1 Corinthians says under the title there, or under the name of the book, it says, order in the church, order in the church. Do you believe that order is important in the church? I do, I do. Hey, it's absolutely vital. And there's a lot of things in our lives that people do and choose to live without a whole lot of order. And chaos in so many ways prevails. I was this week speaking of politics. My wife and I saw on the news yesterday about these protesters, I believe it was in Arizona, that were getting together and blocking the highways from people coming to a rally. And I told my wife, I said, I don't agree with everything that's going on at the rally. But if those people are blocking highways and things like that, if they get arrested, then they're breaking the law. We have laws in our country for a reason. Order is necessary. And when you begin to allow people to just do whatever they feel like doing, it creates problems. And that is not any more important in our government than it is in our church. I'm so thankful for those that had the foresight and the investment, and many of you, before I even came with the incorporation of the church here and getting together constitution and bylaws and all those things. It's a blessing to me that since that's happened the last several years now, there's been other churches that have taken what we've done and other resources as we did and have created their own constitution and bylaws and statement of faith and all that. It is so important because if we don't then we are leaving ourselves open to the government doing whatever they so please. And we just can't live that way. And that's true in the church as well, not just as it relates to politics, but also as it relates to just the daily practice of life. Let me, here, Brother Ray, I'll get you another one here. And we got, oh, you got one? All right. Let me get Miss Ruth one back there. Brother Wesley, you'll share with your wife, won't you? I thought you might. But the importance of order, and of course we know 1 Corinthians written to the church there at Corinth, and we see some of the things that had taken place there as far as if you're familiar with what's going on. Well, we'll get into that. 1 Corinthians 10. Turn there in your Bibles if you would. 1 Corinthians 10. There is so much in the Bible, of course, for us to learn, but particularly the epistles when it comes to the church and everything from order in the church, church politics and all that, but unity in the church. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse number 31, the Bible says this, whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Now, that verse in itself, and there's a lot of other verses in the Bible, but I'm saying that kind of do the same thing, but ultimately what that does is sum up the entire Word of God. Do everything you do for the glory of God. Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do. That means if you go to work, when you get up, when you go to bed, when you raise your kids, when you're going to, whatever you're doing, going grocery shopping, coming to church, do everything you do, every minute of every day, live it for the glory of God. That's what it means. And if we will do that, Paul, of course, is addressing in 1 Corinthians a lot of different issues, and we're gonna look at some of that, but ultimately, in any of those issues, this is the solution. This is the solution. And we talked about recently on Wednesday nights, we spent the last three Wednesday nights on the principle of suffering and why do Christians suffer and ultimately we know that all suffering is a result ultimately of man's sin. Man's sin is the reason that suffering has come into the world and the reason that it continues. But There is a solution, and this is the solution to suffering. Even in suffering, do everything that we do to the glory of God. I love, you know, I think of a song, to God be the glory, great things he hath done. God is always good. And if we'll do what it says in this verse, it'll make a difference. Turn back to chapter one now in 1 Corinthians. We're going to look at these couple of verses here, these key words. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Two key words that we see here. First of all, divisions, chapter 1 and verse number 10. The word division is used three times. The first use is here and probably the most significant use. Chapter 1, verse 10 says this, Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you. but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. I talked about in Paul's epistles over and over and over again, he addresses the importance of unity, of being on the same page, of having the same goals. And he says here, he says, I beseech you, I'm begging you, please, Don't let there be divisions among you. Don't allow the devil to come in and drive a wedge between you and a brother or sister in Christ. And there's all kinds of different causes for divisions. But Paul says that people involved on both sides have to be committed to there not being division. And that's true in your home as well. That's true in your marriage. That's true when you're dealing with your children. that there be no divisions, that you make a decision, a conscious decision on a regular basis to have unity, to have unity. The next word you see is contentions used in the very next verse, chapter one, verse 11. