Awesome. Well, good morning, church. If you're new here, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church, and I want to invite you to open your Bibles to the book of 1 Corinthians, the first letter to the Corinthians, and I want you to get comfortable turning there because that's where we're going to be turning for the next number of weeks and months. Now, I just want to add my voice to Alex and say, especially in light of what we've been talking about the last couple of weeks in terms of our vision for the future, we want to be a church that lasts, by God's grace, for another 100 years, and in that 100 years, we want to see 100 more churches established through our ministry.
But the way that starts is through our own individual connection to the local church. I love the local church. I hope you're picking up that we at Cross of Grace love the local church. We believe in it. We believe it is the most powerful thing in our world today. And so, if you are not a member of a local church, we just want to encourage you, become a part, an active, not just an attender part, but an active member part of a local church. And even if it's not this one, that's okay. So we want to encourage you to help you make that decision about whether God's calling you to be here or not. Our membership classes start next Sunday, and we would love to see you there, be able to give you our kind of our values, our heart, our theology behind what we do, and let you ask questions. And it's also a wonderful time to meet other people from the church. As we found last semester as we did this in a bit of a new way, where people sharing testimonies, they're sharing life stories, and I think you're going to really enjoy it and find connection. So sign up for that if you have not already.
And as we think about how to be a church that has a— that will last into the future, I think it's important that we think about how have we made it this far in the first place. Our church, I think we talked about last week, we bought our chairs, our Church of the Covenant chairs, in 1979. And so you think, okay man, how have we made it this long? I did have a pastor ask me a couple years ago, why do you think your church has lasted for over 40 years when a number of the churches that began kind of sprang up in the Jesus Movement in the late '70s, early '80s have not? Now, a number of them still exist, but a number of them don't exist any longer. What— and he was kind of asking as a pastor, what's your secret? What's the way to, you know, see the church last 40 years? And I started thinking about it And I realized, okay, well, it's not that we've had an easy road as a church that's been straightforward, no suffering, no difficulty, no grief. No, we've had plenty of that. It's not that we started with lots of money. We did not. We started with a bunch of 20-something people that had kids and were working nights and weekends and donating to the church. So we didn't— that wasn't the reason. It's not that we've never had a leader or member fail or sin or have to step down. We have had that. It's not that we have We have had a brilliant strategy from the beginning. If you talk to Chuck, very much those early years are just trying to figure out. We didn't start with a statement of faith. We didn't start with a polity or a church governance structure. We started with the Bible and a heart for the Lord, and I think like a guitar, and we went from there. So it's not like we had this figured out. We have also not had a famous pastor. We haven't had the next Charles Spurgeon. Our church mostly has been pastored by a bunch of normal guys, me included. So how have we made it for 40 years? There's nothing we can point to in those things.
Well, I think first of all, we've made it this far because of God's grace. God has chosen to preserve us. But I think God has used a particular thing to help preserve us over these last decades. Professor Caldwell, who is a management professor at Santa Clara University, identifies this, not just in churches but in organizations broadly, as the thing that often determines whether they succeed or fail over time is culture. And he speaks about culture as an invisible glue that, that binds things together, binds organizations together.
Now, if you are a parent of a small child, you have had to become a glue expert. Because what happens is every Christmas, the long-awaited toy arrives, and within 12 hours, what happens to the toy? The toy breaks. The toy is broken by Boxing Day, the next day, right? It is, it is. So inevitably, either the morning of the next day or that night of Christmas, you are hunched over a broken plastic toy with glue, trying to figure out how to get this thing to stick back together. And what you learn quickly is that not all glues are created equal. Anything that your kid has in their drawer that has like the little Elmer's logo on it is not gonna be helpful, not gonna work. It may work for like a minute, but boom, that thing's gone. What you need is the industrial strength, illegal black market glue that is probably full of illegal chemicals that you just, it just, you know, you bind things back together. That's what you need. And in a similar way, when you think about churches, you think about church cultures, some church cultures, the glue that binds them together is inherently not very sticky. It's not going to last over the long haul. You can get in one generation, everybody fired up about the same set of political policies. Everybody could be like, yeah, We all believe in, I don't know, like low taxes and high growth, you know, and that's, you know, you can do that, but how long is that gonna bind everyone together? Or maybe even a specific vibe at the church. Man, our church looks like this, it feels like this, we all kind of like this look and vibe. Well, listen, vibes change. Those things change, right? It's the same reason that nobody's wearing like, well, most people are not wearing bell bottoms. I've seen some Gen Zers with bell bottoms, and I wanna tell you as your pastor, we love you, stop it. Stop the bell-bottoms madness. It's not of the Lord. And I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. We love you, Gen Z. But this is the reality. If you pick something to bind your culture together that will not last, you'll only be frustrated and find it falling apart before you leave the parking lot, before the decade is out.
