The Tapas Chapter | J.D. Greear | April 10, 2022

0:00 All right, are you ready for this? It's going to be amazing. It's going to be amazing. So we will see you, Lord willing, next weekend. 1 Corinthians 16, if you have your Bibles this weekend, this week, we are coming in for the landing and our study of the Paul's letter to the Corinthians. What a ride it has been. Am I right? It has been bumpy at times, but like my pilot friends like to say, the best landing is one that you can walk away from. So we're going to aim for that today. I know it is Palm Sunday, by the way, and traditionally, we would spend some time looking at the events around the cross, but I needed to finish this book this week because we're planning to start something new at Easter. I had two voices in my head this week. One was the traditional crowd who really want a Palm Sunday message on Palm Sunday. The other was the OCD crowd who would literally implode if I did not finish this book. And so the OCD voices prevailed.

0:57 That's in part because some of those own voices are in my own head. So anyway, that's what we're going to do. Now, just as a reminder of where we have been, Paul's letter to the Corinthians is divided up basically in the five major sections that are based on questions that the Corinthians have asked him or on problems that Paul has heard the Corinthians are having. In section one, Paul addressed divisions in the church. That was chapters one through four. In section two, chapters five through seven, we looked at questions that they had surrounding sex and singleness. In section three, we talked about how to navigate controversies in the church that threatened to throw us off of mission. That was chapters eight through 10. In part four, Paul addressed what we called corporate worship wars. That was chapters 11 through 14, covered things like the role of women in leadership and the problem of cliques and cliques in the church and confusion about spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues and a bunch of fun stuff like that.

1:53 In part five, Paul addressed objections to the resurrection. And now we come into 1 Corinthians 16 and we've got Paul's concluding thoughts. Now, let me warn you, this is a very unusual chapter. In fact, I have entitled it the tapas chapter because that's what this chapter feels like. You know how at a tapas restaurant, by the way, a girl in the first service really got messed up because she'd tapas, okay? There's no L in there. A tapas restaurant, you get a bunch of little dishes rather than a lot of any one dish. First time I ever remember going to a tapas restaurant, I had just become pastor here and I took a two-day study retreat down at Myrtle Beach and I was by myself, wife wasn't with me. I wanted to go out to dinner. Veronica and I at the time were on a really, really tight budget. So I go up to this restaurant and it says tapas and I don't know what that means.

2:45 I'm from Yakinville. The closest thing we got to top us in Yadkinville is a golden corral where you can get a little bit of everything off the buffet line. Anyway, I looked at the menu posted outside the door and the prices look really reasonable. Like flank steak, $9. Red snapper, $11. And I thought, this is great. What a find. What a treasure I've stumbled onto. Of course, you know, when they bring me the very first dish, it's like three little slivers of prime rib. And I was like, is this a joke? But by that point I was, you know, I was in and I did not want to be embarrassed in front of the waitress. So something like $92 later, I walk out and I still stop by Bojangles on the way home because I'm still hungry. Well, I share that because this chapter is like theological tapas. We're going to get it just a taste of a bunch of different subjects. It's like six different mini sermons. My other theory, by the way, for this chapter is that when Paul got done writing 1 Corinthians, that majestic chapter about the resurrection, he had like this much parchment left on that page, but he still had a few more things to say.

3:41 and he doesn't want to waste a whole new sheet of parchment paper because that stuff was expensive and supply chain issues and war in Ukraine and whatnot. So he's like, look, let me try to cram everything else I want to say in this little itty bitty section. And so he just kind of shoves it all in there. That's my other theory. On a serious note, I love passages like this one because in passages like this one, what you get is a glimpse of life in the early church. Paul is not so much teaching us something per se as he is just taking care of a laundry list of housekeeping items. And sometimes you can learn as much from somebody by watching their life as you can by from what they teach. And here you're gonna get a glimpse into just what's going through Paul's head. And there's a lot that we can learn from that, okay? First, chapter 16, verse one. Let's just start at the beginning. Paul says, now about the collection for the saints.

4:36 Do the same as I instructed the Galatian churches on the first day of the week, Each of you is to set something aside and save it in keeping with how he or she is prospering so that no collections will need to be made when I come. Paul is urging them to set money aside weekly for an offering. This offering is in response to a specific need. There was a terrible famine that was taking place in Jerusalem. You can read all about it in the book of Acts if you're curious. And bottom line is a lot of the believers there are starving. Now, there are several things that you can learn about giving just from what Paul says in those two verses. The first, who should be giving in the church? And the answer is all of us. Do you notice verse two, Paul says each of you is to set something aside? Well, we know that there were poor people in the Corinthian church. We know that because Paul had a whole section in Corinthians rebuking the rich people for snobbishly separating themselves from the poor.

