Category: Band

One of the most difficult conversations for most churches that I have been associated with, is the conversation related to the use of money. It is ironic because this has often been one of the objections by people who have been part of a church and have since left, saying that they felt like all the church ever talked about was money.

But in the majority of churches where I have been, it is spoken about, at most, once per year, usually around the time that the church is setting its budget for the year. Possibly in that time that was the point at which we would hear a message about tithing, or it might even be just a practical discussion about the plan for the budget.

But I have also heard other people simply say that there is no reason to talk about money in the church, that God would provide all that is needed.

Yet there is one signficant problem with this point of view: Money, and the use of money, is one of the most common themes for instruction throughout the course of the Bible. It was one of the main themes that Jesus used in the course of his teachings.

Why would that be?

It wasn’t that Jesus was trying to collect more money. It wasn’t that the early church was trying to build a new building. No, the main reason for these discussions was the condition of the heart of the people who were to give. The question was, at that time, and is even still today:

Where is your treasure?

In what are you placing value?

Do you value the things of this earth? Do you, essentially, value that which money can buy today? Or do you place your treasure in heaven, valuing those things that are beyond this earth?

Paul was direct with the churches with whom he was working with regard to the discussion about money. The church in Jerusalem was suffering and they were the original church, the “mother” church, we could say. So Paul felt that it was important that the other churches contribute to help the church in Jerusalem continue on, relieving their burden, even from far away.

So to do this, he looked to each church to contribute:

Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me.

1 Corinthians 16:1-4

Paul is writing to the churches and telling them that they needed to contribute to the collection for the church in Jerusalem. Even further, he even went on to tell them how to do it. This would be a sacrifice for them, but that sacrifice should be made regularly, on a weekly basis, not all at once, probably so that it wouldn’t seem like such a burden to give a lot of money in one pressure-filled moment.

So Paul is clear, not only in the need to contribute, but even also in the manner in which the collection should be done.

In our churches today, we need to teach about the need for using the funds that the Lord has given us as well. We need to explain even how it should be done, just as we see with Paul in this circumstance. Of course, we should also be clear about how the funds should be used for the kingdom of God, not only for the building of ever-larger buildings or other questionable expenses. Instead, let’s teach the use of money, helping those who wish to follow Christ learn to do so with all that God has given us, including the sum of money that the Lord has called us to use for his purpose.

Without the hope of the resurrection, there is no hope. Without the resurrection, there is nothing more. And there were some in the Corinthian church were saying that resurrection is not possible.

So Paul makes the point that if there is no resurrection, their faith is useless.

And if there is no resurrection, then Jesus was not resurrected.

And if Jesus was not resurrected, our faith is in vain. There is nothing to hold onto.

In that case, Paul says that you should then go and have a party!

If the dead are not raised,
“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

1 Corinthians 15:32

He is quoting from Isaiah 22 where the people were called into repentance, to come back to the Lord. Yes the Israelites were not interested in repenting. They were not interested in returning to the Lord. No, instead, they were only interested in living for today. They were interested in only what they were interested in. They went on eating meat. They went on drinking wine. And in themselves these are not necessarily bad things, but in the context of the call to come to the Lord, they essentially ignored God.

And so, in the same way, Paul says that the Corinthians should do the same thing. If they deny the resurrection, they might as well just enjoy their day. They should do what they want to do. They should live their best life. Each one should “do you”, if you will.

In other words, live the life that you have because in the end, it really means nothing. There is no significance. There is nothing more to live for. Live it up. Eat and drink. Do whatever makes you feel good or whatever you want. You might as well because there is nothing else with which to concern yourself.

But if you believe in the resurrection, you live for Christ today as a result of the resurrection, and you live for Christ forever as a result of the resurrection. The hope of the resurrection of Christ, which defeated death, is our hope. When we say that we have faith, we mean that we have faith that Christ’s death was God’s sacrifice for our sins, just as was foretold by the scriptures, and that his resurrection to eternal life will also give us life forever with him.

Without the resurrection, we have no hope. Without the resurrection, there is no life, so we should go and do as we like, for tomorrow we die. But Jesus was raised from the grave. Jesus was raised to life and lives even today. We live for him today and we will continue to live for him in eternity.

