God Is Faithful

Speaker 1: 0:07

Well, good morning and happy New Year. If you're new here, my name is Stephen Clark. I've been here quite a few times before and it's just my joy to be back with you again. If you're new here, I'd like to tell you a story that happened to me the last time I spoke, just before your interim pastor, dwight, came to be with you. A gentleman came up to me after worship and said Stephen, I have to say something to you. The first time you were here, I thought you were really strange. In fact, I went to one of the elders and I said where did you find this guy? I hope you're not going to have him back again. And then he said but I have to tell you. After all, this time I've really come to like you. So if you're new and you need a little time, that's okay with me. Please feel free.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Well, over the next few weeks, along with CJ and also with Morgan, we're going to be working through the first few chapters of the letter to the Corinthians, and we have it entitled this way Witnesses in a Watching World. How God's Power and Wisdom Equip us with Confidence to Live Faithfully for the sake of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. The question I want to raise this morning is how do we make a difference, as the text says? Are we making a difference? Can we even make a difference? Some years ago, when I was first moving from inside the DC Beltway to take up a church in Miami, florida, our house hadn't sold yet and so I was commuting back and forth every 10 days and I've always had some interesting conversations with the person sitting beside me. One time a lady said to me by the way, why are you headed to Miami? And I said well, I'm a pastor and I'm taking a church down there. Her mouth fell open, her eyes got this big and she said you do know you're headed to Sodom and Gomorrah, right? And I said well, maybe not Sodom and Gomorrah, but certainly Corinth. And there was a church in Corinth and I think we can make a difference. And so silver is skeptical. She said what church are you headed to? And I said old Cutler. And once again her mouth fell open and her eyes went like this and she said I know, old Cutler, I've been blessed by a ministry out of there to alcoholics called Alive Again. And I turned to her and smiled and said see, we can make a difference. Right, I had to find a new doctor and so I went to him for the first time. You know we're checking each other out. He's from a totally different ethnic background from me and he's asking me questions, trying to get to know my background. And he says well, what do you do in Miami? I said I'm a pastor. Well, this is his turn. His eyes go like this, his mouth drops down, but he comes out of from behind the desk, runs around and grabs me and hugs me. Kind of strange for a doctor, maybe if he's a urologist, but please forget that. I said that. And then he said I'm a Christian too. My partner here in the practice is Jewish and the medical assistance we just hired is a Muslim. And I am showing them the love of Christ.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Can we make a difference in a city like Miami? Or, in this case, can we make a difference in a place like current Currents? Like our culture was multicultural, multi-ethnic people from every imaginable background. Like our culture, it was a brand new culture, it was a young city. Our culture is always turning over, so we don't have a lot of deep traditions and it meant that, as in our culture, so in current, anything goes, everything goes, and like our culture, it had a fascination with sex. It was the home of, basically, the goddess of sex, aphrodite. There were said to be 1,000 prostitutes associated with her temple. And, like our culture in a thousand ways, it seems every day are bombarded in media and advertising with everything to do with sensuality and self-indulgence. And indeed these are things which, like the idols of the ancient world, can also take us captive. Someone has described current in this way the ideal of the Corinthian was the reckless development of the individual, the merchant who made his gains by any means. The man of pleasure, surrendering himself to every loss. The athlete, steel to every bodily exercise and proud in his physical strength In a world where the man who recognized no superior and no law but his own desires. How can we make a difference in a culture like this? How can we raise our kids? Do you know what's out there? How can we care for our parents? How can we build our businesses? How can we function in our offices when everybody in there seems to have a totally different value system from mine? And what if I too am being deeply affected and already overtaken by drugs and various addictions, with 50% of marriages ending in divorce and feeling the pressure in my own marriage. How am I going to make it through? Does it make a difference to belong to Jesus Christ? And, if so, how does it make a difference in our culture, like ours? Next week, when Morgan is speaking to us?

Speaker 1: 6:15

From the very next passage, paul's going to address certain things that bombard us from the outside, certain attitudes and actions that are counterproductive and then can derail us, as it were. So this morning he just bombards us with who we are, how we can make a difference and to give us a sense of, as we say in our title up there, how God's wisdom and power give us the confidence to live faithfully for the sake of Jesus and his gospel. And this is going to get very personal and hopefully will speak to us by the Holy Spirit. But it's also a copper. He's writing to the church in Corinth, and so this is equally about the church at Weston and what makes all the difference.