So, how can we build a better culture? Well, I believe that Paul in his letter to the Corinthians helps us because he is going to show us how to bind a culture together well that will last. And we see this even from his very greeting in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. So, look at 1 Corinthians 1, verses 1 through 3.
6 · The pastor reads the primary text aloud and prays over it, asking God to bind the congregation together with something better than worldly culture
Let's remember this is God's Word. Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's Word. And, Lord, I pray that you'd give us ears to hear, give us eyes to see these things in your Word, and I pray that you would bind us together with something better than what the world has to offer today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
7 · The pastor expounds the historical-cultural context of 1 Corinthians, detailing the Corinthian church's extensive brokenness—divisions, sexual sin, doctrinal confusion—and Paul's pastoral wisdom in addressing not just their beliefs but their church culture
Well, you have to understand as you— as we begin studying the first letter to the Corinthians that Paul, the situation that Paul is addressing here could not be more dire. This church could not be, in many ways, in worse shape than it is. Now, we saw last week this is a church that Paul planted a number of years before this letter was written, and since then Paul has gotten a report from some people he knows that were in the church that have come to visit him, and he's received one or more letters from the Corinthians asking him a series of questions. And both the report and the letter lay out a profoundly broken church. The report includes things like there are divisions within the church, there are rivalries between people in the church, there are divisions on Jewish and Gentile lines, there's divisions on rich and poor lines, there is sexual promiscuity taking place, there is in many ways rampant in the church. In addition to that, their own letter to Paul, the questions they're asking for guidance for from Paul on, those questions reveal a profoundly broken understanding of the Bible and the things of the Lord. Their questions reveal that they misunderstand marriage, they misunderstand sex, they misunderstand spiritual gifts, they even misunderstand the resurrection. And so Paul has his hands full. And so, as you— imagine taking out your pen to try to write something encouraging to the church more than just, 'Stop it. Stop everything you're doing and do the opposite.' That would be my letter. But Paul, no, no, he knows. He's a skilled pastor and he knows, 'Okay, the problem is not just what these people believe or don't believe. The problem is the way that these things are being worked out within their culture as a church.' And so what he's going to do is give us a masterclass in how to rebuild the culture of this Corinthian church and kind of rebind them together on the right things.
8 · The pastor applies the cultural principle directly to the congregation, asserting that every member—regardless of tenure—shapes the church's culture through their interactions, marriages, families, and friendships
Now, we want to pay attention to what Paul does because, as we talked about recently, all of us have a responsibility for the culture of Cross of Grace Church. You may have been here for 40 years, you may have sat in the 1979 Church of the Covenant chairs, and we love you and we're grateful for you, or you may have shown up 3 weeks ago and gone, 'This is it. This is my church. I'm in.' Regardless of whether you've been here for 40 years or 3 weeks, we all have a responsibility to shape the culture of the church. Because here's the reality: you will shape the culture of the church. There's no way for you not to shape the culture of the church. The way that you interact with people, the way that your family operates, the way that your marriage is lived out, the way that your friendships are lived out, those things set the tone and set the culture of the church around us. And so, we need to be intentional and careful about what are we going to build? What kind of culture do we want to have as Cross of Grace? And let me add one more additional application, which is that if you have a family, your family has a culture as well. Your family has a tone as a culture. If you don't believe me when I say that, just invite somebody over for dinner and afterwards ask, What do we do that's weird? Because every family does weird stuff, you know? I remember we always drank water with ice in it, and we went to this one family, and they never drank water with ice in it, and I thought, like, what in the world? Could you not take the extra 30 seconds and get the, you know, and they're just, that wasn't, you know, whatever. Or some families are super outgoing, they always have people. Some families never have anyone over. Like, your family has a culture, and so you as parents have to be very intentional about what kind of culture are we building and cultivating in your family. And Paul goes there in the letter. He goes back all the way down to your marriage relationship, your family, and rebuilds out of there into the culture of the church.
9 · The pastor signals a structural shift to the sermon's main body, previewing five marks of lasting culture drawn from Paul's approach in 1 Corinthians
So, how do we then build a culture that lasts? How do we bind ourselves and our church together and our families together with something better than what the world has to offer? 'Cause listen, we look around at all the things the world looks to bind itself together with, this political philosophy, this, this orientation, this favorite thing, this favorite preacher, all that stuff. Well, Paul has something far better. So 5 marks of culture that we want to build that I believe Paul is building in the Corinthian church. And the first one is this. Last week I did 5 nevers, and that seemed negative. So I'm going to do 5 alwayses this Sunday. The happy people last week were like, 'This seems real negative. Never do this, never do that.' It's all right. This is for you. Always, always. Oh, that sounds positive. Always.