The theme in the book of 1 Corinthians continues, chapter after chapter. This time, Paul is making the distinction between people who are speaking in tongues in the church and those who are prophesying. The core issue that he brings up is this:

Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.

1 Corinthians 14:4

What is Paul talking about here? He is saying that if you speak in tongues, you are speaking the language of the Spirit of God. And that is good. We should speak the language of the Spirit.

But within the church, Paul is saying that there is little to no benefit in this. No one else can understand what you are saying. Yes, there can be – in fact, must be – an interpreter. Without the interpreter, Paul says that there should be no speaking in tongues.

Yet even still, even if there is an interpreter, who is being edified? Who is being built up? According to Paul, it is the one who is speaking, and only the one who is speaking, not anyone else who is listening.

So Paul says that we need to begin to think like adults and no longer like children:

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. In the Law it is written:

“With other tongues
and through the lips of foreigners
I will speak to this people,
but even then they will not listen to me,
says the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 14:18-21

What does he mean that we should think like adults and not children? Children think about what they want. They think about what makes them happy. Children think about what pleases them in the moment, what pleases them now.

Adults should think about the good of what others want. In fact, they are thinking about the needs of the children. They should be thinking about what others need, not just what they want in that moment.

This theme fits directly into the conversation of unity that Paul has been carrying throughout his letter to the Corinthians. One very important way that they can have unity is to no longer think about what they want, but what is needed to build others up, to build up the body of Christ.

Instead, Paul says that words of instruction and words of prophecy are the words that are needed to build others up. In fact, he makes a direct distinction with prophecy, telling the people to desire the gift of prophecy so that they can prophesy within the church.

What does that mean? Is Paul saying that we should have a church that is full of people who are telling the future all of the time?

Think about a person who has a prophetic gifting. This person, a prophet, speaks in two primary ways:

First, yes, they speak of the future. They tell of what is to come. They speak words of encouragement for God’s future work and the significance of his work upon our lives. As believers, we are humbled and come in fear of the great power of God, but that same power is where we place our hope and faith for eternal life and that all of the evils of the world to be set right. God’s work is an encouragement for each one of us, both because it will come to a righteous and holy end, and also because he includes each of us that are in Christ and within his kingdom within his work. These prophecies, when properly aligned with the word of God, are a great encouragement to the body of Christ, to the church, and should edify the church each time that they are heard.

However, a second type of message of a prophet is that of realignment to God, a call to God’s people to come back to the Lord. The prophet prophecies, speaking to God’s people that they will hear the clear call to repentance. They speak a clear word from the Lord when the people have strayed from the path that God has laid out for them, calling the people to return back to him.

So these calls to repentance, these calls to return, are also encouraging for the entire church because they are calls to return back to Christ. They are calls to return back to the one who unites his entire body. And what is more, Paul says, if an unbeliever is there while the believers are prophesying, they will understand that God is truly there among them. Not because they are hearing a strange tongue spoken, but because they will be convicted of sin as a result of the prophetic message.

But if an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in while everyone is prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all, as the secrets of their hearts are laid bare. So they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, “God is really among you!”

1 Corinthians 14:24-25

There are different ways in which we might make the point that Paul is making. He is calling the people to unity and to edify one another within the church, building up the church, building up the people around him.

Another way that I have also heard this expressed and that I tend to subscribe to myself is to ask this question: Whose kingdom am I building? The kingdom of God where Christ is king? Or my own kingdom?

In other words, am I spending more time thinking about what I want and what I prefer? And am I then acting based on those thoughts? Or am I spending more time thinking about what will build up the body of Christ, thus being part of the solution that will build the kingdom of God and bring him glory…and then acting upon that?

Those are important questions, I believe, even for the church today. There are many other silly types of issues that divide us today based on our own preferences. There are many different types of churches that branch off of other churches based on stylistic choices. Choices in music. Choices in preaching style. Choices in the types of chairs that we sit in. Choices in the temperature of the room. So in reality, as the saying goes, if we point the finger at others – as we might here with the Corinthian church – we have three more fingers pointing directly back at us. That which we might accuse the Corinthians of doing, we do the same, and worse.

