Sermon Tone Analysis

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“*CALLED TO CHRIST*”
(Sermon Series on I Corinthians)
 
Westgate Chapel 09-24-06 a.m.
I Corinthians 1:1-9
 
PROPOSITION:   The believer, living in Christ Jesus, is called to serve Christ, called to be holy, and called to live in fellowship with the Son.
!
I. introduction
!! -     THOSE of you who brought your Bibles with you, please turn to the maps, usually in the back of your Bible.
!! -     UNFORTUNATELY the pew Bibles do not have maps.
!! -     LOOK for any maps that have the Roman Empire, or Paul’s missionary journeys on them....and find Greece.
!! -     THE southern portion of Greece was called Achaia in New Testament times...look for the city of Corinth where you see a tiny bit of land joining the southern peninsular to the mainland.
!! -     LET me tell you a little about the city of Corinth.
!!! ~*     Population: 600,000.
!!! ~*     Because of its location right at the connection of the mainland of Greece to the peninsular, all north~/south traffic and trade went through Corinth.
!!! ~*     Because of the treacherous straits of Malea to the south of Greece.....ships would either unload their cargo and have it carried across the 4 mile wide isthmus, or if the ship wasn’t too big it would be pushed across the 4 miles of sand on rollers to the east coast...the Aegean Sea.
!!! ~*     As a result Corinth was a busy, flourishing, wealthy seaport and trade center....with a growing gulf between the very rich and the very poor.
!!! ~*     There were 12 temples to the popular deities of Greek culture in Corinth.....the most famous being the Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
Over 1,000 sacred male and female temple prostitutes would come down from the prominent site of the temple to ply their trade in the city each evening.
!!! ~*     The culture was so obsessed with sex that in that time the phrase “to corinthianize a city” was used all over the world to describe the spread of immorality.
!! -     AND in the middle of this seething, filthy mess of a society God called people to Christ.....through the apostle PAUL who planted the church in Corinth, recorded in Acts 18, and spent 18 months there getting the believers established.
!! -     PAUL received help from Silas, Timothy, Priscilla and Acquilla....and later Apollos, in the building up of the believers there, the people called to Christ.
!! -     THE church of believers in Corinth was made up primarily of the working class...although there were a few wealthy people involved in the fellowship.
In I Corinthians 1:26 Paul says,
!!!       “*Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.
Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth*.”
!! -     WHEN God first called a church in Corinth to Christ, He called mostly bronze workers, potters, shopkeepers, and dock hands...because they were not too proud to come and follow Him.
!! -     IN fact, later in the epistle Paul writes that some of them had been adulterers when God called them to Christ, some had been idolaters, some prostitutes when God called them to Christ, others had been thieves, greedy, homosexuals, drunkards and slanderers when God called them to Christ (I Corinthians 6:9)
!! -     THE church would have had both slaves and free men called to Christ....but the slaves of that time, taken in captivity from other nations by the Roman armies of occupation, could have been better educated and more intelligent than the freemen of Corinth.
!! -     WELL, after planting the church in Corinth Paul left and was gone for some time.
Apollos had pastored them for a while, but had returned to Ephesus in Asia Minor, where Paul was when he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians.
!! -     THE church in Corinth was a lively, prospering, growing, and very Pentecostal  fellowship.
!! -     YOU would have loved the worship services....the gifts of the Spirit were in frequent evidence.
!! -     FINANCIALLY they were prospering.
In fact, when Paul gets ready to take a special offering for the famine-stricken believers in Jerusalem, he raises a significant offering from the church in Corinth.
!! -     BUT then Paul receives word concerning a number of problems in the fellowship at Corinth that require pastoral attention.
!! -     SO, unlike his letter to the believers in Rome, where the concerns were primarily theological, his letter to the believers in Corinth is primarily pastoral.
!! -     PAUL has heard...
!!! ~*     That they were taking each other to court.
!!! ~*     That they were open minded on issues of immorality...to the point of being proud of their tolerance of sin.
!!! ~*     That their worship was filled with hostility and prejudice as the poor were left to fend for themselves at the Lord’s Supper.
!!! ~*     That they didn’t understand the proper operation of the gifts of the Spirit.
!!! ~*     That love was lacking in the fellowship.
