Transcript

Alright, turn over to 1 Corinthians, would you? 1 Corinthians chapter 1, we’re just going straight through verse by verse, preaching through this wonderful New Testament book and we come to a section, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 that I’ve entitled “Divisions in the Church.” Actually this book we call 1 Corinthians is the response to a letter that the elders at the church at Corinth had written to the apostle Paul over in Ephesus and he responds back by writing a letter, and that’s what we have in our Bibles as 1 Corinthians. His reply to some questions asked him by the elders at Corinth.

Let’s read the text together. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10. “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgement. For I have been informed concerning you my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I Thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, that no man should say you were baptized in my name. Now I did also, I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void.”

Now Paul’s writing, and there are three things that I want to point out in this passage of scripture. First of all, notice that he denounces the divisions. He denounces those divisions that existed in the church in Corinth. Actually this is just the first evil that Paul is going to get to, there is a long list of them, if you remember, this is a baby church, an immature church, and a backslidden church, and they had all kinds of problems. And the first thing he addresses is actually something they did not even ask him about in the letter they sent him. He just happened to find out about it. And when he found out about it, it’s the first thing he dealt with.

First of all notice, under denouncing the divisions, he exposes them. He exposes the church and therefore the divisions in the church. Look at verse 11. He says, “for I have been informed concerning you my brethren.” First of all, when he says I have been informed, he means to say, I have indisputable knowledge about what’s going on in the church there at Corinth. It’s just a phrase to let them know this isn’t up for debate, we’re not going to have a business meeting on this and discuss it. I know what’s going on out there in the church at Corinth. Indisputable knowledge of it.

And then how does he say he knows it? Well, he says there in verse 11, “by Chloe’s people.” Now we’re not sure who Chloe is, but probably she’s got some wealth because she probably has some servants who have probably gone to Ephesus and when they went to Ephesus they knocked on the apostle Paul’s door and said, we just think you ought to know, the church back at Corinth are fussing and fighting and quarreling and wrangling all the time. So Paul says, Chloe’s people, and I’m sure Chloe appreciated this, have reported to me about what’s really going on in the church, I know what’s going on.

Now it, it’s almost humorous, because they have written a letter to Paul, and said, would you answer this question and this question and this question and this question, ’cause we are having problems with some of these things, but they never mention the divisions, and the first thing Paul points out is I want to deal with the divisions first. You ever got in trouble with mom and dad and you thought it was about one thing, and lo and behold, they know something else? You weren’t even aware they were aware of that particular thing. Now it goes on in verse 11, the last phrase, “that there are quarrels among you.” A. T. Robertson calls this word quarrels “unseemly wranglings.” You ever been in a church business meeting where there was unseemly wranglings going on? You know, the best I can remember, now some of you may have to correct me, I’ve been here almost 16 years, the best I can remember there has only been one of those here. The best I can remember. Now I might be wrong, but where there was unseemly wrangling going on. What it means is this kind of wrangling that leads to aroused feelings. Do you see the setting there, there’s some jockeying and some playing and some party spirit and some things going on that caused this group over here to get their emotions fired up a little bit. And this one gets theirs up a little bit, and I mean, it’s starting to cook good. Have a good time to call a business meeting and discuss it. Well, Paul says, that’s what going on, Chloe’s people have told me, it’s not disputable, it’s fact, and I’m going to deal with it.

But not only does he expose the church there, notice now he exhorts the church there. Look at verse 10. The first word is now. Now, the word now is a significant word. Because remember all the glowing, wonderful, positive things Paul said in verses 1-8? Let’s just go up to verse 4, look at all the positive things he says. Verse 4, “I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and knowledge. Even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. You are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Verse 9. “And God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Notice over and over and over, he says, you’re the Lord’s, the Lord’s done this for you, God saved you, he’s equipped you, he’s given you the gifts, he’s going to keep you all the way to the end, God’s great, now. Now. I want to change gears. Now I want to talk about something different. In other words, this is sort of a painful contrast here to the previous fellowship that he mentioned up there in verse 9. He says in verse 9, you are called into fellowship with his Son, but you are not living like it. You’re not living out the reality of what you are and what you have. It’s an exhortation. They are living in contradiction to their calling. They’re called into fellowship with the one true God, as one body of Christ, unto Jesus who is the head. But they are not acting like it at all.

Then he says, “I exhort you,” and he uses the word “brethren” there. And the word brethren there is also inconsistent with these factions and divisions that are in the church. It’s sort of a little indirect rebuke that Paul gives them by calling them brethren. And then he says, “by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and, as a matter of fact, Jesus’ name occurs at least ten times in the first ten verses. And the point I think the apostle gets out by saying in the name of Jesus is, that you are his, you belong to him, he’s your Lord, no one else can claim ownership over you, and the church is Jesus’ church. It is his. Again, it’s an indirect condemnation of this party spirit that they have, and we see that party spirit in verse 12 very clearly, one says I am of Paul, and another say, well, I’m of Apollos, and another says, well, I’m of Cephas or Peter. Another says, well, I’m of Christ. And Paul’s exhorting them and actually rebuking them about this.

Then he goes on there in verse 10, he says, let’s just read it all again. “I exhort you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree.” Now that phrase to you, he says, I exhort you that you all agree. That word agree means to speak the same thing. And I believe the major premise here is that Paul’s saying, throw away these party spirits and these party slogans. Throw away this concept of well, I follow Paul, well I follow Apollos, well I follow Cephas or Peter, well, we’re back here, we’re spiritual, we follow Christ. Throw away all that stuff. You’re all one, you’re all the same people, bought by the same blood, owned by the same Lord, and you ought not to be saying these party slogans. It’s not who you are. Get rid of all that stuff, Paul says.

Then he says, “that there be no divisions,” middle of verse 10, “there be no divisions among you.” That word divisions is a very vivid word, it means literally to tear a garment. And that’s exactly the way the church at Corinth looked to the lost world. At this point in time, they were about as attractive as a torn garment. And then he continues. “Let there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete.” You could translate it perfect, but there’s no concept of sinless perfection here. He means to be put back right. Made complete or perfect in this verse means the mending of a net, but it was also used when a doctor set a joint back in place. It’s the picture of a man who would go to the doctor and maybe his hip or his knee is just out of joint. And the doctor resets it, and then after the soreness works out, he goes back to see the doctor and the doc says, how you are doing? He says, doc, it’s perfect, it’s back in place doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s a knee again. Well, that’s what Paul says, get back in joint, you are out of joint, you are out of place, mend it back up, you are not being what you are. Be complete; be perfect again. Like you are supposed to be, be a church again. Not a perfect church, but the purpose and the pattern of your existence as a church ought to be a certain way and you are not doing that right now, Paul is saying. Get back on track.

Then he goes on, verse 10, actually he tells you how you can be of the same mind, and he tells you how you can be complete now. Well, how do we do it Paul? Last part of verse 10. “In the same mind and in the same judgment.” When he says you need to be of the same mind as individuals in the church, that means intellectually or in feelings you all are basically the same, at least on essential matters. Or you could say essential doctrines. You all agree, and you all have the same thought and feelings about essential things. Now there are some nonessentials we all can vary on. But there are some essentials that we must agree on. You see, if they would all submit to the same Lord, and therefore submit to the same doctrines, intellectually, or on the inside, then their judgments, that’s the last part of verse 10, and have the same judgment, or it could be opinions, in their judgments would be the same, correct? If your heart and your intellect agree in conviction about certain truth, then your expression is going to be in agreement also. But he says, the key thing is to make sure inside of you, in the intellect, in your heart, you all agree on the same things. You see, there can be no unity in speech or opinions, unless there is agreement inwardly on doctrine.

