“Your Role in Unity, Part 1”
(1 Corinthians 1:10-17)
Series: Chaos & Correction (1 Corinthians)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
- Take your Bibles and join me in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1 (page 767; YouVersion).
Two weeks ago we began a new series of expository messages, verse-by-verse, through the book of 1 Corinthians. The church at Corinth was a church wrought by division, disorder, and difficulty. And the Apostle Paul writes this letter to bring correction to the chaos at Corinth.
- Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.”
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15 lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name.
16 Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other.
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.
- Pray.
Introduction:
I’ve never really understood why some churches are named after the church at Corinth. I don’t know of any near us, but there are churches named Corinth. Before we moved away from North Georgia many years ago there was a church in the area named Corinth Baptist Church. And I’ve just never really understood that because when we read about it in the New Testament the church at Corinth is described as a bad church! It was a chaotic church that desperately required the correction of God’s Word.
So it’s hard to understand why any church today would wish to take the name of Corinth in its church name. On the other hand, if in taking the name Corinth the church membership meant to acknowledge honestly their own sins, their foibles, their frailties, their mishaps and mistakes, then maybe it’s not a bad idea.
After all, churches are made up of imperfect people. It’s often said that if you find a perfect church don’t join it, because the moment you join it, it will no longer be perfect. You are imperfect and you’ll ruin it!
Later in chapter 1 Paul will say to the Corinthian church members, “Look around at one another. You’ll notice that there are not many among you who are wise, mighty, or noble. Rather, what you see when you look at one another is a bunch of weak people. But be encouraged: God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty (1 Corinthians 1:26-27).”
That’s the illustrative power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We gather together this morning as a congregation experiencing the transformative power of conversion. We are a weak people becoming better by the grace of God. And when we yield to the Holy Spirit’s work and live in submission to God’s Word, the world takes notice. The world witnesses the peculiar nature of a people who can actually get along with one another remarkably well. At least that is how it should be. And when it isn’t this way, we turn again to the Scriptures for the necessary correction to set us once again on course.
Verses 10 to 17 are about unity. These eight verses teach about a united church. And so I want to share with you this morning our role in unity. What is the role each of us plays in working for unity in the church? Number one:
1) Be a Person Who’s Known for Harmony (10)
Are you a person who’s known for harmony? Are you the kind of person who “lights up a room when you enter it?” Or are you the kind of person when you leave others are like, “Thank God he’s gone!” Do people naturally like you because you build others up, speaking well of others, edifying others? Or are you known as a person who tears down others, speaking negatively about other church members, cutting others down through criticism and gossip?
After a brief introduction where Paul gives thanks to God for the grace He has given to the church at Corinth, he gets right down to business. I mean he wastes no time getting to the matter of division in the church. Look at verse 10:
10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Verse 10 is a call for harmony in the church. Paul says in verse 10, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing.”
To “speak the same thing” does not mean that the church is to all think exactly the same thoughts and speak exactly the same words as though each church member were exactly identical and spoke in unison like robots or something. Imagine a church where every member thought and spoke exactly the same words. I can’t imagine if you all thought and spoke exactly as I. Just imagine that kind of perfection running through the church!
No, to “speak the same thing” is to be at peace with one another and in agreement. It is to have an agreeable nature as a person known for harmony.
The idea is to be like the choir was earlier, singing from the same page of music. The choir sang in harmony with one another. So a church congregation is not about each person doing his or her own thing, each person marching to a different drum, if you like. A church is not be like it is when you go into Best Buy and you go to the back of the store where a bunch of TVs are all playing different channels and stereos are playing different selections of music and, together, it’s just a noisy, confusing cacophony of sounds.
Paul says in verse 10, “You all speak the same thing…that there be no divisions among you.”
The word “divisions” is the Greek word, “sci÷smata,” from which we get the English word schism, a tear, or a rift as in a rift among people. The original word might be used in describing a tear in a fishing net. That’s a helpful way of thinking because Paul goes on in verse 10 to tell the church to be, “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment,” and the verb “joining together” is often used to describe the mending of a fishing net.
