Recalibrate- When You or Someone You Love Gets Off Course

we're embarking uh starting this week on an 11 week journey verse by verse chapter by chapter in the book of first corinthians how many heard uh mark clark last weekend you're here for mark man if you miss that go he started us off last week with an overview the first couple verses the only thing about mark is i wish he had just been a little more bold don't you think like come on i encouraged him i said you got a lot of good things to say next time a little more controversial a little bit more out there and so we'll bring mark back and maybe he'll follow that instruction i want you to look at verse four we're gonna go verse four through verse 20 and i'm just gonna jump right into it if you're with me give me an amen the apostle paul says to this divided immature off track church he says this church it's chaos this church and he says to him i always thank my god for you this is crazy why is god inspiring paul to thank this dysfunctional group of immature christians i always thank my god for you because of the grace given you in christ jesus okay let's just get right into it and answer the question there's four things you need to know about the first corinthian church as we go into this chapter one what you need to know is this the timeline a.d 50-53 early in the life and history of the church of jesus christ when christianity first got started that's when this is happening the type of church is affluent strategic and sexual i've been saying this over and over again i'm going to warn you if there's we're going to talk about sex every single week while we're studying this if you got a kid you want to lock them into the children's department or bring some ear muffs um and then the they what's happening the occasion of this letter is that there's troubles and there's tattletails i'll explain that in a minute and then the tone of the letter don't don't do that yet that's the main idea i want you to get the tone of the letter okay so let's go back to that first bullet uh the apostle paul goes on multiple missionary journeys the apostle paul he's this guy he was he was on route to becoming the most important jewish religious priest or scholar in all of judaism he's going to be the number one guy he's going to head up the sanhedrin he does tons of education very very very smart guy and he gets involved in persecuting early christians he says man i'm gonna i'm gonna show my zeal for the jewish faith by persecuting this this weird group of people that think that some farm kid from nazareth raised from the grave so on his way to in to jail a bunch of christians he encounters jesus and everything he thinks about jesus everything he thinks about life all of his education he later on says i i counted it all as rubbish it's garbage his life is completely entirely remade he goes involved gets involved in a church in modern-day turkey and for seven years he learns about this christian faith that he's encountered this guy named jesus with and then he goes out and he becomes a missionary he goes on one journey and he plants all of these churches and places where no one thought christianity could grow and then on his second missionary journey the second time he goes out he says we're gonna plant a church in corinth and they're like paul you're nuts no god doesn't want to go to corinth it's even too disgusting for god you see what was corinth i got a map show this map okay it was affluent and strategic because look at the real little red dot where it says corn there that's greece right there and so that's an ithamas that's it's kind of like a not quite a peninsula yet you see how the land narrows right there what that means is that corinth controlled the ports to a huge sea to their north and a huge sea to their south every bit of trading had to go through corinth if you wanted to go into the gulf of corinth now why is that important because it made them incredibly wealthy and it made them incredibly vulnerable that's the place you'd attack that's where the money is that's where the bank robbery's coming down right there at corinth so what they did is they built a high place over the city so whenever an army came to attack their wealth they would all go up to this acropolis this high hold and they called it the arco acropolis of corinth the arco corinth now what is a high place up there for that's so you go up there and you hide from the army and you hold the high ground they also did one other very important measure of protection over their strategic city they put a temple up there way up there a temple to the goddess aphrodite does anyone know what the goddess aphrodite is about don't google it you'll get on a site you shouldn't be on she's the goddess of sex at her height there was 1 000 priestesses working in prostitution for the goddess aphrodite in the city of corinth they would uh have worship rituals outside the temple right there the high place and then at night they would come down in the city and play their train why this is so important to understand it wasn't just they were having all this sex to be immoral what they were doing is they were saying by appeasing this goddess she will protect our city the worship of her was central to their heartbeat and so when they when they came out of that worship system into the christian church they were deeply indoctrinated into the affluent strategic and sexual culture of first corinth of corinthians and that's why everyone said paul don't plant there it won't work they're they're too saturated in greek and sexual sin and paul said jesus works and he goes into the city for 18 months and guess what happens the church prospers people get saved from every walk of life jewish people could save greek people could save romans people saved ex