Let me just sort of as a side note, give you some of the strong emphasis that the New Testament puts on a church holding to sound doctrine. First of all, in 1 Timothy 3:15, the apostle Paul exhorting Timothy, his understudy, says this. The church is the pillar and support of truth. Paul says, I have left with the local churches my truth that saves souls and builds my kingdom. And the church is the pillar and the support of that truth, is the responsibility of the church to advance and guard sound doctrine. And then in Ephesians 2:20, he says something interesting. As a matter of fact, if I ask you, what is, or who is the foundation of the church, you know what all of us, most all of us would say. If I ask you what’s the foundation of the church, you’d say Jesus Christ, and I’d say right—but wrong. Listen to Ephesians 2:20. The church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” It’s built upon the foundation of whom? The apostles and the prophets with Christ Jesus being the cornerstone. Now when he said it’s built upon the foundation of the apostles, he does not mean the office of apostle. Like Peter being the first pope or something. He means the teaching of the apostles. What did the apostles teach? Christ. That’s the foundation, their teaching, their doctrine, that is the foundation of the church. How do we know what the apostles’ doctrine or teaching is? They recorded it in the New Testament. When you study Romans, you are studying the apostles’ doctrine. When you study Galatians, you are studying the apostles’ doctrine. When you study 1 Peter you are studying the apostles’ doctrine, the apostle Peter, the apostle Paul, whoever. And therefore, we can know what sound doctrine is, by properly exegeting and interpreting the scriptures.

Now in Acts 2:42, he says, when the early church got together, all these people have just gotten saved, he said, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ doctrine. That means the apostles took these brand new believers and really taught them, built Bible truth. Really grounded them in “the faith.” In Titus 1:9 the Bible says the elders of the church are chiefly responsible to teach sound doctrine and to refute those who teach unsound doctrine. In Jude 3, the leadership of the church is commanded to earnestly contend for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. Now the point I’m making is, that God has given us some essential doctrine, and if we as individuals, and this is what Paul is saying to the church at Corinth, if we as individuals know essential doctrine, and we all agree on it, and we submit to the truth in that doctrine, unity will be the natural overflow of that. But it starts with a commitment on the inside. And then it flows to us being united in our outward opinions and our outward speech. Now I believe the church at Corinth knew sound doctrine, but they were ignoring it and were not submitting to it at this point. So Paul clearly denounces the divisions. First of all he exposes the church, that there are divisions there, they didn’t know that he knew it, but he showed them that he knew it. Chloe’s people came out and told him about it. Secondly, he exhorted them about it, that it shouldn’t be happening, they should be speaking the same things, because within their minds, they agree together on essential or sound doctrine, then they would be speaking out of that intellectual knowledge, the same things out of their mouths, and there wouldn’t be all these divisions.

So he denounces the divisions. Secondly, notice him describe the divisions. He describes them there in verse 12. First of all, in verse 12, he describes the size of the division problem, or the schism or the faction problem. He says, “Now I mean this that each one of you is saying.” Paul is saying the word I’m getting is practically everybody in the church has joined a little group. Our former pastor used to call them little group gatherings. It’s when somebody calls you in the church and says, did you hear about what the preacher’s thinking about doing down at the church? What do you think about that? Well, I don’t know what I think about that, I don’t know if I like that. Well, let’s call two or three others, and let’s get together and let’s meet and gather and talk about what’s going to happen down at the church. And they get little groups to gather at. And gather around. So they can fix God’s church. Save it from the pastor. Because surely the church is going to fall into heresy and not win souls, you know that’s the most amazing thing to me. In my experience the folks who headed up little group gatherings were not soul winners. Didn’t give a whole lot to the church, but they were going to save it from the problem people in the church. I guess they got a divine revelation that they were called of God to save the church.

Here he says first of all, everybody is involved in it. Now I don’t mean absolutely every single person, but it means generally speaking, the whole church family’s in this mess of choosing one faction or the other. Now he, he shows us the source of the division. He shows us the size, now he is going to emphasize the source. Where is it coming from? Well he continues and shows us this very clearly in verse 12. “Now I mean this, that each one of you saying, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas,” that’s just the Aramaic word for Peter, Peter’s the Greek, “and then another, I am of Christ.” Now the point this, the source of the problem is this. They are esteeming the messenger more than the master. They are looking to man, and have more devotion to the man, than they have to the master. They are not committed to principles of truth, given by the master, they are committed to personalities. That’s where their loyalty has become and that’s the source of the whole problem. Now he shows us here, they are divided into at least four groups.

