Transcription
[Music] Well, the Lord be with you. If you have a Bible, and I hope that you do, would you turn with me? We are going to be looking at First Corinthians this morning, chapter 1, verses 1 to 9. Which means we're starting a new sermon series where we are going to be working through Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. And that title itself is a little bit of a misnomer because, um, most likely, 1 Corinthians is actually the, the second letter that Paul has written to the Corinthians. And this actually seems to be a follow-up letter in which he is actually addressing some concerns that are going on within the Corinthian Church. And, and I think that, um, before we just jump right into the text this morning, maybe to give you a little bit of context of what's going on here.
So, of course, first off, we see in verse one that it does say that Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother. And then moving forward to the Church of God which is at Corinth. So right out of the gate, what we see here is that this is a letter written by the Apostle Paul. And now, I know probably many of us are, are familiar with Paul already, but for those who maybe aren't as familiar, Paul is the writer of the majority of the New Testament. And he wasn't always a follower of Christ. In fact, we see early on in his story is that he was a zealous Jew that actually hated the church. And he, he adamantly opposed Christ and, and, and his movement that was going across the Roman Empire. And so we find that actually Paul began to persecute Christians to the extreme, to where he would actually imprison and even try to encourage some of these, um, persecuted saints to blaspheme Christ. And he actually was, um, overseeing the death of some of these Christian martyrs. And we actually see in the book of Acts how Paul was presiding over the death of the first martyr, Stephen. And so we, we noticed that this was a guy that did not like Christ. He wasn't a, a Christ follower, but rather he was radically opposed.
And then what we find in the story is that as Paul is moving forward to persecute more Christians on the Damascus Road, is that he encounters the Risen Christ. And whenever he sees Christ, encounters him, his life is radically transformed. And he moved from being a persecutor of the faith to one of the most prominent proclaimers of the faith. And from that moment on, we see that he goes on these missionary journeys. And through the book of Acts, we find that he goes on numerous missionary journeys. But what's interesting is on the second missionary journey, he goes to the city of Corinth. And it was at this time that he actually founds the church that we're going to be looking at this morning. And then what we find from there is that in the third missionary journey, while he's in Ephesus, one of the other areas that he spends most of his time in, so Ephesus and Corinth are probably where Paul spends the most of his time on his missionary journeys. While he's in Ephesus on his third missionary journey, he's addressing now some of the concerns that are going on with this church that he founded on the previous journey.
And so before we go right into what are some of the, the concerns and what are some of the, the, the points that Paul is wanting to address in his letter to the Corinthians, I think it's also important to maybe look at the city as a whole. And so Corinth is a massive city in this time. It, it was basically, think around 200,000 plus individuals. And part of the reason is its location. Now, it's located in what is modern day Greece, and it is in this small part of land that connects the main body of Greece to the peninsula. And so what we find is that it's in a perfect location for trade and travel. And that then marked it to be a location that was, was prominently known for its social ambition, its cosmopolitanism, and its religious diversity. You have people from all walks of life with different schools of philosophy, culture, and art. And especially the Hellenistic Greek influence that is surrounding this region. So you see that people really have a, a value of the intellect. They, they cared about being viewed as intelligent and cultured. And so because of that, many were seeking to, um, have these social ambitions of moving up the societal ladder. And they, once again, were utilizing these, um, these diverse cultures and, and, and religious worldviews to shape these different personalities and identities as they were wanting to, once again, move up in the culture and to be viewed as, as higher class.
And what we find is that this is very similar to the individualistic culture that we experience today, where we, due to living in the age of the internet and, and social media, we find ourselves exposed to a lot of these things where we have a plurality of cultures, uh, plurality of philosophies, art, worldviews. And we see a lot of religious diversity, not only within our own denominations, uh, or interdenominational, but also just, uh, we can know what different religions are from across the globe. And so we're exposed to these different things. And we utilize these things in our own lives when it comes to, um, these, you know, culture, art, philosophy, U, worldviews, we utilize these things to move ourselves up as individuals, um, in our own social, um, climates or environments. So we seek this social ambition as we, the Corinthians doing. And what we find is that not only is this prevalent in, in the spirit of the city, but what we notice is that this cultural, or these cultural influences are infiltrating the church. And because of that, what we start to find is that this church in Corinth, though it was founded by the Apostle Paul, it was actually a really messed up church. And so much so that we see that they are experiencing all of these divisions where there are different factions that are forming within the church and we have them warring against each other. We actually see in certain cases where there are lawsuits between one Christian with another Christian in the same corporate body. We see examples of sexual immorality, we see gender confusion, um, all different types of things, the, the misuse of spiritual gifts, um, the, um, dishonoring of the Lord's Supper, um, not understanding the resurrection and the return of Christ. So many different moral and theological issues that are all rampant in this church and leading to moral decay among its members.
