Live by the grace of God
Two cows were grazing in a pasture when they saw a milk truck pass. On the side of the truck were the words, “Pasteurized, homogenized, standardized, vitamin A added.” One cow sighed and said to the other, “Makes you feel sort of inadequate, doesn't it?” Paul, although an apostle, was every bit as human as we are, so I wonder how he felt sometimes when the church at Corinth tried to make him feel inadequate because he didn’t live up to their standards for an apostle. Some in the church accused him of being a pathetic looking figure and an unimpressive public speaker in comparison to the men they admired. One of the things church folks sometimes do to pastors, and usually right after the worship service, is to go on at length speaking in glowing terms about the message they heard from a TV preacher that morning or from the pastor of the church they visited last weekend. Those are “special” moments and sometimes they’re driven by a spirit of comparison. A spirit of comparison was alive and well within the church at Corinth, fueling the pride and arrogance that led to the divisions within the church. This is what pride does in a church. It sets aside the grace of God by diminishing Christ and exalting people as if they were the model to imitate in our Christian lives. And once we diminish Christ, we set aside the grace of God. The Corinthians were setting God’s grace aside because men they favored, rather than Christ, were at the center of their faith and devotion, but as Paul tackles this problem head on, we can learn from Paul’s correction of the Corinthians, so that we may all the more learn to live by the grace of God.
We invite you to come join us this Sunday morning for our in-person worship service at Leptondale Bible Church in Newburgh, starting at 10:55 AM. For those unable to attend, our service can be viewed live on the church’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/leptondalebiblechurch. This Sunday, we’ll continue a sermon series from 1st Corinthians titled “Written for Our Instruction” with a message from 1st Corinthians 4:1-13 titled “Live by the grace of God.”
God bless!
Pastor Mike