10 · The pastor introduces the first mark—the gospel as always better news—by expounding Paul's immediate reference to Jesus as both Christ (Savior) and Lord (King) within the greeting, showing Paul's pastoral strategy of gospel saturation from the opening verse
First point: always better news. That's obviously a reference to the gospel. Always better news, always the good news of the gospel. Now, Paul cannot even go 3 verses, he cannot even greet the church without referencing the good news about Jesus. He refers to 2 different key theological categories. First is he refers to Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Savior. And then he refers to Jesus Christ the Lord, meaning the King, referring to God's sovereignty, Jesus' sovereignty. So you have right here from the jump the picture of Jesus as Savior and Lord, and he is going to unpack what the person of Jesus and the work of Jesus do to the culture of the church over the entire letter.
11 · The pastor surfaces an anticipated objection—why preach the gospel to people who already believe?—and answers by tracing Paul's pattern of gospel-saturation throughout 1 Corinthians, culminating in Paul's summary statement that the gospel is not just received but is what believers stand in and are being saved by
Now, if you're thinking ahead here, you go, 'Wait a minute, I thought last week we saw Paul preach the gospel in Corinth and a bunch of people got saved, and so these people in Corinth, they've already heard the gospel. It's not as though Paul is evangelizing them. They already know the gospel. They already know about Jesus, so why would Paul Go back to the very beginning, as it were, to go back to the stuff about Jesus as Savior and Lord. And in fact, this is a pattern that every single chapter of the letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians references the good news about Jesus, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the personhood and identity of Jesus and what he has done. He does it the entire letter. And then 1 Corinthians 15, He says this. This is his summary conclusion at the end. Chapter 15, verse 1, 'Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.' 'For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.'
12 · The pastor corrects a common misconception about the gospel—that it is merely the entry point to Christianity—by reinterpreting Paul's phrase 'first importance' as weight rather than sequence, arguing that the gospel is the skyscraper casting its shadow over all Christian doctrine and the path believers walk daily, not just the door they pass through once
So Paul reminds them of what they already know. They received the gospel. He says, 'Yes, you received it.' But Paul also says they stand in it. They are planted in it. And so the picture I think sometimes we can have in our minds is that the gospel is just something we receive. It's— so imagine we've got this piece of tape right here. Imagine that there is a door. I wish I was a mime. Do we have any mimes here? I need a door right here. And actually, don't answer that. If we do have a mime, that's probably not going to be helpful in this moment. So I just realized somebody could literally volunteer and go, 'I'm a mime,' and then I wouldn't know what to do. Let me just struggle through this on my own, do my best. So we have a door here, right? And a lot of Christians imagine rightly that those outside of Christ, all of these are the pagans of the church, right? All of us on this side of the door, outside of Christ, see Christ and are called to come and believe. And so here's the gospel door. And so we enter through the gospel door, through the cross, and now all the Christians are on this side of the room. And sometimes what we believe is we go through the door of the gospel and now we get on to the other stuff. Now we get on to the marriage stuff, the parenting stuff, the spirituality stuff, the spiritual experiences, being caught up into the third heaven, all that stuff. That's on this side of the door. The gospel is just the door you need to go through to get to the other stuff. So, and you could be mistaken for that. By that, but if you understand that Paul says the gospel is of first importance, if you understand first importance to be a sequential thing, like first go through the gospel and then you get to the rest of the stuff, that's not what first importance means in that context. First importance means the most weighty matter, the heaviest doctrine that weighs in, that kind of weighs down all the other doctrines, or maybe more positively, the skyscraper that casts its shadow on everything else of the Christian faith, that thing that predominates the skyline is the gospel. It is not just something you receive, it is something in which you stand. So in the— this illustration would be the gospel is not just the door you walk through to enter Christianity, it is also the path you walk every day of your life until you are with Jesus.
13 · The pastor reinforces the centrality of the gospel by citing Keller's dictum that the gospel is the entire Christian alphabet (A to Z, not just ABCs), asserting that the gospel must remain at the center of all church activity and culture, and noting Paul's lifelong increasing wonder at the gospel as the model for believers
The gospel is not just the beginning of your Christian life, it is all of the Christian life. Keller once said, 'The gospel is not just the ABCs of Christianity, it is the A to Z of Christianity,' meaning there is no topic, no problem, no issue in the New Testament upon which the gospel is not in some way brought to bear. That's why we believe strongly as a church that the gospel must remain at the center of all we do and is is the thing that we build our culture around and that affects and shapes the rest of our culture. And we say the gospel is always better news than you think because you never move beyond— Paul never moves beyond his wonder at the gospel. Paul's attitude is not just, 'Okay, we're back to the gospel. I gotta hit this again for you people because you are obviously not getting it.' No, if you trace his letters sequentially from first historically to last, he only is more in awe at what the gospel has done for him. He's only more in awe of who Jesus is and what he's done. And so similarly, we want to always, like Paul, be in awe. We want to stand in the gospel and hold it as of first importance.
