So many Christians spend their lives living as if it is works and a good moral effort that will get them to heaven.That is not how God has designed His salvation plan. We need to defeat the legalism that kills our faith.

If it was difficult for a Corinthian Christian to stop being sex-mad, it was apparently just as difficult for some of them to stop being so money-mad that they would take other Christians to court over business interests. Sound familiar? How can a church thrive in such a situation?

Slander can take the form of reviling those in authority. Reviling is so prevalent in our Western world that we've forgotten that it should not be the norm. We revile politicians, teachers, doctorsand pastors. Instead, we need to speak in a way that is honoring to God.

Jesus prayed that his followers would be in the world but not of the world. But the church tends instead to be of the world but not in it. Paul teaches here about boundaries.

The fear of man is a very prevalent trap today. "What are people saying about me on social media?" It doesn't matter what other people think of you; what ultimately matters is what God thinks of you. The path to freedom is to focus on pleasing God.

What do you do when you receive criticism? It's one thing when the criticism is fairthat's difficult to take, but we should receive it and learn from it. But how do you deal with it when it is completely unfair? Paul gives some wonderful teaching on how to handle criticism.

It's a frequent temptation for all of us to look at our faith as something that we need to make happen. In many ways, that attitude toward self-generated faith is what the world thinks we mean by faith. Actually, God is behind it all.

The great need of an infantile church like the Corinthians, and the great need of our celebrity, evangelical sub-culture today, is maturity. Paul speaks to the Corinthians about gaining wisdom.

Corinth was thriving in many ways and was seen as the place to be if you were a big name orator of the day. It was a wealthy city with popular entertainment and a high estimation of speaking gifts. Paul challenges the Corinthians that they had become too focused on following these speakers rather than Christ.

How do we explain the trinity? God reveals the trinity in the Old Testament, and then more clearly in Christ, and when we're in heaven, we'll understand it even more. Learn more about the trinity in this message.