Transcription
[Music] Will the Lord be with you? If you have a Bible, and I hope that you do, or have someone around you, uh would you turn with me to the book of 1 Corinthians? We are going to be looking at chapter 4, verses 14-21. So, we'll be finishing this chapter this morning.
And what we see so far in this letter is that Paul is writing to a church in Corinth. And this is a church that he has personally founded and established on a previous missionary journey. And what we see here is that Paul has been receiving letters and questions and and he's noticing that there's some concerns and some problems that are arising in this church specifically because of the city and its culture is starting to infiltrate the church because Corinth was a massive city with tons of different people traveling through and trading with these different philosophies and these different um schools of thought. And so what we see is that this church is starting to allow the culture to affect and impress upon them their values. And so this church is starting to divide. They start to compete with one another and they start to align themselves and associate themselves with certain leaders in the church. And so he says that there's some that are starting to create factions the and there are some that are saying that I am of Paul or I am of Apollos or I am of Cephas. And what we found is that Paul said that I was using these names as metaphors basically as to basically point to something else that there are these other leaders in the church that are basically trying to make a name for themselves. And there are certain people that are starting to align themselves with these leaders in the church. And the point of this is that they are trying to rank themselves as more valuable or they are comparing their ministries as more important than other uh Christians or other ministries within the church. And so what we see is that they're starting to divide and cause more and more problems within the church.
And so for multiple chapters now, Paul's been addressing this and he's been calling them to unite back around the gospel. He's showing them that the fact that they are divided is evidence that they are not living out the gospel message because Christ is not divided. His body should never be divided. And so therefore, he says, "You guys need to get back to the basics." And he goes on to actually kind of criticize them for the fact that they're acting like spiritual infants, that they're acting like a bunch of babies. And so he's been using some harsh language throughout his letter and giving um having a hard conversation rather with these individuals and saying that though there are many in this world who will view Christ and his gospel message as foolish, this is the wisdom and the power of God. And so you can go after the eloquent speakers. You can value status. You can value wealth. You can value all of these things that the world values. But ultimately you have to understand that these things are temporary and they do not compete or compare when it comes to the value that is found in Jesus Christ. And so he wanted them to have a a really um sober look and evaluation of themselves of what are they valuing? And he actually let them look at the Corinthians and how they are viewing themselves as rich and as full and as basically that they don't need anything else. And he says compare that to the apostles who are right now suffering who are going and they are homeless that they are being mistreated. He even uses terms like we are the scum of the earth. We are we are vagabonds for Christ. And he says, "Look at the difference between how the apostles are living their lives and look at how you are living comfortably in your life and valuing all of these things of the world." And so he's been criticizing these things.
And so now in verses 14 to 21, as he's been going back and forth discussing this division and how they are becoming so worldly and and carnal and and prioritizing these these pagan ideas and he's been pointing them back to Jesus regularly, we now get to the conclusion of this section where he's been addressing these divisions. And so what we see here in the final part of this section is Paul's paternal care for the church. That is Paul is now going to be speaking to them soberly as a father figure, expressing his deep love and concern for for them. And he's going to primarily show them that through this letter and through what he's been telling them is his goal is for their good. That he is actually hoping that they would imitate Christ and that they would live by the spirit rather than imitating human leaders and living by the desires of the flesh and the ways of the world.
And I think specifically what we see in the first couple of verses is we see that Paul is showing us how to exercise authority. Paul is showing us that we are to exercise authority as Christians with gentleness. That is to exercise authority with a spirit of gentleness. Now many times when we hear the word authority, we get a bad taste in our mouths, don't we? We kind of have an allergy toward authority. Now, unless we are the ones wielding the authority. Now, if we have the authority and if we are the ones that get to make the decisions and call the shots and people are looking to us, we don't have that big of a problem. And that's actually what was going on with the Corinthians, right? They really enjoyed having the authority. But when it came to the fact that if they had to submit to authority, they they had a big problem with that. And that's why so many of them were going against and being opposed to Paul. Because Paul at times would exercise his authority as both an apostle and as a spiritual father to these Christians.