Now first of all he says, there’s the freedom party. Those are the ones that say I am of Paul. Now I can’t tell you, absolutely for certain this is the way it lines up, but I believe it is. The freedom party are those that said, now we follow the apostle Paul, we are right, rest of you are wrong. Now the reason I call them the freedom party because Paul was known for his teaching of the gospel of grace. Now you got to remember, these are Gentiles who come out of a background of gross immorality, and I don’t know about your flesh, but I do know something about my flesh, and I do know something about what the Bible says about flesh, and even though your flesh gets saved, your flesh still likes fleshly things. And so it’s very convenient, if you are used to a lifestyle of just letting it all hang out and do what feels good, if you get saved, if the apostle Paul comes by and preaches grace, you can take his grace preaching twist it, take it out of balance, and use it as a license to live in sin as the liberty of Christ. And I believe that’s what this group was doing. Because if they heard somebody else teach that there’s got to be accountability to God’s moral absolutes, they will say, you are a grace killer. We are under grace. Don’t you be my holy spirit, do not judge lest you be judged. Those are the ones saying I’m of Paul. Bunch of legalistic people, don’t put that on me. I mean, they were way out there using the liberty of Christ for licentiousness, which is wrong. And that’s not what Paul taught at all. But they were able to twist Paul’s grace teaching to mean what they wanted it to mean.

And then there was another group in the church, and I’ll call this group the intellectual party. The intellectual party are the ones who said, I am of Apollos, we like Apollos the best. And these were the Gentiles who were the blue bloods of the society, and we know in the church of Corinth some very prominent influential wealthy people got saved. I mean, these are the lawyers, these are the education people, these are the professors at the University, these are the business owners, and the blue bloods, I mean, they loved Apollos, because Acts says, that Apollos was a man who had eloquence, and he was probably educated in the greatest schools in Alexandria, I mean, this guy knew philosophy, he was culturally relevant, and he could get in the pulpit with his great eloquence and oratory skills, and they would just be swooned and they would sway at the oratory dynamic of this man Apollos. That’s the intellectual party.

And then there was another party in the church and they said, we’re of Cephas. Now I believe this is the legalistic party. And what they would do, and they often did this, the legalistic party hated Paul, ’cause Paul would preach grace and just blow them out of the water. So what they do is say, Paul is not a true apostle, Cephas or Peter is. Paul came along late, he didn’t even walk with Jesus during his earthly ministry. And that’s true, he was one untimely born, remember, he met Jesus after Jesus had already ascended. On the Damascus road. And so, they would say, now we are of Peter, he’s an original apostle, and he’s the full blooded Jew, and by the way, we’re just a little bit, we don’t trust this apostle Paul, and we think you can be saved by Jesus, but you got to add works of the law too. You’ve got to add the works of Judaism on also, or you can’t really be saved. And they leaned toward legalism. They were the legalist party, so now we’ve got the freedom party, I’m of Paul. We got the intellectual party, I am of Apollos. We’ve got the legalistic party, I am of Cephas, and then we’ve got the deeper life party. There are some that said, we’re of Jesus. We’re of Jesus. Isn’t that what they say? The last part, and I am of Christ. But Paul really doesn’t cut them any slack, he said, they are all carnal. Because this last group, who said, man, we’re deep, we’re the only ones truly saved, nobody’s really saved but us. We’ve got so many gifts in the spirit, nobody else has got them. We’re deep. We’re real deep. We’re the only true believers in this church. So man, Paul really gives a description of the divisions here in this church.