ex-soldiers could say poor people get saved slaves get saved and also what happens in their church one of the city fathers one of the people that's in charge of the whole city he gets saved so someone really affluent and powerful gets saved in that church then paul moves on after 18 months and he tries to plant other churches and while he's in ephesus a group comes from corinth and says we got a bunch of questions so paul writes to them and he writes and he responds to the questions then another group from chloe they come that household and they say listen paul we got a tattletale we got a tattletail everything's going south in corinth their meetings are a disaster there's people suing each other there's people sleeping with each other it's just it's the worst news so paul writes them another letter and they write back to paul and then an envoy comes and visits paul and then paul writes this letter we're about to study why is that important because you have to understand when we're studying this the apostle paul isn't just making this up on the spot he's had time to think he's had time to pray and he uses a tone that benefits us greatly because the apostle paul has been embroiled in this what we call first corinthians is actually his second letter to the corinthians it's creates this atmosphere where he's extremely direct and we benefit paul's direct exhortations paul's direct corrections paul's direct voice is what creates the transformation in this church that causes them to refine their way why master this material why take 11 weeks to study this stuff why am i already getting too fired up listen when i was a freshman in college i went off to college first uh quarter or two and i came home and a bunch of my buddies called me and said hey we haven't seen you in months we're gonna have a big bonfire out at jess's house and we're gonna sled we're gonna go snow sledding so i brought my sled out there and we started snow sledding it was great if you ever anyone here ever done some snow sledding you ever gone up to towed and okay what you know is the more you go down a certain path the more you get into a groove in that path and the faster you go and the funner it is and we had this great down this hill we had this great groove going and we're just sledding and sledding the fire's going and and it gets starts to get too dark so we can't kind of see it start to get a little dangerous and i finally say all right last time down who's going with me and this guy named dale barnwell jumps in the back of my sled and i jump on the front of my sled and we're trying to get it like organized in the route and this kid i'll call him tony because that's his name tony often camp of spokane washington still on my facebook [Music] i love you tony anyway tony comes up to us and he thinks he's going to be funny and he's going to push us down the hill before we're ready but the problem is my sled is not in the groove i'm a little off track and he pushes us and sure enough we start barreling down who knows where and almost pitch black and i'm going we're going to die here and and all i can see is this big black blob in front of us and we hit that blob and we catch wet air and we're like yeah we land and we're still going we're picking up more speed there's another black blob but i think oh it's another snow drift like that one and so i kind of barrel down i get ready to catch even more air this is going to be a blast and we hit that blob and it wasn't adrift it was a giant pile of sawed-up uh poles orchard props they hold up the trees when when the fruit is heavy on the branches and when they get old the orcharists will find he'll saw him up for kindling and pile them somewhere and we just hit that pile and two props went right into my leg 42 stitches being off track just a little bit just a couple degrees see the bible says that if you're serious about following christ it's a narrow path the bible says that sin in the old testament caused sin a subtle wandering what would happen if we said god i give you these 11 weeks i give you this study i'll give you my attention god get me back on track some of you are worried about a son or a daughter not being on track paul is the secret the truth that the holy spirit reveals for him of getting that degree back on track some of you are wondering i don't know what to do next i'm not sure exactly what my next step is when you are in the right track you know what to do next what would happen if you and i got on track and helped those around us get on track uh when you or someone you love gets off course this is really what's going on here the corinthian church has gone back to some default behaviors and before paul even gives them specific instructions on what they're to do next he wants to get them in the right frame of mind the right attitude he wants to get them back on track usually what happens at this point if you're newer i'll teach through a whole bunch of verses 10 verses or so and then we'll bowl out three or four application points we're gonna do it a little bit different this week i've divided the chapter into three or four sections i'm gonna give you the principle and then we're gonna teach the verses are you still with me give me an amen all right let's go here it is nfl sunday so let's go uh number one write it in remember when you're a little bit off track jesus has not stopped working you getting off track doesn't mean god's off track and in fact god doesn't look at you when you get a little off track and go they're off track i'm going to stop working in their life i'm not going to work until they get on track and corinthians is a perfect example of this god loves you more than that he's committed to you more than that and the apostle paul's theology is better than that the apostle paul wants to start