So we must look for ways in which we can edify the body of Christ, ways in which we can build others up in Christ, not tear them down.

God help us to edify the body for building up your kingdom, to your glory.

The message is simple: unity is paramount. Whether we are talking about avoiding division because of alignment to different leaders in the church, division because of socioeconomic status, division as a result of rebellion against authority, division over legal rights and religious knowledge, or any other type of division, the message is the same. Put all of these things aside to align yourself with Christ and instead of fighting such that you end up dividing, fight for unity.

Paul made a metaphor and called us the body of Christ. One part of a body cannot tell another part that it isn’t needed. One part of a body cannot tell another that it isn’t wanted. No, a body needs all of the parts of the body.

The church is the body of Christ:

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Corinthians 12:27

There are different parts of the body. Just like a human body that has arms, legs, a head, muscles, and various organs that make the systems of the body function, the body of Christ also has different parts that function differently but yet all function together.

No part of a body would work well without the other part and no part of the body would want to lose any other part of the body. Not only would there be incredible pain, there would be a lack of function. There would be something missing in the normal function of the way that the body should work, in the way that it was designed to work.

In the same way, in the body of Christ, we are all designed to have a role and every part is necessary. Every part is required. If we lose a part, there would be incredible pain, incredible anguish. And the body would no longer function as it should. The body would no longer function is the way that it was designed to work.

Each part of the body has a role. Each part of the body of Christ has a gift that it has been given. Do not hold back your function, your role, in the body of Christ. And do not reject the function, the role in the body of Christ of others.

I am not sure that I always grasp the extent to which God and his word stand in direct contrast with the ways of man and the systems of our world today. Some might say that to live the Christian life is like swimming upstream. Others might say that a Christian should be counter-cultural.

While these descriptions are certainly correct, I’m not sure that the language is vivid enough even yet to describe how different God’s ways are from man’s ways.

I thought of that today as I read – yet again, after reading this same verse many, many times and not thinking of it this way – this verse in 1 Corinthians 10:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:31

Paul has explained to the Corinthians that they should not be so prideful in their insistence that they can eat food that has been sacrificed to idols. He tells the Corinthians that they should be considering others, preventing them from stumbling in their walk with Christ just by their eating, just because they have the knowledge that they can.

No, if they were to do this, they would be thinking only of themselves, and this is exactly how the world works. And this is why eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols is such a significant issue.

Yes, Paul says, it is important not to participate with idols, which are demonic in nature. It is important of course, in that case, not to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols.

But even more important is the need to think first of the glory for God.

In the world’s way of thinking, we think of what we want. We think of what pleases us. That which makes us feel good.

We spend time on ourselves. We spend time making ourselves money. We work to build our fame, our fortune, our power. We spend time on that for which we are passionate.

Paul says, though, that if you are a believer, if you follow Christ, you think and live very differently. You live to glorify God. In this example, Paul is talking about whether or not the believers should eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols, but he is clear in his comprehensiveness of his statement: Whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.

Are there ways in which that which we want can overlap with giving glory to God? Yes, of course. But frequently, like the situation with the Corinthians’ desire to eat meat, even if it has been sacrificed to idols, they need to first consider what would bring God glory. Yes, legally, they can do it. But no, it will not bring God glory. Others may stumble. Others may lose their opportunity to know Christ. Others may not be saved because of their desire to exercise their rights. And thus, we will lose our opportunity to glorify God, or for him to receive more glory because that would be one or more persons who will not worship him, who will not glorify him.

God’s way to think, to act, to live, is completely different than the world’s way, than our way. As followers of Christ, we must learn to not live for ourselves, not even just living for others, but instead living for the glory of God.

Apostle Paul and the Corinthian church have evidently been exchanging letters back and forth and the Corinthians, unfortunately, seem to be somewhat contrarian in their perspective of how they should be treating certain – let’s say – more sensitive topics.

For example, at one point, the Corinthians wrote to Paul that “We all possess knowledge.”

What are they saying?