And so you probably noticed there's a lot of these, um, disagreements and, and, and different, um, problems that are arising in this church that we still notice in our own modern age. And, and we actually see infiltrating some of our own churches in our own areas. And so this is what we see Paul, alongside of Sosthenes, writing then to the church, addressing some of these issues and questions, because once again, many of these Christians are asking Paul to weigh in now on this area. And so we see Paul is, is calling or coming to them as a called apostle with Sosthenes. And, and by the way, Sosthenes, we don't exactly 100% know who he is, other than it mentioning that he is our brother in the text, um, but many think that this is probably the same individual mentioned in Acts 18:17. And if that's the case, this would be the Jewish synagogue leader who was first a non-believer as well. And he actually was opposed to Paul when Paul was in Corinth. But due to the fact that this mob was trying to attack Paul and they, they failed to do so, it says that the mob turned on this individual, Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue. And so many, many tend to think that maybe he was someone that was hostile and opposed to Paul and, and the Christian movement initially. But after the mob attacked him, maybe some Christians came alongside him in Corinth and ministered to him, which actually may have led him to the faith. And then which is why Paul, as he's writing this letter to the Corinthians, is he is writing it alongside of this individual that many of the, the Corinthians would have known and loved. And so some think that Sosthenes actually may have even served Paul as his amanuensis, which is basically a fancy term for his scribe, the one who may, may have actually dictated, would have written the letter that Paul was dictating to him. So we see that Paul is now writing to the Corinthians to answer and address some of these questions, as we find this church being a really messed up church with a lot of different problems.
And, and I also think, just by the way, as we think about this, as we come to some of these applications, is I think it's really interesting because sometimes we idealize the early church and we think, man, if we could just get back to the early church, they didn't have any problems. You know, they didn't have all of this theological confusion and division of different denominations. And, and if we could just get back there, it would, all of our problems would just go away. And I think what we find when we look at this specific church is that we noticed that the church has always had issues. And that early on in the church, to where we find ourselves today, is there, there will always be disagreements and problems within the church. Um, but we can learn and grow from these different problems that we see and hopefully utilize them for our own growth and, and development.
And so all that being said, let's now look specifically at how Paul addresses these individuals. And I think what you'll notice, it's really interesting, though there are so many different problems, um, and there are so many different things that, that Paul is going to address in this letter, and by the way, he is going to have some hard words for these Corinthian Christians, but he doesn't start with judgment in the text. What we find actually is that Paul, giving them first an initial greeting, and then later giving them a prayer of, giving God a prayer of thanks for them, is that he actually really starts his letter with encouragement. And so that's the first thing that I want to draw from this text this morning is what Paul wants to get across at the very beginning for these Corinthians in this church. Is he wants to remind them that every believer has been set apart as a saint.
To read verses 2 and 3 again, it says, "To the Church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." So if you get this picture, once again, all of these problems, all these concerns that are being brought to Paul, and the very first thing that he does after introducing himself and Sosthenes, he wants them to understand the definition of the church. He wants them to think about who they are in relationship to God. And so what he says at the very beginning is, "To the Church of God," which I think is so important. I think many of the, the root of their problems within the church is that they miss this very thing, is that it's the Church of God, not the Church of man. Once again, there were many factions forming, personalities, people trying to rise in prominence in these different community groups. And what Paul is wanting to remind them and encourage them is the church does not belong to any single individual. The church does not belong to the pastor or to the elders or to any other well-off Christian in the local assembly, but rather the church belongs to God. It is God's church.