in his heart i guarantee you with correction he's like i gave 18 months of my life and i go off to ephesians and you just take a left he wants to be frustrated you can hear it in his tone but he doesn't start there he starts with encouragement he says i thank god for you because of god's grace not because of you and then he says this verse 5 for in him in christ you have been enriched the greek word here is the strongest version you're extravagantly blessed in every way he says with all kinds of speech and with all kinds of knowledge the corinthians were known for being great orators god thus confirming our testimony about christ among you in other words i told you jesus could work in corinth and you're the proof of it verse 7 therefore you do not lack any spiritual the greek word there is charisma you have all of spiritual charisma as you are eagerly await for our lord jesus christ to be revealed you are just replundant with gifts and talents and spiritual gifts he system he starts his letter of correction his direct tone letter and he says you're awesome why does he do this my dad got a new job once and um and uh his boss invited him us to come over and have dinner at his house one night and so we all piled in the station wagon seven kids my mom my dad we pull up into his boss's driveway my dad turns around he says no one open the door i want you to hear something from me first we're like okay what do we do wrong he looks at us and goes my boss thinks that you are a loving kind and nice family and he's gonna believe that lie when this evening's over this is what paul's doing here he's speaking of faith you're awesome you're incredible please know i think you're incredible you're incredible because of god not because of anything you're doing but you're awesome he's he's he's buttering him up look at this verse 8 he will also keep you firm to the end you almost feel like paul's talking to himself it's going to be okay you're going to get back on track so that you will be blameless on the day of the lord jesus christ god is faithful who has called you into fellowship with his son jesus christ our lord what's the point here to get back on track lead with the positive leave with the positive i'm not talking the pollyannish positive a positive confession of just being a positive person with extra butter scotch sauce and a big smile i'm saying choose to come in the opposite spirit when they're grumpy you be happy when they're contentious you be a unifier when you know the best way to shame someone who's off track is to not give them what they deserve but to love them the apostle paul starts here and says you're going to be fine on the end day you've got all the gifts in the world you're incredibly talented and god's still at work among you number two write it in embrace relationship oval rivalry embrace relationship over rivalry uh he's going to talk more and more about this so i'm not going to teach very long about this we will definitely get to this rivalry division and and what causes it and what are the root causes if you've had any conflict in your life you want to be there for these weeks but what he's really saying is he's saying before i can get to the issues i need you to have a change of mind about what's important to you you see what they're doing is something i think we're doing they're collecting something anyone's seen this this japanese lady who goes into homes and declutters them what's what's her name marie condo marie condo she'll go into your home or your condo and she'll declutter it and uh and what she does she goes in there and she has you she has you pick up each possession and you think about it and you ask yourself does this make me stressed out or does it spark life in me right and i think this is genius but you can take it too far like there are things in my life that do not spark life in me and i don't throw them out my kids for instance so there's one of the things like pick up that kid is this sparking life in me no it's sucking life from me you know are the cats i've tried i've picked up the cat several times look at my wife said not sparking life but i wonder if what would happen if 11 weeks in this study we gave god the permission to declutter our interior life jesus walked into our heart and grabbed everything we're storing up in our heart and and and not us grabbing it but him grabbing and saying i don't know this is not sparking life you know one of the things that we collect and we hoard we stuff every nook and cranny in every closet in our life list it's comparison and perfectionism and rivalry that person at work that personal mark their office is one square foot bigger than my office they don't even do spreadsheets the way i do them our siblings our in-laws those other parents those people in our neighborhood that drive that car how do they afford that i know i make more money than him i think in my mind we come home from a day at school day at work and we're having a fight in our mind with someone in our family you ever do that you're driving home you're like i'm gonna clean up this place you're not playing on that i'm trying to do anything i'm gonna be grateful entertainment all right families and you walk in the house it's all clean you're like oh i feel horrible but in your mind you were winning that argument right what would happen to just let jesus come in there and go uh don't compare yourself to that person don't act like they're your rival don't treat them like you're in a competition with them and they just took each and every one of those and he decluttered your heart that's what the apostle paul is trying to do here look at um verse 10 i appeal to you when translation says i exhort you strongly brothers and sisters you hear the earnestness in them in the name of our lord jesus christ that all of you agree with one another and what you say and there be no divisions among you know he's not talking about perfect agreement and ideas he's not talking about that he's not saying you have to all have the exact same theology on every single issue i know that because later on in the book of first corinthians and and in romans he does this brilliant teaching about you coming to your convictions on secondary matters not the primary stuff like his jesus god and the bible but secondary things like i don't know when or when to not wear a mask he says do your research come to your convictions and then once you come to your convictions love someone who doesn't have your conviction that's what he means treat them nice don't ridicule them don't make fun of them don't put anything on facebook about them you're too and here's his word and so jesus said you're to support the weaker brother or sister what's genius about that is he never takes sides and he doesn't tell each side that he's trying to pastor which side is the weaker one he's like no you just got to listen and love and accept the way you were listened to by god and loved by god and accepted by god it's genius because if you actually take that advice i come to my conviction but i'm kind to people without my conviction that means as you're listening to the weaker person every once in a while you might have the humble revelation that they're not the weaker person that your convictions need to change and line up with the bible a little bit more all right let's move on i could tell that's getting too convicting for you to get on track just don't stop communicating here's the big 50 000 foot lesson if you look at what paul's doing here and what's going to do for us the next 11 weeks he goes all right i'm going to write your first letter i'm going to listen to your envoy and i'm going to listen to chloe's household and then i'm going to write you another letter and then i'm going to send timothy to you and then i'm going to write you two more letters the book of second corinthians by the way is the combination of two different letters sent to two different times by the apostle paul and then i'm going to send timothy to you back again what's paul doing he's doing what every great parent understands is that when your kid is going through something difficult your main job is to get them to keep talking and to pray and that's what he's doing here okay point number three don't write it in yet um i came from uh eastern washington state that's where i grew up i grew up in a tiny little town of about 4 000 people and my tiny little town actually kind of went through its growth during the great depression it was tiny tiny tiny tiny and then in the great depression a lot of people moved from arkansas to eastern washington to work on grand coulee dam and to work in the lumber industry because the great depression no jobs in arkansas and so they all came up here which means i was kind of raised in this little funny country bubble of arkansas in the middle of washington so um i don't anyone here ever been around a southern person before and you started talking with a southern accent even though you've never been to the south or it's like if you hang around with french people you're around a french person for a month you don't start going uh you know it didn't get on you right but you're around a southerner for 10 minutes you're like yin's guys come on in here we're fixing to have supper right so so i picked up this little country accent growing up i went out to college i got rid of it because i was an art major and if you're an art major you have to be like oh indubitably the atmospheric perspective you know get attacked different and my wife meets me as an art major then i bring her back to omak to meet my friends and family and she's like what happened to your voice since when am i engaged to the beverly hillbilly because i was like how's your mom and damn why good to see you give me a slap on the back you know what happened was i bounced back to my default position my default cultural position this is exactly what's happened to the corinthians the corinthians encounter this powerful display of jesus forgiveness and love and supernatural intervention when paul comes he says i didn't come with wise and persuasive words i came with a demonstration of power and in the midst of this very carnal very very far from god city this incredible church is birth then paul leaves and they bounce back what did they bounce to they bounced to celebrity worship sounds familiar see their celebrities were not football players and movie stars their celebrities were greek philosophers and wealthy people and so they would get into these camps i'm part of the stoic camp what was the stoic camp the stoic camp was those that said duty is the main thing of life and then uh i i'm in the hedonist camp the hedonist philosophers and there was um the way to find the true meaning of life is to obey your emotions and to do follow your heart is what the hedonists taught and there are also their other uh groups of greek philosophy and then their leaders their orators were they're celebrities and what the christians did is they backed off and they said okay we're gonna do a christian version of this some group is gonna follow paul and some group is going to follow apollos and some group is going to follow cephas or peter and some they're so spiritual oh i just i only believe in jesus and then the scholars let's look at the passage i'll explain this the scholars say there's at least four camps in this church verse 12. what i mean is this about you guys being in one heart and one mind one of you says i follow paul another i follow apollos another i follow cephas and still another eye follow christ is christ divided was paul