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. What does that mean? It had been reported back to Paul that there was fighting in the church at Corinth. There was contentions. There was disunity. You know, if you live in town, your neighbors know if there's disunity at your house. Paul says it's been reported by those at the house of Chloe that there's contentions. Your church has developed a reputation for being one that is full of contentions and disunity. People are not on the same page. I talked about last week, we discussed your reputation. Remember Paul at the end of Romans when he gets into chapter 16 and he sends salutations to all these different people and what is those particular individuals, what are their reputations, what do people say of you? What a condemning thing, what a sad statement about a church to say it's been reported of you that there's a lot of contention in that church. There's not a lot of unity there. Hey, the deacons aren't getting along with the preacher. The Sunday school teachers all have different ideas about the way things ought to be run. There's a whole lot of butting of heads instead of unity. Let me tell you something. When there is contentions and disunity and divisions, there won't be much that gets accomplished. There won't be much that gets accomplished. When things get accomplished is when people get together. It's important. I know in the current political race, there's a lot of you have, and I know the field is narrowing, but at the beginning, you have 17 candidates for the Republican nomination. They all have all these different ideas. What I'm gonna do when I'm the president, I'm gonna do this. And when I'm the president, I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do that. And I understand that they have executive orders, but I also understand that in reality, if you're the president of the United States, you better figure out a way to have some cooperation. Because if you don't, you're not gonna get a whole lot accomplished. You can rescind all the other executive orders that have taken place, something is enacted by an executive order, you can overturn it by an executive order, but really, to actually accomplish things and move forward, you have to find some common ground, you have to find unity. And that's equally true and even more so when it comes to a church. so absolutely vital. The theme is trouble in the church. The focus, of course, we see at the beginning, what Paul is trying to accomplish by this letter is order in the church. The theme, what we see is prevalent in this church, is trouble. It's written in AD 56. The writer is the Apostle Paul. There's some different things about Paul, and of course we know we're going to look at all of his epistles, so these things will This introduction here tells us a little bit more about him, but we'll see that carried out in the rest of his epistles. He was born of Tarsus. We'll go back and forth because it carries over to the next page. Born of Tarsus, wrote 100 New Testament chapters. He was a Jew, but also a Roman citizen. He was a great preacher. His father was a Pharisee. He was a great missionary. He was taught by Gamaliel. He was a great writer, baptized by Ananias, wrote 14 New Testament books, four mission journeys, wrote with simplicity, also wrote with sincerity. He was beheaded in Rome. Oh no, I did condense it. It's all on that page. I'm sorry. I forgot. When I initially typed it out, it carried over to the next page. We condensed it down got on that one page, but just some different things about Paul And we're not going to take time to get into all those things right now, but it was written to this Saints at Corinth Gentile it should be Saints Gentile Greek believers that were babes in Christ written from Ephesus we see that in chapter 16 verses 7 and 8 That's where it was written from But it's a young church young church and here's the thing, you have a young church, you have young believers that probably had a desire to do right but hadn't had a whole lot of teaching and training and discipleship and so they were allowing things to go on or perpetuating things that were not right, were not in keeping with the Word of God, were not in keeping with the unity in the church So Paul has to address these things, you know There's a there's a lot to be said those either been saved for a long time You know as people are new Christians coming to Christ particularly as adults where they haven't been taught and trained That they have all kinds of ideas. I Talked with somebody yesterday that had some you know, he's been in church, but not really been Discipled and you could tell that and some of his ideas he brought it up I don't know It's kind of out of the blue started talking to me about about tithing and giving to the church and his philosophies on it And remember how I told you anything can be interesting That's what I told them. I said that's interesting. I never thought of things that way and You know people have a lot of different ideas but That's what happens when people have, you know, they take a small portion or one or two verses or something that they've been told by another individual and they kind of just run with it and they don't take into account the whole counsel of God. And you see, it's not a surprise that things can get this way in a hurry. It's not a surprise at all. And so that's what Paul's kind of dealing with. It's the 46th book of the Bible, the seventh book of the New Testament, 16 chapters, 437 verses. The purpose was to reprove and correct serious problems existing among the members of the church at Corinth. Notice the word there, serious