And then it's important then, as we see that not only does he say that it's the Church of God, but he also wants to remind us that the church itself has two addresses. It has a geographic location or address and a spiritual location or address. Because look at once again in the text, it says, "To the Church of God which is at Corinth." So that is its geographic location. It's in the city of Corinth. "To those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus." That is our spiritual location. That is, we are in Christ Jesus. So every church has these two addresses. We are the church in Carterville, but we are all in Christ Jesus. And so I think it's really cool and important that Paul is making this distinction here for us to understand the difference as he's going to move forward in the letter. Because what he's wanting to do is that though they are in this city, they're in the Corinthian culture, he ultimately is wanting them to see their identity in Christ Jesus. He wants them to see that they are, that they are God's church and they are Christ's people. And so he's, he's making it really clear at the very beginning to, to, to note these things as he's going to start to unpack them for us.
And then he goes on from this to make it very clear. And he says, then, because of us being in Christ, that is because of Christ, the Corinthians were sanctified and called to be saints. It says that they are "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints." And what this means is the word sanctified, it literally just means set apart. Or another way to think of it is it's the verb form that means to make holy. And so I think Paul's actually kind of doing a play on words here in the Greek because the word saints is, um, also a very similar word in the Greek with the root form of, of the word holy. But what it just means is holy ones. And so what he's saying is that they have been sanctified, or that they have been made holy, and are now called to be holy ones. And so he's showing them that at the very beginning, he wants these Corinthians to understand that they are saints because of what Christ has done. Because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to the earth, lived the perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead, conquering sin and death, and now has ascended to the right hand of God the Father, and has now poured out his Spirit to where anyone who repents of their sins and trusts in Christ as their Lord and Savior, now has received the Holy Spirit who now indwells them and has transformed them. He is saying for these individuals, because of the, the finished work of Christ, he has now set us apart and he now has named us, claimed us as saints.
I think this is very similar to the, the same thought process of what Paul is getting at in Romans chapter 5:1, where it says, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." So simply by our faith in what Christ has already accomplished for us, because of us being in Christ, it says we are justified, that is declared righteous, and we are sanctified, we are made holy, set apart for holiness. And all of this simply to say is, I think that it's important that we see this and we understand this definition of the church and the definition of sainthood. Because I think that there sometimes there's confusion when we utilize the term saints, especially when it comes to these, um, interdenominational relationships and dialogues. Because true sainthood, as we see in the text, is not simply for deceased persons who have been canonized by the Catholic Church. Rather, sainthood is for all believers in Christ who now have been set apart by God and for God. That is, we have been called by God by name, and now we have been called to serve and work for His purposes. We have been given a new mission in life. And so it's so profound. And once again, I think he's calling them out of their current Corinthian culture here as he's wanting them to see this. Because he says that it's, "with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ." So that's how we receive this new position. We call on Christ, recognize Him, and then we now receive this new identity. This is a positional shift of identity from sinner to saint. And this would have been a huge deal, once again, for the individuals in Corinth, because their identity was a big deal. Their social status, how people thought about them, how they thought about themselves, it was a huge deal to them. And so he's wanting them to understand that their identity is no longer in their social status or in their wealth, or even in their achievements, what they've accomplished with their life. But rather, they have the highest identity. They have the highest and most holy calling because their identity is found in Jesus. They, they are now in Christ. Their identity is rooted in the one who has created all things, the King of Glory, the Lord of Lords, is our identity. We are now His children. We are now a part of His kingdom. So once again, identity shifting from sinner to saint.
And I think it's so important that we, as the church, start to utilize that term more often. That we can recognize that yes, we're not, we're not perfect, right? We still fall short of the glory of God at times, and we still will fall into sin and temptation. But we need to recognize that our identity fundamentally is that we are holy. We are saints. We are set apart by the work of God, the calling of our Lord. And so we are no longer just simply sinners, but we are now saints. And we are no longer enemies, but we are viewing ourselves now as friends of God, once again, the highest position we could possibly have.
