We do. So does that mean we’re saints or sinners? It says verse 8, who will also confirm you to the end that you may be blameless in the day of Jesus Christ. Some people are so worried about their salvation, and that may be you today. You might be still wondering. I don’t know for sure if I’m gonna be in the upstairs or the downstairs. I’ll tell you how not to discover peace in that topic. Look to yourself. Look to your own performance, look to your own heart, look to your own mind, look to yourself, look to your own struggle with sin. Looking at your sin is never the answer. Here’s how to have perfect peace and confidence about it. Look to him, he will confirm you to the end, Paul says. He will. He has made you blameless. It’s a free gift. It’s done. If you doubt his sincerity, look at the cross. How could he be any more sincere than saying, nail me to a flipping cross? If you want to go to hell, if you want to believe that I mean nothing, that my life and death mean nothing, you’re gonna have to walk over my dead body to walk forward in that belief. I refuse to let you believe that you mean nothing. I love you, and my life works, my death works for you, and I want to live in you and through you. It can be done, and it’s simply faith that we access this. So, how is it possible that I’m blameless when I’m clearly to be blamed for many, many things? How can those two things work? I’m pretty much to blame for all the things that I’ve done wrong in my life. That’s the question. Are we sinners or are we saints? The answer, the true answer is we are saints. We’re saints who sometimes sin. That’s true. But we’re not, our identity is not that we are sinners. That part of us literally died on the cross, and we have to believe that because Jesus said, You’re you were crucified with me on the cross, and you are alive now with me. And I love that amen. Good job. Who was who gave me the amen? There you go. Yes, Brad. I love it. 20 Jesus points. You don’t have to be ashamed. Run to Jesus and freely declare whenever you sin, I fell for the lie, that’s not who I am. You see, Romans 7, 17, Paul struggled with the exact same struggle, and he said this it is no longer I who live, it’s no longer I who do it, the sin, but sin that dwells in me. And that’s not making an excuse for his sin. He’s actually starting to believe the truth about himself. I know that he has cleansed me and I believe it. And I’m gonna choose to believe that when I sin, it’s not my identity. I’m actually just believing a lie about who I am. The devil just wants to plant thoughts in your mind, and he uses, he doesn’t use the word you want to sin. He uses your own voice, and he says, I he plants the thought, I want this, I want that. And that thought did not come from you. You know how I know that thought did not come from you? Because it’s sinful. And sin cannot originate in me because in me is the Holy Spirit now. This is so transformative to everything that we think, every every way that we live. If I can identify when the enemy is planting a thought in me, it makes it a lot easier to say, that’s dumb. That’s not true. So that’s how the gospel and our identity matters. How am I doing? What time? My family is like way over. Everyone in the church is like, let’s go. Just kidding. I don’t know. How what are we what’s the time? No? I’m fine. Okay. Okay, okay, so. We’re good, we’re fine. Okay. I’ll skip a page of notes because I love you. All right. There’s a there’s a a slave uh in like Georgia or somewhere in the south, and when Lincoln pronounced all this, you know, the emancipation. I know some of you are like, never happened. No, just kidding, but we’re in the south here, I know. But when he’s like, you’re all free, all the slaves are free, there’s no more slavery in America. There was this one slave woman uh who who they told her about it, and she went and asked her master, okay, can I go? And he’s like, No, you’re you’re my slave. That’s not true, don’t believe that. And so she didn’t know what to believe, and so she stayed living as a slave for years, and people would come to her and they say, Abraham Lincoln, he’s like our hero, he set us free, he’s like the Messiah with a beard. And she refused to believe it, and she kept living in slavery. I could not think of a better illustration for the American church and for myself for the years that I kept addicted to sin. As a Christian. Why did I do it? Not because I was a slave, but because I chose not to believe that he has set me free, like he said he set me free. This is the gospel, this is what the word of God reveals to us. You have been set free. Can I get an amen? Amen. All right, let’s pray. And then I don’t know what’s happening. Worship can come up while I’m praying. They can sneaky sneaky up here. Father, we um we repent of believing the enemy’s lies in our lives so much. Lord, we turn to you and and we want to believe your simple words to us that we are beloved, that we have been invited into a dear, close, intimate relationship with you where we’ve been cleansed from all sin. We’ve been set free. And that’s what we sing about, that’s what we proclaim, but I fear that a lot of times we fail to actually believe it. Because it takes, it takes courage, it takes humility, and it takes faith to believe that I am a child of God, not by my own deserving it or making it happen, but I have been born again into the kingdom of my heavenly Father. And Lord, I I just hope, I pray that as a church we can humbly believe and we can humbly receive, and then we can joyfully proclaim the truth of the gospel of grace. We can stand upon the truth and the promises of your word more than how we feel, and more than what we think, and more than what we see around us, but we will look to your word and your promises to be everything that we stand upon. And our faith is in you, Jesus, not ourselves. Our trust is in you, and we ask that you would live through us. We give you our hearts in a new way. We let allow you to search every corner, every dark crevice of our hearts. We open it to you. We will have no secrets, we will have no hidden idols, we will not keep anything from the presence of our Father who loves us. But we will open it all before you and we will choose to live, and we will choose to allow you to live through us. And if you have never received the grace of Jesus into your life and been born again, right now is a wonderful time to say, I believe Jesus was God. I believe he died on the cross for my sin and he rose again to show that his life was accepted by God and that I could live a resurrected life with him. And I ask Jesus to save me today and to live through me today. Right now is a wonderful time to do that. If you want to do that, just raise your hand. Amen. Father, I pray that you would encourage us that you love us. In Jesus’ name we pray.