“It Is So Good to Be a Christian”

18 Jan  “It Is So Good to Be a Christian”

1/20/19       1 Corinthians 1:1-9      “It Is So Good to Be a Christian”

In our modern world we sometimes get a little mixed up and start to compare ourselves to other people.  You know what I mean.  We are always doing this in our minds when we go I’m not as rich as her, or I’m not as fast as him, or I’m not as skinny as him or I’m not as good as her.  When we do this we set ourselves up for failure.  Any comparisons that we make should be made through God.  In today’s Scripture we will be taking a look at some comparisons that people might make of an ancient city and culture.  This should lead us to how great it is to follow Christ.  I used to always get into a discussion with a former pastor of mine about the cost of following Jesus.  He would always say how high the cost was to follow Jesus and he might have been right to a certain extent.  We have been so conditioned in our society to think that we are having fun and things are good when we are absolutely doing things against the will of God.  I don’t think there is much fun in going to the bar every night or using some sort of drug all the time or committing adultery or just lying about things.  I would say and I still say that the high cost of following Jesus pales, absolutely pales in comparison to an eternity in hell for not following Him. I cannot think of a better life than one following Jesus.  It’s so good to be a Christian.

As we begin today I would like to tell you about a wonderful city that I just read about.  It is not a big city at 600,000 but it is a ‘hoppin’ city.  First of all it is located on the ocean.  It has a nice bay and it is the shipping capital of the area.  This in turn brings in people from all over the world.  This also helps the city to be a cultural center.  It has sports, art and a huge theater that seats 18,000 people.  It is a middle class city so there are lots of people who make pretty good money.  It is the religious center of the area.  It boasts of hundreds of churches who worship just about everything imaginable.  There is a church on top of the huge hill in the middle of the city that employs 1000 women.  Here they worship the human body and just about every kind of debauchery you can think of.

It is kind of an anything goes type of city.  And of course, along with this attitude comes the problems that it creates.  This city could possibly be just about any city in this country or even in the world.  But this city is located in Greece in about 51 AD.  One of the funny things about this city of Corinth is that this is where God through the Apostle Paul decided to build a strong church.  Isn’t it funny sometimes when you think about how God works?  Here in the midst of one of the most immoral cities in the ancient world God builds a church.

Paul begins this passage with a wonderful greeting.  He identifies himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.  Do you remember the story of Paul?  Here was a man who was a Pharisee and hunted Christians with vengeance.  He would think nothing of killing them and he did.  Yet now he was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.  When he first started in the ministry, he had trouble with people believing him because he had previously been so anti-Christian.  And now he is leading the church as it reaches out to the Gentiles.

How many people do you know who have totally turned their lives around with the help of Jesus Christ?  I know that I’m one of these people!  One of the greatest miracles that Jesus does and the proof that He exists is that He changes lives.  He has been doing it since the beginning and He will keep on doing it into the future.  I can’t help but think or hope that when people come to Christ after living a life of sin that their faith is genuine. But often times some Christians doubt these conversions.  We need to look the people around us and see their conversions.  Then we have to take a look at the people who are doing the rejecting.  Paul did things that were far worse in our minds than most people who come to Jesus.  Yet we accept Paul as one of the Apostles, but we won’t accept the former alcoholic or drug addict who now loves Jesus.  Think about this as you go about your lives this week.  Reach out to some of these converts and welcome them.

But God doesn’t limit himself to saving broken individuals.  We can see and we can read in history about how corrupt and vile was the city of Corinth.  Yet it is right in the middle of all this that we find the planting of a church that we still read about 2000 years later.  Jesus continually goes marching into places that are the strongholds of the evil one and plants himself and He won’t be denied.

If we read on in Corinthians we will see that this church was having all sorts of trouble because they were located in such a sinful city.  Some of the people had a tendency to go back to their old ways of doing things.  That is why we have to, have to help those who are just starting in their walk with Jesus Christ.  Satan is far stronger than we are and he wants these people back.  So we need to be watching for them and helping them in whatever way we can.  I know you folks do a good job of this but there is nothing wrong with a little reminder.

As we move on we see in just a few short verses, Paul is telling us three things that make it so nice to be a Christian both then and today.  The first thing he is telling us is that it is great to be a Christian because of who you are.  He begins in the second verse by telling us we are sanctified in Jesus Christ and are to be called holy.  When was the last time that you got up in the morning, looked in the mirror and considered yourself holy?

I think that it is really amazing how we have this mid-western, rural background that won’t let us accept very much glory.  I am just as much if not more guilty of this than anyone.  But here Paul is telling us, and he is an Apostle of Jesus Christ so he is speaking for Jesus, that we are holy, you are holy!  In Ephesians he tells us that we are saints.  We have been set apart from the rest of the world by accepting Jesus as our Savior.  This makes us very special in the eyes of our Lord.