But you know, I got to thinking, what’s a modern parallel to this thing? I mean, take the typical Baptist church, what would the modern parallel be? You know, there’s a thing going on in churches today, and I have to pick on the Baptists because I ‘are’ one. Especially in Baptist churches where people start forming parties around their favorite ministerial staff members. Yeah, don’t look at me spiritual like you’ve never seen that before. There’s an easy biblical way to cure that, and we’ve done that here, but most churches hadn’t cured that like God has led us to cure that, just by simple obedience to the word. But, you’ve got this group over here and they’re of the minister of music. And bless God and the Lamb, he’s the closest thing to God they’ve ever seen in their life, of course they’ve never seen God or they wouldn’t say that. But, anyway, that’s what they believe. And then there is another group, they’re of the youth director. Oh, now, he’s just so precious and special. And we’re going to get together and we’re going to see to it that he’s not mistreated. And then there is another group, they’re of the minister of education, of course, there are two in that, because nobody ever likes ministers of education. They are always busting up your Sunday school class and asking you to go places you don’t want to go, they put you in a room that’s too hot, and next year it’s too cold, and then you go to another one, and the 18 year old girls painted it hot pink and you don’t like that, so, I mean, minister of education don’t have many in his party. Then you got some who are of deacon Smith, deacon Smith’s been here before all them old preachers were here. Deacon Smith says, I was here when that preacher came, I’ll be here when that preacher is gone. Unless God kills him.

Hey, don’t we have that modern equivalent? It was interesting, I’d only been the pastor a couple of years, and we were working on our budget, and we went to a very large, we’re talking 3000 people in attendance at this church, and asked them about how they did their budget. And they said, we no longer disclose the salaries of the staff members. Said, anybody can come in and look at them, but we don’t just put it out there for everybody. And I said, why don’t you do that, he said, you know what was happening in our church? I said no. He said, three months before the budget would be put out, the minister of music’s group would start getting together and strategizing how to get him the biggest raise possible. And the minister of youth’s group would get together and start strategizing how to get him a good raise. And the minster of education’s group would get him one and the pastor had his group. Now the staff members may not be leading this thing, but they were sure thankful for it. And he said, man, we’d have knock down, drag out, ugly fights on the church floor for weeks sometimes trying to figure out whose going to get what kind of money. And he said, you know what happened? Actually what happened was people who deserved raises, or merit raises, never got them, because if they got a little, a guy that didn’t deserve it, we had to give him one too or his group would get mad. That’s just one example of the stuff that goes on in churches.

Now folks, I want to submit to you, without one shadow of one doubt, we don’t have any of that here. Period. We’re blessed folks. Do you understand me? We are blessed. I stay on the phone for hours, I’m not exaggerating, hours a week counseling with pastors who have to deal with staff members who are getting their group together. You know what happened to a staff member here that came to me and said, I’ve got me a group together, we’re going to do something, I’d say, you are fired, period. It’s clearly a divisive spirit. I’m just going to ride this horse for a while. Because this horse might ride in the door in here one day, and because it’s so prominent out there. It’s so prominent, I know I’m getting down to brass, I just want to tell you, like it is, we’re not going to pull any punches.

Have you ever found minister of music in the Bible? Have you ever found youth director in the Bible? You ever found director of education in the Bible? You ever found media director in the Bible? When you open this Bible, there are men called to be pastor-teachers to equip the saints for the work of service, Ephesians 4:11. 1 Timothy 3 says there are also elders, some elders are pastor teachers, have the gift of teaching more than others, some are not. And from that point onward, everybody else is to subordinate to the elders and the pastor-teacher to carry out the job and the vision of the church. Once that’s established, the staff problem is over. It’s finished, it’s done for. Our elders who have functioned like this for years, gave me the blessing a long time ago to call my own staff, and dismiss my own staff, and that in itself solves the whole problem in the church. If today you told me, now brother Jeff, you are going to have a staff, but they are all going to answer to the whole church, I’d say this. Bye, bye. I have the best staff in the world, but they don’t need that temptation. And neither would I.

