I thank my God for you, Part 2 – Paul’s Godward Thankfulness
Greetings
Good morning, brothers and sisters!
My name is Peter, I’m one of the ministers here at St Paul’s Kogarah. A warm welcome to you if you are new to our church, and it is a great joy to have you with us this morning.
Before we open God’s word, let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank you for your grace and mercy that, through your son, you have created the church. That, because of Jesus, your wisdom and glory may be declared to the world. We pray that you will continue to bless us and protect us so that we may be worthy to see your son’s face on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And in his name we pray, amen.
Introduction: When giving thanks is difficult…
Well, friends, welcome back to our three-part Thanksgiving series as we look at how Paul gives thanks for the churches God has built in the first century.
Last week, we looked at Romans, and we saw how Paul gave thanks for the Roman church, and how he longed to see them so that both Paul and the church in Rome may be encouraged.
This week, we will look at how Paul gives thanks to the church in Corinth, and perhaps more importantly, why Paul gives thanks for the Corinthian church.
As we do that, I will try to make connections throughout the sermon to help us see that we, too, should thank God for building His church.
Not just the church in Corinth or in Kogarah, but his church throughout the world and through the ages.
But why should we thank God for building his church?
Well, the answer to that question is the main idea that I hope you’ll take home with you today: We thank God for building his church because God is gracious, God is witnessed, and God is faithful.
For the next 15 minutes or so, we’ll be looking at each of these points in turn, and they will serve as our three headings for today.
We thank God for building his church because:
1) God is gracious (v.4-5)
2) God is witnessed (v.6-7)
3) God is faithful (v.8-9)
God is gracious (v.4-5)
So, let’s begin with our first point, we thank God for building his church because God is gracious.
Let’s turn to our Bibles and see what God says in verses 4 and 5:
4I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, 5that you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.
Now I’m not sure if any of those words jumped at you when you first read them.
For me, the words ‘I always thank my God’ and the words ‘you were enriched in him in every way’. Those words really captured my attention.
And that is because, the Corinthian church is not famous for being good.
In fact, immediately after Paul’s thanksgiving, right after verse 9, Paul begins to address all the problems that are in this church.
There are divisions, a lack of spiritual maturity, sexual immorality, self-righteousness, misuse of the law, idolatry, lack of order in the gathering, abuse of the Lord’s supper, arguing over spiritual gifts without love, and, to top it all off, denying the resurrection of the dead.
Any one of these issues is enough for me to say, don’t go to the church in Corinth.
And as a pastor myself, any one of these issues, any one of them, will really stress me out.
These are all very heavy and complex issues.
And it goes to show that the church in Corinth is not too different from a gathering of non-believers.
And yet, Paul writes in verse 4, ‘I always thank my God for you’, not ‘I thank my God’, but ‘I always thank my God for you.’
Now, some of you might say, surely this is a common greeting that Paul uses. And you are not wrong.
Paul says, ‘I always thank God’ or ‘We always thank God’ in Colossians, Philemon and in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians.
But in all those instances, there is clear evidence of spiritual maturity from within that church. Paul thanks them always, because their faith is growing, or their love of one another is growing, or both.
However, in 1st Corinthians, Paul is not writing to a church that is flourishing in its faith and love, but rather to a church that is struggling even with the basics of what it means to follow Jesus.
They’re struggling with the resurrection, with sexual immorality, with idolatry.
But, Paul writes in verse 4, ‘I always thank my God for you’, why?
‘…Because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.’
Paul never ceased to thank God for the Christians gathering in Corinth, because God is gracious.
And here in verse 4, the ‘grace of God’ would certainly include the forgiveness that is given to them through Christ Jesus, but I believe Paul is also alluding to the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Just like the Christians in Corinth, when we say sorry for our sins and place our trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit continues to work in us.
The Holy Spirit fills us and radically changes us from within.
And it is because of God that we are enriched in every way, and Paul highlights this by focusing on godly speech and godly knowledge.