It seems that the Corinthians are saying to Paul that they know what he knows. They understand what was written. They are saying that they have the knowledge of the scriptures that Paul has, which in all likelihood is true.

In short, it seems that they are saying that they know their rights. They have the right, in this case, to eat food, specifically meat, that has been sacrificed to idols. Why? Because an idol is nothing. There is no actual god in that idol, so any food that has been sacrificed to that idol is not actually a sacrifice at all.

But Paul explains back to the Corinthians that there is something more that is required. It isn’t just that the Corinthians need to know their rights. They don’t need to just know the law. They need to understand, within the confines of the law, how they can love other people in such a way that those others can come to know Christ. They need to know how they can do that without placing barriers in front of those other people, preventing those others from fully coming to Jesus, giving themselves to him.

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God.

1 Corinthians 8:1-3

By eating this meat that has been sacrificed to idols, even though these people within the Corinthian church are correct from a lawful perspective and from a spiritually “legal” perspective, Paul is explaining that they are acting wrongly from a loving perspective. Their actions, while based on right understanding, are actually preventing other people from knowing Christ because it looks completely wrong to these other people.

This meat that they are eating has been sacrificed to another god. How could they eat it? That is what the pagans would do!

Paul is saying that this is the thinking of those who are considering coming to follow Christ and yet are seeing the Corinthian Christians eat this meat and find themselves scandalized, or as Paul says, it becomes a stumbling block to them and their young faith is destroyed.

Is their faith destroyed because the Corinthians were wrong to eat the meat? No, they weren’t wrong in their understanding. They weren’t wrong in their knowledge. They were wrong in their love for other people.

They knew that there would controversy by going to eat this meat. They knew that this was a significant issue of their day. And yet, because they knew they were right – or because they knew their “rights” – they went ahead and did it anyway. And they did it despite realizing that other people would fall away from Christ.

Paul explains, though, that if someone would fall away from Christ as a result of the meat he were eating, he would never eat meat again! The important point is not that we are right, or that we are able to exercise our rights. The important point, instead, is that we would show love to others so that they would know Jesus!

Of course, there are fundamental truths upon which we cannot compromise. We cannot remove the foundations of our faith to accommodate people who do not believe in the foundations of that faith.

But there are many different aspects of our faith that are secondary, yet have, because of the knowledge that we have obtained, become primary in our minds such that our insistence that we are right, that we can do this thing or we insist that we cannot do this thing, that it becomes a stumbling block for others to follow Christ.

Here is, in my opinion, a silly example:

I have heard it said that Christians cannot have tattoos. I have also heard it said that Christians are allowed to have tattoos. I understand the argument for why someone would say one or the other, why they would take one position or the other. But are you so sure of your position – for or against – that it is worth arguing about such a statement that you are willing to risk someone falling out of relationship with you, or as I have actually seen happen, with Christ as a result?

There are several examples, I believe, that we could make with this, but I believe Paul, in this case would say that if, by getting a tattoo, you cause another person to stumble, he would never get a tattoo. On the other hand, if criticizing a person for getting a tattoo might cause them to stumble in their relationship with Christ, I believe that he would not voice that criticism, understanding that there are differing views on this topic and that this would be a significant problem for some people.

We must be careful with our knowledge, that it doesn’t puff us up, but instead walk in love, building up one another so that each will know Christ and grow in him.

We often live as if our time will never end. We act as if death won’t come for us. We act as if there will be no end for us, and furthermore, that there will be no judgment. And as a result, we can find ourselves being extremely careless with our time and with our resources.

The point at which people find themselves realizing that there has been a lot of waste often compels them to give a warning to others. Or possibly there are even moments of regret, or possibly pride that we “would do it all over again”. These moments of reflection even get written down or memorialized in speeches or lectures, shared and reshared by the rest of us to remind us of the truth, that our time in short so we must live for that which is valuable, that which is important.

Recently I was speaking with a friend who mentioned to me the scene at the end of the movie Schindler’s List where Schindler realizes how many more people he could have saved, if only he would have made more money, or sold his car, or even sold the pen in his hand. He could have saved many more people. Many more could have been taken away from the enemy.