But it’s amazing the junk, and you know why this stuff is eating out churches alive? You know why there are divisions and factions and schisms and the church has lost its testimony? Because we structure our churches unbiblically. Unbiblically. All we have to do is simply go to the word and say, what does the word say about staff, well, whose supposed to be a staff member, whose called on staff, but then a lot of folks in scripture that are called to help the apostle or the elder. And we have a lot of those, that’s what we have minister of music, nothing wrong with that, but he’s called to be the assistant or the helper of the pastor-teacher. There’s people called to help us in youth, but he’s called to be the assistant or the helper of the pastor teacher. When God made me your pastor, he made me pastor of the youth program, he made me pastor of the music program, he made me pastor of the Sunday school, He made me the pastor. And when you organize a church biblically, they can all work together and go in one direction and you don’t have any of these factions, schisms, divisions and fighting and quarreling in the church. And in actuality, you know what your staff says, they wouldn’t go back to the old way for anything.

Well, we just have a lot of that today. He describes the divisions. He’s denounced it, he’s described it, now notice he decimates it. He decimates the division. That means he largely destroys it. Largely just destroys it, because if they will apply what he’s about to tell them, which in principle I’ve been emphasizing already, the divisions in the church will be gone.

First of all, in decimating the divisions, he exalts the person of Jesus Christ. Look at it in the first part of verse 13. He said, “has Christ been divided?” If this group is separated from this group and this group is separated from that group and this group is separate from that group, then there are many different groups, and that means Jesus has been cut up. Literally that phrase Christ divided means, has Christ been parceled out. Of course, it’s a rhetorical question, it demands one affirming no as an answer, absolutely not. He says, it’s absolutely outrageous and ridiculous what you’re supposing by your actions. The church is one body, with one head, the Lord Jesus Christ. You can’t cut a body up. If you do, it dies. If you’ll get back to Christ, then the central thing, or the central person of your heart, and his truth as the most important thing in your life, you’ll notice the divisions dying away, because you’ve got a deep sin problem, you’re honoring the messenger more then you are the master. And once you get that taken care of, all this other stuff will fall by the wayside.

Secondly, he talks about the provision of Christ. The provision of Christ, look at verse 13, the next phrase. “Paul was not crucified for you, was he?” He says, some of you are saying, you’re of Paul, and he’s writing this, he says, I wasn’t crucified for you. You’re not of me, you can’t be of Apollos, and you can’t be of Cephas, because only one died on the cross for you. Only one became your sin. Only one hung there and took your punishment. You can never have a party spirit and say these party slogans, if you are right with Him, ’cause you all would say we’re of Jesus, and he’s all that matters. Stop this nonsense, Paul says.

He exalts the person of Christ, the provision of Christ, and then he reminds them of their profession in Christ. Look at verse 13, the last part. “Or were you baptized in the name of Paul.” He said, no wait a minute, when you guys were baptized, were you going down in the water and saying, I trust in the apostle Paul? Of course not. He said, when you were baptized, you made a profession that Jesus is your Savior, and your unrivaled Lord. And if you’ll get back to that, that he really is your Lord and master and you yield and submit to him, this party thing, this party spirit divisive stuff will die out in the church. He said, that’s all it will take.

Now he amplifies the reality that they should look at men and he amplifies the fact that he did nothing to make them look to him. As a matter of fact, he shows how he did everything to make them look to Jesus and not look to him. And that’s what we have in the following verses, look at verses 14 and 15. He says, “I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius.” Now Crispus and Gaius were two very prominent men, that may be why Paul baptized those men and not others, I do not know. But he’s just simply saying, I didn’t baptize much at all. I hadn’t done anything to make you feel some sort of connection to me, so that you can say you are of Paul, and somebody else say you are of somebody else, he said, as a matter of fact, I didn’t baptize hardly any of you. Verse 15. “That no man should say you were baptized in my name.” He says, I made every effort to remove myself and point you to Jesus. And then verse 16. “Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanus.” Paul just has an afterthought. He says, oh, by the way, yeah, I did baptize Stephanus and his household. Now Paul is not an omniscient man, he doesn’t have all knowledge, but God did use him to assert the authority of scripture without any error. But we see when God used men to write scripture, he did show their humanness and even in their humanness, they wrote inspired scripture. He said, nor did I baptize, now I did baptize the household of Stephanus, “beyond that I do not know whether I baptized any other.” He’s simply saying, it’s so outrageous that you would say you are of me, when I did everything possible to get you off of me onto Jesus. He says, you are backslidden, you are carnal, Christ should be your consuming everything, he is the one who is the only true Son of God, he is the one who died for you, when you were baptized, you were baptized in his name, not mine, Apollos, Cephas, or anybody else. If you get Christ back in the center of your life, this division thing will stop in the church.