So church members are to be persons known for harmony, known for joining together and mending rather than tearing apart and dividing. Dividing is pretty easy.
Like taking a mosquito net in our hands and pulling apart, we see the fabric divide quickly in two. On the other hand mending that net requires time and diligence. Similarly, being a divisive person in the church is easy. It’s sinfully easy to create a rift or tear among the congregation. On the other hand, being a mender requires hard work, time, and patience.
Ray Stedman, 40 years the expository preaching pastor of Peninsula Baptist Church in Palo Alto, California, speaks to the matter church division with reference to a phone call he had received the week he was studying this very passage. He says:
A young pastor who was facing [division] in his church called me this week from another state. The church was divided into factions, and one group was urging him to take half the congregation and go to another part of the city and start a new church. He called to ask whether I thought that would be right or wrong to do. My answer was that it all depends on the motive. If it is to expand the congregation and further the work of the Lord in that area, and he had the whole agreement of the leadership of the church behind him, then it is fine to take part of the congregation and go away and begin another work. But if it is to escape pressures and difficulties and problems in the congregation, then it is absolutely wrong and the worst thing he could do, because it sets before the watching world a false testimony concerning the church of Jesus Christ.
The church of Jesus Christ is to be united. The church of Jesus Christ is to be known as a remarkable display of loving unity. So Christians work hard to mend any tears or rifts among the congregation, being “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
Paul will say later in 1 Corinthians 12 that, “the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, (1 Corinthians 12:12).”
If a hand is cut off or a toe removed, it is no longer part of the body. And just as a skillful surgeon works to mend an open wound, carefully sewing it together, so a loving church works hard to restore tears or rifts among the body of Christ. We are to be persons known for harmony.
What keeps people from being persons known for harmony? One reason a church member may be known for disharmony rather than harmony is because the church member is not saved, not genuinely converted.
In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says that factions or divisions in the church often reveal those who are genuinely saved. He writes in 1 Corinthians 11:19, “there must also be factions among you, that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”
And this is a painful reminder that one of the reasons there may be division in the church is because the dividers are not genuinely saved. It is possible to be a church member and lost. We are not Christians simply because we have joined the church.
We are Christians when we have surrendered fully to Christ Jesus as our Number One, as Lord over our lives. We believe He alone is Savior, in His active obedience having lived a perfect life for which we get credit, and in His passive obedience having died a perfect death for sin that we may be forgiven. We turn from our sin in repentance and trust Jesus Christ alone as Savior. At that moment we are adopted by the Father as His children. We enter the family of God, brothers and sisters together, uniting together as loving brothers and sisters of the same family.
Someone may come from the outside and sit down at the dinner table but that does not make that person a family member. He has come in from the outside and has a different father. And similarly, brothers and sisters in Christ have the same Father but that doesn’t mean that everyone seated in the congregation is saved. Some persons who gather regularly in the church building are lost, they have not yet trusted Christ as Lord and Savior.
So there is this obvious possibility, then, that one of the reasons there may be division in the church is because the divider is not genuinely saved. One of the manifestations of a lost person is the way he or she speaks.
Jesus says in Luke 6:45, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
Or James in James 1:26, “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.”
So it may be that division in the church exists because the divider is not saved. But it is also possible for a saved person to speak in unedifying ways. Most of us know this by experience. We ourselves have been critical of others when we should rather have spoken of others in edifying ways.
If a person is critical at home, critical of his or her family, critical of parents, critical of his or her spouse, or just plain critical all the time, what do you suppose we’ll get when this person comes to the church gathering? We get a critical person at church. So a tendency toward criticism at church, may reflect a critical nature at home. Be a person who’s known for harmony.
Being a person of harmony means not being a gossip. A phrase from our church covenant maintains that members of Henderson’s First Baptist Church will be, “exemplary in our deportment;” and will, “avoid all tattling [and] backbiting.”
