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I want to welcome you to day two of our look through 1 Corinthians, chapter one
this week, starting in this great study of this great book. As I said yesterday,
this is really like a question and answer with the Apostle Paul. And the
question he begins to address in chapter one, really the question of this entire
chapter, as we walk through this, we're going to have one major question for
each chapter.

And the major question of chapter one is, can any church be a great church? Can
any church be a great church? And Paul's answer without a hesitation is yes, yes
it can, but you need three things.

He's going to talk about three things that any church needs to be a great church
or to continue to be a great church. If you are a great church and you lose
these, you won't be a great church anymore. Now, why is that so important?

You think, well, I'm not a pastor, what does it matter to me about whether a
church is great or not? Well, if you want to live a great life, you need to be
part of a great church. This is not organizational.

This is relational between you and Jesus and between you and others. First
Corinthians is going to show us that to have a great life, you need to be a part
of a great church. God did not make you, He did not make me to live alone or to
serve alone.

He made you to make a difference in relationship with others, in relationship
with others who are following Jesus. And obviously the place where to be in
relationship with others who are following Jesus is the institution, is the body
that He started. He planted the church.

The church is Jesus's idea. That's why I love the church. Now, sometimes men
make it into their idea and that can be a hateful thing.

But when that happens, you and I have to rescue it. We have to become a great
church again by trusting in the one who founded the church, Jesus Christ. So can
any church be a great church?

Can any person live a great life in the church that they're in as it becomes a
great church? Yes, Paul says to the Corinthians. And he says this to a church
that is filled with turmoil and problems, but it's also filled with
opportunities and possibilities.

Listen to how he starts his words. We read a couple of these verses yesterday.
I'm going to go back to verses two and three, how he starts his words to this
Corinthian church.

"To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called
to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours, grace and peace to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. " He calls them the church of God in Corinth. You
belong to God.

You're there representing Him. I hope you see how important that is. Whatever
their problems, and as we walk through this chapter by chapter of Corinthians,
you're going to be shocked at some of the problems in this church.

You're going to think our church is doing a lot better than they were. Whatever
the problem says, Paul, you have to recognize first and foremost that you are a
church in God's hands, called out for God's purposes. What does it take for any
church to be the church of God, to stay the church of God?

We're going to talk about three things this week, beginning with number one,
grace. Grace. It starts with grace.

It starts with seeing yourself for who God made you to be as a church and as
individuals in that church, seeing yourself for who God made you to be by His
grace. Listen to what Paul says. These are awesome verses, verses four to nine.

He says, he prays, "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 the 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 prayer of Paul, this introduction of Paul to the Corinthians is
more than just something to get through so we can get to the good stuff in the
book. This is the good stuff.

He's talking about the grace of God. He's reminding us that God's undeserved
love for us is our primary resource for life. Listen, just listen to the
difference that happens in my life, in your life, in your church, in our church
when we lean on and rely upon and are strengthened by His grace.

Listen to these phrases that Paul uses. He says, "When that happens, you are
enriched in Him. " He's talking about the resource of wealth, true wealth.

The wealth of His presence, the wealth of God's blessings. When you recognize
God's grace, you realize nothing can take those blessings away. You are enriched
in Him.

That's the resource of wealth. He says also you are confirmed in Him. That's the
resource of security.

Confirmed means to make stable. Grace is now your foundation for living. We all
have something that we make our foundation for life.

For some people, it's other people's opinion. For others, it's how well you do
at work. For others, it's how much you have in the bank account.

For some people, it's how well your family is doing. There's all kinds of
different foundations that we make for our life. But when grace is the
foundation, you're confirmed in Him.

He sent His Spirit into you already. You are saved. You are held in Him.

That is a foundation that can never be taken away. That's the resource that you
need of security. And then he says you are not lacking any gift.

This is the resource of ability. Grace gives both the purpose of God in your
life, but also the ability together to fulfill that purpose. When he says here
you are not lacking any gift, he's not talking to individuals.

He's talking to the church. He's saying together you have all the gifts needed.
No one person--we're going to find this when we get to chapter 12--no one person
gets all the gifts.

Together we have all the gifts that are needed. You're not lacking any gift. You
have this resource of ability, this resource of security, this resource of
riches, of wealth.

And then he says you are awaiting His coming together. That's the resource of
hope. Grace gives us an eternal hope.

And that enables you, no matter what your day was like today--and listening to
this, you may have had an awful day yesterday, or this day may have been an
awful day--you can still have hope, because you can always live in expectancy of
the fact that Jesus Christ is coming again someday, and He wants you to be with
Him forever where He is. He is looking forward to that day. He says that in John
chapter 14, "I'm looking forward to that day where I come back, I get you to be
with me where I am.

" And so you and I, no matter what the circumstances, we have the resource of
hope. And then we have a final resource. He says also you are kept in Him until
that day.

You're going to be kept blameless in that day. He will keep you strong into the
end. That is the resource of God's faithfulness.

God is faithful. His grace is not some fleeting whim, it is a faithful gift that
you can depend upon the rest of your life. So you want to live a great life.

You want your church to be a greater church? These are the resources that you
depend upon. Any church can look at what they're doing, any person, any family
can look at what they're doing in life and feel like, "I don't have the
resources to do what I want to do.

" And the truth of the matter is we often don't have the money that we need, we
think we need, to do what we want to do. We often, usually, don't have the time
that we think we need. And many times we look at ourselves and think, "I don't
have the abilities.

" But God says, "Together in the church I have given you these resources and
they all come from my grace. They are all this undeserved gift that I have given
to you. " So as we pray today, we're going to pray in just a moment about
greatness.

And greatness, the question that is behind greatness in my life and your life
is, do I depend on the grace of God or do I depend on my own abilities? Am I
depending on his resources or on my resources? Am I acting according to God's
faithfulness or am I just acting according to my schedule, my whim?

Which is it? Let's take a few minutes to pray together. And Jesus says we pray.

It's our prayer that more and more we would lean on your resources and not ours.
Our resources are so easy to lean on. They're right there, right in front of us.

The things that we have, the abilities that we have, the time that we have. And
so Lord, when we're lacking in them, we begin to feel like a great life might be
impossible. Or if all we have is our own resources, we begin to feel like a
great life depends only on me.

But Jesus, you have given us so much by your grace. Your grace means that we
have a wealth that's beyond any human riches. Remind us of that today, no matter
what the financial struggles we have.

Your grace means that we have a security in you that we find because of you that
can only happen through the gift of your spirit within us. And remind us that no
matter what anybody else thinks of us today, we have that confirmation. Remind
us of the gifts that we have together in you, that Lord, whatever you've asked
us to do, you will give us the ability to do.

Remind us of our hope today. Remind us, Lord, that you keep us today. However I
might feel, we might feel, Lord, you are keeping us, you are holding us.

That is the truth of your promise and your grace. And so Lord, today we hold on
to that promise. We hold on to you.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to talk together about a
second quality of a great church.