5:30 So when Paul says each of you, he is specifically saying, I mean, all of you, not just the rich of you, I mean, everybody. Giving is a test of faith and commitment for every single follower of Jesus. The question in giving is simply, do you love and trust God enough to give him your first and best, whatever that is? The issue in giving is not how much your gift changes the bottom line of our budget. The issue in giving is what it reveals about the place that Jesus holds in your heart. And that's as applicable for those of us with the least means as those of us with the greatest means. Every Christian at every stage should give to God their first and their best. Now, one of our missionaries told me a story about a pastor over in Bangladesh who was pastoring this really poor nomadic community out there, and they didn't really even use money in their community. And so that pastor taught each family to set aside some of their weekly allocation of rice. For the week, he said, put 10% into a jar, and then every week you give that jar to the church to take care of the pastor and his family, but also so that they can use that to bless the poor in their community. So bottom line, who gives?

6:39 And the answer, Paul says, all of us. This is something for each follower of Jesus at whatever stage of their life they are. Second question, when should we give? The answer is regularly. Paul says on the first day of the week, the point here is regularity and recurrence. Paul is saying, don't be an impulse giver. I know that's what you wanna do, but don't do that. Don't wait for the giving campaign. Don't wait for some big need that plays on your heartstrings and makes you throw your lunch money into the play. That's not biblical giving. That's emotionally manipulated giving. No, a follower of Jesus is gonna build generosity into their budget. My family does this. It literally is the first bill that we pay, so to speak. I have it set up so that it comes out of my account as soon as my paycheck hits. I've tried to teach my kids to do this through a jar system. I got from Dave Ramsey, where we've done this since they were kids. You got three jars.

7:31 You got the God jar, the save jar, and the spend jar. 10, 10, 80. I taught that to them when they were kids and tried to build that into them for a lifetime. All right? So who should give? The second question, when should we give? Third question, where should we give? Paul encourages them in this chapter to give it to their local church, the Corinthian church, because that is Jesus's hub of ministry. And from the church, they can distribute it to the poor. They can support evangelism and church planting. We teach here at the Summit Church that the bulk of your generous giving ought to be through the local church. And I realized that in saying that, that to some of you that might seem self-seeking since I work for the church and I'm supported by the church. But I say that not because I'm a pastor who's supported by the church. I say that because honestly, that's what I see in the New Testament. The local church is the hub of Jesus's ministry, just like we see here in 1 Corinthians.

8:26 And we here at the church, we've got the bandwidth to vet mission and mercy work opportunities to know which ones are the best investments so that we can take the money that you generously give and distribute it wisely into the kingdom of God. Now, of course, that does not mean that you should only give to the local church. My wife and I, just full disclosure, we give to several things outside of the local church, but the biggest portion of our giving, at least the first 10% and usually way beyond that, that always goes to our local church. Fourth question, how much should we give? This is what everybody always wants to know. They asked me like I'm allowed to give out gold stars on God's behalf, and they want to know what they got to do to be a gold star giver, to be summa cum laude in the Christian life. Well, bad news for you type A gold star pursuer is there is no rigidly fixed amount anywhere in the Bible. I preached a whole message in November explaining the concept of the first fruits.

9:24 The basic idea there was that throughout the Bible, God tells us that we should honor him with the first fruits of all that he gives to us, and 10% is the general starting point for that. That's literally what the word tithe means, the first 10%. But here's the thing. The tithe was not the only offering commanded in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 14, for example, God commands that every third year, another tithe be taken, this time off of your total assets, and be given to the temple to be distributed exclusively to the poor, to the widow, to refugee resettlement, things like that. And when the Old Testament, then you got things in the Old Testament, they call free will offerings, which is just whenever a special need arises. Could be a poverty need, could be a building they wanted to build, could be a mission they wanna fund. And God's people give voluntarily whatever God puts in their heart beyond their tithes and first fruits. Then we get to the New Testament and we find even less specific prescriptions for giving.

10:20 You have some pretty impressive descriptions of giving, but no prescriptions. Acts 2 said it was almost like they held all their property in common. And there was, quote, not a single needy person among them. Luke 19, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is so grateful for God's grace in his life that the wee little man gives away half of his possessions to the poor. Luke 21, you got a poor widow who gives two mites, two little half pennies to the temple, which Jesus says represents the bulk of her savings. In Matthew 26, you got the forgiven woman who breaks an alabaster flask of a very expensive perfume at Jesus's feet, which is like a family heirloom of inestimable value. Acts 5, you got people in the early church selling large tracts of investment property to support gospel expansion. If you wanna be really technical about it, the smallest gift you see in the New Testament is 50%. Now, I'm not saying that because that's what God is saying to you or to me.

