| November 28, 1999 | Blessings and Faith -- Waiting for Christ | 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
[open by quoting text] Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way--in all your speaking and in all your knowledge--because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.
This is our Epistle lesson today, the text for this message and, God's Word. Once again, our gracious God has provided his bountiful Word for our up-building, edification, and grounding in His grace through Jesus Christ.
Today is the first Sunday in the new Church year as we begin Advent. Advent is a season of preparation for two things. It is preparation for our annual celebration of Christ's coming at the first Christmas. Advent is also preparation as we look forward to Christ's second coming. As it was the last two Sundays, our theme this Sunday continues on the Second Coming of Christ. Our theme today in our readings has to do with expectation about Christ's coming and faithfulness until He has come.
We will seek to prepare ourselves then for Christ's coming as we reach back to the Old Testament world before Christ began his earthly ministry as well as the time after His Ascension when we await his second arrival. So we consider the two topics today of blessings and faithfulness. Blessings are the gifts Christ gives to us prior to his coming. Faithfulness is our attitude toward his coming. Faithfulness also reflects God's relationship to us in this in-between time.
Until Christ comes, we have His gifts or blessings to carry us over. Our text makes a fine list of some of the blessings we have, as Christians who live after Christ's Ascension. The believer will be enriched in every way. Two specific ways are given: in speaking and in knowledge. We share in the treasures of Christ by what we say, and by what we know. This enriching of knowledge and speech will say something about what has happened inside the believer. It shows that the testimony about Christ is held by them. In other words, the believer will demonstrate this enriching as a sign of their faith in Christ.
Believers will also receive every spiritual gift. They will eagerly await the Lord's coming. Finally Christ himself will keep the one who trusts in Him strong to the end. Because Christ keeps him strong, the one who trusts in Jesus will be blameless at that time.
These list of blessings can be both Law and Gospel to us. They are Law when they point out our sins and they are Gospel when they point us to Christ's forgiveness. In the way of law, we would be led to ask ourselves how well we do at manifesting these gifts? Do we demonstrate them in our lives? Yes we have been blessed, so are we showing it as we should? We do not show that we are enriched in every way. Maybe our speech and our knowledge do not consistently reflect our Savior. Perhaps our spiritual gifts can't be seen. We hide our gifts and stuff away our blessings. We also do not give signs of eagerly awaiting the Lord. We rather eagerly await earthly things, like more money or a new car or clothes or food or getting married or having children or retiring. We don't eagerly wait for Jesus to be revealed. Then there is the matter of keeping ourselves strong in our faith . . . again we fail miserably. We don't use God's Word as we should in group bible studies and personal study. We don't pray. We don't gather together with other Christians for mutual up-building.
This can be a painful process of examining ourselves for evidence of the spiritual gifts we have been given. It is painful to see our sins. Thank goodness there is Gospel here in our text too. Too see the Gospel, we just need to stop looking at ourselves and instead look to Christ. We look to Christ who died for our sins on the Cross. We know that through Christ, our sins are removed. No sin is too great to be forgiven. We daily and richly receive the forgiveness of our sins.
We see something more when we stop looking at ourselves and start looking at Christ. We see that the blessings which are mentioned in our text are blessings from Christ. He is the source. This means that the giver of the gifts is one who is true to His word and has given what he said. The gifts are inside of you, regardless of how it looks on the outside. Inside, the forgiven sinner or the new man has been enriched in every way, has every spiritual gift, eagerly awaits Christ, and remains strong. On the outside we see the old Adam and our sinful nature take over. We have confidence however, that Jesus will continue to guide us down the path of the new man conquering the old man. We can expect we will grow in our faith.
Now, look again to Christ, this time even more intently. Our text does not leave it up to us to keep ourselves strong. We don't hang on in our faith by our own strength. We don't fight the old Adam ourselves. Instead, the text says, "He will keep you strong to the end." He is Jesus Christ. It is not by our strength that we remain in faith and not by our strength we grow in faith. It is the action of Christ within us.
Now, don't get the idea that you can be lazy and Christ will work while you actively oppose Him. Christ works through us, and we must not reject his efforts to keep us strong. Look to Christ who will keep you strong. When Christ keeps us strong we will have the blessing of being blameless, that is, of having our sins forgiven on the day in which sins are judged. This is the "day of our Lord Jesus Christ" which the text speaks of, and this is indeed the most important day in which to be free of sins.
To get to that day, we hang on to our faith. Faith is what grabs hold of a promise. The promise is not yet realized. It is not yet visible. We can't see the forgiveness of our sins or Christ coming or our place in heaven, so we take these things on faith. Faithfulness is what we need in this time of waiting.
Perhaps a good example of faithfulness has to do with sports. If someone says a particular team is going to win the championship, it is not something they can prove to you. You can't tell for sure, so if you believe what this person tells you, then you are taking it on faith.
Our faith in a sports team may be founded on some evidence, like their record in the season. We may believe the Atlanta Falcons will win the Superbowl. With a 2-8 record there is not much evidence to support that faith. We would find it hard to hold to that faith.
If the evidence went the other way, however, then faith would be easier to hold. If we say the St. Louis Rams are going to win the Superbowl, that is easier to believe. The 8-2 record of the Rams is more convincing that they could be championship material. When you see evidence that your faith is true, you find it easier to hold that faith.
So, given this example, what is God's record? We need to take a look at how well God has done at keeping his promises. It will be easier to hold faith in God's promises if we can see what His record is on delivering on those promises in the past.
Now, this is the easy part, for God has done so much to show He does keep his promises. Here is some of the evidence for God's faithfulness. Every day the sun rises. We have the rainbows after a rainfalls to remind us of the promise to Noah after the flood. We have food, clothing and many other things. We have health and recovery from illness. We have God's Word, which still works as it was intended by bringing people to faith. Also, we have our own personal faith coming from God calling us into fellowship with his Son, as our text says. We have all these signs of God at work among us. Granted, not all the signs are exhibited on every person, or at all times, but still there is much evidence that God delivers. We see that God is faithful. He keeps his promises.
We can also look back into Old Testament times to see how people alive then looked at God's promises. They had the promise of God to send a savior, but Jesus Christ had not yet arrived in person for his earthly ministry. Still, the people held to their faith in God's promised salvation. In the assigned Psalm for today, Psalm 98, we have the Psalmist calling for God to be praised because of His coming salvation. The Psalmist knows that God's promise of salvation is a promise he can trust. He knows it is as good as done. Listen to Psalm 98:1-3
Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. The Psalmist looks forward to the salvation which comes through Christ Jesus. He had faith that God would keep his promises.
Isaiah in our Old Testament lesson looks to God expecting that God's promises will be fulfilled. He says: "You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name." God's promises to redeem and to be a father to us are reflected through the people's faith. This faith was fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ. This is all evidence that God keeps his promises.
Now consider another example from the New Testament. Our text is from the Epistle to the Corinthians. It promises spiritual gifts and other blessings to believers. These promises of God were originally written by Paul for the Corinthian people to read. We are not Corinthians, still, we see that these promises have come true for us. We see the blessings of faith. We know of faith in Jesus as our savior in ourselves. We have the same results the Corinthians had. Again, evidence that God is faithful in keeping his promises.
This all points us to the conclusion of our text. The conclusion is contained in the last sentence. If we take out the subordinate clause we are left with the main clause: "God is faithful." Because God is faithful, we put our faith in his promises. We grab hold of those promises as we eagerly wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.