14 · The pastor applies the gospel-centrality principle to every sphere of church life—Sunday gatherings, community groups, counseling, parenting—calling for the gospel to cast its shadow over all activities and relationships, not merely be mentioned at conversion or on Sundays
And this shapes every part of our culture. It matters on Sunday. So we are fighting to keep the gospel central in all we do on Sundays, but it must then be out shaping our community groups, right? It must be the thing that casts a shadow over that meeting. It must be the thing when we're sitting down to counsel somebody, we're not just offering them good advice. We're asking, okay, how does the reality of who Jesus is and what he's done shape this issue this person is facing? Every part of our life shapes our kids and what they experience from us. Do they understand and experience a culture in our homes that's marked by the gospel of Jesus? That's first mark here.
15 · The pastor introduces the second mark—confession over culture—by expounding Paul's rhetorical strategy in verses 2-3, where Paul contrasts the Corinthians' location in Corinth with their identity in Christ, establishing that one's confession of faith, not surrounding culture, must be the predominant shaping force
Second, always confession over culture. Now, in verses 2 and 3, Paul references— he's very— he's a master rhetorician in a sense, because he says this. He sets them up. He says, 'To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus,' because he knows that they have an issue. He knows that the Corinthian culture around this church is the thing that's shaping them more than anything else. He knows that they are becoming every day, every week, more and more Corinthian, and they are taking on a Corinthian culture even inside the church. And so he points out, well, you may be in Corinth, but more importantly, you are in Christ Jesus. That your relationship to Christ, not your culture, is what's meant to shape you and mold you. Because make no mistake, one of them is always the predominant over the other. Either the world's culture, the Corinthian culture, is that which dominates, or the gospel culture, the confession of faith that we have in the gospel, that culture is predominant in our lives.
16 · The pastor expounds the meaning of 'sanctified' and 'called to be saints' as being set apart from the world's culture, citing Paul's strategy in 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul reverses the Corinthians' method of using cultural wisdom to evaluate Christ, asserting instead that Christ's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom
And what Paul is going to do is he's going to say, 'Listen, you're called to be saints together, those sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints together.' And that word 'saint,' or that phrase 'sanctified and called to be saints' refers to being set apart, meaning here's the world, here's where you're supposed to be. Not in the world, spiritually in a sense. Now, you're located in Corinth, and it's good that you're there. And Paul's going to talk to them about how their gospel witness in the city is important and how to do that gospel witness well. But he's saying that Corinthian culture around you should not be the thing that's shaping the culture inside the church. You're called to be set apart. You're called to be saints. You're called to be different. One example, in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul contrasts the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of Christ. Because they're like, 'Well, we look, you know, these are— this is what is wise.' And Paul is saying, 'No, no, no, you have it all backwards. You have it all backwards. You think that the culture is wisdom and you're using the culture's wisdom to evaluate Christ when really it's the opposite.' 1 Corinthians 1:25 says, 'For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. He's saying, you've got it reversed. You're using the culture to evaluate Christ. No, no, no, no. Christ's wisdom, Christ's weakness, if you could say it that way, is stronger than anything else in the culture.
17 · The pastor illustrates the confession-over-culture principle through the cultural reference of Law & Order interrogation scenes, where detectives refuse to let suspects control the questioning
Now, I love old detective shows. Is anybody an old Law Order fan? Come on, we had some in the first service. You guys love— don't you love the— as soon as the intro comes on, the bum bum bum bum bum bum bum, you're like, just like, oh, here we go, man. You're gonna put some criminals away, usually. And the whole vibe of the first half is them trying to find the person that's gonna be accused and indicted. Often there's a scene that happens over and over and over again in those kinds of procedurals, and they inevitably bring in a witness and the witness starts asking them questions. And it's like, well, why are you doing this? Why didn't you talk to the gardener? Why didn't you, you know, why, what, what, like, why haven't you found the killer yet? Why? And then inevitably one of the cops leans over the table and goes, we're asking the questions, right? And I'm always like, yeah, that's right. You're asking, you know, Because they come in and they're like, 'Okay, we're going to question you.' And the officers are always like, 'Nuh-uh, we're going to question you.' And you're like, 'Yeah, that's right.' And here's the reality. This is the picture I have in my mind. Either when it comes to Christ and the culture, our confession of faith and the culture, one of those will always be interrogating the other. One of those will always be asking the questions. So the world could come to the Christian and go, why are you so backward when it comes to sexuality? What's wrong with you? Don't you believe that people should be able to express themselves? Don't you believe that people should be able to love who they want to love? Don't you believe that people should be able to, you know, isn't this a human thing? Isn't this the way our bodies are made? And all of a sudden Christians are on the defensive like, well, listen, hey, whoa, hey, well, you know, And instead— and this is really what the Corinthians are doing to Paul. The Corinthians are saying, 'Well, Paul, what about this? What about that? What about this?' And he realizes their whole framework is a Corinthian culture framework they're then using to evaluate Paul and the gospel and their confession of faith. But what Paul is going to do is he's going to flip that on its head and say, 'No, no, no, no, no. We're asking the questions now. Christ is asking the questions now.' Our confession of faith is asking the questions now. Why is what you believe, world, about sex so broken? Why does it result in devastation? Why is nobody happy for all of your freedom and efforts? Why do you not understand men and women and the way that God has made them? Why does it lead to lostness and brokenness year after year and decade after decade and century after century? What is it that you're missing? Right? Then your confession of faith is going to work on the culture. And this is exactly what Paul is doing.
