According to the Scriptures

Damian Kyle: If you're a Christian, you're a saint, as hard as that may be to believe. You have God's word on it.

If you were ever to go up to somebody and call them a saint as a Christian, they might say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can't live up to that. I'm no saint. Don't put that on me. I'm no saint." You could respond by saying, "Oh yes, you are. And God calls you one and he calls me one and he calls us to live as one."

Guest (Male): The first-century church of Corinth certainly had its fair share of problems: lawsuits, divisions, fighting, immorality, and mistakes were occurring left and right. In light of all of this, it's interesting to note Paul's approach to them as he introduces 1 Corinthians.

He was thankful, hopeful, and focused on why they were in Christ. Today on According to the Scriptures, we visit 1 Corinthians chapter 1. It's here that we see that we're called to be saints. What does that look like on a practical level? Here's Pastor Damian Kyle with today's message.

Damian Kyle: Verse 1. Paul says, "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 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.

"I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation or the return 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."

And so again, even though we're close to looking at the introduction of this in 1 Thessalonians, having begun that some months ago, we see the same introduction to this letter. The introduction to letters in the ancient world all followed the same four characteristics as a pattern.

The author of the letter would introduce himself immediately at the beginning of the letter. Letters were put in the form of scrolls; you didn't want to unroll the scroll all the way to the end to find out who wrote this long letter to you. So they would identify themselves at the beginning.

Then they would identify who they were writing the letter to. Then there would be a word of greeting, "Hope you're doing well and life is good for you." And then there would be an expression of some kind of personal thanksgiving for something related to the person's life. And then the letter writer would go into what is the gist or the main purpose of the letter, very much as we do in our letters today.

Paul introduces himself in verse 1 as the author of the letter. He lists Sosthenes here, probably because Sosthenes was present with him in some way as a help while he wrote the letter. It isn't unlikely that Sosthenes is the very one that was the chief ruler of the synagogue in Corinth, who was then beaten by the Greeks or the Gentiles before Gallio's judgment seat, all of this in Acts chapter 18.

Having brought Paul there in order for Paul to be beaten by the Gentile officials, instead he ended up getting beaten, and now he's become a Christian at some point. God's ways are amazing. You just never know. Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, "I would that you were hot or cold." He said the people we have real trouble getting through to are the lukewarm.

So Sosthenes was very cold toward Christianity and the apostle Paul, and yet he ends up being saved. The fact that Paul is actually the lone author of the letter, though he mentions Sosthenes, is made clear by his use of "I" and "me," referring to himself all the way through the letter.

It's significant here that Paul declares himself to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. He makes it absolutely clear to the church at Corinth, in a way that he didn't always do that, that he is writing to them with apostolic authority. The instructions that he is going to give them, the rebuke that he is going to bring their way, the correction, all of it is to be heeded and all of it is to be obeyed.

When Paul writes some of his letters, like his letter to the church at Philippi, his letters to the church at Thessalonica, he doesn't mention his apostleship. He didn't need to. Those churches recognized that about the apostle Paul. They gave that kind of authority already to whatever it was that he spoke and what it was that he wrote to them.

But there's a very, very deep stream of rebellion against authority within Corinth. And so Paul says, "Listen, this isn't just a letter from me. This is coming from the Holy Spirit through me to you." When he makes a mention of the fact that he's an apostle through the will of God, it may be kind of intended as the Holy Spirit's shot across the bow of some of those in the church who treated Paul very, very disrespectfully. Shame to go on that they would treat one of God's servants in the way that they did.

Paul then in verse 2 moves on to who he writes this letter to. It's full of instruction, even though it can be repetitive if you've been a Christian for a while. The church was written to the church of God which is at Corinth. The word "church" there in the Greek, *ecclesia*, and it means called-out ones. It's an important reminder that this building is not the church, but people are the church.

So if somebody were to call the church office and say to the receptionist, "Where is the church located tomorrow morning?" the receptionist, if they were biblical related to it and wanted to poke them in the eye, they would say, "I don't have the foggiest idea where the church is located, probably all over California by this time." We are the church, and he reminds the church at Corinth that that is exactly what we are. We are called-out ones.

For all of their problems in Corinth, and there will be enough in these letters as we go through them to really make you upset related to their conduct and their rebellion against Paul, I don't know that there will be anyone that was a part of the church at Corinth in that early church that will be wearing an "I attended Calvary Chapel Corinth" up in heaven, whether we'll need to know that or not.

