The church, the fellowship of Christ, is called out of Corinth.  The church is in Corinth.  That’s a sure formula for confusion and conflict.  We can tolerate disagreement in church.  We can and should have discussions as church, even difficult discussions: each member, old and young, both listening and contributing whatever wisdom God has granted.  What the church cannot have is disunity—fractures and factions.  Christ is not divided.  So, there are things about which we can disagree, and there are other things about which the church, to be the church, cannot disagree.  The problem is there’s always disagreement about what we can disagree about.  That was certainly the case in Corinth.  There, the best minds and biggest hearts were sure that the big blending of all perspectives and beliefs seemed the best, truest way: everyone is right in their own way; every way is right in its own way.  But that’s not the Gospel.

Now, like then, the church is kind of a mess, as a church in the world will be.  The in-the-world comes from us, each and all of us including yours truly.  The not-of-the-world comes from God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.  We don’t uproot the world in us; God does that.  God doesn’t change Corinth; He changes those in His Church.  To an extent, each and all of us can lend ourselves to the work God is doing in and among us, or we can harden ourselves against it, not that anybody does that.

The church in Corinth was a church that very much wanted to be not of the world while grappling with the reality that it was still very much in the world.  Corinth was a wild place, and that walk on the wild side continued to offer strong attractions to those in the young church.  Young in the faith but not inexperienced.  Those who came and established the church in Corinth taught quite plainly that the church was a place, a way, where people acted differently from what was going on around them, acted differently because they thought differently, and thought differently because God had made the difference in their lives: grace had come to them.  Grace is grace because it changes us.  If we remain unchanged, still doing all the same old stuff with all the old zeal, still thinking the old way with all the old certainty, grace hasn’t yet had its full effect in us.

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1:10).  The NLT has “perfectly united in thought and purpose.”  Now, I definitely agree that perfection is unobtainable in this very imperfect world; still, church, let’s aim at the same thing.  We do that more and more as we “Agree with one another in what [we] say.”  What we say we believe?  What do we believe?  I guess the briefest way to put that is, in the church, we believe Christ is Lord.  Christ is the animating, driving, governing force in our lives.  It’s Christ or it’s something else.

Christ is Lord—The Apostles’ Creed elaborates that; then, our other creeds and confessions elaborate upon that.  When we come to our affirmation of faith on Sunday, this is one way that we are agreeing with one another in what we say.  If, one Sunday or another, you find something in that affirmation that causes you to pause, to say to yourself, “well, I don’t believe that,” that would be a good occasion to talk with an elder or with me.  We’re not going to yell at you and tell you you’re wrong; an elder or I will try to help you to feel confident that you are being understood; we will also share what we believe, in the hopes that you might begin to understand, too.  We will communicate and clarify, trusting ourselves always to the mercy and grace of God in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our common aim is to have the same mind as Christ Jesus (Rom 15:5, Phil 2:5): the same perspective, the same way of regarding people and situations, the same purpose.  Only the Spirit can get us there by our ongoing, practice, ongoing reflection, and ongoing prayer.  To have the mind of Christ is to have the secret to endurance, the secret of the way through all that troubles us, causes us hurt and worry, all that makes us afraid and saddens us.  Do you want comfort?  Do you want peace?  Do you want joy?  Pray with me then that God would give us all, and together, the mind of Christ.  Then, let’s all resolve to work on that, together.  God will reveal the way to agreement (Phil 3:15); the Spirit will teach us all truth (Jn 16:13).  We’re not doing this on our own; we don’t have to.  We can’t.

One major reason Paul is writing to the Christians in Corinth is that they are in serious disagreement.  That undermines the church, its effectiveness and mission.  Disagreement, disunity, even undermines the grace of God, if that were possible.  That’s not our current situation here at Bethel, though it certainly is evident in the larger church, and I don’t mean our denomination only.  The larger church has not been effective.  What is the mission of the larger church?  God’s Word and the actions of professed believers don’t seem to line up.  Disagreement and confusion about the mission finally busted up the Methodists in November.