problems. These aren't just things like who likes what color of carpet best. These are some pretty serious issues that Paul was dealing with here. Significant issues that could cause the destruction of the church, could ruin the testimony, could harm the cause of Christ. These are serious things that Paul says, look, this is some stuff that needs to be dealt with. And again, we see that he writes with simplicity and sincerity, but also with a great deal of clarity and says, look, let me make something clear. Let's get something real clear right out of the gate. And then he lays things out for them very clearly. The divisions, there's two different ways here that you could divide this up. You see at the beginning there, number one, the church collectively, and then number two, that's in chapters one through 11, and for chapters 12 through 16, you see to the church individually. In other words, to the church as a whole, to the different churches in the area there, but then to this specific church he deals with towards the end of the book there. Another way you could divide it, first of all, the wisdom of man versus the revelation of God in chapters 1-4, the worldliness of man versus the holiness of God in chapters 5-9, and the religion of man versus the Holy Spirit of God in chapters 10-16. but just different ways. Again, this helpful thing as you look at those as you're reading through the book of 1 Corinthians that you can see and you could relate these specific chapters to this and it kind of helps to compartmentalize things a little bit. Some things about the outline and we're going to look at a few of these things as we go through. The disorders of the church. is what Paul is dealing with here and he starts out from the very beginning personal disorders in chapters one through four. The problem You see letter A there. And what you're going to see after each of these Roman numerals is you'll see a problem and a cure. A problem and a cure. Here's the problem. Here's the cure. This is the problem. And again, a lot of times when we deal with things in the church or as Christians, we deal with symptoms. We don't actually deal with the problem. And Paul addresses what the problems are and then addresses what the cure is for those problems. First of all, personal disorders, chapters 1 through 4. Look at chapter 1 and verse number 12. We already read 10 and 11. Verse number 12 says this, Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. What is the problem? Really what you see in that verse right there is pride. Well, I, I, I, I'm of Paul. I am of Apollo. It was trying to, trying to give themselves, well, I've been saved for this long, or I was baptized in this church, or I've done this before, or I've done that before. Really, it's pride. The problem is following men. It wasn't about Paul makes it very clear in the ensuing verses. He says it's not about Paul. It's not about Apollos. It's not about who baptized you. It's not about who led you to the Lord. I mentioned a week or two ago about saying, you know, if Brother Remus shared the gospel with me, sometimes you hear a new Christian that'll say, well, Brother Remus saved me. No brother Remus led you to the Lord and the Lord is the one that saved you He showed you how you could be saved, but he's not the one that saved you and it Oftentimes when you have people up in up in Illinois at the addictions ministry there and you'll have them You know, you know They'll give testimony when they graduate the program after six months being in there and they graduate the program and they they'll they'll say oftentimes Well, I'd like to thank you know, brother Steve Currington who developed the program brother Steve's gone to be with the Lord now or I'd like to thank reformers unanimous the reformers unanimous curriculum saved my life or changed my life and And every time you would have Pastor Kingsbury or one of the directors of RU that would stand up and say, look, Brother Steve Carrington never changed anybody's life. A curriculum that was written by a man never changed anybody's life. The reason that those things made a difference in somebody's life is because they pointed somebody to Jesus Christ and He is the one that changed your life. He is the one that saved you. He is the one that makes a difference in your life. And one of their mantras is, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. It's about a relationship with Jesus Christ and anybody that you and I can help to have a better relationship with Jesus Christ. How can I help somebody to be a better Christian? Help them to have a better relationship with Jesus Christ, a personal relationship with Christ. How can I make our church better? How can I fix our church? by having a better relationship with Jesus Christ, a personal relationship with Christ, and then encouraging and helping others to do the same. That's what's missing. That's what's necessary in churches today. That's why young people leave church when they get out of high school, get out from under mom and dad, they leave church and they don't come back. Why? Because it was never a personal relationship between them and the Lord Jesus Christ. They may have been taught. They may have been showed. They may have been trained, but it was never personalized. And you can't personalize it for somebody else. I can't have a personal relationship with the Lord for Brother Wesley. It's something he's got to do for himself. It's something he's got to decide for himself. I can show him what the Bible says. I