Jesus Christ Is Coming To Town

Jesus Christ Is Coming To Town
1 Corinthians 1:1-9


As Paul begins to pen the opening statements in his letter to the Corinthian Christians, he seems to be addressing a certain kind of fear.  The best guess is that Paul wrote this first letter to the Corinthians around 53 A.D.  It was just 20 short years after the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.  One of the most fervently held beliefs of those early Christians (and of Paul himself) was that Jesus Christ was going to come again, return to earth, and soon.  At this Second Coming of Jesus, all those who are deemed faithful will be taken into heaven.  And all those deemed unfaithful will be judged and destroyed.

The fact that “Jesus Christ is coming to town,” caused most of the the Christians quite a bit of restlessness and fear.  “Am I going to be one of the heavenly bound ones and found worthy; or will I be found unacceptable and destroyed?” was the big question that was on most Christian’s lips.

The follow-up question must have been, “And how can I be sure?”  How do I know that will happen to me when Christ returns?  How can I be assured that I won’t be judged and that I will get to enter heaven?

Fear is an amazing motivator.  It spurs us on, or it does us in.  The legendary Knute Rockne, long ago football coach of Notre Dame, knew the power of fear and how to use it.  During one season, Notre Dame was going into a critical football game against a vastly superior Southern California team.  Rockne walked around campus the week before the game and found every brawny and huge student he could find, and suited up about a hundred of these hulks in football uniforms.

On the day of the game, the Southern California team ran out on the field first and waited for the entrance of the Fighting Irish.  Then, out of the dressing room came an army of green giants who kept coming, wave after wave.  The USC team was visibly panicked.  The Notre Dame team went through their warm-up and ran back into the locker room, presumably for the last minute pep talk.  Instead, the hulks gave the uniforms to the real players.  Back out onto the field they ran, fired up and ready to play.

Even though the switch had been made, all the USC players could see were the huge opposition.  The USC coach tried to rally his players, but the damage had been done before the game had even started.  USC lost.  But they didn’t lose to the original 100 players, who weren’t players at all.  They were beaten by their own fear.

That’s what the apostle Paul didn’t want to happen to this collection of believers at Corinth.  They were recent converts.  New Christians.  Young in their faith.  They didn’t know if they were going to be able to stand up against the gigantic persecution that was being waged against the church by the Roman government.  On the other hand, they didn’t want to just cave against the opposition, and then not be found good enough when Christ returned.  They were fearful they were lacking something important in their faith.  They were afraid they weren’t all they should be as believers in Christ.

If we ask the same kinds of questions about our believing, that is, if we are allowing our fears and false perspective to get in the way of our faith, then we need to pay close attention to Paul’s encouraging words.  If we are wondering if we are going to be able to sustain our own commitment in the face of a world that doesn’t care about your beliefs, then we need to read and re-read these verses.  If we are not sure we are all that we should be as Christians, or as a church, and don’t exactly know how to get there from here, then Paul’s message to the Corinthians is what we need.  If we’re not sure what it is, exactly, that God has done for us, through Jesus Christ, then these words can be a quick refresher of Good News.

Between verses 4 and 9, Paul tells the Corinthian believers they have at least seven attributes they have going for them.  I want you to notice that Paul is stating that these seven characteristics are not because of what the Corinthians have attained.  These seven are like an endowment from God--you don’t earn them; you just get them.

The faithful at Corinth didn’t achieve these qualities by watching the Apostle Paul’s work-out video over a period of time.  Instead, they were outright grants, given by God to all believers who would simply open their hands and hearts and receive them.

Here’s the list of seven:
1.  given the grace of God through Christ
2.  enriched in Christ with all speech and all knowledge
3.  the testimony to Christ was confirmed in you
4.  not lacking in any spiritual gift  (EHP: “you’ve got it all!”)
5.  sustained to the end  (EHP:  “God himself is right alongside.”)
6.  guiltless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ
7.  called by God into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord

Take a minute and ponder this list.  Think about which of these, on this list, you may need in your life right now.  They are ALL yours.  But, probably at any given time in our lives, we might need one, or two, or three of these more emphatically than the others.  (pause)

What I want to do this morning, because I don’t have time to speak to all seven, is take a quick look at just two of the seven qualities that Paul says we believers have.  In answer to the fearful question, and our lack of perspective about whether we are lacking something, or inadequate believers, Paul says:
“...in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge...so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift...”