And this then leads to the problem with this church is that though the Corinthians were saints positionally, they were not living it out practically. That is to say, they've already received this identity, but they weren't walking and living in that reality. They weren't allowing themselves to experience the good things that God had for them in this new reality. And so what we see here is that there's this distinction being made between the positional sanctification, that is our identity in Christ, and the experiential sanctification, which is how we live that out. Or, and maybe just to give you a couple of just real-life illustrations to maybe make, make this point clear is that there are times where there will be an individual who will turn 18, and whenever they turn 18, we would say you have now become an adult, legally speaking, right? So at one point you were not an adult legally, and then there's a moment where you will become an adult. But then we also are aware that there are times whenever you have these teenagers who have, you know, they have the legal status, the legal position of being an adult, that they still many times act childish, right? So what we're saying is they are truly an adult positionally, but they aren't always acting as an adult experientially. Or one other example is there are many professions where people will be a, a professional in their their field of expertise. And we, of course, know that there are examples of individuals that though they have the, the degree or they have the, the career path, the status, their society, they might be professional when it comes to their position, but that doesn't mean that they always act professionally. In fact, we know that there's many times that people act unprofessionally and unethically. And so this is just another example for us to understand that you can have a position without it being how you actually are living and practicing that reality.
And so I think that this actually should be encouraging for us as the church reading this thousands of years later. Because what this then reminds us, as Paul is making it very clear for them that they are saints despite the fact that they're not living up to that high calling, is it reminds us that even flawed congregations are still part of the church. That is, you can be a messed up church and you can still really be a church if you have God's word being preached, if you have God's sacraments being administered, if you have people that are really truly born again, regenerate, that they are seeking to know the Lord. And if, if we see that they are engaging the Great Commission and the greatest Commandments, you have a genuine church. Now, once again, doesn't mean that they are doing it perfect, doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of problems, that it's not messy. But we see that if you have these, you know, fundamental things, if you were truly in Christ, you are the church. And you have this identity of being sanctified, and you are called now to be saints. And likewise, this then means that imperfect Christians are still saints. So flawed congregations are really the church, and imperfect Christians are really saints. And that means that we have to recognize that you don't have to be perfect as a person or a perfect church to access these things. Because if we were honest, we understand that there are no perfect people, and there are no perfect churches. And if we were to find a perfect church, none of us would be able to become members of it, because we all fall on the grace of Christ, which is once again, what he's, he's pointing them to, is to lean and receive the grace that Christ has provided for them.
And so I think that's the application for us as we think about this. Every believer has been set apart as a saint. So what do we need to do? Live like saints, by the grace of God, by the power of His Holy Spirit, we can live like saints. In Ephesians 4:1, it says, "I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called." See, God, He enables us to walk in the way that He has called. Just like He called the Apostle Paul to be an apostle, He has now called and enabled us to live in this identity, to live in this reality. We can actually experience this position in our lives. Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3, it says, "For this is the will of God." Have you ever wondered, just what is the will of God? Well, it gives it very clearly for us in a very short statement. It says, "For this is the will of God: your sanctification." God, what, what does He desire for you in your life? Your sanctification, that you would be holy, that you would be like Him. In fact, that's really what He's wanting to get at. Is He wants all of us to be conformed to the image of His Son. That is, that we, every single day, God's desire is that we would look and be more like Christ. That's my encouragement for us this morning. I want us to learn from the Corinthians to be more like Christ and less like culture.
If we were to ask ourselves and look and examine our own lives, would we say that we look more like Christ or that we look more like our culture? Think about how would people define you and describe you if you were given these two categories? Or, or maybe think about this, if a historian, maybe a thousand years later, had to look back at us and was trying to evaluate our priorities, our values, and the way that we deal with people, would they immediately identify us as, "This is clearly a, a Westerner in the 21st century, impacted by individualistic tendencies, um, with a lot of these other cultures in the age of the internet." Is that how they would look at us and describe us? Or would the first thing that they notice is, "This is someone that is radically committed to the cause of Christ. This is someone that it's hard to know what their, what their culture is because it seems as if they contextualize so often to advance the gospel message. They're so focused on making Christ known that it's really even hard to know what else there is to know about this individual." Just imagine if that's how we lived our lives. More Christ, less culture. Christ was someone who regularly spent time with His Father. He was someone that was so focused on glorifying God, meditating on His word, seeking Him in prayer, and then going and serving others. Are any of those things what I just described the priorities of your life? Fundamentally glorifying God, seeking Him through scripture and through prayer, and then going and telling other people about Him, advancing the kingdom, advancing the gospel, not only knowing Christ, but making Him known to the world. That is what we are called. That's what it looks like to live like saints in a culture that is so alien to it. Because here's the thing, we have to understand, Christ is countercultural. And so if we look just like our neighbor, if we look just like those surrounding us, then it's a good chance that we are not living like Christ, looking like Christ, because He is the source of what it means to be countercultural, to be, to radically be different, because we, as, as saints, we have been set apart. We have been called to something different.