18 · The pastor applies the confession-over-culture principle directly to the congregation, using the fish-in-water analogy to show that 21st-century Americans are as culturally blind as the Corinthians were, and calling Cross of Grace to adopt a culture where the Bible always wins when it conflicts with surrounding culture
So the problem is, for the Corinthians, it's easy for us to look at those in Corinth and go, 'Yeah, they were so messed up, man. They had way too much of the Corinthian culture in that, you know, in their church.' The problem is that culture is like water to a fish. The fish never notices that it is wet because it lives its whole life in the water. So, similarly, even for us as 21st century Americans, we can think like, 'Yeah, yeah, the Corinthians are crazy.' But they didn't think they were crazy until Paul brought the gospel of Jesus and that confession to begin going to work and asking questions of their culture. And so, similarly, we want to have a culture at Cross of Grace where if culture and and the Bible disagree, the Bible always wins. When culture and our confession disagree, our confession always wins, right? When there is an impasse and you're like, 'I don't know how to reconcile these things,' yeah, we do. Jesus wins. Always confession over culture.
19 · The pastor introduces the third mark—always stay late (code for valuing relationships)—by expounding Paul's familial language in verses 1-3 (brother, Father) and the phrase 'saints together,' contrasting the Corinthians' actual segmentation and rivalry with Paul's vision of a church so closely linked that they suffer and rejoice together
Third, third mark, always stay late. Always stay late. Now, in church, chapter— in verses 1 through 3, you immediately begin to see this familial language that Paul is introducing. He refers to his brother Sosthenes in verse 1. In verse 3, he refers to God as their Father. So he's already beginning to lay some groundwork and saying, listen, Sosthenes, he's not his literal brother, he's his brother in Christ. God is now our Father. That means all of us in the church, we are now family. And they are called to be saints, but notice what he says, we're called to be saints together. And in fact, when we confess Christ, we are united to anyone else who confesses Christ. And Paul will push this thread of relationship, of being tightly connected to one another throughout the letter. Chapter 12, verse 26, he says, if one member of the body suffers, all suffer together. 'if one member is honored, all rejoice together.' Meaning that we're to be so closely linked as a church that when somebody is hurting, we all hurt. When somebody's rejoicing, we all rejoice. And that is a contrast to what the Corinthians have fallen into. They have begun to section themselves off based on a number of tertiary and worldly things. And rather than living united in Christ in close relationship, they're segmented and there's rivalries and divisions.
20 · The pastor illustrates the Corinthians' segmentation problem through an extended hypothetical scenario comparing it to wedding seating (bride's side vs
And these are some of the silliest things. I mean, so imagine, have you ever been to a wedding where they ask you which side of the, you know, the place you're going to sit on, bride or groom side, bride or groom? You know, and they like, they lead you over to the bride's side or the groom's side. Does anybody— they still do that? Do people still do that? I don't know. You guys know what I'm talking about? Cherry's the only one who knows what I'm talking about, guys. I really need you to stick with me. I know my illustrations are dated if you're like under 30, but please stick with me. So you come in, but in Corinth, this is the way it would go in Corinth. In Corinth, they would come in and say, 'Good morning. Would you like to sit in the Paul the Apostle fan club section or the Apollos fan club section?' And they're like, and if you say, 'I don't neither. I'm Jesus.' You're like, 'Oh, the self-righteous section. Here we go. We're going to bring you over here.' And then within that section they would say, 'Great. Now, do you eat meat or you don't eat meat? What's your conscience like?' 'Well, I eat meat.' 'Great. You're going to come and sit in this section. Now, within this segment, do you speak in tongues?' And they're like, 'No, I don't even believe in that.' Like, 'Okay, great. Now you're here. These 3 people are your friends. Don't talk to anyone else.' This is— it's you three against the rest of the church. That's how the church in Corinth felt. And the funny thing too was it wasn't even a huge church. It's probably smaller than the number of people in this room. And yet they were all divided out and Paul is pushing them. Listen, what is— what's happening is that you have a Corinthian understanding of relationships where you're all rivals against one another. You're all segmented where the gospel culture, the Christ is building is something that brings everyone together regardless of their income, regardless of their background, even regardless of some of their conscience issues. They're being brought together into relationships.