11:16 I'm just saying that if you're looking for a specific prescription in the New Testament about how much to give, you're not gonna find it. That's got to be a conversation between you and the Holy Spirit. But there is a really important phrase in verse two that can help give you guidance in this. Do you notice where it said in verse two, each of you should set something aside in keeping with how he is prospering? Some of you, God has really prospered. In fact, I would suggest all of you because you're Americans, but even beyond that, there's some of you that God is really prospering and faithful stewardship for you means giving far more than a minimum of 10%. For some of you to give merely 10% would almost be a crime against the kingdom of God. In fact, have you ever asked yourself why God blessed you? And I know our answer is like, well, because I worked for it and I worked hard and I did great in college and I'm a genius. I know that's probably all true.

12:08 But you understand that the talents that you use and the energy you have and the health you have, God gave you that. Why did he give you the ability to prosper yourself? He does it for a purpose. The most fundamental promise of scripture, Genesis 12, one, you are blessed to be a blessing, which means that when God gives you prosperity, He does it so you can share it with the poor and use it to help propel the mission. And it is wrong before God for you or I to sit on all that he's given to us and act like God gave it to us just to bless ourselves. As we love to say around here, God prospers his people, not so they can simply increase their standard of living, but also so that they can increase their standard of giving. And so I would just say, for those of you who are prospering, I doubt that 10% is the right amount for you because that seems to be the baseline for everybody. you're somebody that God has prospered. The early church fathers give us occasional glimpses into the giving of those first Christians. And I love stuff like this because it just, it kind of shows you what it was like. Irenaeus, for example, in the end of the second, third century, Irenaeus said, the Jews, the Jews, non-Christians, they're the ones that are constrained to a regular payment of tithes. Pay the tithe, move on. Christians who have liberty, he says, assign, look at this, all of their possessions to the Lord, bestowing freely, not the lesser portions of their property, but the greater portions, because they have the hope of greater things. They're not attached to earthly things. They have the hope of greater things. The point Irenaeus is saying is not giving 10% and moving on, but stewarding 100% of what God gave to you. Augustine, who was regarded as the most important theologian in the early church, he said it this way, let every Christian render tithes. And out of the nine parts, the last 90%, let them give alms, which means giving to the poor. In other words, he's talking about giving above and beyond the tithe. Finally, you got the Roman Emperor Julian, who was not an early church father. In fact, he was one of the fiercest persecutors of the Christian church, said of the earliest Christians in disgust, I might add, I love this, the Christian cause, you can just see him saying this in this letter with his teeth

14:16 kind of gritted. The Christian cause has been specially advanced through their loving service rendered to strangers. It's a scandal that there's not a single one of their number who is a beggar. Not one. They care not only for their own poor, but they care for ours as well. This is his explanation for why the church is growing. They can't stop it. All right. So that's the end of tapas dish number one. Parents, teach this to your kids. Like I said, we use the jar system, 10, 10, 80. It's a principle I want my children to build their lives on. Top of stitch number two, verse three. In fact, this one's more like a palate cleanser, okay? It's a super waitress come out giving you something for the next stitch. When I arrive, I will send with letters those you recommend to carry your gift to Jerusalem. The only thing I want you to note in this verse is that it is very important to Paul for giving to be transparent and accountable. He's saying you guys choose representatives that you trust to carry the money so that there's some accountability. Paul does not say, hey, I'm an apostle, so just give it to me and I'll handle it. We all know, don't we? Stories of religious leaders who abuse money.

15:20 That's why it is so important to us here at the Summit Church that every aspect of our giving be open and accountable. I do not sign any checks here. I do not have any independent authority over our money. All of our financials are reviewed by a third-party auditor. There is a group of independent lay elders who do not report to me, who exercise oversight of our entire budget and every dime that I spend. All right, tapas dish number two, okay, the palate cleanser. Tapas dish number three, verses five through nine, Paul lays out his plans for the future. And at first, y'all, this seems like a rambling and random stream of consciousness. But there are two things about how Paul describes his plans that I find incredibly helpful. If you've ever asked the question, how do I know what the will of God is for my life? Paul gives you a clue here. Verse five, Paul says, I'll come to you after I pass through Macedonia and perhaps I will remain with you or even spend the winter.