And I think that we see that resistance to authority is an explanation for a lot of what we see in this world. I think to myself, why do we live in a fallen world in the first place? It was resistance to authority. Man fell in the garden. Why? Because God gave them a command. He gave them a choice. And then they decided, "We want something else. We want this knowledge. We want to partake of something. We want to go against the direct command and authority of God." They said, "We want to see for ourselves. We do not trust your authority, God." That's why we live in a world that is filled with sin and suffering and death. It's because there are those who have rejected God's authority. Or I think to myself, why do so many reject Christ? There are so many today that reject Christ. And it's not because that he preaches love. The reason that they reject him is that they don't want him as Lord. That's why when we preach the gospel, we have to preach the entirety of the gospel message. How we are sinners. We have to repent. God is just and holy. He will judge the world. And so we must trust in Christ as our Lord and Savior. He must be our Lord. And there are so many who though they recognize that God exists and they even probably believe that Jesus is savior, they don't want him as their Lord because they want to be the Lord. They want to be God. They want to be the authority.
And then finally, you might even have those who they might recognize that yes, God is the authority. They might recognize yes, Jesus is Lord. But then so many today still refuse to submit to the local church. They might say, "Well, I have church when I go fishing. I have church at home. I just I I I read my Bible and I pray at the park." You hear, and you know, many people like that. Or you know what? They might go to church on a Sunday, but then guess what they do the next week? They either decide to opt out or I'm going to another church this week. I'm going to try this one. and it becomes a spiritual buffet with no true submission to authority. There is a reason that God has given us these authorities, both the governments, the church, and of course, God himself being our authority. It's because authority is unavoidable and necessary. I know that sometimes we don't always think about it in th those terms, but just imagine for a second if there was no authority. See, it would be chaos. What if you didn't have certain people responsible for the government? There was no police force. There was no military. Everyone can just live however they want, take whatever they want. destroy whatever they want. We would live in a chaotic world. That's why we need these institutions. We need authority. We need parents teaching their children. We need pastors and elders raising up good, godly individuals, teachers that will exercise authority. We need bosses that will hire and make executive decisions for companies. The thing is, if you don't have these different structures in place, you will experience all kinds of problems. And of course, we understand this and we see this, I think, in the world today that not only is it um necessary that we have these structures, but it's also unavoidable. You might take a government or a a certain group out, but you know what happens is eventually it fills that void. there's another authority that will come in. I see this with these certain um these certain nations that have problems and you'll see that there's certain terrorist organizations that get taken out and you notice what happens when you take them out and you leave that void. It gets filled very quickly with another and sometimes very often worse terrorist group. That's the problem is that authority is always going to be there. The question is, is it going to be a healthy or a harmful form of authority?
And so what Paul shows us here is what the good and healthy authority looks like. Because if you notice, how does Paul address them in this? He says in verse 14, "I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children, I warn you." See, he's been saying some very harsh things, and I was really trying to bring those to light for us as we see really what Paul is saying to these Christians and what is going on in their dire spiritual state. But he makes it very clear here as he's concluding this first section of division is he's not writing these things ultimately to shame them. He's not just trying to beat them over the head because he doesn't like them. Rather, he views them as as children that need someone to take care of them. He views them as being a part of his family. And he says, "And I'm hoping to warn you." And that's ultimately why God gives us authorities when they are doing what they are properly supposed to do. Good and healthy authority are meant to bring us life and growth and flourishing. And that's why we see certain scriptures like 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 13 to 14 where it says, "Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good." Good. So we see God says, "Submit yourselves willingly to these ordinances of governors and these other governing authorities because their purpose is to bring good and justice to the world." Now, of course, we understand there are bad examples of that. But for the good examples, we are to willingly and joyfully submit to them. Likewise, in Hebrews 13:17, it says, "Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you." So now, this is not just talking about any authority, but this is actually talking about authority within the church. Now, he's been showing us that through the gospel message, we are all equals. We are brothers and sisters equal in value, worth, and dignity. But we also have different responsibilities within the church. And there are some that have been called and entrusted to a an office or a calling in which they are called to exercise authority within the church. God has given us certain leaders in the church. And the church is called to submit to this authority. Now once again, this is not a an authority that is to be lording over the congregation or or that is something that is harmful to the congregation. But when you have a congregation and an authority that is seeking their good, the church is to respect and submit to that authority.