21 · The pastor illustrates the 'stay late' principle through a personal story: Mark Prather (Sovereign Grace executive director) observed that Cross of Grace has a healthy church culture because people linger long after services talking, praying, and connecting—so much so that the staff has to kick them out
And the way I'm saying that is we always stay late because earlier this year, Mark Prather, who's the executive director of Sovereign Grace, was here for a few days with us. Great time with him. And as I was driving him to the airport, he was just trying to encourage me and he said, You know, Ricky, you guys have a healthy church culture. And I'm a total glass half full guy, so I'm like, he doesn't know, he's been like 3 days with us. I mean, we just are smiling. We could smile at anybody for 3 days. But I'm like, okay, well, what does he mean? So I said, hey, well, yeah, that, oh, thank you, Mark, I appreciate that. Is it, you know, what do you mean by that? And he said, listen, I think I can tell you've got a healthy church culture because your people stay late. Like when he did his seminar, people hung out after the seminar, and John Osmus is kicking people out of the building saying, 'Hey, all right guys, come on,' you know. And after, you know, after the first service, sometimes we're like, 'Okay, why don't you go into the backyard, brother, carry that conversation over there.' Even after the second service, it is not a desired job to be the person on lockup duty after the second service. Do you know why? Because of you people. Because there'll be like somebody praying after the service and we're like, 'I don't know if I can interrupt them.' You know, they're like— I know you want to pray. We turned off the air conditioners. We did everything we could to get you to leave. You're still there. You're still praying. You're still talking, still hugging each other. Can you get going? And that, I believe, church, that is what Paul is trying to get the Corinthians toward. He's trying to move them toward this rather than being segmented and going, 'Okay, great. Whatever, whatever, whatever. This is my club. These are the only people I care about.' No, no, no. We care about everyone. We care about the body. We care about relationships. We're willing to stay late. We're willing to invest in those relationships.
22 · The pastor applies the 'stay late' principle by sharing his wife Jen's experience of having to do the hard relational work of staying late, asking questions, and pushing through awkwardness when she moved to El Paso
But this will only continue if we each take this on as a mark of our culture. Look, my wife Jen moved here from D.C. and she didn't know anybody in the church basically except for me when she moved here. And it was tough going for a while. For her. She felt like, man, okay, I don't know how to, I mean, she grew up in her previous church. She was working for that church. So she had to do a ton of the work of just staying late, asking people about themselves, finding friends, getting together, the awkward small talk, pushing through that, right? You go to a community group. I don't know any of these people. That person seems weird. I think I offended this other person. And you just have to get through it. But church, this has to be our value because the alternative is isolation and rivalry. The gospel culture is unity and sacrifice for the sake of relationships. We want to be that kind of culture.
23 · The pastor signals a shift to the fourth mark of culture and notes that the final two marks will be treated more briefly than the first three
What kind of culture is in your life and church? Fourth, and these last two will be brief. Fourth, one implication of that last one is we always make things right.
24 · The pastor introduces the fourth mark—always make things right—by surveying Paul's relentless pursuit of reconciliation throughout 1 Corinthians: calling divided factions to reunite, urging believers to stop suing each other, reconciling those with different consciences about meat, bridging rich and poor, and uniting those with different views of spiritual gifts
If we value relationships, we respond to the inevitable sins or frustrations or conflicts with one another by seeking to make things right. Paul reminds this church constantly of their relationship with one another, and he calls them to be one together constantly throughout the letter. In chapter 3, he says, 'Come together. Don't be divided by your favorite leader.' Chapter 6, he says, 'Stop suing one another.' Yes, that's a real problem in Corinth. 'Stop suing each other. Be reconciled to one another.' In chapters 8 to 10, he calls those who differ in conscience about meat offered to idols, which is a really culturally sensitive issue. Listen, put that aside, come back together. Chapter 11, the rich and the poor. He says, 'No, you guys need to reconcile and come back together.' In chapters 12 to 14, people who have different views of spiritual gifts, they're meant to come together. He just keeps going after them the whole letter saying, listen, you and you, you're not talking, you need to come back together. You and you, you're not talking either, you come back together. And one of his letters, my favorite, Paul even literally calls out two people by name that he knows are disagreeing in the church, which is like, man, that's a rough way to be called out, right? In a letter that's preserved in the New Testament. And so, I mean, Euodia and Syntyche, shout out to you, you're probably in heaven. But not the most comfortable way to do that. Paul values not just relationships, but he values reconciliation. Relationships where heart work is often involved, where trust has to be regained, where people persevere, where they keep pursuing one another until their relationship is right.