But for all their problems, they were still Christians. They were still Christians. And so carnal Christians, absolutely; carnal Christians absolutely in need of correction, but he refers to them as Christians nonetheless. You notice, too, that Paul refers to the church as the church of God.

In other words, the church belongs to God. It doesn't belong to anyone else. And the people, the people belong to God. That's what the church is. And the church at Corinth really needed to have this emphasized to them, that the church did not belong to them. They had no right to turn a church that identifies itself with Christ and make it about what they wanted to and bring all of Corinth into the church, the practices and the beliefs, and then continue to call it a church.

So Paul gives them a pushback on a freedom that they felt that they had. It's important for them to be reminded: You can't do anything that you want with God's church. And I know for us as a pastoral staff, we certainly feel that way. I certainly hope I don't treat anybody like this, but it never enters my mind that anyone that attends here belongs to me, or that this church belongs to me, or anything, one of those shrubs out there in that atrium, much less the whole church belongs to me. Nothing belongs to me.

The church belongs to God. And we're just servants within the church. We have a sobriety about the fact that God's people are to be handled in a certain way. We are not to become mediators between them, you and your relationship with God.

He further describes them as those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. And so Paul further describes Christians for this church at Corinth as sanctified in Christ Jesus. The word "sanctified" is *hagiazo* in the Greek. It means holy, to be set aside for God's exclusive use. In other words, that which is sanctified is never to be used for profane or sinful things.

In the Old Testament, all of the instruments that were used in the worship of God and the sacrifices under the old covenant, they were *hagiazo*, they were sanctified. That was their sole use. Nobody took the bowls, nobody took the censers, nobody took the lanterns home and used them for gardening or anything else. They stayed at the temple; they were supremely and solely to be used for God's purpose.

And so Paul reminds them as Christians that that is how they are to see themselves in the hands of God. That we now belong to God and our lives are now set aside to His purposes in this world. Every Christian is positionally holy by virtue of us putting our faith in Jesus Christ.

So when God sees me now as a Christian, He sees me as holy because He sees the perfect holy righteousness of Jesus that's been put to my account because of my faith in Him. And that's what qualifies us for heaven, the righteousness of Jesus.

But what the Christians in the church in Corinth had lost sight of is that our lives are that isn't an excuse to say, "Well, I am practically righteous before God. He sees only the righteousness of Christ when He looks at me," as an excuse then to live a sinful life practically.

The fact that God would be willing to pay the price to impute His righteousness to us and to be clothed in the incredibly wonderful righteousness of Jesus ought not to be an excuse to sin, but a reason to be humble before God and determined that I want to live my life practically by the Holy Spirit in a way that is consistent with that righteousness, to live a Christlike life.

He then described Christians—them, and Christians, but pointedly toward them—that Christians are called to be saints. He called the individual Christians in the church saints. Sometimes this is like when they used to have cameras with a flashbulb. It can really be a light-on moment when Christians realize that we are saints.

The Bible calls us saints. It isn't something, a title that we or description we take toward ourselves. God calls us saints. The word "saint" comes from *hagios* again, holy. It speaks of someone who's set apart to God. Paul is saying pointedly to them that they were saints now and they were supposed to act like one.

A lot of people have funny ideas about saints. You can ask sometimes even the average Christian, and they will think that a saint refers to some extraordinary Christian. If you were ever to go up to somebody and call them a saint as a Christian, they might say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can't live up to that. I'm no saint. Don't put that on me. I'm no saint."

And you could respond by saying, "Oh yes, you are. And God calls you one and he calls me one and he calls us to live as one." Of course, Roman Catholicism hasn't helped us at all in this regard. Sainthood is given to a particular class of people and a certain number of miracles being done in their name and so forth and so on. They've muddied up the whole thing in a very, very unbiblical way.

As Christians, we don't end up as saints one day, at some point of sanctification in our life, in the course of this life, or one day when we get into heaven. We are saints from the moment we became a Christian. Our lives were set aside now for God's purposes.

And maybe in the privacy of some of our own hearts this morning, or this evening—we don't want to go backwards—but this evening you might look at that and be surprised at that designation as being a saint. You think of them as some extraordinary kind of Christian, and it just readjusts our thinking related to who we are.

We're prone to everything. We have the same flesh that the people in Corinth had. And we're prone to the same things as they were. And we're prone just as much as anyone to look and say, "Listen, being a saint or living a holy Christian life or living a Christian life that resembles how the Bible speaks of that, that's for some kind of an extraordinary Christian, but that's not for me."