Here is the scene to which my friend was referring:

Schindler had done an amazing job of saving many people, yet at the same time, he also realized how much had been wasted. Time had been wasted. Money had been wasted. He realized how much more he could have done. The time had come to the end for him, yet he realized how many other people had their time come to an end long before his time had ended.

There is a similar spirit in Paul’s statement to the Corinthians as he tells them also that the time, their time, is short:

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Whether we realize it or not, our time is short and our lives, our world, is passing away. But if we are honest, we know that we often stop thinking about what is truly important and instead focus upon ourselves. Instead of focusing on what is eternal, we focus on our own comforts, our own selves.

But Paul points out the real truth: These things are all passing away and the only thing that is eternal is the King and his kingdom. He is the one person to whom we should be giving our time and our energy. Not to myself. Not to build me up. Not to make me rich or powerful or famous. In the end, there is no point to any of this because it is all passing away. We build it all. We work for ourselves, to build ourselves up, and yet it will only be torn down. No one to remember our name. No one to remember anything about what we have built.

Instead, there is only one who will last and one to whom we must give our lives: To Christ, and to him alone. We must live to lift him up. We must live to glorify him. We must live for him and for him alone because he is the only one who will last.

So in a similar way to Schindler’s experience, Paul tells the Corinthians that the things of this world that worry them, they should live in such a way that they no longer worry them. These things are passing away. In just the space of a few years, they will no longer be there, but God and his glory will live on forever, as will the souls of the other people there in Corinth, either with the Lord in his kingdom, or separate from the Lord outside.

And in that time, what will we say? Will we regret the way that we spent our time? Will we regret how we have spent the resources that we were given? Or will we hear from the Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant?”

These are important questions that we must ask ourselves now, in this time. We must pose these questions to ourselves even at this moment where we are facing challenges, even while we are having difficulty. Why? Because our answers to these questions will define the next 10, 20, 30 years or more of our lives. We can’t wait until things get better. They never will. Instead, our answers to those questions will guide how we live the rest of our lives. Whether we will look back thinking that we have wasted our lives, or whether we look back knowing that we gave our lives for the things that will last. That which is eternal and will last beyond us, forever, into eternity: The glory of our King and for the good of other people who could, like us, come to know him.

Stop me if you have heard this one before…

“I just wish this preacher would give us the meat of the word, not just the milk all of the time…”

“I think I will need to go to this other church because they really get into the meat of the word of God.”

“Wow, we got the meat today!”

I remember when I first heard people say things like this, thinking that it sounded very strange to me. I tend to be a meat-eater myself, enjoying eating that much more than a glass of milk any day!

At the same time, frequently, I found that I actually liked the message that had been given that day. What was the problem?

The person saying this was saying that they thought the preaching was too elementary for them. They want to go “deeper”. They want to dig into the word of God and go line by line, if not word by word. They want to understand the original Greek and the Hebrew meanings of each word so that they have more knowledge, more understanding.

And that is all fine. No problem.

But if you are the one responsible for doing the teaching, how do you know that the people are ready for this “meat”, or solid food, as Paul calls it? Let’s see what Paul said about it:

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ.  I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.  You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?  For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?

1 Corinthians 3:1-4

The church in Corinth had several problems, but one of the biggest issues was that of divisions within the church. As he says here, some were saying that they followed Paul, others Apollos. In other places, they also say that some follow Peter, and others Jesus Christ.

The point is that they were divided. They were jealous of one another. They were arguing. In short, they were worldly. As a church, little had changed. They were acting the same after they came to Christ as they did before.

These same types of things happen even today. I’ve seen evidence of it in churches. I’ve seen evidence of it in various missions. Whether we are talking about this specific type of worldliness or another, the values of the world constantly try to seep their way into the church.

It is a shame on a few different levels. First, because it steals the glory that God deserves away from him. Both as a result of the people within the church not honoring the Lord completely as well as others not being able to fully see the difference between what it means to follow Christ, loving him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. God should be able to receive glory as a result of the change within the people for whom Jesus came to give himself upon the cross. And what is more, he should be able to receive glory as a result of more people knowing God because they want the beauty of the life that they should see in other believers.

