Sermons on 1 Corinthians
I am Thankful for Church Family
1 Corinthians 12:12-26 — We live in an individualistic culture whose definition of ‘the good life’ focuses on self-centered, impersonal things. Our place in the world, our value, we are told, connects to things like our career, our money, our car, our clothes, and our appearance. Happiness, our world markets to us, involves beings true to oneself and asserting one’s wishes and rights. The ‘good life’ our world advocates comes with a widely known secret – impersonal things and self-centered…
Jesus Shaped Ethics – Jesus and Sexuality
1 Corinthians 6:12-20–It seems that our culture talks about sex and sexuality all the time. Our culture’s apparent lack of shame finds counterbalance in the embarrassment that often accompanies discussions about the topic in the church. However, even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals that it also has a lot to say about sex and sexuality, indicating that it is an important topic that we should not avoid. So, we will use this morning’s lesson to consider a few…
The Smart God
THE SMART GOD-1 Corinthians 1:18-24–We don’t often say that God is smart. We tend to prefer more spiritual-sounding words to describe his wisdom, knowledge or understanding. Even so, our God is amazingly smart, and we are better off when we acknowledge it. Ever since Eve looked at the forbidden fruit and saw that it looked good to eat, humans have struggled to accept the fact that God knows more about life on earth than we do. Most of our sins…
Always Being Prepared – Communion
Certain beliefs and practices define us as a religious group in our thinking and other religious groups’ thinking. Because we have a responsibility to be “prepared to make a defense” for the things we believe (1 Peter 3:15), we need to have a conversational understanding of our beliefs and practices that we can share with others. This lesson continues a series looking at some of the more apparent beliefs and practices that tend to define us, things like baptism, communion, and music in worship, and will offer a biblical explanation for them. In particular, this lesson explores our beliefs about the Lord’s Supper: We believe the Christian practice of communion follows the Jewish observance of the Sabbath while reinterpreting it through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Tell Me The Story
This lesson considers the purpose for which God created worship – to train the hearts and minds of His people by retelling the Bible’s stories.
Foods and Selflessness
1 Corinthians chapter eight contains part of Paul’s response to a question raised by the Christians in the city of Corinth – he told them to think less about their rights and more about their selfless service to one another. This lesson examines Paul’s response as part of our series examining the selflessness that ought to define our lives as followers of Jesus.
Non-NEGOTIABLES
1 Corinthians 1:10
The desire for unity has pervaded human consciousness from the beginning of its history; God created us to be united. Our sins, however, keep us divided. That dilemma provided the backdrop for Paul’s message for the Corinthians in which he called for them to be united. Paul’s call for unity goes far beyond merely a call to “get along”; he told the Corinthians that God expected them to “united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). This lesson will outline some of the non-negotiable truths that play a role in the unity that ought to define us.
The Death of Death
1 Corinthians 15:12-28 Paul believed the good news of Jesus’ resurrection changed everything and offered the foundation upon which Christian thinking and living built itself. We should therefore ask ourselves, as people who claim to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, does it offer the same foundational, life-changing place in our lives that it held within Paul’s life?
The Community Assembled
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:14-22
We often think only of our vertical relationship with God when we think of the purpose of “worship services.” By the very fact that whatever we do in these assembles we do together, fellowship becomes a part of it. The church is a distinct community, and this distinctiveness shows when we come together. The church is a loving community, and the loves shows best when we are together. Each “act” of worship is an expression of community, and sometimes the horizontal element is more obvious than the vertical.
Grow in the Small Things
Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Abram has all the markings of adulthood. He is of age. He has struck out on his own. Abram worships God wherever he goes. He is married, and although childless, cares for his nephew Lot. Is Abram’s faith ready for adulthood? Genesis 12 is an illustration of the concept in 1 Corinthians 1:26 where God uses seemingly small things to shame those who boast in their strength. Before Abram becomes the great father of our faith, God uses everyday challenges like hunger and fear to humble Abram and keep him focused on living faithfully. Much of our Bible’s credibility comes from its willingness to critique even its greatest heroes.