But as we look to Paul's example, as we see authority being present here, I just love the way that we see him expressing it. Once again, we see him saying, "I am not coming to shame, but to warn." I think it's so important that we see this. Think about a parent for a moment. They have to exercise authority. And you notice that if you've ever seen a child that gets sometimes in danger and maybe there's traffic nearby and they're not paying attention, they might run toward the traffic unintentionally unaware of the consequences that may ensue if he continues on course. Well, what would be the loving and right thing to do for that authority, that parent, if they see that child running toward traffic? It would be to scream at them potentially, to run toward them, and maybe even yank them away from the road. That's pretty violent. You have to scream. You have to be, you know, active. You have to be engaged. And sometimes you might even actually take their body, right? You have this bodily autonomy. You're taking their body where they're wanting to go that way. And you're saying, "No, you're going over here." Now see that is authority being executed but it's also the most loving thing possible. See we see that authority and love or authority in a spirit of gentleness or a desire for someone's good, they are not necessarily being um excluded from one another. Rather we can see that they can work in tandem. They can work in harmony. And that's what we see with Paul here. He says, "These things that I am saying to you, this authority that I am exercising over you as an apostle, it's it's because I love you. It's that I care for you." In fact, if you jump down to the very last verse here in verse 21, he's asking them, "What do you want?" Because he's going he's planning on coming to them to see them if the Lord wills. And he says, "Shall I come to you with a rod or in love in a spirit of gentleness?" He's saying, "What do you want? because my desire is that I would come to you in gentleness. And in fact, when we think about Jesus himself, Jesus has all authority, does he not? Jesus's I have all authority in heaven and on earth. But though Jesus has all authority, we also know that Jesus is gentle with us. Think about how gentle Jesus is with us. how patient and gracious Jesus is with us. We know that we fail. We know so many things that go on through our lives through our our minds, through our thoughts, the words that we say and think to ourselves how we have been growing hopefully in Christ. Many of us are more mature now as we've been walking with Christ than we were months or many years ago. Right? That's the ideal is that we continue to grow. Now, have you learned through these years, through these months, and seen, "Wow, I can't believe that I still was doing this at this point in my life. I can't believe I was still believing this or treating people like that as I was walking with the Lord." Well, you know, Jesus knew all of that at the very beginning. Jesus has seen everything that you were doing at the very beginning. He knew every single wrong thought, wrong action, wrong word you have ever done, thought or said. But he walks with us and he doesn't, you know, treat us as if we are way down here in our Christian walk. He treats us where we're at. He meets us where we are at and he gently loves us, guides us, and corrects us. And so what I think we see here is that you can be in authority, but you can also do it with gentleness. And as I say gentleness, once again, I'm I'm not saying weakness. Gentleness actually is a strength. See, the the um comparison I've heard before is you could be someone who has a sword and you always have it out and you're always trying to strike down people. I mean, someone could do that, but that doesn't take very much discipline to just pull out your sword and just strike anything that moves. Rather, I I kind of view gentleness or meekness in the sense of you have the sword, you know how to use it, but you keep it sheathed until the right and proper time. See, that's called discipline or or gentleness. It's that you have the capability of doing damage, but you also know when is the proper time and and you use it with precision. See, that's what I think Jesus does in our lives. He's gentle with us. He says, "Come to me those who are weary, but he also will guide us in the right direction, and there will be times for correction."