crucified for you see the group that's saying i follow paul was probably the group that says paul has the most grace and we're going to keep sinning and so we want to follow the guy that says it's all right if you sin if you're a gentile that's a misinterpretation of paul but that's what paul is known for then the people following apollos are going no we're going to follow the most educated guy he's the guy with the the real credentials so these were the people that said you can't actually be a christian unless you go to seminary and then there was a group that said no no we're following cephas because we're the og that's peter he camped with jesus for three years so only listen to peter and these probably were more of the jewish group and then there's one group and there's always one of these groups in every church they're like oh no no we just follow jesus only jesus we're just that spiritual and paul's like you all are acting like a bunch of pagans with your celebrity christianity there is only one celebrity in christianity here's the point write it in keep christ and the cross central apocalypse don't put me at the center of anything look at this paul has an actual senior moment this passage is beautiful because it shows you that this is a real letter from a real person inspired by the holy spirit but it's not fabalized it's not been changed over the decades so paul writes here he says were you baptized in the name of paul i thank god that i did not baptize any of you except for christmas and gaius so no one could say that you were baptized in my name so all these different camps that were going on i'm only going to be baptized by the people baptizing in this camp and under that name and then paul writes this yes i also baptized the household of stephanus uh beyond that i don't remember if i baptized anyone so paul goes i didn't baptize anyone and someone in the room goes oh no you did remember it was april and he's like okay put it in there because we don't want to waste paper but it shows you what he's saying is who you've been baptized under or any secondary controversy like this not only is it foolish and immature but it robs from the main idea the person and role of jesus okay look at how often he does this now you won't be able to write this down i'm gonna go too fast and that's gonna frustrate you some of the i don't care that's the whole point look at this in the first 30 verses how many times does he say christ he calls himself an apostle of christ sanctified in christ lord jesus christ lord jesus christ in christ jesus christ among you lord jesus christ lord jesus christ jesus christ our lord lord jesus christ i follow christ is christ divided for christ did not cross of christ we preach christ christ the power in christ jesus what do you think his point is by the way what is what does the name of jesus mean jesus is jewish yeshua god's deliverer this is what the angel tells mary to marry since it's you name him god's deliverer then you have lord which is the greek word curios means with all authority god's deliver with all authority and christ means appointed one chosen one to be the messiah or the rescuer so he's an all-authority rescuer with extra rescuing and he's been picked to do that paul's like if you the second you say apollos or the second you say paul you've lowered jesus okay how does he how do we take paul says you by this you take the power of the cross out how do we take the power out of christianity here's this you take the power out of christianity by lowering jesus to just an idea this is why churches that start to reject the bible begin to shrink and lose their significance see ideas don't change anyone ideas don't trace ideas are great i hope in this 11 weeks you grow in ideas you grow in your understanding i hope your frontal lobe gets two inches bigger but i ideas don't change you they don't overcome habits they don't overcome problems they don't transform marriages and families i can prove this to you if an idea alone changed you changed your behavior not a single one of you who knows anything about nutrition would ever ever ever ever eat an in-n-out burger ever again because you know it's too salty and too fatty and too delicious habit forming while you're eating it your left ventricle is crying out we're clogging down here you're like i don't care shut up it's been a hard week if you just went by the information alone you wouldn't have in and out burger you'd have this burger which is some lady on the internet trying to make broccoli into a burger can i pastor you for a second on a side issue if you're gonna eat broccoli just eat the broccoli get it over with don't try to fake it into a burger the idea it's good but it doesn't change you they've lowered themselves to the ideal level and christ and paul is trying to bring him back up to the christ level the appointed all-authority rescuer who's been chosen to rescue all right let's keep going uh to get on track encounter christ this is my real prayer for us in this eleven weeks my prayer for me for my family that yeah i learned some things i'd master these 11 chapters but really what i want you to do is in your car in your bed as you're going for a walk when you sit here and worship when you're taking notes in the sermon i want jesus to become more than an idea listen to me if you're a high schooler your parents faith won't change you but christ can be encountered and every change is possible what's the point i'm trying to say i'm trying to say this uh trust god's message give yourself over to god's message there's three messages that are being that are competing for the attention of the corinthian church and paul's like if you don't trust god's message you're going to get off track even by a couple degrees it's going to be disastrous um how