And so that's the first thing we see. Every believer has been set apart as a saint. But then we see how God enables us as the church to walk this out, or to live this out. Because what we find in verses 4 to 7 is that God builds and blesses His church with gifts. In verses 4 to 7, it says, "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift." This is reminding us that our God is a good and generous God. Our God is not a God who just stands up in the heavens watching us, judging us, and just saying, "I just wish that they would get it right," and He doesn't really care other than that we would just live a moral life abiding by His commandments. But rather, what we find is we have a God who loves us and has a heart for us. And He demonstrates that by giving us grace and, and gifts. In fact, in Psalm 84:11, it says, "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will be withheld from those who walk uprightly." Do you hear that? How it says that He wants to give us grace and glory, and that there will be no good thing that He will withhold from those who walk rightly, those who that seek Him. He doesn't want to withhold good things from us. In fact, we also see in James chapter 1:17 that it says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." Did you catch that? It's every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. That means anything that you enjoy in this life that gives you peace, comfort, joy, fulfillment, purpose, any of these things that you experience in this life is because God has given it to you out of His grace and generosity. And I know there's many of us here that probably enjoyed a nice cup of coffee this morning. Maybe there's some of us that are enjoying the fact that we have heat, comfy chairs, the clothing on our backs, our spouses, our children, our friends, our career. There's so many things that we enjoy every single day and don't always give God praise for it being His abundant grace in our lives.
And so what Paul is showing the Corinthians here is that God has given them grace. In fact, he, he describes it as them being enriched in everything by Him. God has endowed them so richly with gifts that they are just, just up to their ears in God's grace. Salvation, of course, being the fundamental gift that he's talking about. Salvation, giving them an identity shift, right? Salvation is a gracious gift that God has given them. But this is just the beginning of a variety of gifts that God continues to give to His people. Because what we find is that when we are saved, God also gives us spiritual gifts. And of course, as we move forward in this letter, we're going to to spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about spiritual gifts. And the New Testament gives us around three or four lists of spiritual gifts, depending on how you, you categorize them. And, and so we're going to spend some time. And in fact, you notice that a lot of the major themes of the entire letter are in this very, um, short introduction that Paul is giving us here. But he is starting to explain that God gives us spiritual gifts, and this church is not lacking in any spiritual gift. And so once again, this is a reminder for us that God has given us a spiritual gift, maybe multiple spiritual gifts. If you have the Holy Spirit, if you were in Christ Jesus, you have been given gifts by God for the purpose of the church being built and blessed. And you already start to see how the spiritual gifts are, are generally kind of described. And they really kind of fall under one of three categories, just generally speaking, either a gift of knowledge of some sort, a gift of speaking, or a gift of service. And all of these are for the purpose of edifying the saints and glorifying God.
In 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 10 to 11, it says, "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God; if anyone ministers, let him do it as, uh, as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen." So you see that it says that each one has received a gift, and then it says, "minister it to one another." So what we see is we, as believers, we receive gifts from God. We're to to utilize them to minister, or that is to to edify the saints. And then it also says that "in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." So once again, we see that that two-fold purpose of the gifts. It is to edify one another and to glorify God. And so we, as the church, we have a responsibility to discern the gifts that God has given us and then to cultivate them. That is, we must say, "What is God giving me? What is He gifted me with? What is He equipping me with so that I may help edify my fellow saints and give God the glory that He deserves?" And then how do I cultivate and put that into practice and refine that gift so I can be more effective for the kingdom?
And then if you notice at the very end of verse 7, he closely ties the utilization of the gifts that, that this church is not lacking in, to the return of Christ. He says, "so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ." I think what this is meant to remind us is that God is building and blessing His church with the utilization of these spiritual gifts within the local body of believers, that it would then point us to the day as we are waiting for the consummation of Christ in His kingdom. And so really, what I think this is reminding us then is that every spiritual gift fundamentally is meant to point us to the Giver. Our gifts are meant to encourage us to seek and know the one who has given us this grace. And that's the issue that these, this church is dealing with when it comes specifically to the spiritual gifts, because they, they missed the mark, they missed the point. These gifts became the gift in themselves. This became the sole focus was, "I am valuing my status and my ability because I have this awesome gift that other saints, other believers don't have." And what he's wanting them to understand is that the gifts are meant to lead us into His presence, into God's presence. And so the focus, once again, is the Giver, not the gift, or rather His presence, not simply the presence, because we can get so focused focused on on the creation or on the, the temporary rather than looking at the Creator, the one who is above all that all of the gifts flow from. And so he's wanting us to see then how ultimately we are built up in Christ in His presence.