16:14 I hope to spend some time with you, verse seven, if the Lord allows, but I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, I think, because a wide door for effective ministry is open for me. Yet there are many who oppose me, so I don't really know what that's all about. I love the tentative way that Paul talks about his plans. Paul's like, hey, I'm gonna come to you. I think, I might even spend the winter. I've heard winters there in Corinth are kind of nice, but I might actually skip over to Ephesus first. I'm not really sure. They keep tagging me in their social media posts with these really important questions. So it might be good to go put some FaceTime in over there. Honestly, who knows though? God has done some really weird stuff in my life recently. So I might end up in some other town that I haven't even heard of yet. Here's what I love about that. Paul is an apostle. And not even Paul the apostle who walks with the spirit is sure of what God is calling him to do in the future. I share that because some Christians want God to spell out every decision that they should make. I will tell you from experience that God rarely does that.

17:10 God will usually give you a compass that will point you in the right direction. But after that, he leads you through a series of open and closed doors in that direction. You're going one way and all of a sudden the door closes and it surprises you, but then you go another way and the door opens and now this is the way God wants you to go. Y'all, that kind of flexibility and adjustment does not mean you are out of touch with the spirit of God. That is how Paul the apostle followed Jesus. In the New Testament, there are four ways that God leads us. You should write these down. If you've ever asked, how do I know what God's will is? Here's your stuff, okay? Number one, the word, the word. This is all the scripture. This is the easiest, clearest, and most definitive. For a lot of stuff, y'all, God gives us really clear instructions and wisdom from his word. You don't even have to pray about it. It's pre-prayed over. Should I live with my boyfriend? No, Ephesians 5.3, next question, okay? You don't even need to pray about that.

18:03 It's already answered in scripture. Number two, number two, you've got the church. We saw in our study at 1 Corinthians 12, God gives guidance through members in the church. He empowers others in the local body, not just because they're pastors, not just because they're brilliant, just because they're normal people. He empowers them by his spirit with words of wisdom and insight for you. Or it might just be in giving you general wise counsel. The book of Proverbs says, in a multitude of counselors, there is wisdom. This is the most overlooked part of decision-making in the American Christian's life. And I think it's just because we're so fiercely independent, but we're kind of dumb about this. Y'all, whenever I'm making a big decision, I always consult members of my local body. I do that because that is how God has promised to guide me. Y'all, the quickest way to go wrong in life is to do something that troubles the godly counselors in your life.

18:56 Every major decision, and even a lot of the minor ones that I make, I do with heavy counsel from the local church. And y'all, it amazes me how many people, good people right here in our church, either don't do this or then just resist the counsel when everybody gives it to them. Sometimes they don't even ask the question because they don't wanna hear different from what they already think. You know, it's arrogant. Loner Christians are headed for disaster. Listen, y'all, I love nature shows on Netflix. My son, Adnan and I, 12 years old, we watch all of them. And one thing you know, if you watch those nature shows, that's the wildebeest, they get separated from the herd. They're the ones that are going down, right? That's a bunch of you guys. You're out there strutting around. Oh, I'm doing great all by myself. And I'm listening to my podcast and reading my books. And Satan's just got locked on you right now. And everybody's watching this documentary.

19:49 They're like, oh, here it goes. Didn't see that coming. God gave you the body to guide. So if you separate yourself, you're separating yourself from his guidance. Third way that God guides you, your spirit. This is the mystical one, but it's through prayer. If you are walking with the spirit as you pray, God will enlarge things in your heart. He will grow burdens. He will trouble you about something. He will give you vision or clarity about something. Now, listen, you gotta balance. Some of y'all are gonna be offended when I say this. If you're offended when I say this, you definitely need to hear it. You gotta balance with all the others that I'm giving to you. I say that because more havoc has been wreaked in the world following the words God just told me than any other phrase. So do not use some kind of internal impulse that you are stewards from the spirit as the trump card. Make sure that what you feel lines up with scripture and with other godly counselors, what they're saying, but be sensitive.

20:45 That's the point to how the spirit is leading you in prayer. It's one of his four ways of guidance. Finally, you've got circumstances, which is what Paul is experiencing here. God just opens and closes doors in front of you. Don't assume that just because it was in your spirit, that means infallibly it's from God. Sometimes God just closes the door you weren't expecting. Has that ever happened to you? The story that I always feel like I have to tell here is when Veronica and I, after the birth of our third child, we were praying about whether or not we should have any more kids. I mean, I had three kids. I felt like our quiver was full. You know, I didn't feel like at any point I needed more things to do or more people to take care of. So we're like, hey, I feel like we're done. But we also know that having and raising children is one of the greatest ministries you could have. listen, maybe we should have another one for Jesus. That was a thought. And then, you know, we also know that adoption is one of the greatest ministries you can have. So we set a day of prayer and fasting, April 29th, 2009. We were gonna pray and fast all day to ask God what he wanted us to do with those three options.