Speaker 1: 7:05

The first thing Paul starts out is with and I didn't read the text beforehand, but it's all going to come up during on the screens during the course of the sermon the first thing is that he points out to us who it is that has called us here it is. Paul has been called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. And our brother Sastanes, think about this. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. I mean, do you know who Paul is? He was an arrogant, self-righteous, pharisee type. Paul was the best one, educated under the best scholars of his time. Paul was, we believe, probably a member of the equivalent of our Congress. And Paul was a terrorist, an official terrorist. This is what the Acts of the Apostles tells us.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Saul, he was called back then, was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and he committed them to prison. Paul didn't go looking for Jesus on the Damascus road. Paul went looking for Christians to kill them, and it was Jesus who called him. It was Jesus who stopped him on the road and said Saul, what are you doing, saul? What are you thinking? I have a whole different plan for you. I'm calling you to be an apostle and to make a difference in the world, and this is what you and I need to begin with this morning.

Speaker 1: 8:46

The call of Jesus is not would somebody out there please follow me, pretty please, even one or two of you. I'd be so grateful if you'd follow me. He calls us with the effectualness of when a father says to his child come here, son, come here honey. They may resist at first, of course, but we come because the one who calls us is effectual and we find out that the call is irresistible. And you're here this morning because maybe you did think I went searching for Jesus, but that was a part of his searching for you and calling you to himself. You're not here by accident this morning, even if you're just checking out Jesus and you're not yet a Christian. It's likely that he was tapping you on the shoulder and saying hey, what are you to come over to Westtown this morning? There's some things I think you need to know.

Speaker 1: 9:42

And then he adds a beautiful little detail. He says Paul called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and a brother Sasanese. Now we have no idea who Sasanese is. It could be that I imagine the church in Corinth, you who Sasanese is, but we don't know who he is. Paul was famous. Paul Sasanese sure is not famous. We don't have a clue who he is. Paul was famous. And you say yeah, that's why the Lord called him to be an apostle, because he knew how great he would become. Now he also calls Sasanese our brother, a name that no one else knows anything about. And let's be honest about it, you're not famous, I'm not famous, and the odds of us being famous are very, very slim. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 10:35

The Lord reaches down and he taps us on the shoulder and he says Steven, sasanese, come here to me, because Sasanese, you see, stands for every one of us in this congregation whose names are not particularly known to anyone. And then he says to the church of God that is in Corinth and this is important, because this is we're gonna what he comes on to say to me. It is gonna get very personal, but as he's writing to the church in Corinth, so he's also then writing to the church in Weston. And this is where we need to begin to understand that if we're Steven or Sasanese, but we're part of the church in Weston, we are surrounded by people on every side who are our brothers and our sisters. We can tell them, we can be transparent, we can be honest, we can ask for prayer and we can say look, this is a trial I'm facing right now in my marriage, or with my kids, or in my job or in my church or whatever it is, and they will understand and they will be able to share with you that they're going through the same thing. So let's lock hand in hand and let's pray together and we'll go through this together. Or they will tell us you know addictions, strong addictions, just about did me in. And here's what I found helpful. Let me share my life with you.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Being in the church in Weston this morning is not incidental to who you are. It's not incidental to how you're going to face the coming year. It is integral to who we are and how we're going to face the coming year. And then Paul, having told us who it is that has called us and where we are at now, begins to emphasize and wants to let us know who we are. Who we are. You might say, good point, I don't know who I am, but he knows who we are in Christ. And this is what he says to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus.

Speaker 1: 12:54

The word sanctified means set apart. It actually comes from the language of the temple. It would be when you take a perfectly common plate or a perfectly common cup and presumably you would wash it first and then you would set it apart for work to be used in the temple. And this is who we are. See, when the Lord came and tapped us on the shoulder and says here, come, here, come to me, I have something I need you to be doing.

Speaker 1: 13:26

When he comes, he sets us apart to do something that he wants us to do. And not only does he set us apart, but he says we're sanctified, that is, we're washed, we've been clean, we've been made clean. And notice, he doesn't say you know on this, coming here, I want you to really work hard on yourself. I want you to wash up every day and make sure you're clean, and after you're all washed up and clean, I'll give you something to do and I'll set you apart. Nonsense. If that were the case, we'd never be cleaning up, would we?

Speaker 1: 14:04

What he says is this is who we are, you have been called, you have been set apart and you have been washed. We know by the blood of the lamb that makes us clean. And this he says in particular to the church of God, that is in carns, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. And the little phrase in Christ Jesus is super important. It's going to appear three times in our texts and we could take a whole week talking about what it means to be in Christ Jesus.