can show him how to have a relationship with the Lord, but ultimately the choice is up to him. The choice is up to each and every one of us. The choice is up to my children, whether or not they're going to choose to walk with the Lord personally. That's true of every one of us. The problem is, here in these verses, some say, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos. Look at what Paul says in verse number 13. Verse number 13, he says this, Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? What's he saying? Look, it is in the Bible. If you're of Christ, if you're a child of the Lord Jesus Christ, If you're a child of God, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Everybody's the same as far as their relationship with the Lord and the opportunity that's there. The coming to Christ, you and I got saved the same way. The situation, the circumstances, those things might have been different, but if you're saved today, you got saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ the same way I got saved. Paul said everybody comes to Christ the same way. Look at verse number 31. Skip down to verse number 31, the bottom of chapter 1 there. It says this, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Hey, don't glory in Paul. Don't glory in Apollos. If you want to glory in somebody, if you want to give somebody glory, if you want to follow somebody, Glory in the Lord. I joked, two weeks ago I went and saw a man, followed up, I think I told you this last week maybe, followed up with somebody that a couple of our men had met door knocking, and I was talking to him for a little bit, and he asked me after we'd been conversing for about 15 minutes, and I did introduce myself, he said, how's the preaching over there? I said, it's terrible. If I was you, if you're coming for the preaching, I'd probably go someplace else. That preacher over there, he ain't much at all. He says, I looked up, I saw him on the internet. He looked like he was pretty young. So then I, after going on for a minute, I told him I was the preacher. And then he was kind of embarrassed, but I just laughed it off. And I said, hey, I said, it's a compliment to me that you think I am young. And then he, of course, asked how old I was, whatever. But it's just, It's not about who is doing the preaching, it's about who is being preached. We preach Christ and Him crucified. That's what's important. And when we all get together on that same page, what Paul's trying to get, he says, you're gonna have unity in your church. You're going to have to have everybody in the church saying, it's about who's being preached. It's not about the messenger, it's about the message. If you want a glory, glory in the Lord. Give God the glory for everything. Look at the next one. Personal disorders was number one. Number two, moral disorders. The problem yielding to the flesh. Skip over to chapter 6 there. Chapter 6 and verse number 12. says this, all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. The problem here is moral disorders. The problem is yielding to the flesh. Just because something's legal, as far as the government is concerned, doesn't mean it's a good idea, doesn't mean it's pleasing to God, doesn't mean that it's expedient. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's good for us. It's legal for me to drink. It's not good for me to drink. It's legal for me to smoke. It's not healthy for me to smoke. It's legal to have an abortion. It's not good to have an abortion. It's murder. But you look at these things, Paul says, all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. He says, I'm not going to allow my flesh to dictate what I do. It's not that in that really honestly is what's happening in churches all over our country today is it's becoming if it feels good do it Well, God just wants you to be happy and if that makes you happy then that's what God wants you to do because God wants you to be happy baloney yes God wants you to be happy but God knows what truly will make you happy is pleasing him with your life and being obedient to him with your life and doing the things that he's laid out in his word and living in keeping with the Word of God not living in accordance with your flesh you know it's one of the things that that the Hollywood crowd has has pounded into our heads for years and years and years is follow your heart The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. I wouldn't follow that if I was you. Our heart left to itself, if every man does that which is right in his own eyes, that is following your heart. Everybody doing that which is right in your own eyes. Do what you feel like doing. If it feels good, do it. Work doesn't always feel good, but it's good for you. There's a lot of things in life that might not be real appealing to the flesh, but that doesn't mean that we should just do away with them. The cure is living in Christ. Chapter 6 and verse number 15, skip down there. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of Anharla? God forbid. Live in Christ. Your body is not your own. You're bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. the importance of realizing that it's not about how I feel, it's about what God wants to accomplish through me and being surrendered and submitted to that, committed to that wholeheartedly. The third thing you see is home disorders. We're not going to, we're going to run out of time. I'm not going to look at all these verses, but home disorders, chapter seven, The problem is wrong ideas. Chapter 7, verse 1. Now concerning the things wherever you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Talking about disorders between a man and a woman, improper relationships, the cure, benevolence and disobedience. Chapter 7, verse 3. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. I think that should be obedience, not disobedience. But that is the cure, is having a right relationship between a husband and wife. Having a right relationship between an unmarried couple. Walking and living in a way that's pleasing to God before marriage. It's so important, and again, I could spend a great deal of time on this. I'm not going to this morning, but social disorders, Roman numeral four, chapters eight through 10. The problem, misused liberty in chapter eight, and the cure is the glory of God. Hey, I have this Liberty starting Wednesday night. I've got him right up here. You're welcome to him The lesson starting this Wednesday night is on the principle of Liberty our Liberty in Christ What does Liberty in Christ really mean a lot of Christians take that way out of context and say I'm free to do whatever I want because I'm saved and I can't lose my salvation God's gonna take me to heaven no matter what so I have Christian Liberty. I can live however I want That's not Christian Liberty Christian Liberty is the freedom to do what God wants us to do the freedom to live in the will of God. It's meant to be a challenge to us, not an excuse to do whatever we feel like doing. The problem is misused liberty. The cure is the glory of God. In other words, making all of our decisions as far as what would glorify and be pleasing to God. Rule number five, the church disorders problem is misconduct in worship. chapter 11 and the cure is orderliness and temperance again these are all I could spend easily an entire lesson on each one of these things and maybe someday in the future I will but not today doctrinal disorders major problem major problem problem denial of the resurrection the cure the risen Christ hey you can deny it all you want to but we serve a risen Savior he's in the world today I know that he is living whatever men may say I love that song. What a blessing to know that we serve a risen Savior. I look forward to talking about the resurrection of Christ next week. I know we celebrate Easter, but we ought to be focusing on the resurrected Christ all the time. We serve a risen Savior. He's not dead. I don't need a movie by Hollywood to tell me that God's not dead. I don't need a movie by Hollywood to tell me that heaven is real. I have the Word of God in front of me that tells me both of those things. That's all the authority I need. The financial disorder, well, the doctrinal disorders, the problem is denial of resurrection, cure of the risen Christ. Financial disorders, the problem is wrong motives, the cure, tithes and offerings. Tyson offers people being obedient to the Lord in their giving, is the cure for financial disorder. Miscellaneous, City of Corinth, it tells us some things about the City of Corinth, and I'm gonna skip over those, but you're welcome to read that. First Corinthians under that, it says it was written to new immature believers, and Second Corinthians shows their progress and deals with comfort and maturity. It's amazing, the difference in tone from First Corinthians to Second Corinthians, It's not just, hey, this was chapter one and chapter two of a letter that was written. It's, hey, you can see the change in the maturity of the church and how they took the things that were written in chapter one and applied them, and then you see the change in the church that has taken place in the first Corinthians, I'm sorry, and then in second Corinthians, you see the change that has taken place. There's still things that need to, they need to grow and mature in some things, but it's different. It goes from the milk of the word to the meat of the word and growing in Christ is so important. False gods from the garden to the Corinthians, and I'm not gonna take time to go over all those, but it tells you about some of those things there. And then to the church at the very end, let's look at that paragraph and we'll be done. The account of the founding of the Church of Corinth is given in Acts 18, 1-18 when Paul visited Corinth. It was the largest and most important city in Greece. In the midst of almost hopeless condition, Paul preached Christ crucified, the power of God, and the wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1, 23 and 24. Great passage, great truth there. We're going to be done this morning, but again, just so much. The book of 1 Corinthians, I plan to, in the near future, go through that whole book, probably on Sunday nights. But Paul took a young church and taught them and trained them. and said, these are the areas where you've gotten off track or where things are messed up or things aren't what they ought to be. And this is the solution. This is how to fix the problem over and over and over again. Let's pray this morning. Heavenly Father, I thank you today for the book of 1 Corinthians. I thank you for Paul and for inspiring him to write this book and then for preserving it, Lord, for us today. I pray that you'd help us to take the principles that are included in this book and apply them to our own lives and to our church that we'd be pleasing to you in everything that we say and do. We love you. Pray that you bless the service here in just a few minutes. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.