21:43 And so at the end of the day, we're getting ready for bed. And I was like, hey, what do you think? And she said, I don't know. I feel like my spirit, I feel like maybe we're supposed to pursue international adoption. And I was like, me too. That's what I feel like. I was like, all right, well, tomorrow morning, we'll get up and I'll start the paperwork. 4 a.m., she gets up before me and she goes into the bathroom and she is nauseous. She vomits. She's pregnant. And I'm like, I never had a prayer answered that definitively that quickly. We were like not even trying to have. So my spirit said one thing, but the circumstances said another. When you have to make a decision, you're supposed to consult these four. The word of God, the counsel, the church, prayer, and then the open and closed doors around you. and you got to hold all four of them in tension just like Paul is doing. Paul knows what God has put in his heart. That's the direction his compass points. He's been open to words of prophecy and counsel from the church.

22:36 You can read about that in Acts. And now Paul is watching for open and closed doors as indications of where the spirit wants him to go. One of the most important practical pieces of wisdom I've ever learned in this subject came from a guy named Henry Blackaby in a study he wrote 20 some years ago. It's a classic Bible study called Experiencing God. And I still remember the central point of that Bible study. It went like this. You need to look for where God is at work around you and then join him in it. The single most important piece of counsel, biblical counsel in pursuing the will of God is look for where God is at work around you and just go join him in it. Look for places where he's already at work, where he's creating opportunity, where he's growing your passions and then join God in what he is doing. God's always the initiator. Dr. Blackaby then shows you that for person after person in the Bible, including Paul, this is how God guided them. Look around you for where God is at work.

23:30 Ask God to open your eyes to that and then join him in it. So the first thing I find helpful in verses five through nine are these principles for how to be guided by the spirit. The second helpful thing in those verses is tucked in right at the end of verse nine. Paul says, a wide door for effective ministry has opened for me, yet there are many who oppose me. I want you to see that. God has opened a wide door for me yet, and there are many who oppose me. I point that out because a lot of people assume that difficulty and opposition somehow indicates that you're on the wrong path. Oh, listen, every significant thing I've ever done for God came with a lot of opposition. You're trying to do the right thing at work and your boss has given you a hard time. He's even threatening to fire you. You're trying to raise your kids the right way and all the other parents are criticizing you.

24:24 You're getting pushback from members of your own family. You share the gospel with somebody and they tell you that you are an arrogant bigot. You try to do the right thing for the Southern Baptist Convention and all the keyboard warriors get together and send you an award for worst Christian leader of 2019. That's not a joke. Verse nine might have been my theme verse for my three years as SVC president. A wide door for effective ministry is open for me, yet there are many who oppose me. Opposition is not always a sign that you're on the wrong path. It's often a sign that you're on the right one. You see, after God calls you to something, he wants to teach you to trust him. He wants to show you that it's his power who accomplishes these things, not your own. So Paul would say in the first chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians, he would say, man, everywhere I've gone, it's feel like the sentence of death has been on me. But the reason for that is so that I would learn to hope in only God who could raise people from the dead.

25:16 And so my life feels like a constant death, but God gives me the resurrection. And so opposition sometimes is your invitation to trust God. Now, some of you are like, wait a minute, pastor. You just said closed doors can be one of the ways God leads you. So how do you know when opposition and obstacles are God's way of closing a door? And how do you know when you're supposed to press through them? That's a great question. You gotta be in touch with the spirit and you gotta be seeking counsel from other believers to discern that. That's all I gotta say about that, all right? That's our third and fourth courses. Verse 10, here she comes again, our waitress. Y'all, I love this verse. Verse 10, this is awesome. If Timothy comes, if Timothy comes, see that he has nothing to fear while with you because he's doing the Lord's work just as I am. Why would Paul say that? How horrible was Timothy's job? Timothy had to take Paul's letter to the Corinthians where Paul basically punches them in the face.

26:15 And y'all, it was customary in those days for the letter deliverer to read the letter out loud to everybody and then answer any questions they had. And so Paul says to Timothy, hey, Tim, I got a job for you. I need you to take this letter to Corinth and read it out loud to them. I would suggest you try not to make eye contact with the guy dating his stepmom when you read that section. I'd also make sure I stood a pretty good distance from those ladies that I'm going to command to be silent in the church. And be warned, somebody might walk on stage and try to smack you, okay? Thank you, buddy. All right. Good luck with this. I do this with our campus pastors sometimes. Y'all, I get to stand up here and say whatever I want to say. And then I say, if you want to ask any questions, ask your campus pastor. And I'm like, good luck, fellas. You know, have fun taking care of that. So Paul basically at the end of this letter says, listen, y'all take it easy on my man, Tim. He's just literally just the mailman. He's doing the Lord's work just like I'm trying to do. Verse 13, be alert, Paul says. Stand firm in the faith.