Because of our belief in Jesus Christ, we have been “enriched.”  All speech.  All knowledge.  To put it another way, we have been made into people as we were really meant to be.  We are, through Christ, well-rounded in what we know about God and how we communicate that knowledge.  Because of that well-roundedness, that enrichment, the possibilities of what we can do in God’s name are unlimited.  So why do we worry?  We worry because we don’t really think what God did to us really happened.  We try to tell ourselves a different story, that we haven’t been enriched by God through Christ, we aren’t worthwhile, we aren’t whole.  The stories we tell ourselves are the stories we live by.  But Paul is saying, if you are telling yourself a different story, then that’s not from God.  That’s not what God is telling you, in Christ.  So which story do you want to be most empowered by?

There was a waitress who was taking orders from a couple and their young son.  She was the kind of waitress who had that certain demeanor that told you she feared no mortal, not even parents.  She took down the parents order silently and firmly, accepting what was supposed to be substituted for what and which dressing changed to what sauce.

The boy’s turn came.  He started with a tone of fear in his voice.  “I want a hot dog...” he started to say.
Both parents barked at once, “No hot dog!!”  The mother continued to order for her son: “Bring him the au gratin potatoes and beef, both vegetables, and a hard roll, and...”

But the waitress wasn’t even listening.  She said, looking only at the boy, “What do you want on your hot dog?”
He flashed an amazed smile, and said, “Ketchup, lots of ketchup, and, and, bring me a glass of milk.”
“Coming up,” she said, turning from the table and leaving the stunned parents in utter dismay.
The boy watched her go and said, still looking at her, “You know what?  She thinks I’m real!  She thinks I’m real!”

That’s what Paul is telling us that God has done for us in Christ, in the opening lines of his letter.  We walk away from an encounter with Christ, as all the people did that we read about in the gospels, and we say, like the boy, “He thinks I’m real!.”  Don’t you imagine that’s also what Paul discovered when God got ahold of him on that road to Damascus, as well.  The Lord thinks you’re real.  And affirms that story to you, in any way he can; not the story we tell ourselves about who we think we are.

That’s our work as well, is it not?  We’ve been enriched with all knowledge and speech, says Paul.  It’s not knowledge, like book knowledge.  It’s not speech, like a politician speaks.  It’s knowledge of what’s in people’s hearts.  It’s an understanding of what they need to hear.  It’s the ability, once we get that insight, to say the right thing at the right time, so they go away from us, like the little boy, amazed.

I think another part of what the boy discovered, as we have also discovered through Christ, is that when you understand that God thinks you’re real, and you see yourself as real, others will see you as real too.  Christians, like the waitress, have the power, through knowledge and speech, to help others see what they already have and what can happen when they see it too.

The other characteristic that I want to highlight from our list of seven has to do with answering the question, “Am I being an effective Christian?  How can I know?”  I think from what Paul has written to the Corinthians, you may not be able to know the answer to those questions on your own.  You have to have someone else tell you if you are or not.  That’s one of the purposes of the Christian community.

At verse six, Paul writes, “...the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you...”  The Message Bible has:  “The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.”  Part of what Paul is saying here is that when he went around the city of Corinth, and preached the Good News of Christ, his job was made so much easier because all he had to do was point to those who had already become believers.  “Look at this group of folks, here,” he tells his listeners.  “See the changes in their lives.  See how the decision they have made has affected the way they now choose to live and what a difference it’s made.”  If those changes had not really happened, or were not visible at all, Paul would not be able to use the Corinthian Christians as an example of what Christ has “confirmed” and “verified” in them.

Let me put it another way, using the example of how snowflakes are made.  We’ve all had an experience with snow this week.  Here’s a little fact about how snow is made.  Scientists used to think that snowflakes were made when a microscopic piece of dust trapped a molecule of water vapor.  Super cooled air would then generate an ice crystal to grow around the dust particle, and voila! a snowflake.

But, what they found out was that there was never any speck of microscopic dust in any of the snowflakes.  Dr. John Hallet, a physicist at the University of Nevada, has discovered that when a cloud begins to produce snow, there’s a very little amount.  As those snowflakes are being formed, the extremely cold air causes the snowflake to break up into smaller parts.  The small fragments then act as “seed” flakes, growing larger as they fall, breaking up, and starting all over.  In other words, it takes snow to make snow!

That’s what Paul is telling the Corinthian Christians.  “Once Christ was confirmed in you, you acted as the seed Christians, off of which I can attract and grow other Christians.  They, in turn, will help create other believers, and the church will grow!”  Paul needed Christians to make other Christians.  Paul was telling the believers they could know they were effective in their faith, because of what he was able to accomplish because of them.  As a result, Paul can say, “I give thanks to God always for you...”


This is who we are as Christians, and as a church.  This is what we have been given by God to use in the various ways we bear witness to our belief in Christ.  We, therefore, have nothing to fear, as we await the return of our Lord.  Come, Lord Jesus.