And that's why I think Paul starts to use this imagery once again about being a father to them. He is showing us here that as an authority with gentleness, we as the church need spiritual fathers. I think many of us are aware that there is a profound fatherless crisis in our society right now where we have fathers who are absentee parents or we see how there is rampant divorce in our society and because of that children suffer. If you just look at the just raw statistics of a a a home where there is not a father present to see how the just the statistics skyrocket for kids who are not going to graduate high school, who are going to get involved in gang activities, drugs, go to prison, or also experience the same pattern of being an absentee father or getting divorced themselves. What we see is that when you do not have a good godly father in the home, it destroys the family and it causes problems for the children. And that's what I think Paul says is the same thing for the church. And you look at the way that he says it. He says, "Though you might have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you through the gospel." He is saying that there are many people in the church right now that that are instructors or guides or teachers. There's some of them that are very smart. You know, once again, there there's many of them that are well educated. They have the teachings of the apostles. They have these other philosophies that they've been utilizing. These are not dumb individuals. And some of them are teaching a lot. And they might even be teaching the right things. But there is a profound difference between being a spiritual father and being an instructor. You might not see the difference right out of the get-go, but think about it for a moment. There are some of you who probably listen to certain podcasts or listen to maybe other preachers from time to time or maybe you listen to um some news commentators. We listen to these people. The these are what we would call instructors. But many of these people probably don't know your name. They might give you good things. They might give you bad things that they're teaching or instructing. And you might be you might even view some of them to be people that you listen to regularly. And they might be very good for you. But ultimately, they aren't your spiritual fathers or your spiritual mothers because they don't know you. They don't have this deeper sense of discipleship for you. they don't have this deeper, more intentional, more focused mentorship. And so that's why it's so important that we have relationship building within our local churches because otherwise we could just do a live stream where I just preach a sermon from my house or whatever and then we never really get together. And if you're dealing with sin, no big deal. I preach the sermon and you deal with it how you will. But that's not what the church is meant to be. And that's why it's so important that we don't have people coming up here preaching a sermon and saying, "I want to be a teacher." And then as soon as the service is over, we get out of here and leave. We need more people to say that after the service, I'm aware that there might be hours of conversations after the service because there might be people that are hurting, that have questions, that need other people to come alongside. Maybe they don't have a family that they're going to go back home to. We need spiritual fathers and spiritual mothers that that are intentionally thinking, "How can I spend more time with these people?" So, we have a lot of people that want to get in the pulpit. We have a lot of people that like to teach. We have a lot of people that like to be heard and exercise authority, but we need people that are coming to exercise authority with gentleness, love, and care, and compassion for the people that actually want to spend time with them and get to know them. And I I have many valuable things that I love about um TJ, who was our our our our past pastor, but I I was thinking about this as I was trying to think about how did I want to be a a a minister of the gospel. And and I thought to myself, I can't really remember a time where he would come and have a meal with us after the service. I know we would have a a a gathering that we would do sometimes at the church, but I just meant like just after the service, we would go eat together. And and I thought to myself, I personally, and and I'm not trying to criticize, just I know personally for myself as I thought to myself, I'm going to be a minister of a church. I want to spend as much time with my people as possible. There's a book that I I believe it's called They Smell Like Sheep. And that is that we spend time with the sheep. And so that's why even though I am not by any means well off financially, I try to spend time with my people and go out to eat on Sundays and Wednesdays almost every single week because I want to spend time with the people. I want to hear what's going on in their life. I want to encourage them. I want to be encouraged also by them. I want to see what God is doing in their lives. And that's what I think we see in Paul's heart here for these people is that he is someone that that has relationship in mind, not just being an instructor. There's 10,000 instructors. He wants to be a father to them. He was there in the planting and the watering stages of this church being formed. And so what we see here is that he cares and he is being a father to them.