27:11 Be courageous. By the way, some of your translations there say, act like men, which is literally what Paul wrote in Greek. It's a literal translation. Be courageous like men. Ladies, don't read too much into that, okay? He's not trying to say that only men can be courageous. He's just encouraging a quality that was normally celebrated among men. He was saying, be courageous, like the most valiant warrior you can think about, and then be strong. Verse 14, do everything in love. I would argue to you all that those five commands sum up everything Paul has taught in 1 Corinthians. Be alert, pay attention. Your enemy, your enemy is at work all around you. Your enemy is trying to deceive you. The enemy is at work in that gossiping and pride that's at work in your heart. He's trying to divide you from your brothers. It's not just an argument. It is actually, he is sowing discord because he wants to separate friends in the church. That's his game.

28:03 Be alert. He's at work in that sin that you guys are tolerating in your midst. He's at work in that habit that you won't deal with. Be alert, sir. He is waiting for you at that computer terminal at midnight. He's got the tools in his arsenal to destroy your marriage. He's lurking for you. He's looking for a place to sabotage your life. Be alert, be alert, sister, because he's waiting for you in that flirtatious glance from that guy at the gym. Be alert, church. Be alert, church. He often masquerades as a teacher of the church. We see that in Corinthians, don't we? We see that all through Paul's letters. He comes in under the guise of a teacher in the church, teaching really clever things, having a podcast, writing some cool blogs and some books while subtly undermining confidence in God's word. Y'all know that not everybody who publishes books or does podcasts or appears on Oprah and says they speak for Jesus actually does. Y'all know that, right?

28:56 Be alert, church. Just because a political leader says that he or she is your friend, that doesn't mean that they are. Y'all, our enemy loves to seduce Christians away from dependence on the Holy Spirit and the power of the gospel with offers of alternative counterfeit forms of power. Be alert, church. Be alert, parents. Be alert because there's an enemy after the souls of your children and you need to pay attention to what they're being taught at their schools, on social media, and from our entire society. Yo, listen, I'm not an alarmist. I feel like I've demonstrated that over 20 years, but increasingly we are seeing what can only be called an agenda pushed with our children on things like gender and sexuality. If you do not believe me, just type in on a Google search, Orange County School Controversy or Wake County School Board Controversy or pay attention to the discussions going on at Disney or the things taking place down in Florida right now. And for goodness sake, do not give your kids unfiltered access to social media or let them keep their phones in their rooms at night, especially in their preteen years.

29:58 Parents, there are a lot of forces out there trying to disciple your children. It is your and my job to guide that process and to protect our children. And you can only do that if you're alert. Be alert. Paul says, secondly, stand firm in your faith. Theirs was a hostile age and following Jesus might put you in the lion's den. And if you're gonna hold onto the faith, he says, it's gonna be a fight because everything in your world goes the opposite direction. Now here in our day, we're not getting thrown in the lion's den, but the forces are just as strong and just as seductive. Y'all listen, I love our community. I love our nation. But you know that everything in this society pulls against Christ. Business, government, education, entertainment. The world has always trended toward self-exaltation, unbelief, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

30:55 Doesn't mean those things are bad in and of themselves or you shouldn't be involved in them. I'm just telling you, if you're not actively fighting to stand firm against those things in your heart and your family, you are falling. You cannot coast uphill. You have to fight your way into the kingdom of God, Jesus said. So just be strong or stand firm, be courageous. Or again, act like men. Take bold risks for the kingdom. God did not call you Corinthians. He did not call us summit, just to hundle up and sing Kumbaya and hang on until he raptures us off of this planet. God called us to take Jesus to the nations, to see miracles and answers to prayer. Jesus promised us that through us, he was gonna build his church and not even the gates of hell would prevail against us. Y'all, you know this, gates are not an offensive weapon, right? Nobody attacks somebody else with a gate. Like, ah, here I am.

31:48 Here, I'm gonna smack you upside the head with a gate. Jesus was not promising that he would protect us against Satan's attacks. He was promising us that he would make Satan powerless against our attacks. So he was like, be courageous. Don't huddle up in your Christian enclave and try to protect your children and just hang on. Invite that coworker to coffee and ask him what you can pray for. Start a discussion with them about spiritual things. Invite that single mom to come live with your family. Take that step to begin the adoption or fostering process. Get involved in our prison ministry. Get involved, Summit, in our refugee resettlement ministry. Be courageous. Go on your first mission trip. Better yet, take your family and go with one of our teams to live in a place where Christ's name is not known or the gospel has not been heard. Be courageous. Take God's promises seriously.