Speaker 1: 14:37

But let me try and make it as simple as I can. I wasn't born in America. I felt the call to come here along with my family, but now I am in America and I am a citizen of America, and because I am in America, all the benefits, all the blessings and all the possibilities of being in America are mine. And so Paul says all these things and he's going to list a number of them first in a minute are given to you because you are living, you are in the territory, the land, you are in Christ Jesus. And so he goes on and he says to the church of God in carns, to those already sanctified and washed in Christ Jesus, set apart and called to be holy. I don't know this. Once again we get it all wrong. Okay, lord, I know I got to clean things up and I got to get myself holy, and that's not Paul's order. He tells us who we are before he tells us what we're going to do, and let me try and illustrate that for you.

Speaker 1: 15:59

If you are an accountant, may the Lord bless you because I failed math in high school. You don't want to be trying to be a doctor? Okay, you're gonna do a lot of harm to your clients if you do. It's not that you are being asked to become something you are not. It's that you are being told to become something that you already are in Christ Jesus, and that's a massive difference. You don't want to live like a Rockefeller. If you're a Clark Smith and Jones with apologies to Smith and Jones you have to be a Rockefeller before you can live like Rockefeller.

Speaker 1: 16:48

And if you are in Christ and you have been called and you have been set apart and you have been washed, now you are not being told to become something that you're not. You're being told hey, and this year, by the way, you're gonna be living out who you are already in Christ and to make sure that we get to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, now look at this, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord, jesus Christ, their Lord and ours, in contrast to the individualism of Corinth and in contrast to the growing isolation of ourselves here in our culture. He says you're called to be a follower of Jesus Christ in Corinth, but then he adds this incredible phrase together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord, jesus Christ, their Lord and ours, you are not going through anything this morning. Put your name in their sassanis. You are not going through anything this morning, westtown, that other Christians and other churches haven't already gone through, are going through or will go through, and we're not just talking about our time and our place and our culture. We're talking Christians and churches everywhere, at all times, in all places, so that we are caught up in something that isn't just isolated. Right now, in my pathetic little life, we're called up and we're caught up in a story, a story that has existed ever since Adam and Eve and their redemption in Abram. A story which, if you're blessed, as I was, to have Christian parents and a Christian grandfather, they were a part of and now you also are a part of. There's nothing strange about you. There is nothing that you're going to go through in this coming year that they haven't already gone through. There is absolutely nothing that you need to fear that others have not feared and gone through before you, because this is where the Lord has put you not in isolation, not in a sense of loneliness, but integral to the people of God who are in this place and who are a part of the bigger story right here in Westtown.

Speaker 1: 19:36

And then Paul switches gears a bit Boy, does he pile it on here? It's almost as if he goes rat-a-tat-tat at this point. And now it's just perfect. I couldn't believe when I looked at the text and I said, lord, this is the perfect text for the beginning of a new year. It made sense because it was the beginning of a new book. And now he's just going to pile it on you because what he wants us to have is confidence to be able to live for him. And here it comes. And the first thing he does at the beginning of the book is to give us a benediction. He's like, oh, that's supposed to come at the end, right of the service. Here it is coming at the beginning.

Speaker 1: 20:18

I'm glad at the end of last year to know that the Lord blessed me, but I'd prefer, if you don't mind, to have the blessing right up front now, at the beginning of the year. And he says grace and peace. Be to you Grace, all of the goodness of the Lord, all that he has done for us, all that will motivate us and strengthen us Peace, the sense of well-being about who we are. In Christ, he says I want that grace and peace to be given to you right up front at the beginning of this new year. And here is how it's going to come to you.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Verse four I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ. Did you hear that Already? Given you in Christ? If I live in America, I've already been given all the blessings of living in this land. If you are already in Jesus Christ, the grace has already been given to you. That's where you're living. You're living in a land called grace. You're living in a city that is in Christ Jesus. You are living in Him and in His city, and the thing that characterizes it is this thing called grace His goodness to us, his blessing to us in all the ways. He is already at work in our lives and will be at work in our lives as we live in this land called grace.

Speaker 1: 21:58

And then he, as I said, he's going to pile on more now that in every way you are enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge. May I politely say this to you, because I already said it to myself as I prepared this talk with you Stop living like a bunch of poor folk, please. You've been enriched in Christ Jesus, you're a son and you are a daughter of the King. Why? What an insult to Him If you live like a perfect pauper. Have the confidence that is given to us.