But on another level, it is a shame because it means that the people are not growing in their faith. Only as a result of their growth should their teachers make the decision to take the next steps to teach them more, to teach them deeper topics. Maybe it is possible for the people to understand the concepts of placing their faith Christ in their mind, but following Christ is not just an issue of understanding, but of doing. Jesus said that we can show our love to him by obeying him, by doing what he said to do, not just understanding what he had to say.

Once the people of the church are able to not only understand, but they begin to obey Christ and no longer “produce the fruit” of the world but instead produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit, then they are ready for solid food. Before then, just as Paul said, they continue to need milk, that which is for spiritual children.

Paul was dealing with a difficult situation in Corinth. In fact, there were several difficult situations, with everything from incest to lawsuits amongst the believers. From sexual immorality to significant questions about whether someone should be married or stay single. From eating food that had been offered as a sacrifice to idols to whether or not a woman should cover her head in church.

One question, one problem, after another, Paul faced as he wrote to the church in Corinth.

However, the one problem that he started with was the problem of division in the church. Some people were saying that they followed Paul, some said that they followed Apollos. Others said that they followed Peter. And some said that they only followed Christ. The people were aligning with the various leaders that had either come through Corinth to teach the people, or that they knew about because of the messages that the people who had taught were teaching them.

In reality, these are no different than the problems that we see today. We routinely see that churches will split as a result of personalities driving wedges between the people of the church. Often those personalities will look for a type of authority, of power, that they can exert over others in the church, and thus we see splits within the church with people desiring to support one person or another.

This is a similar situation to what we see here in Corinth, except that Paul and the other teachers weren’t trying to create their own type of power. No, instead, Paul insists that his only message was to make Christ, and him crucified, known to the people. That was the message. That is all that he brought. That was the wisdom that he could offer.

But Paul points out that his message, of course, did not actually seem like a wise message at all from the perspective of the “mature”, from the viewpoint of those that were the rulers of that age. In fact, it seemed like nothing but foolishness.

Your message is about a guy who was killed?

Your message is to tell people that they should follow someone who seems to have failed?

But Paul points out that there is a significant difference between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of people:

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:6-10

The wisdom of men is to follow people that seem to be a success from a worldly perspective. They have accumulated wealth and power. They have amassed fame. And yet, as Paul says, they are coming to nothing. The power and success of this world is nothing. We are here for a moment in time, and then we are gone.

We know this truth by our instinct. We know that death is coming. We know that our lives are only temporary, and yet we are continually enticed by the attraction of wealth, power, and fame. In this way, through these values of the world, we can have significance. Other people will lift us up. Other people will glorify us. Even if it is for a short while, we will receive glory and honor, even if it is amongst other people who will also only be here for a short while.

Paul says, however, that his message is not based on the wisdom of this world. His message is based on the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of God speaks of Christ crucified. And why should this be considered to be wisdom, let alone the wisdom of God? Because it is eternal.

By placing our faith in the wisdom of God, by placing our faith in Christ who has been crucified, we place our faith in that which will go on forever. The glory with which we participate is not a glory that is temporary. It is a glory that is eternal because it is a glory that goes to the one who is eternal, to Jesus Christ himself. Instead of receiving glory to ourselves, we give glory to him and we participate in his joy and glory because through his death and resurrection, we are allowed to enter into his kingdom and live with him forever. Physical death has no hold upon us because we will live forever, glorifying the king forever.

This is the wisdom of God. We do not live for today. We live forever. And that is the message of wisdom that Paul brought to the Corinthian church and that we bring even today, in our time.

I have spent quite a lot of time over the last few years teaching and talking about how we, as followers of Christ, can “produce fruit”.  For example, Jesus told the Pharisees and Sadducees that they must produce fruit in keeping with repentance. In our context, very frequently, given that we are often teaching about making disciples, we focus on multiplying disciples as a definition of producing fruit.  And I think that is an accurate representation of what several of the scriptures intended, but it isn’t necessarily complete as we think about what it means to produce fruit.

We see at least one other type of fruit noted within the New Testament.  The fruit of the Holy Spirit.