Being a person of harmony means that we watch what we ourselves say and that we also lovingly call out others when they speak in unedifying ways. If a person is speaking about another person without that person being present, we need to tell that church member to go talk directly to that person as a principle surfacing from Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 18. It is biblical and it honors that person, and it honors the Lord and His church.
Our deacons are persons described as those “zealous to guard the unity of the spirit…in the bonds of peace.” Deacons are peacemakers, working harmoniously among the congregation, helping people speak of others in edifying ways.
Again, the guiding principle surfacing from Matthew 18 teaches that I am never to talk about another person behind his back, but am rather to go to that person directly. We do well when we refuse to listen to gossip and direct the gossiper to the person about whom they are speaking. We tell them, “Go and speak to that person directly.” If he or she objects, “Well, he won’t listen.” We must loving remind them that this does not excuse them from failing to be biblical. So we tell our friend, “Either go and talk to that person directly or stop speaking about him when he isn’t here to defend himself.”
Hear the wisdom of Solomon in Proverbs 25:9-10: “State your case with your neighbor himself, and do not reveal another’s secret, lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end.”
So, Be a Person Who’s Known for Harmony. That’s your role in unity. That’s the first action: be a person who’s known for harmony.
We’ll review that action next time and then we’ll look at points 2 and 3. If you want to write them down for now, here they are:
- Seek to Grow in Christian Maturity (11-16)
- Give the Cross its Rightful Priority (17)
So next time we’ll talk about growing in Christian maturity. One of the reasons the church at Corinth lacked harmony was because of spiritual immaturity. That is the essence of verses 11 to 16. The Corinthians had divided into factions and cliques based upon who had baptized them and based upon the preacher with whom they identified with the most.
So they were like, “Well, I am of Paul,” or, “I am of Apollos,” and so forth. And Paul asks rhetorically in verse 13, “Is Christ divided?” That is, “Has Christ been apportioned out to you all, cut up in pieces and distributed among you?”
Paul seeks to keep the focus on Christ. Jesus Christ and the centrality of the cross is the focal point of the church. And Paul endeavors to correct the disunity of the church by leading the church to focus intently upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s sort of like tuning instruments. When I was in band in high school our band director had a tuning mechanism with a needle on it that pointed either sharp or flat. So he would put that tuning mechanism at the front of the band and we would play a B-flat concert note and the needle bent one way or the other depending on which way we were out-of-tune, either sharp or flat. So we had to adjust and when we adjusted so that the needle pointed straight up then we were in tune and would be in harmony with one another.
And what the Apostle Paul is doing here is he is taking the tuning mechanism of Jesus Christ and placing Christ at the forefront of the congregation so that the church would focus upon the Lord Jesus Christ and adjust and straighten themselves out so that they would be in harmony with one another.
Last week I asked the question, “How would the Apostle Paul address our church if he were writing directly to us?” Are we known as a loving church, harmoniously united together with an intent focus upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we known for being a loving church in this community?
Here is a letter about our church written by a young lady who has never worshiped here. I received this letter this past week. She writes:
Pastor, hello! I am currently incarcerated in Henderson County Jail and I listen to your service on the radio every week. Since I have been listening it really helps me understand what I am reading. Even though through my addiction and crime I strayed away from God I always knew He was with me, but being here–and I am in the substance abuse program–it can still get lonely and depressing sometimes, but I look forward to Sunday mornings to get my weekly confirmation from the Word I have studied through the week.
This…Sunday you asked what Paul would write to your church and I cannot speak for you congregation but through listening to your service I feel loved, I feel free and for that I just what to show my gratitude…” She goes on to say, “I will be leaving here September 13th, God willing, and I ask that you keep me in your prayers. Thank you and God bless.”
So here is one young lady’s perception of Henderson’s First Baptist Church. While she has never worshiped here she feels the love of God traveling through the airwaves of the radio ministry and into her jail cell. Thank God for that.
And may we continue to be known in this community as a loving congregation, a congregation of persons known for harmony.
- Stand for prayer.
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