Speaker 1: 22:38

We're told elsewhere in the New Testament by the Holy Spirit that we are sons and daughters of the King, and he says it here. It's not me trying to motivate you for the coming year. It's the Word of God saying to us you have been enriched, you're rich. You just need to learn how to use it now and stop pretending that we're not, and to illustrate that for us, the next thing he says is not only that you are enriched in Christ, in Him in all speech and all knowledge, but he says so that you are not lacking in any gift. As you wait for the revealing of the Lord, jesus Christ, you are already gifted. Your gift might be different from mine. The gift you need right now may be different from the gift that the person decides you needs, because you're going through something different, but you have been gifted. And for all you skeptics out there. It's going through your heads. I can just hear it already. I sure don't know what my gift is.

Speaker 1: 23:52

If you're thinking that this morning, the first thing you're saying is that the word of God's wrong. Okay, because this is not me saying this to you. This is the word of God. And the second thing is you're insulting Jesus Christ, who gave you these gifts, and you're saying they don't work. I don't have any Jesus. And the third thing is you're forgetting who you are in Christ. You see, if I were not in Christ Jesus, I know who I would be and I know where I would be this morning, and it would not be pretty.

Speaker 1: 24:25

Okay, don't forget who we were. Don't forget who we would have been, and understand that we've been enriched in all speech and in all knowledge and we've already been given all the gifts that we need for the next year that lies ahead of us. Live with confidence, not in ourselves. Live with confidence about what it means to live in this land called grace and what it means to be in Christ Jesus and what he has given to us. Yes, we're going to try and nurture it and yes, we're going to water it with such a in this coming year, but it is already ours and please live like you know. It already is ours.

Speaker 1: 25:11

I don't care what hurdles lie ahead for you, westtown, everybody everywhere has already been through those things. I didn't have to fix a bridge in the church I was in in Miami, but we had to put on one huge roof that cost the equivalent of the bridge. And it doesn't matter. Whatever obstacles lie ahead of you, westtown, whatever obstacles lie ahead of you, stephen Sasanese, bill James, whoever you are, understand that he's already given you all the resources that you could possibly leave. And then he tells us not only what he has given us already, but what he will do for us.

Speaker 1: 25:55

And as he tells us about what he will do for us, here is what he says he will sustain you to the end, guiltless, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will sustain you to the end, guiltless, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, this is about living in the gospel, that we understand that we have been washed. We understand that we have been forgiven. We're not going to limp through this coming year loaded down with guilt. It's been taken care of by Jesus Christ to the cost of Him going to the cross and bearing our guilt and our sins on the cross for you and me. Stop living in the guilt that belongs to the past, or even into the guilt that belongs to the present. Confess it to the Lord, jesus Christ. Know that he forgives and its power as we wash it. In the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of the guilt begins to wash away. It begins to seep away, but, most of all, not only the guilt is taken away, but he will sustain you to the end.

Speaker 1: 27:13

It's just January the 7th and you already know that it's not you who are going to sustain yourself through this year, all those New Year's resolutions. We've already broken every single one of them. It's the other way around. We're now promising ourselves to do better. It's Jesus promising that he has done better, that he has been perfect, that he has done everything for us and he has already given us all that we need. And here is the promise he will sustain you to the end. Give us in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then, just to cap it off, it gets even better. This is how he ends.

Speaker 1: 28:00

He says God is faithful.

Speaker 1: 28:04

Remember by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, jesus Christ. Our Lord, it's not about Lord. I promise you I'm going to be really faithful this year. It wasn't so good. It is, lord. I'm going to take your promise. I know you are faithful, I know you will sustain me because I'm in fellowship with your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And I know you are going to take me all the way through to the end of this year, sustained by your grace, living in your grace and confident that you've given me everything that I need.

Speaker 1: 28:44

And just in closing, I say if you're not yet given your life to Christ and you're not sure you're living in Christ already, I tell you how awesome it is that all we have to do is come to Him and say Lord, here's the Lord of my guilt, take it and put it on the cross. Thank you very much, and, lord, I take you. Now I'm coming to live in your territory called grace. I'm coming to live in you and with you, in the fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I know that, as I lay down my life for you, it's not that there will be obstacles, it's not that there will be hurdles, but I know you will be with me and that I'll be found in this place, in the midst of my brothers and sisters, in the fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful. Did you hear that? God is faithful? He is the one who's going to sustain us guiltless through this year until our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again.