Disagreement unto disunity happens on the large scale and also locally.  Some of you may like what I’m doing here.  Some of you may not, though most are not here today and haven’t been.  Many of you loved what Jim did.  Some of you weren’t so sure.  For those who remember him, the same could be said of Jim Richardson.  A few of you still can take the wayback machine to Leonard Swinney; you maybe even liked what he did.  The point for us all, however, is more and more to know what Christ did, what it means for us, and what we as the church do because of what Christ did—what we now do and what we now do not do, even must not do.  I’m not in charge, here.  I’m not the hero, here.  I never claimed to be.  Christ is our head, Christ our Savior, Christ our Lord, foundation and cornerstone: built together upon him, built together from him—our firm foundation, our solid rock.

Though Paul performed miraculous signs, spoke in tongues, and had visions, he doesn’t preen himself on any of that.  He doesn’t regard such things as the most important part of his mission for Christ.  He tells us what he regards as his most important work for Christ in the church: “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1:17).  No distractions from the cross, where God’s love and man’s need meet, where God’s love is fulfilled and man’s need is satisfied.

Sure, we love the cross, or Jesus anyway.  That isn’t the question.  The question is, do you and I really need the cross?  Jesus, sure, okay—but the cross?  People in the larger church aren’t sure, anymore.  They aren’t really sure what the cross is about or means, anymore.  Well, they know it means love.  That’s saying a lot, and it isn’t saying much.  If that sounds contradictory, it is: in our times, we’re not only suffering a happiness problem, we’re also suffering a love problem.  These days, as in the days of Corinth, love seems to cover a lot of territory—it’s spread out pretty thin, and I’m not so sure the term can really be made to cover what people are trying to cover with it.  Too much of what gets called love these days looks to me like something else.  But I’m an old fuddy-duddy.

When Paul says he didn’t come to preach with wisdom, he means what counts as wisdom in this world, in cosmopolitan, cultured Corinth.  What does that wisdom look like, sound like?  Go along to get along.  We each have our own truth.  Whatever love is, it’s good.  No way is wrong if it’s right for you.  Resurrection is a metaphor.  Jesus never said that.  Paul didn’t come to preach with “clever speech” (NLT).  When he was in Athens, he discovered that what most Athenians craved was some kind of stimulation.  They must have been really bored!  Their lives were without direction, without the high, noble purpose, sort of pointless, resigned to routine.  What the truth really was or wasn’t was not as important to them, in comparison, as being stimulated.  Having tingling feelings was an acceptable substitute for life-changing experience.

These days, there is much confusion out there, as there was in Corinth and Athens, because we live in an entertainment culture, and when something does not entertain us—quickly—we just change the channel.  I know I do!  You’ve never seen those channels surf so fast.  Anyone with a message has eight seconds to make the right impression.  That’s pressure.  Pastors can feel that pressure.  Preacher is here to proclaim the Word, open up God’s Word, and lead the congregation into and all through God’s Word.  Will you allow, now, that eight seconds isn’t a lot of time?  What do you think—should I aim at eight seconds, anyway: just sort of boil it down?

Persuasion, inclination, favorability—the study of rhetoric is the study of persuasion: what creates conviction?  What moves people to action?  What gains sympathy?  Politicians and advertisers are always devoting themselves to the careful study of such questions.  They must, in a democratic, free market system such as we still have, last I checked.  Employing words to produce persuasion, or at least inclination and favorability—can I convince you of the truth of the Gospel and move you to action for Christ by the power of my words?  Let’s all shake our heads.  Uh-uh.  No.  Faith is beyond the grasp of rhetoric.  Rhetoric cannot create faith; faith alone creates conviction for Christ.  If anything I say for Christ, have ever said, or will ever say, wins any approval or assent here, moves or motivates anyone here, it isn’t on account of me.  The power of Christ.  Christ convicts us, moves us.  Moved, convicted—that’s one way we know Christ’s power, know that he is powerful and that his power is at work in us.  But we have to know Christ, not some human concoction sold to us with that label pasted on.

So far as Paul is concerned, the power of Christ is the power of the cross: the persuasiveness and conviction of the cross.  The message of Christ is the message of the cross about which the larger church just isn’t sure anymore, the cross that now reveals disagreement and disunity, and “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1:18).

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.