Verse 17. “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Now, they shouldn’t be surprised that he baptized so few people in the church, because he says that’s not my job. It’s not essential to my calling to baptize people, my calling is to preach the gospel and make disciples. Not that baptizing is unimportant, it’s just not a part of the gospel, and it’s not a part of salvation. Paul said, I did the important part, that an itinerate apostle should do, and that’s get you saved, get you organized, get you growing in the Lord, train you, and I always had others to come along like Peter also did, Acts 10 tells us, other people would do the baptizing. Because baptism requires really no specific gift. There’s no spiritual gift in the Bible of baptizing. Well, this guy’s got to baptize everybody, because he’s got the gift of baptizing. I’ve seen some of our staff baptize, and I guarantee you, they don’t have the gift. I just hope the poor, I was going to say, suspect, or whatever, I just hope he makes it through the experience of it all. But that doesn’t matter. But there is a special gifting required for preaching and teaching and Paul said, that’s my main job, so this connection you are putting on me, that I’ve done, you’re of me in a special way, he said, no, my friend, I tried, I did everything I can, the problem you have is not something I’ve done to you, it’s your own sinful problem, your own carnal fleshly problem, exalting me and not the Master.

Boy, I’m going to tell you something, if any text in the Bible drives the death nail in baptismal regeneration, this certainly does. If in any way, shape or fashion, baptism was a part of the gospel or necessary for salvation, Paul would not be saying these things. Paul would be saying, if you will remember, I was dragging you, kicking and screaming all I could, day and night, until I ran out of energy, I passed out trying to baptize everybody I possibly could. He wasn’t going to go to Corinth, and just kind of leave baptism up to somebody who is just a brand new convert and didn’t understand much about it, if it was a part of salvation. That’s a part of obedience after you are saved, no truly saved person is going to go without baptism, but it is not a part of the gospel, and its not a part of salvation.

And then he goes on. As a matter, listen to what Hodge said about this. He says, truth stood immeasurably above right or ritual. Now a ritual baptism, or ritual the Lord Supper is important, but the truth being preached is immeasurably more important. You know, there are vast millions of people in the world today, they couldn’t care less if they got Bible preaching or teaching as long as the priest gives me a sip of the juice and I’ve been sprinkled. Right the opposite of what Paul says. Paul says, those things are important, but not even to be mentioned in the same breath as preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The next time you hear somebody say, obey the gospel and they mention baptism, you just know one thing, either they are wrong, or Paul is wrong. There is no other way in the world you can equate baptism with salvation and the apostle Paul, in one letter to one church, at a specific time give us this kind of wording and teaching.

Now look at verse 17. “For Christ did not send me to baptize… but to preach the gospel. Not in the cleverness of speech.” Paul said, I made every effort to make sure I wasn’t eloquent or that I wasn’t impressive, I didn’t come across as some great philosopher, and some philosophic discourse to you, he said, I was just simple and plain and to the point. You see, the power of the gospel is in the reality that the gospel is historic fact. If Jesus didn’t actually historically live, if he didn’t as a historic fact, live a sinless life, he didn’t actually literally and bodily be nailed to the cross, and he didn’t actually and literally die and was buried, if he didn’t actually literally and as a historical fact, rise from the dead, our faith is totally in vain. This isn’t some sort of philosophical thing that we all kind of bond to together and agree with on the example of someone going to the cross as an unselfish approach to life or something. The power of the gospel is in the fact that he came and did those things. That Paul said, I just wanted to get it out there. A dazzling display of rhetoric, may impress the intellect, but it will not save the soul. Paul said, I didn’t come across that, we didn’t try that way. Now listen, the Bible doesn’t condemn Apollos for being a great orator and having great eloquence, he loved God. The condemnation was when people loved him and honored him because of that and lost sight of Jesus. Paul was probably the hardest one to like because Paul wasn’t very impressive, he just laid it out there and walked off. It’s the fact, it’s the truth and if God uses it to convict you and convert you fine, I’m not standing around trying to impress you emotionally or intellectually. He said, I didn’t do it in cleverness and speech.