25 · The pastor makes a prophetic claim based on pastoral observation: the failure to pursue reconciliation is the silent killer of American churches
And look, this is just my two cents, as I've met lots of pastors over the last decade-plus and have observed and heard stories and seen why it is that churches ultimately shut down, I think this more than anything else is the silent killer of churches in America. Have you ever heard the old joke of the guy who's marooned on an island and there's 3 huts on the island? And they say, 'Man, well, I see this is where you lived for all these years on the island. What's the other hut?' And he's like, 'Oh, that's my church. I built a little church there.' And the guy's like, 'Oh, wow. Well, then what's the third hut?' He goes, 'Oh, that's the church I used to go to.' Right? Because I think the American culture is just, you disagree, you have a disagreement, I'm out, I'm done, we're done, I'm out, new church. Right? But I don't think that's what we're meant to live as Christians. I think we're meant to persevere in relationship with one another.
26 · The pastor applies the reconciliation principle by grounding it in the gospel: because Christ went first to us in forgiveness, he calls us to go first to others in reconciliation
And I believe that this is, as we'll talk about in the end in just a second, a gospel value. Because if we in Christ have been forgiven, if we have been brought near, if Christ has gone first to us, then he can call us in Matthew 5 to go first to the other person. And seek to reconcile. We need to be a culture in which reconciliation is a normal part of the Christian life. It's not weird, it's not unusual, it's just normal. End up in awkward, weird conversations of like, 'Hey, I'm sorry that this happened and I'm sorry that I said that and I'm sorry that you did that.' Don't apologize for the other person, apologize for yourself, right? This is just supposed to be part of our church culture.
27 · The pastor introduces the fifth mark—always expect repentance—by expounding the dual meaning of Paul's phrase 'sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints': believers are already sanctified (made holy positionally) but are also called to be saints (to live holy lives practically)
And fifth, and relatedly, always expect repentance. Now, he refers here in verse 2 to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints. Now, this church, remember, has all kinds of sin issues going on in its body, but it does not really see them. It doesn't see that they— think that they are a problem. And so Paul uses this little phrase to introduce a thread that he's going to pull throughout the entire letter. He says, 'You are sanctified,' meaning you've been made holy, 'but you are called to be saints,' meaning to live as holy ones. So you are, you are in a sense separated out from the world, made holy by Christ. Christ died for your sins to make you righteous in God's sight, that you can be called holy in the sight of God. Now, He's also called you to be saints, to be those who live holy lives. These things are both critical and important.
28 · The pastor cites Martin Luther's first thesis to establish the theological distinction between penance (constantly earning God's favor through works) and repentance (constantly turning from sin to Christ from a position of secure justification)
Now, German monk Martin Luther, when he nailed his 95 Theses to the door of his church in Wittenberg, made his first point this. His first one that often people forget is his first point was the Christian life is one of constant repentance. And that's important for two reasons. First, it's important because he was protesting a view that the Christian life is one of constant penance, meaning the Christian life is one where you are constantly trying to do enough good deeds to get back into God's good graces, to make God love you, to get right with God. You constantly are doing it till you die. And Luther is saying, no. No, you are justified by faith in Christ. So if you believed in Christ, you are counted righteous. You are declared holy. The Lord loves you. Otherwise, He would not have sent Jesus. Right? That you should be secure in. But the Christian life is one rather of constant repentance. One of constant working out of your salvation. One of constant saying, 'I'm going to put this sin away more. I'm going to pursue Christ more.' Put this away and seek to look more like Christ in this area. And this is needed in two different respects.
29 · The pastor applies the expectation-of-repentance principle to the congregation by first addressing the self-directed dimension: believers should expect that they themselves need to repent
First is we should expect that we ourselves in our church and in our relationships will need to repent. 1 Corinthians 10:12, Paul says, 'Therefore, let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.' We often assume we're fine, and Paul knows this about us and he knows this about the Corinthian church. And he says, 'No, no, no, you too need to repent.' Now, look, this is important because we live in a culture that says this. Our default assumption in 21st century America is this: when I look at the people around me, I know two things. One, I'm fine. And second, everyone else around me are the people that need to change, right? What's wrong with these people? I'm fine. They're the ones that need to change, right? In any conflict, You're like, 'Who do you think's wrong here in the conflict? Pretty sure it's not me.' Right? That's our default. 'Pretty sure I don't need to repent. Pretty sure they do.' But the Christian assumes that they do need to repent. The Christian assumes that they are just like everyone else in need of repentance and change. And so we say, 'You know what? Given that, I'm going to start with me.' Christian life should be one of constant repentance and we must build a church culture of constant repenters. I want Cross of Grace to be the repentoriest congregation in El Paso. That's my new word I made just up for you right now. We want to be a church of constant repenters.