And as we see here, sometimes the rod is required. You can exercise authority and have a spirit of gentleness, but that still doesn't preclude that there wouldn't be times that you have to use the rod. And he even says that once again, do I have to come to you with a rod? Sometimes you have to have these difficult moments as a an authority or as a as a parent. And I think what Paul is reminding us is that wise children listen and learn from their fathers. In Proverbs 3:1-12, it says, "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects. Just as a father, the son in whom he delights." So it says, this is a warning. This is in Proverbs, a a book of wisdom. And he says that he wants this child to not despise the chastening of the Lord. That is the discipline or the correction where there are sometimes where you might have godly leaders that might have to have hard conversations, address sin, correct you on certain things and guide you along. But he says don't despise that because that means that they love you and that God loves you. And so I think we see a a perfect model for how authority is to be exercised here with Paul and him pointing us ultimately to how God has um treated us and how Christ lives out this authority.
But then as we look to verses 16 to 17, we see not only that that Paul is showing us how to exercise authority with gentleness, but I think he's also reminding us that we are to imitate what is good. We see here in the text it says, "Therefore I urge you, imitate me. For this reason I have sent Timothy to you who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord who will remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach everywhere in every church." See, we all imitate certain things and certain people in our world today. You might not think you do. You might think, "No, I'm completely independent. I don't have anybody that imitates or or or influences me rather, you know, I'm just I just make all of my decisions." But the problem is we are all products of our environment. Of course, we do have free will and we can decide to either embrace certain things in culture or we can reject them. But we do see that the the the decisions that we make with the way that we live our lives, we are imitating and reflecting these things. And in fact, there's this quote that says, "Imitation is the highest form of flattery." Why is that? Well, because if you decide that you want to imitate that, that means that you really value it. You say, "That person is doing this thing and I really, really like that, and so I want to do the exact same thing." The question is, what or who are you personally imitating? I think that we sometimes become so passive in the in the way that we live and receive things in our lives. Who are you listening to on the regular? I know that many of us spend a lot of time on social media or listening to the news or or with podcasts today. We this is the podcast generation at this point where where podcasts are just all over the place. The question is, you are spending time listening to so many different voices, so many different instructors, but why are you choosing to spend the little time you have on this earth listening to the ones you are? Have you taken time to really consider that? Why do you spend so much time listening and thinking about these specific things? It's because you value them. But I really want you to go a little bit deeper and say, "Why do I value this? Why do I value this podcast, this person, this influencer? Why do I value them?" And hopefully you're answer because they are showing me something that is good. They are drawing me closer to God. That should be our ultimate reason for imitation because in in third John 11 it says, "Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God." See, we see that this is the call. We are to look and see what is good in this world. And then our goal is to value that and to imitate that.
And then that's why Paul then says that he urges these Corinthians to imitate him. Now once again, you might think to, you know, as you're reading that, well, Paul, you're being really self-centered here. You're kind of being a little arrogant thinking that we should imitate you. But the thing is, if you are really walking with the Lord and if you are living a good and godly life, you should desire that other people would imitate that. Now, that's not being prideful. That that's being discerning of what is good and what is true and what is beautiful. And of course, we know later in this book, he he uses sim similar language. And he's not just saying, "Imitate me as I am in the flesh." But rather in 1 Corinthians 11:1, he says, "Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ." So he says, "Where you see Christ in me, where you see me sacrificing for the gospel, when you see me serving others, when you see me exercising authority with love and gentleness, when you see me rejecting the foolish things of the world and embracing the wisdom and power of God, he says, when you see these things in my life, I want you to imitate that." And I think that that then leads us to to to see that we are to imitate where we see Jesus in others. He's already recently said that we have the Holy Spirit living within us. And the goal is that we would be conformed to the image of his son that we would start to look and sound more and more like Jesus every day. If you are a believer, if