Now Paul’s real point in saying all of this is, I did all I could to point you to Jesus and not toward me. He says, you have decentralized Christ. Quit decentralizing Christ and exalting a man. And if I walked out of this church tomorrow, and never came back to be your pastor, you ought to stay right here and be faithful for the glory of God. And I’m convinced you would. And if that’s your heartbeat, you won’t have to worry a whole lot about problems in the church. Because when Christ is central in your heart, what are you going to do? On any issue you are going to go to the book. And when you go to the book on the issue, you are going to deny yourself. And then when you go to the book, guess what you are going to find sometimes? You are going to find Baptists hadn’t been doing it according to the book. And see, you know what you do? You stop doing it the way Baptists do it and do it the way the book does it. Amen. And then when all the other Baptists are fighting every business meeting at night, you are not fighting any more. ‘Cause you started doing it right by the book. Amen.

That doesn’t mean you are without any problems, but you know the beautiful illustration of this is our pastor’s council. We meet every Thursday morning at 6:00. And we have our accountability time. And, everything really is on the table every week. But you know we’ve got a commitment in that pastor’s council of one key thing, Christ is Lord and Christ is central, and the scriptures are our authority. And we’re committed that if we as individuals are not walking with God, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter about the decisions about the building, the decisions about the budget, the decisions about hiring staff, all the things the elders of the church are supposed to lead and do, we have determined, that does not matter if first Christ isn’t central in our hearts, and if we’re not walking with God. And you know what we found? It’s incredible how easy it is when you keep that first. There’s never been a bad word, there’s never been a hot spirit, there’s never been a real argument, nothing. Now there’s been reproof, there’s been time when they said, now pastor, we want you to look at this. And you know what, they were right. But it wasn’t a rebuke, I wasn’t against it, I just had a blind spot. There’s time when I’ve reproved them. And it wasn’t something they planned to do, it was just blind. Now we correct one another and sharpen each other, but there is a beautiful unity on the pastor’s council. You know why? They are committed to the lordship of Christ and the authority of the word of God. And there’s no room for divisions.

Listen to me. There can be no significant division in a church unless a staff member or a key leader goes along with it. Three or four people over here get together and say, I tell you what bless God, I don’t like what that Jeff Noblit does, I tell you, I just don’t like it. Well, you know what happens to these two or three people, they start talking to somebody else. But when they talked about the third person, you know what they run into? A brick wall. Because here’s what the third person says. They will say, is what he’s doing violate scripture? No. Then shut up.

When you are committed to Jesus, it just fixes everything folks, I’m just trying to tell you, that is why this church has gone year after year after year after year with basically zero problems. Because there is enough of you who keep Christ central and stand on the authority of the word, and when any of this junk floats to you, is it biblical, is it solid, rock solid, and scriptural, and are your motives pure and only for the glory of Jesus Christ? Well, I’m not sure, then hush. You know why? Because you spent five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty years in churches that all they did was in the flesh fuss and quarrel and gripe and snipe and have party spirits, and just kill their witness for Jesus. And you are determined we’ll not let that happen to this church.

What’s the key point? Paul said simply this. There is only one Lord. Only one Son of God, There is only one who died for you. There is only one that you made profession that you were holding him as your unrivaled Lord when you were baptized. And if you will get back right with him, all the divisions, will take care of themselves. A return to the centrality of Christ in their individual lives will solve all the division problems in any, any church.