It is for you and me. The moment we became Christians, our lives went from being used by the purposes of the world and the flesh and the devil, and now it was just like in an operating room, sterilized, placed there upon where the instruments are put, and now we sit there ready for God's use and how He wants to use them.

And that's every single one of us. So if you've never heard that, that was something that when Karen and I got saved, that was something that was commonly understood, but not for everybody. There was that recognition: we are set aside unto God's use.

And so to say "I am a saint," or a refusal to say "I am a saint," that's no time for false humility. Let the Bible correct this as needed in our lives. We are a saint. And so you can feel absolutely free to call me Saint Damian going forward. I've made up cards, and I've never had business cards, but while I was preparing this, I thought, "You know, that's a pretty good name for that, Saint Damian." It's got a nice ring to it, and I think you'll get used to it in no time.

But even if we don't refer to each other in that way, to recognize that about ourselves. He says further, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. And so again, he communicates that they are to live, they were to live, not live some self-defined or self-determined Christianity of their own in Corinth, but they were called to live like every other Christian in the world is to live.

I can't look as a saint and as a Christian in the United States of America and then look at the circumstances I find myself in, in this culture—and western culture is very unique within the world—and look at it and say, "Yes, if I lived on the African subcontinent or in South America or in the Scandinavian countries or wherever it might be, then those passages would be incumbent upon me."

No. The Christianity that we're called to live is the same Christianity for every single Christian in the world. And we can't hide behind culture as an excuse for not doing so. One of the ways that I think about this is you think about the persecuted church around the world, where people lose everything for being a Christian. Their life is on the line for being a Christian.

We see that they don't have the protections that we have in the United States of America. I don't even know how to put myself in their shoes. It's been all they've known all of their life as being Christians born by God into that culture to spend their life in. God puts me in this one.

Then to look at them and say, "Yeah, but that's some other kind of a thing." I look at the persecuted church and I look at, for instance, those Coptic Christians on that beach in Egypt. I don't know how learned or unlearned they were in Christianity, but they professed Christ.

Before their throats were slit on that beach by Islamic extremists, they were crying out to the Lord. And I look at my own life in the context of this city and this state, and my commitment to Christ is to be no less than them and theirs.

It's the same Christianity that all of us are called to, and they needed to know they weren't free to do monkey business with it because of the extraordinary ancient world social and moral conditions of Corinth, and to look and say, "Well, yes, of course you can stay sexually pure in some monastery in Argentina. I live in Corinth." No. The Holy Spirit lives in all of us. And the Holy Spirit has made us the church no matter where we are in the world, to live the Christianity that's found in this Bible.

They needed that reminder. And then there was his word of greeting to them in verse 2: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." And so grace was the common Gentile greeting that Gentiles would greet one another with. "Grace, may you have a great day. May you be blessed." That kind of a thing.

And peace was the greeting of the Jew toward the Gentile, but most especially toward a fellow Jew: "Shalom. May you have a peaceful day, a day of peace between you and God, a day of peace between your fellow man." That's how they would greet one another.

Paul takes both the Jew and the Gentile greeting because the church there was made up of both Jew and Gentiles, and he uses it. The order of this use of grace and peace here is very significant. He uses grace first and then peace. In Paul's introductions to his letters, he never reverses the order. He never says peace and grace. It's always grace and peace, and it's deliberate. The reason is because peace is a byproduct of grace. We will never know peace in a relationship with God until we understand that He deals with us on the basis of extraordinary grace.

Guest (Male): Even the greeting here in 1 Corinthians conveys something important to us about grace and peace. This is According to the Scriptures, and Pastor Damian Kyle is just getting started in 1 Corinthians.

If you're interested in a CD copy of today's message, you can reach out to us by calling 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. You can also access our programs online at accordingtothescriptures.com or oneplace.com. Look for us wherever you get your podcasts as well. To financially support According to the Scriptures, simply log on to accordingtothescriptures.com and then click on support According to the Scriptures there on our homepage. And thank you very much for standing with us.

It never grows old hearing from you, our listeners, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what He's doing on the radio. You can email us at atts@ccmodesto.com and include your prayer requests as well. That's atts@ccmodesto.com. According to the Scriptures with Damian Kyle is presented by Calvary Chapel Modesto. We'll catch you back here next time when we'll get back to our helpful series in 1 Corinthians.