you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you have the Holy Spirit living in you and you have the capacity to look more like Jesus. And so what we are to do then as believers is we need to surround ourselves with people like that and we need to start to see and imitate where we see Jesus in other people. And I can tell you right now, I see Jesus in a lot of people in this room. And I could just go off the list and start to explain how I see Jesus in Russ and how he has a a heart for people and he cares to go on mission and he is just someone that he just he never lets someone go unnoticed. He can become a friend to anyone. He can come alongside anyone. I see Jesus in that. Or I see Jesus and Aunt Joan and my aunt Ronda and just how they have this gentle spirit about them about how they just they can come and you can just have a really bad day and those are the ones that you want around you in those moments. I could just I see Mike I see Cecil I see how they are just willingly servants of the congregation. I see other elders and leaders who commit to study and shephering this congregation. And I'm not trying to leave anyone out. There's so many good things. I see Jesus in the people. We need to look and say, where do I see Jesus in my brothers and my sisters? And then where can I imitate that in my own life? That's why God gives us the church. We need to see where do we lack in certain areas and where can we grow in these areas and where can I become more like Jesus because we are the body of Christ. So we imitate what we see Jesus where we see Christ in others. And this is a universal call for every Christian. This isn't just for those who were in full-time ministry at the church. Rather, this is for all believers. You are called to imitate Christ and to imitate those who are imitating Christ. In 1 Peter chapter 2, it says, "For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps." If Christ has suffered for you and if you have received him, it says that he has left you an example to live by to to follow, to walk in his steps. And that's why Paul then says, and I've been teaching this everywhere in every church. He's not changing the message. The standard is not different for our church as it is for another church. Rather, it's the same standard. The standard is Christ. He is who we are to live by. We are to look to. He is the one we are to imitate our lives upon.
But of course as we say this that we are to look to imitate one another. We also need to make sure that we are checking ourselves and that we are being worthy of imitation. Because you don't want people imitating you if you aren't really teaching the word of God. If you aren't really living out what the word says. because otherwise you're going to have more and more people being deceived and embracing a life of sin and the flesh. And that's why we see this warning to those who are shepherds of the flock in 1 Peter 5, verses 2-3 where it says shepherd the flock of God which is among you serving as overseers not by compulsion but willingly not for dishonest gain but eagerly not as being lords over those who are those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock. those who call themselves leaders or shepherds in the congregation. We are called to a high standard to live as examples. We are to imitate the good we see in others and we are to hope that they would imitate us. We imitate Paul as he imitates Christ. We imitate Christ in all things because here's the thing as he's talking to them as little children that he loves. We know little children little children they they learn first by example and then by explanation. So you can have teachers, you can have instruction, you you can have sermons, but the thing is if you are preaching as loud as you want, if you aren't living it out, if there's not an example, that's what they're looking to first. They're looking to your example more than they're going to be looking to your explanation. And so we need to live lives that are honoring to the Lord.
And what we see in verses 18 to 21, we are to live lives that are empowered by the spirit. He challenges us here to live by the power of the spirit because he goes on to explain that he has sent Timothy to teach them and to remind them of how Paul has been living his life. And he says, "But the thing is, there's a lot of you out there that are just talking the talk." You know, you've maybe heard this before. Can you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk? He says, "There are many here that are not walking the walk." They're really smart. They're educated. They're more eloquent maybe even than me, the Apostle Paul. But the problem is all they have is words. But the kingdom of God, he says, is not in words. What does that mean? the kingdom of God, what it's about, what the Christian life is. It's not about empty speech. It's not about human wisdom, nor is it about our outward appearances that we commonly judge by and discern by. But how what is the kingdom of God? It's in power. The kingdom of God is in action. It's what we actually do, not what we just say. And that's what he's calling them to. He's saying faithfulness is demonstrated through our action. Do you want to know? Are you someone who is faithful to the Lord, honoring to the Lord? Are you being obedient? Are you actually doing things for the kingdom of heaven? Because there are so many of us, and we know this. There's a lot of people that can say all different