!!! ~*     That there were divisions.
!!! ~*     That false teaching about the resurrection had crept in and unsettled many.
!! -     SO, against this backdrop, and to this body of believers, Paul dictates I Corinthians....and with the help of the Holy Spirit we are going to take the next few months to listen to what the Spirit wrote through him to Westgate Chapel.
!! -     PRAY for me as you think about it, that week by week the same Holy Spirit will reveal God’s heart to me for you from this epistle.
!! -     TURN with me please to I Corinthians 1 (page 1128 in your pew Bible).
!! -     LET’S read the first nine verses...and some of you count the number of times in those verses Paul mentions Jesus Christ.
!! -     (READ I Corinthians 1:1-9)
!! -     PAUL received news from Chloe’s household (verse 11) about the critical problems facing the believers in Corinth....and instead of starting by laying down a bunch of rules about congregational order, or calling for revisions to the by-laws, or arbitration from a visiting evangelist.....he starts with Christ.
!! -     NINE times in the first nine verses Paul points the believers in Corinth to Christ.
!!! ~*     He is an apostle of Christ.
!!! ~*     The Corinthian church is sanctified in Christ.
!!! ~*     The Corinthian church is one with all who call on the Name of Christ.
!!! ~*     Grace and peace is in Christ.
!!! ~*     The orientation of the church is to be forward to the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
!!! ~*     We are called into fellowship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
!! -     JESUS is the focus of Paul’s life.
No wonder that in Philippians 1:21 he would write,
!!!       “*For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain*.”
!
ii.
called to serve christ jesus
!! -     PAUL had been a blasphemer, cursing the person, the work and name of Jesus Christ.
!! -     AN elitist Jew educated in the tradition of the Pharisees, proud, arrogant, persecuting any who professed faith in Jesus Christ.
!! -     FILLED with hatred he was on his way to Damascus to imprison Christians when God called Paul to Christ.
!! -     HIS life was changed in an instant.
!! -     IT was a dramatic turn of events.
Night to day.
Dark to light.
Hatred to love.
Persecutor to preacher and pastor.
!! -     ALL because Paul experienced God calling him to Christ....on that road to Damascus and until his death at the hands of the Roman government.
!! -     NO wonder that the theme of being called was so important to Paul.
!! -     THAT is where he starts his letter to the believers in Corinth.
!! -     VERSE 1,
!!!       “*Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes*...”  (I Corinthians 1:1)
!! -     THAT word, “called,” comes from the Greek word, /kletos/.
!! -     IT is the process by which God calls men and women out of their bondage to this world SO that He may forgive them, heal them, restore them, make them new, and bring them into His service.
!! -     THE call is part of God’s work reconciling this broken, sinful world to Himself.
!! -     THIS call reaches a man or a woman through the love of Christ directed towards them, seeking them.
!! -     IT is not dependent on your works, but His love and grace for you.
!! -     IT was set in motion before you were born.
!!!       “*But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased* (16) *to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles*.
(Galatians 1:15-16)
!! -     GOD has always been calling His people to Himself.
!! -     IT started in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned.....and rather than destroy them for their rebellion....God came calling them by name to forgive them and cover their shame.
!! -     HE called Abraham to follow Him and become the father of the nation of Israel.
!! -     HE called Moses from the burning bush to lead Israel out of captivity.
!! -     HE called Gideon, who was the least of his brothers, to make a mighty warrior out of him and deliver Israel from the Midianites.
!! -     HE called Samuel when he was four years old....to be a prophet to His people.
!! -     HE called Saul on the road to Damascus and made him Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles.
!! -     AND today He is calling you to Christ.
!!! ~*     To set you free from your bondage to sin.
!!! ~*     To forgive you, heal you, restore you, make you new, and bring you into His service.
!! -     THE love of God is directed towards you, seeking you today.
!! -     THE call was set in motion before you were born.
!! -     AND it is not just a call to deliver you from the brokenness of your past so you can retire in a church pew and wait for Jesus to return.
!! -     NO!
It is a call with a purpose.
!! -     FOR Paul it was a call to be an apostle “*by the will of God*.”
!! -     YOUR call is a call to Christ.....but, like Paul’s, it is a call to serve.
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