many here remember this uh if you're a high schooler you won't remember this but way way back in the day way old ancient ancient american history there used to be a thing i don't even know if you've heard of this there used to be a thing called a travel agent does anyone know what that is you know a travel agent is it's a person that used to book airline tickets and other travel and hotels for you and then all of a sudden captain kirk came on tv and we had priceline does anyone remember priceline and then from priceline we got kayak and expedia and all the different sites and now you have all these sites you have ones that are like follow it to see if the plane flight is cost is going up or down and you're always texting your spouse or your friend or that one kid that really knows flights really well you're like 32 dollars one way and then after all that frenzy check out all the sites someone texts and goes did you try southwest because you know they're going to be cheaper right and you got to go try southwest because they're not in the group they're not in the algorithm or whatever and and and what we've done is we've traded away a really awesome person a travel agent and we've just decided to take on that job for ourselves we're in charge of what we trust for travel i was in lafayette louisiana a few years back and does anyone know how many lafayette cities there are in america there's 20 20 different cities named lafayette so this is back in the day when we were all first starting to book our own travel and not use travel agents and we're in lafayette louisiana and it's about 11 p.m and i'm checking into i think it was a marriott and this guy in front of me is yelling at the little college gal that's checking him in and saying i do have a reservation here less than 24 hours ago i spoke in person to the manager of the lafayette marriott in indiana and she said sir this is the lafayette marriott in louisiana you booked the wrong flight and are at the wrong hotel and he kept arguing with her and he said listen i grew up here we're cajuns here you're in the wrong state are you in the wrong state did you book a flight you didn't intend to book did you get just a couple degrees off course the way back on course is to trust god's message look at this last passage for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing we always think we could do a better job but to us who are being saved it is the power of god for it is written i will destroy the wisdom of the wise i will the intelligence of the intelligent i will frustrate what are the three different messages competing for the corinthians one is the greeks i talked about it before it's find the logos the logos is greek word for the ultimate knowledge and what the greeks wanted to do is they wanted to find the smartest philosopher that made the most sense out of life they worshipped the idea then the other message is a jewish message the jewish people wanted to follow the law they wanted to obey the law and what paul is saying is to the jewish people this is a stumbling block why because they got it they just didn't want to receive it they understood what paul was preaching they understood the message of the cross they just didn't like it you see the jews were offended because god loves us god gave us the law god's gonna send a messiah but he isn't some country bumpkin kid from nazareth it's offensive to me no no no when he comes he's going to come as a conquering king he's going to be like david he's not going to be a suffering servant i'm offended by that paul so the jews missed jesus because they were looking for a wrong thing and the greeks they didn't understand the greeks first of all couldn't conceive of a god that loved them so much that he would take on flesh they didn't like the flesh so it's just confusing to them wait there's a god that loves me he's not a chaotic and mature pagan god and he came to earth as a real person and paul says i get it i get it it sounds like an outlandish story and i probably would believe exactly the way you would believe i'd still be looking for the fulfillment in the law and i'd still see the foolishness of the greek idea in here i would believe exactly the way you believed but i encountered him to those of us being saved paul says this isn't foolishness it isn't offensive it's life it's abundant life it's life for all eternity i was dead in my sin on my way and hatred in my heart to persecute the followers of god and jesus knocked me off my mount and said paul he said my name he said paul and from the moment i answered back to him yes lord everything else in my life all my learning all my understanding all my emotions all the hatred i had all of that has been it's like i died that day all of that is rubbish here's what he writes his rewrites where is the wise person he's talking about himself before he knew christ where is the teacher of the law he's talking about himself where is the philosopher of this age has not god made foolish the wisdom of the world for sense and the wisdom of god the world through its wisdom did not know him god was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believed paul sang i was lost but now i'm found i was blind but now i see i didn't know him and now i'm privileged to walk in his path every single day now i know his love now i know real transformation i know that he's far more than an idea he's an incarnation he's the messiah he's jesus the christ [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Bayside Church

Views: 497

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bayside Church, Bible, Hope, Compassion, Love, God, Curt Harlow, 1 Corinthians, Hindsight, recalibrate, culturally divided

Id: i6WHqGzz6lQ

Length: 36min 18sec (2178 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021