And I think the first points to a transformation of the heart, and the second points to a transformation of the mind.
When the Spirit transforms our hearts, our speech becomes honouring to God and filled with love.
When the Spirit transforms our minds, we gain knowledge about God and come to know Him more deeply.
And in this way, and through Christ Jesus, the grace of God is made known to the world through his church.
And so even though the Corinthian church is as messy as it is, it is still God’s church.
Paul reminds us that the church’s identity is found only in the grace of God, because the church is a creature that is created by the blood of Christ.
Ultimately, the church is a gathering of sinners holding on to the grace of God, while the non-believers are sinners still clinging to what they believe is right and good.
And friends, if that is you, if you are not holding on to the grace of God, I sincerely invite you today to let go of whatever you are holding on to and to release whatever is gripping your heart.
Instead, reach out to Jesus, hold on to him, knowing that God is gracious and be thankful.
No one can be too messy for the church of God.
And no one knows this better than Paul, who has dedicated his whole life to harming Christians and the church, yet Paul himself was humbled by the grace of God and transformed by the Holy Spirit.
And so, it is only right for us to join with Paul in thanking God for building His church, because God has been gracious towards us.
And as his grace pours into our hearts and into his church, Christ is being witnessed to the world.
God is witnessed (v.6-7)
So, let’s move to our second point: we thank God for building his church because God is witnessed.
Let’s look at verses 6 and 7:
6In this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, 7so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul says in verse 6 ‘in this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you.’
Before we go further, we must work out what ‘this’ refers to, what the ‘testimony about Christ’ refers to and the testimony about Christ ‘was confirmed’ among you, who did the ‘confirming.’
So let’s go through them one by one.
The words ‘in this way’ draws us back to the previous verse, the fact that the Corinthian church was enriched by the Holy Spirit in all speech and in all knowledge.
We know from the following chapters that this was indeed evident in this church and because of this, ‘the testimony about Christ was confirmed’.
Here, ‘the testimony about Christ’ can refer to both the gospel message that was preached and the ministry that Paul had done with the Corinthian church.
And just as the church was enriched by God, so was the gospel of Jesus Christ confirmed by God himself.
Similar to the previous two verses, God is the one who does everything through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s people, His church, are passively receiving all the good things that God has prepared for them.
And here in verse 6, we see that as the gospel of Jesus Christ is received and proclaimed by the church, the result is that God is witnessed by the church.
And so, the obvious question for us here is, if someone walks into our church and begins to participate in our community, shares morning tea with us, joins our life course, will they see Jesus? Or are we in the way?
When we exercise the various gifts that the Spirit has given to us, are we bringing that person closer to God or closer to ourselves?
Are we aware that sometimes, instead of serving Jesus, we end up serving ourselves and our own ego in the name of Jesus?
Or are there times when our insecurities or our failures in other areas of our lives drive us to prove ourselves worthy of the roles we play at church?
Mind you, as a pastor, I am most vulnerable to these temptations and errors. I, too, must constantly reflect and confess before God.
As someone once said, the devil reserves the sharpest arrow for the servant of God.
So how can we make sure, or how can we better witness Jesus in our lives?
Well, many things would help, but in verse 7, Paul provides us with an encouraging reminder that we ‘do not lack any spiritual gift’!
Here, Paul does not mean we are all equally and fully gifted with Spiritual talents in everything that we do at church.
Note that the word ‘gift’ is not in the original text. So perhaps we can understand Paul saying, ‘we do not lack any spiritual thing,’ or ‘we do not lack anything spiritual.’
And I believe the reason for this is that the gospel is alive and active in the Corinthian church.
The problem with the Corinthian church is not that they lack spiritual gifts but rather their misuse of these heavenly gifts.
And so here Paul is reaffirming the fact that anyone who receives the gospel has every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.