types of things. They might even know a lot about the Bible, but they're not doing anything for the kingdom. They're not doing anything for the church. You can have all of this head knowledge, but if you're not actually exercising it, you just become spiritually obese. You get all of this information and you just do absolutely nothing with it. And he says that these Corinthians, they're full of the knowledge, but and they're full of talk, but they're lacking power to live out the faith. And I'm sure many of us know people like this, too. Have you ever had someone that they they say, "Yeah, I'm going to do that for you. I'll be there. I promise I'm going to I'm going to hit you up this week. Have you ever heard someone like that? Or you you invite them to do something and say, "Oh, I'm absolutely going to be there." And then they don't show up. We know people like that. Is does that just does that just not kill you? You just can't depend on them because their word has no true weight to it. He says, "That's what I'm seeing a lot in this church right now." And he says that that's how we need to evaluate our lives. Are we being people that give our word and they have no weight to it because we cannot walk the walk? And how do we walk the walk? How do we experience this power? I think that it ultimately all comes down to the Holy Spirit in our lives. He is reminding us once again that it's the spirit in us that gives us the deeper things of God. It's the spirit that empowers us to walk in holiness to live out the gospel that we believe and to embrace the cross that Paul is calling us to. Once again, it says that we are to think about how the apostles are willingly suffering for the gospel. How they are willingly homeless. That they are willingly vagabonds of this world. That they are fools to the world. He says, "Willingly embrace that because that is the example that Christ has left for us. And the only way that you're going to be able to accomplish these things, that you're going to be willing to embrace the cross that is before you is by the power of the Holy Spirit."
See, sometimes when we think and we hear the word power in in the book of Acts 1:8, we we see this promise where it says, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." We hear that word power and we do exactly what the Corinthians do. We think of power in terms of the world. Oh, we're going to have power. That means we're going to have might. we're going to we're going to overshadow them and we're going to you know we're going to use our strength to overcome them. But what's so interesting is the way that he says that you will receive power. The very next thing he says is you shall be my witnesses. So how are we primarily going to exercise that power? It's not by the world's standards of power. In fact by the way they had and we think of spiritual gifts which those are important in edifying the church but they this church they already had the spiritual gifts. we think of the spiritual gifts is the power he's talking about. He's talking about the power to be a witness for Christ. That word witness literally can be translated as martyr. And that is how the early church demonstrated the power of God. It's that they were willing to suffer loss. They were willing to give up anything that the world offered because of the gospel message. The spirit has given these ordinary Christians the ability to overcome the world to willingly suffer and die to preach and to live out the gospel. He gives us the power to overcome sin in our lives, addiction, anxiety, anything that comes with this world. He says, I give you that message that offers you power. It offers you the spirit of power. And that's why we see in 1 Thessalonians 1:5, "For our gospel did not come to you in word only." See, he says, "The gospel is not just a simple word like the rest of the world." He says, "But it's also in power and in the Holy Spirit in much assurance as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake." He says, "You can see by the way that we live our lives that the spirit is in us and the spirit has given us power." These are people that are imitating Christ and are living by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we see in Galatians 5:16 and verses 22 and 23 it says, "I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law."
That's what Paul desires for these Corinthians. That's what God desires for us as the church. He wants us to see authority as a good and helpful thing. And for those who have authority, he wants us to exercise it with love and gentleness. He wants us to be imitators of the good. He wants us to imitate Christ and he wants us to see Jesus in the church. And he wants us to imitate what we see Jesus where we see Jesus in one another. And finally, he wants us to live by the power of the spirit. He doesn't want us to live m as materialists or he doesn't want wants us to live by the the wisdom of the world, but he wants us to live by the power of God residing in us right now that we can yield to the spirit. And that spirit can produce all these types of fruits in our lives. All of these good things, all of these things that I think we all desire in our lives, the spirit will produce. But we have to walk in the spirit. We have to walk the walk. And we have to get beyond just saying, "I'm a Christian. I believe this. I'll say this." We have to live it out. And he offers us this power in the kingdom of