30 · The pastor applies the expectation-of-repentance principle to the other-directed dimension: believers should respond graciously when others need to repent
But second, we also want to be a church where when those around us need to repent, we respond well and according to the gospel to them. We should not be surprised by those around us that they're sinners, right? Mark Dever has this great line where he— somebody was telling him, 'I don't want to— I don't go to church anymore. It's just a pit of vipers. I don't like church.' And he goes, 'Really? Well, you're welcome to slither on down anytime.' Meaning, like, those of us who are like, 'They're the problem. I'm not going to be— you know, I'm fine.' He's saying, 'Listen, man, sure, it's true, the church is a bunch of sinners in need of repentance, but so are you.' And so, when those around us need to repent, we respond graciously, giving the same grace to them that God has shown to us. Because you know what kills churches? What kills churches— and listen, man, unfortunately the national headlines are filled with this— what kills churches is when people refuse to repent, or when people do repent and the church does not respond in grace. Either of those will kill a church. Either people refusing to repent, or when people actually do repent, people refusing to respond graciously but rather with self-righteousness and pride and anger. But you know what binds a church together over the long haul? Because I can guarantee you this. We will need to repent next year and the year after and every year the Lord sustains His church until He returns. But what binds us together is a gospel culture that says, 'Yep, Christian life is one of constant repentance.' Alright, and let me wrap this up with this.
31 · The pastor expounds Paul's benediction in verse 3, defining grace as God's undeserved favor and peace as the fruit of that favor, setting up the sermon's conclusion that grace is the invisible glue binding the church together
Paul prays in verse 3, he prays over them and he prays over the letter this way. He says, 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.' and the Lord Jesus Christ. He prays that they would experience the grace and peace of God. Grace meaning God's undeserved favor and peace meaning the fruit of what God has done through that undeserved favor in bringing us to himself.
32 · The pastor synthesizes the five marks of culture by identifying the common thread: the grace of God is the invisible glue that binds the church together
So when you step back and look at these marks of culture that Paul is trying to build in Corinth, there is one common thread that kind of works its way through all of them, and that is this. The invisible glue that Paul is using to rebind this church together is not their culture, it's not these other things, it is the grace of God, which is why he doesn't shut up about it for 15 chapters, why he's constantly talking about the personal work of Jesus is he's trying to get them to see and understand the grace of God. And the reason he's saying, listen, you've got to put your culture under your confession is this, that the grace of God and what he has said and done should be the predominant thing that shapes everything else in our lives. And when we feel and grasp the grace of God, then we start to work it out in our relationship with one another. If we believe in the grace of God, that we've been shown undeserved grace, then all of a sudden we'll build grace-based relationships with one another. Not, 'You do this for me, I do this for you,' but rather, 'God's done everything for me, let me do anything for you.' Right? We are quicker to reconcile when it's like, 'Listen, I already know what the Lord has forgiven me. How can I not forgive you?' And when it comes to repentance, man, we're quick to repent because the Lord has already in Christ made it possible for us to be forgiven. So we're not doing penance, we're repenting. And grace, when it works its way through the culture that way, of a church, of a family, man, it is powerful.
33 · The pastor concludes by returning to the sermon's opening question—how has Cross of Grace lasted 40 years?—and answers definitively: by never stopping belief in and building culture on the grace of God
And that, if I could just be so bold as to say, I think that is the only thing I can point to across our 40-plus years of history as a church, that we have never stopped believing in the grace of God, nor stopped trying to build a culture on the grace of God. May we continue to do it, brothers and sisters, this year and the next and until Christ returns. Amen. Let's stand and pray.
34 · The pastor closes the sermon with a prayer asking God to help the congregation feel and remain amazed at God's grace, that the gospel would always sound like better news, and that the church would be rooted in grace to the extent that it shapes everything
Oh Lord, I do pray As we close with singing, Lord, I pray that we would feel the grace of God that you've shown us. Lord, I pray that we would, like Paul, never cease to be amazed at the undeserved grace of God for sinners like us. And I pray the gospel would always sound like better news than we think year after year after year until we come to be home with you in glory. And then I pray, Lord, that our families, our relationships, our friendships, our church, our small groups, our ministries, Lord, may we be rooted and grounded in the grace of God to such an extent that it begins to shape and reshape everything about us. Lord, we don't know where our church will be in 100 years. We don't know who will be gathered in this building, but we do pray. We pray over this church, Father. May it yet be marked by the endless, astounding, undeserved grace of God for sinners. Amen.