Paul wants to remind the Corinthian church that we are not to compare or compete over who is more gifted or who has the best gift, but rather that they already have everything when they receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, whatever spiritual gifts they may have, if any, are not meant for personal bragging rights. Instead, they are given by God for mutual edification, for the building up of his church.
In other words, they do not need anything other than the gospel of Jesus Christ, but if any of them have been enriched by the Spirit in speech or in knowledge, then they are to use it to witness Christ to one another, until the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, Paul, thank God for building his church, because God is witnessed by the church both now and all the way until Christ’s return.
Likewise, we should also thank God that we, as His church, have everything we need to witness Christ now and until the very last day.
And on that note, let us move to our third point, because the final reason that Paul thanks God for building his church is that God is faithful.
God is faithful (v.8-9)
Let’s read verses 8 to 9.
8He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9God is faithful; you were called by him into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I think by this point, you must have noticed the emphasis in Paul’s thanksgiving here in 1st Corinthians.
The emphasis is that the church shares a very intimate relationship with the Jesus Christ.
In fact, every church in this world belongs to Christ Jesus; it belongs to God.
Christians around the world may gather with a particular language, in a particular place and at a particular time, but every Christian belongs to the church of Christ Jesus.
Therefore, we all share the same communion, or here in verse 9, the same fellowship with Jesus Christ.
That’s why, in the Apostles' Creed, we say, 'We believe in the holy Catholic Church, and the communion of saints.'
And what Paul highlights here is not just the fellowship that all local churches share in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
But Paul draws our attention to God’s faithfulness.
And this is the third and final reason Paul gives thanks for the Corinthian church, and again not because of what the church does, but because of what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do, through His Son Jesus Christ.
If we look back at verse 4, we see that what God has done is that he has given his grace to the church through Christ Jesus, and in verse 7, we see that through the gospel, God continues to equip the church as the church waits for the last day.
And in verse 8, we see that God will strengthen his church, so that the church will be blameless on the day Jesus returns.
The church is a creature created by Jesus, sustained by Jesus and created for Jesus.
And through Jesus, God’s faithfulness is displayed.
Not only did God show his love to us in Jesus when he died for our sins on the cross, but he also showed us the victory and the resurrection that we too will share with Jesus.
Jesus is not like the trains we have here in Sydney, where it might suddenly terminate a few stations before your stop.
Jesus will get us home.
And this is especially encouraging for a church that is struggling with all kinds of issues.
This is good news for those in the church who may be struggling with their sins and are concerned about their standing before God.
This is also good news for those who are suffering from the sins committed by others in the church. They may wonder if God is still good and trustworthy.
And so, with these two verses, Paul reminds the Corinthian church, and us today, that no matter what we are going through, whether we are in the highs or the lows of our faith, God will bring us home.
God will strengthen us to the very end so that we will see Jesus face to face.
And I think this is why Paul’s thanksgiving in 1 Corinthians is particularly powerful.
Because frankly, if I had to give thanks to God for this church, I’m not sure what I would write or say.
Because my focus will be on the sins that have run rampant in this church.
But even so, Paul can give thanks to God because ultimately everyone on earth is a sinner, and a sufferer.
But Paul knows that those who believe in Christ Jesus are sinners, sufferers and saints.
And verse 9 tells us that as saints, even though we still sin and suffer the effects of sin, God is faithful.
God is the one who called us into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Hear what Paul says in Romans 8, verses 38-39:
38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The fellowship that God has called us into is one that no one and nothing can separate.
Praise God.
Here are the three questions for this week:
1. Why does Paul always give thanks for the Corinthian church, even though the church has many problems:
2. If a new person comes to our morning tea, will they witness the love of Christ among us? Or will they be turned away by our lack of Christ’s love?
3. How does God’s faithfulness to his church gives us reasons for thanks for our church?
Conclusion
And so, as we conclude, let us once again join with Paul to thank God for building his church here and beyond, because through His church we see that God is gracious, God is witnessed, and God is faithful.
Amen.