32:41 God has not called us to huddle up and manage a slow retreat while we wait on the rapture. He has called us to storm the gates of hell. Talk to your campus pastor today about what that looks like for you. The other implication of this command is, this command to be courageous is to endure. In the King James Version, I first memorized this verse in, all the verses that I memorized as a kid were in the King James Version and occasionally that comes out. And I remember learning this verse as a kid in Awana, quit you like men. That was how the KJV said it. Quit you like men. That just has a cool sound to it, doesn't it? Quit you like men. The translators translated it like that because they recognized in Paul's words, a summons to endurance. Men at their best don't give up easily. They see things through. They get knocked down, but they get up again. Ain't nothing gonna bring them down. I think that's one of the Psalms, I think, if I remember correctly. But they survive, they advance, and they live to fight another day.

33:35 Paul's saying, look, don't get discouraged when you stumble. Don't let failure or setbacks keep you down. Quit you like men. Reminds me of that famous definition of success that always gets attributed to Winston Churchill. Success is just going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. When you get knocked down, get up, fight another day. Quit you like men. Because you know what? The mercies of God are gonna be new tomorrow morning and they're as abundant tomorrow morning as they were today. So you can get up and keep going because God's got a fresh supply of grace that he's got right for you. So get up and keep going. Future generations depend on you getting up and fighting again. Fourth, he says, be strong. I read that as just a summary of all that he said up to this point. Christianity is not for the faint of heart. It's a struggle. It's a fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Thankfully, our strength comes from the Holy Spirit, but y'all, it's still a fight. Finally, he says, do everything in love.

34:30 The Greeks and Romans that were in Paul's culture would have heartily affirmed the first four commands. Oh, but the virtue of being strong and courageous and standing firm. But that last one, do everything in love, that was a distinctly Christian virtue. But did you know this? Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and all of their voluminous writings on ethics never, not one time, lists love as a virtue. That was all Jesus. And yet Paul says love is the most important value of all of them. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul told us that the other four virtues are worthless if they're not rooted in love. Parents, let's not raise Greco-Roman children who are strong and courageous for truth, who know how to write blistering letters to the editor, can call in on angry talk shows and defend the faith, but are not filled with love for their fellow men. You seminary students, you know that y'all are some of my favorite people in this church, and I'm one of you.

35:27 But we have a lot of you that are zealous to fight for truth, but is your life characterized by love for others? What people describe you as zealous for truth or filled with love, because without love, Paul says, you're just like a clanging cymbal that's cluttering up the message. All right, we're nearing the end. Just bringing out dessert, okay? Verse 17. I'm delighted, Paul says, to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus present, for they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Give recognition to such people. Y'all, I love that phrase. They refresh my spirit. I really, really want to grow in this. I want to refresh people. I want to be like a cool breeze on a hot day. Typically, people tell me I'm more like a stout kick to the shins, and I want to be more refreshing. So y'all can pray for me about that. But there's a bunch of people who have been like this for me at our church.

36:23 Some of them are sitting right here. Jack and Helen Keegan, Mike and Chris Hagelin, Tim and Jamie Warren, Chad Price, Erica DeLong, the Morgans, the Forrest, the Williamson, the Rudolph. I can name hundreds of others. These are people who have cared for me and refreshed me. And I can mention hundreds more. And that's just with me. He says, give recognition to some people. What I want you to see from this Summit Church is this. Listen, in every age, God builds his church through people like Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus. Just ordinary people. They don't have books of the Bible named after them. And if Paul had not mentioned them here, you would never have heard of them. They just faithfully gave and prayed and opened up their houses for hospitality and spoke words of refreshment to each other. And they literally changed the world. And by the way, they were messed up people, weren't they? Have you picked that up in this letter?

37:15 These Corinthians are not a neat and tidy bunch. They were fighting and arguing and strutting around like idiots. One dude was sleeping with his stepmom during award ceremonies. One of them walked on stage and slapped another one. Maybe that last one didn't happen, but based on what I read in 1 Corinthians, it could have happened. The point is these are not super Christians. If they had Facebook pages, we would have been disgusted by a lot of what we saw on their Facebook page. and yet, and yet this group literally transformed the world. Y'all last week I had the privilege of visiting Rome where I filmed the Bible study through the book of Romans on location for a group called Right Now Media. Right Now Media, by the way, is a massive collection of some of the best Bible studies and parenting studies and marriage studies and family stuff and anything else you can think of in the Christian world by some of the best Christian teachers in the world. It's like, think of it like Netflix for Christians.

