A life lived without purpose is a wasted life. We need direction and structure to make life truly count. But just as much as each individual’s life needs purpose the church does so even more. Any church that is acting without purpose or structure ultimately has no direction and therefore is going nowhere. Holy people need holy objectives – this is the subject of our sermon starter this week.
Title: Holy Objectives of a Holy People
Text: 1 Corinthians 1:10
Main Point: There was an occasion when a church in the 1st century had begun to act without proper structure and had gone off course. So Paul confronted them and made a plea for them to rediscover the objectives of God’s people and live in accordance to them – 1 Corinthians 1:10. But what are these objectives with which these brethren had to be reminded and how can they go on to benefit the work of the church and the hope of its members?
§ Education – It is no secret that the church in Corinth had a number of problems: they had a problem following after preachers, harboring adultery, they were confused over marriage given the present distress, they were divided over food sacrificed to idols, some were mistreating the Lord’s Supper, others were misusing miraculous gifts, and many were confused over the resurrection. How was it that the brethren in Corinth could resolve all of the many problems with which they were plagued? They had to educate themselves according to truth because the only way out of error or confusion is to know truth, and the only way to know truth is to study and be taught truth. This is a necessity that is emphasized throughout the Bible (Exodus 24:7; Deuteronomy 31:11; Ephesians 3:2-5; 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12). Thus, an objective of any holy people must be to obtain a proper education in the scriptures.
§ Unification – Back in Corinth it was obvious that any congregation with as many problems and differences as they had is going to be divided. However, no congregation divided is going to be able to flourish and be successful in doing the Lord’s work. Why? Because even if they believe the truth they can speak the truth but people will not see it in their lives. Thus the conclusion to which the world comes is that these people trying to tell them how to live are really hypocrites who despise each other. Therefore, when Paul heard of this division and wrote to them, his primary concern was that those brethren reconcile. There were matters of the faith over which they could only reconcile by both sides accepting the truth. However, there were also matters of judgment (opinion) that divided them. To overcome these Paul could only tell them to keep their mouths shut! There is not a single true servant of God who does not desire unity, but very few are willing to put aside their egos and personal agendas for the sake of unity. Christ knew that a time was coming when there would be enemies of unity; thus He prayed that when that time came His people would still be unified (John 17:20-21). Are we going to be helps or hindrances to Christ’s prayer for unity? Our objective as holy people must be unification.
§ Salvation – Ultimately every objective that we have in life must primarily lead to our objective of salvation. There is the obvious fact that each individual Christian personally desires salvation. In Acts 2 when those people heard the full message of the gospel they had a common response for a personal benefit (vs. 37-38). No honest individual can in all truth admit that they do not care if they are saved or not – thus the desire for salvation is a common response to the gospel message. However, we must not only be concerned with our own personal salvation, we must be concerned with the salvation of others. Paul displayed that concern (Romans 10:1; Acts 20:20-27), but do we have a similar desire for the salvation of the souls of men? We may say we do, but do our actions reflect our words? Salvation is it – everything in life should look toward it, and without it in the end our lives meant nothing.
If we desire the church locally and universally to have the strength that Paul desired for the Corinthian church, we must commit ourselves as holy people to equally holy objectives.