If we look about the world we can see this.  Christians are set apart where ever they are.  One of the reasons why it is illegal in Muslim countries to be a Christian is that we are special.  They don’t want us there because they know that Jesus Christ can take over the people and sweep through the country with revival and make their male dominated violent religion obsolete.  We are special.  This is the same reason why the non-religious people in this country feel the same way.  Atheists hate us Christians for this very reason.  Through Jesus Christ, things could happen to upset their applecart.  We are special.  And each and every person here today is special also.

And when we sin, which is quite often, we will still remain special.  God doesn’t like it when we sin but He also doesn’t condemn us because we sin.  We cannot help but sin.  There is not one of us here today that has kept all of the Ten Commandments.  We can’t do it.  That is why God had to send Jesus to live and die here.  We have to be continually taking our sin to Jesus and confessing.  This is the only way that we are cleansed.  We also need to remember that God hates sin, but He loves the sinner.

Now the second reason why it is so great to be a Christian is because of what we have.  We have been given grace and are enriched in every way.  We do not lack in any spiritual gift.  You may not be very big as a church or a ministry like our on-line presence, but we have everything that we need.  I think that it is important that we know our spiritual gifts.  I have taken a class on this and I have even taught a class on this topic.  I have seen some people become empowered by knowing their gift or gifts.

But I also learned something else when I studied these gifts.  We don’t have to know what they are in order that God may use them through us.  Just think of all the millions of Christians around the world that don’t know their gifts.  God still uses them and their gifts to do His work.  It seems to me that if you are close to God in your relationship, He will use you in ways that are very surprising to you.  This has happened to me many times.  I used to say that I couldn’t get up in front of people to talk and now you can’t get me to sit down.  And one of the first rules of spiritual gifts is that they are always changing.  So your gifting could be totally different next week or next month or next year.  I think that many times God empowers us as He needs us.

And as a church, you might be small.  You could dwell on all the things that you don’t have.  You don’t have a huge building or your building is too big.  You might not have a huge choir or even a praise band that plays all the modern songs.  You might not have the overhead projection system or a Power Point that is so popular these days.  You might not have hundreds of people coming every Sunday.

We could dwell on these things but we don’t.  The churches who dwell on these unimportant matters will fail.  These things should never be our focus.  However, most of you realize what you do have.  You have a faith that is rock solid.  You have a heart for helping others that are in need.  You have a way of showing your faith that make many people in the community say, “What is it that those people in that church have?”  Well, we have a love for Jesus and a desire to make our bonds with Him stronger.

So far we are saints who have everything that God has to give.  The third reason why it is so good to be a Christian is what we will get in the future.  God will keep us strong until the end so that we will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We know where we are going.  If you look to any other religion, and they are all based on works, they can only tell you where they think they are going by what they have done.  People of these churches are the ones who decide who gets in and who doesn’t.  You don’t have to do that.  God has made you a promise that you will be going to heaven if you just believe in Him.

Think about how we try to know the future in our own lives.  How often do we get caught up in saving money for our golden years?  Don’t get me wrong, it is important to do this but it isn’t that important.  Things could happen where we might be wiped out.  I can’t help but think of the financial scandals we have had in this country over the years.  Many, many people invested their savings in companies only to have their savings fleeced by some unscrupulous corporation.  Some of these investors thought that they knew what their future was going to be.  God is the only one who knows the future and He holds the keys.

Or how about when you plant your garden or crops in the spring?  You fertilize and water and you think that in the fall you will have a crop.  Then along comes a hail storm or something else and it is all gone in a few minutes.  Your future is uncertain.  That is why it is so great to be a Christian.  You know your future.  Your future is in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it doesn’t get much better than that.  I have tried to explain heaven a couple of times over the years and I have failed and I will continue to fail.  For me to try to explain heaven would be like me trying to explain what it is like on the surface of Neptune.  I don’t know.  The only thing that I can tell you is no matter how great you think heaven will be, magnify it by a 1000 times or even a million times.  It will be far greater than anything you can imagine.

Today we have taken a quick look at who we are, what we have, and where we are going.  Many times we make the mistake of looking from a worldly perspective.  From our poor worldly view you might think we are doomed because of President Trump or the Democrats or Russia and China invading our politics.  Corinth was the last place you would expect God to plant a church.  Paul is the last person you would expect to be the greatest evangelist of all time.  A slight shepherd lad would be the last person you would expect to be the greatest king on earth, King David.  A little baby in the manger would be the last person you would expect to be our Savior.

And each one of us can look at our own lives and see where God has worked.  All of us have done things that we would never have thought possible except through God.  He has come into our lives and created God moments and miracles that we would have never thought could happen.  Any time you do something that is good and out of the ordinary, you should be praising Jesus for being in your life.

So please remember these things to help you get through this tough world.  You are holy.  You are special.  You are a saint.  When Jesus went to the cross, he singled you out as special, very special.  Through Jesus Christ you have all the things that you need to be very successful in this world.  You may be very different from the world’s point of view in that you judge your success by God’s standard.  But this good and only helps you.  And finally you know you are going to a place that is so great that it cannot be described.  I don’t know where you could ever find a deal as good as this.  You are special and I praise the Lord for the love He gives to each and every one of us in such a lavish way.  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.