38:10 And this might be the best kept secret at the Summit Church, but you have a free membership to this by virtue of the fact that you are a member here at the Summit. All you gotta do is go to summitchurch.com slash right now media, and you can access the entire library for free. The reason I bring it up right now is that being on location in Rome and filming all this teaching through Romans while standing at places like the Colosseum or in the very cell that Nero kept Paul in before executing him, It was just amazing because you just cannot escape when you're there that somehow, y'all, a group of disorganized, ragtag, blue-collar, backwoods people without money, political power, armies, or organization transformed an empire. Rome was this incredible place of power. The ruins that have survived 2,000 years point to this unbelievable civilization. And yet in less than 300 years, the entire empire had turned its back on its heritage and converted to follow Jesus.

39:10 Y'all today, that would be like a group of uneducated Bedouin nomads outside of Baghdad starting a new religion that within 300 years, most of America and Europe and Harvard and Yale all embrace. The birth of the church is absolutely miraculous and utterly inexplicable apart from the power of the spirit. And the people that the spirit used were ordinary people like Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus. I just believe Jesus was real. And they took him at his word. So when I look around now, what we got? We got our problems, don't we? Right, I go on some of your Facebook pages and I'm embarrassed. But are we any less than they? Can't we see this again in our generation? I read this recently. historians estimate, get this, the total number of Christians at the end of the first century, total in the world, 7,500. That's it. 40 years after this was written, there's still only 7,500 Christians. We got more than that in this one church this weekend. And yet by 300 AD, that 7,500 had multiplied so that nearly half the population of the civilized world had confessed faith in Jesus. Don't we want to see that happen again? What's stopping us? If God used ordinary messed up people in the first century, can't he use us too? Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to cut through the cultural and sinful noise and to call this church back to the gospel. That's what God is calling us to as well. And we will experience the same kind of power and transformation they experienced. This letter is as relevant to us as it was to them. Amen? You ready for the last three verses? Verse 22, if anyone does not love the Lord, a curse be on him. You say, well, Paul, it's not a very nice thing to say in conclusion. Yeah, but Paul's not being mean. I say that because in Romans 9, Paul explained that if he could, he would go to hell himself if it meant others could be saved.

41:15 So see, I got a hard time believing that Paul is saying this with a hateful spirit. It's just that, and y'all listen to this. Paul understands and agrees with God's judgments that anybody who does not have love for Jesus is accursed. And that applies to us too. See, either we got love for Jesus or we're accursed. I don't know how to say this any more plainly, but the gospel is a very serious matter. The gospel is that God loves you so much that he came to earth to die for you. He bore your sin. He bore the effects of your dishonesty and your betrayals and all those broken promises and the shame and all the things that you've messed up and all the shame and regret and sin you brought on yourself. He took that into his own body and he was wounded for it and he died for it.

42:11 And then he went to a grave and he came out of the grave, but he left it there. He bore your sin. He became your sin and your sorrow. He made those things his very own. And then he and the other apostles began to proclaim that there was only one way to be saved. They weren't saying that because they were jerks. They were saying that because it was true. Only God could provide salvation. Only God coming as a human and living the life we were supposed to live and dying the death we were condemned to die. Only he could save us. Who are you to be so arrogant as to say, my preferred way of salvation is just as good as God's. You can't choose your own way of salvation. He chooses it. And so the apostles will say things like, neither is there salvation in any other, for there's no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Or Jesus, who said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me. There's only one way that you can be saved, and that is the way that God has provided. And if you reject Jesus, if you reject him, You are choosing condemnation for yourself.

43:09 What other course do you have? So yes, you and I are bringing a curse on us by rejecting the incarnation of God here on earth. But for those who love him, also our Lord come, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. And all God's people said, amen. Let's pray. Why don't you bow your heads if you would. I have to think if the apostle Paul were here and we said, Paul, what's the one thing that you want out of this book? I feel like what he'd say is, we'll make sure people of the 21st century, everybody listening to this is receive Christ if they never have. And so I want to give you that invitation. Receiving Christ simply means that you recognize that he's the Lord, not you and surrendering yourself to him.

44:03 Surrender control to him right now. do that. It means believing that he paid your sin debt for you and accepting that as your own. If you've never done that, you can do it right now. Lord Jesus, I surrender. Lord Jesus, I receive. hey if you're doing that or you want to do that or you just did it or you got questions about it would you just text the word ready r-e-a-d-y to 33933 and just let's start a conversation with you or when we're done with this service we'll have the front down here we'll be open up there's pastors and prayer leaders and counselors down here and we'd love to start this conversation Father, I pray that we be doers of the word and not hearers only.

44:55 I pray that we would receive this implanted word that is able to save our souls. I pray, God, that it would grow and prosper.