I see this as an extremely important topic because there is one way, and really only one way, that we can know that we are in Christ and have been saved:  If we have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God himself, living within us, then we have been saved.  We cannot know it because of something that we have done or because of something someone else has told us.  When we are saved, God seals his promise to us and within us and identifies us as his own by placing his Holy Spirit within us.

An obvious question, as a result of understanding this, should then come up:  How do I know that I have the Holy Spirit?

There may be a few different ways that we can know this, and the answer may depend upon the theology of the person that you are asking.  However, my intent is to make my answer to this question as simple as possible by way of using an analogy to understand the answer to this question.

Let’s assume that you are looking at a tree, and you think that it might be an apple tree, but you aren’t sure.  How would you know for sure if this tree is an apple tree?

Aside from checking its DNA or knowing some of its other characteristics, what would be the most obvious way to know that this tree is an apple tree?

We would know that it is an apple tree based on the fruit that it produces.

Does it produce apples?  Then yes, it is an apple tree.

Yes, I understand that answer seems pretty simple, and you might even say simplistic, but it is an easy answer and the easiest way to know if this tree is an apple tree.

In a similar way, Paul has written to the Galatian church and explained to them that they have been set free in Christ.  In Christ, they are free from the ties to the Law and from the shackles of sin and death.  Instead, through their faith in Christ, they can know God.  They will be God’s people under the new covenant that God made with his people through the blood of Christ.

And as they place their faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that it will save them also and they will be able to know God through him, then God will mark them with the Holy Spirit.

Yet Paul takes some additional next steps as well to explain how they, the Galatians and each of who read this letter, can know that they have the Holy Spirit, that they are “walking” by the Spirit.  He explains to the Galatians that they will produce the fruit of the Spirit.  Instead of indulging the desires of their flesh, they ill produce the fruit of the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

When we understand that the fruit of the Holy Spirit includes these things, we can begin to ask ourselves:

Do I have the Holy Spirit living within me?  Am I walking by the Holy Spirit?  To answer these questions, and to feel like we have come to the right answer instead of simply answering the question in the way that we would hope the answer to be, we can ask even further some additional, simple questions:

Did I just answer my friend and his questions or criticisms in love?

Do I feel joy as I go throughout my day?

Am I treating my wife, or my kids, with patience or kindness?

Am I exercising self-control in this difficult situation?

If the answer to those questions is Yes, then as a believer in Christ, you are walking in step with the Holy Spirit.  You are producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  If you are not, if you answer No to those questions, then it is probably time to go back to Square One, back to the beginning, and repent.  Repent of the things that you are doing wrong.  Repent of the things that are preventing you from producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  God offers grace and mercy and loves you, but he wants you to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit, so you must walk in step with the Spirit that he has given you.

Another way that we can think about this is from a negative point of view.  Even before pointing out the fruit of the Spirit, Paul says that the ways in which we indulge our flesh, instead of producing the fruit of the Spirit, are obvious:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

Paul groups these “acts of the flesh” into various categories:

Sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery – These are pretty easy to point out as acts of the flesh.  These are the things that are easily and often shamed within our societies.  Sexual sins where, instead of using our bodies in the way that God intended, we use them to simply gratify ourselves.

Idolatry and witchcraft – Once again, these are pretty easy to understand as acts of the flesh.  Idolatry and witchcraft place other spirits or other gods before the one true God, the only God.  Instead of worshiping God, we are calling upon other gods or invoking other spirits to serve us.

Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy – Now we are diving more deeply into the everyday lives of many people, even today.  Are you taking part in arguments and cause discord?  Are you angry?  Are you jealous or envious?  Do you cause or take part in dissension?  Do groups or factions – us vs. them – spring up around you, or do you take part in them?

Drunkenness, orgies, and the like – Again, these are some of the sins that seem to be fairly easy to understand as not belonging to the life of a follower of Christ.

My point is that we should think carefully about the fruit that we are producing.  If we say that we are followers of Jesus, and God has placed his Spirit within us, then he has called us to freedom.  But our freedom is so that we can produce the fruit of the Spirit.  And when we produce the fruit of the Spirit, we are also fulfilling all of the commandments that God has given. We can know that we are walking by the Spirit by the fruit that we are producing.