Which then leads to the final thing I want to share in verses 7 and 9 this morning, where we see that Christ has demonstrated for us that He has our past, present, and future covered. It says, "eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." What Paul has been getting across to these Corinthians, and for us as we are the readers, is that we are reminded that God's objective truth supersedes our subjective experiences. Because once again, this church, they were probably getting really discouraged and frustrated with what was going on in their congregation. They were probably feeling like they weren't experiencing God in His presence, and they were, once again, they're like, "I don't feel like there's love in our corporate body. There's so many problems. I'm just so frustrated spiritually." And what he's wanting them to be reminded of here is that God's objective truth, that is the identity that He has given them, the gifts that He has provided for them, and their ultimate destiny is secure. And that though there are going to be these moments where we, in our subjective experiences, don't feel like saints, and we don't feel holy, maybe we don't feel like we're utilizing our gifts to the best of our ability, or we haven't cultivated them very well, he wants us to understand that no matter how many times we fail, God is faithful. And so Christ has already secured our identity as saints, regardless of our own experience. He's given us gifts that all we have to do is discern them and refine them. And it says in the text that Christ will confirm His church until, until the end. That word confirm, it literally just means to sustain. That He will sustain, He will strengthen us, He will give us the ability to persevere and overcome even the struggles, even the, the obstacles in our faith journey, in, in, in our own church bodies. He says, "I have got you covered. I've already taken care of your past. I've taken care of your sins, your failures, your shortcomings. I'm taking care of you right now as I continue to build and bless you in the local body. And I'm going to make sure that you are sustained and confirmed until the end."
And this is exactly what Jesus is getting at, I think, in Matthew 16:18, where He tells His disciples, "I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." I just love that Jesus says, "I will build My church." First off, that, that reminds us He is the one responsible for building, building the church. It's not me, it's not anyone else in leadership. Fundamentally, God, Christ is the one who will build the church. And it also says that "it's My church," once again reminding us that it's not our church, rather it is His. He is the one who is responsible for it. He is the one who bought the church with His sacrifice. And then He promises us that the church that He is building, that He has bought at a price, He will ensure that the gates of Hades, or that is the gates, or the power of the grave, will not prevail against it. That is, God's church will overcome the world. And we are looking now 2,000 years later, and we see how Christ's promise is continuously being confirmed. The church is going strong and continues to persevere through the ages. And it is all because Christ is sustaining it.
And likewise, Philippians 1:6 says, "Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." So if that's you out there and you're feeling like, once again, "I don't feel saintly. I've not been utilizing my gifts very well, and I feel like I'm just a mess when it comes to looking at my, my past, my present, or my future." If that's you, I want you to hear this promise that if you just will look to Christ, fix your eyes on Christ, cling to Christ, He says, "I have got you covered, and I will complete this good work that I began in you." Just as He called you from a sinner to a saint, He will ensure that that work is finished. He will sustain you. All you must do is continue to persevere and faith, look to Him, because once again, God is faithful, as it says in the text, and He has called us into the fellowship with His Son. So we are in Christ. We have this fellowship, not only with God, but with, with one another. And we are meant to be this unique, set apart body that is being built and blessed by Christ.
But the one final thing we need to recognize is that this true fellowship with Christ requires harmony with fellow believers. And that's what Paul's going to start to unpack and address in the rest of this letter. He's going to start to look at these issues within the infighting of these fellow believers, because they, they will miss out on the, the intimacy in the identity that they have in Christ if they continue to fight and divide amongst themselves. And so what we find is that this call to fellowship with one another, and ultimately fellowship with Christ, Christ who will take care of all things. And so we see in this text, every believer has been set apart as a saint. God builds and blesses His church with His gifts. And so we must live like saints. We must cultivate and refine these gifts. And then ultimately, it's meant to draw us into the presence of Christ, who is covering our past, our present, and our future.