Who do we understand ourselves to be in Christ. Who do we understand other people to be in Christ? It’s easy to see and emphasize a negative identity–the things we used to be. In Corinthians, Paul reminds the church, then and now, over and over again that we are, through faith in Jesus, new people who are washed, sanctified, and justified. This is incredibly good news! 

The Corinthian community was one filled with interpersonal relationship issues. Among them, the rich were suing the poor, using the corrupt and unjust judicial system outside of the church to do so. In our passage, Paul once again steps into his rebuke toward this church. He invites them to remember who they are–a new family; siblings in Christ–and they need to learn to treat one another as such.

As we continue through 1 Corinthians, we are exposed to a level of expectations within the church community that are mostly foreign to our own church context. One of the questions posed through this passage is what is the church for and can it function today as it did then? This Sunday we are going to be looking at some of these specific expectations. As we prepare, let’s ask the Spirit to help us see where we can intentionally cultivate community life that resembles the kingdom of God.

This week, we begin to delve into one of the most difficult chapters of 1 Corinthians. Paul commands the church to remove someone from among them. Why does he do this? What is the desired outcome? Is the church today supposed to continue practicing such things? These are some of the questions we address this week and will continue to address for the next several weeks. In them, our prayer is to see the goodness of Jesus and the value of the local church community for our maturity in Christ.

We are jumping back into Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. This week we’re working to lay the foundation for Paul’s forthcoming corrections regarding the behavior of this church. The key question is how would we live if we believed that our bodies are not our own, but belong to God? 

In this sermon, we're wrapping up our summer slowdown teaching series, looking at the invitation of Jesus to "remain" in him. Jesus teaches that he and his disciples are united to one another in a deeply intimate way. As his followers, an important question to ask is how are we arranging our lives so that we might continually be making our home in God? 

Continuing in our summer slowdown series, this Sunday we are turning our attention to the words of Jesus regarding our inner lives. We exist in a world that gives us much to worry about. In the midst of that, Jesus invites us to stop, look at the birds and flowers, and consider how the Father provides for them and even more so for us.

This Sunday we are kicking off our summer slowdown series. We’ll begin with the theme of “slowing our outer life.” In this familiar text, we see Jesus interact with Martha and Mary, sisters who are closely connected to the ministry of Jesus. From this passage, we’re going to highlight Jesus’s invitation to sit at his feet and learn his ways even in a world that always has work to be done. Our prayer is that this series gives us tangible takeaways for learning how to slow our pace down even just a little bit.

In this passage, Paul brings the first part of his argument to a close, revealing that his heart for this church is that of a father. As a father to this church, Paul’s care for them can be both gentle and firm, but it’s always for the purpose of calling them to Jesus. The invitation for us too, is to hear the gentle and firm call to Jesus in our lives every single day.

The cruciform life invites us into an entirely new way of loving our neighbor. Rather than being quick to judge, the posture we’re invited into is a deep trust in the work God is doing, even when it doesn’t look as clean and put together as we think it should. In our text this weekend, we’re invited to do this by imitating the cruciform lives of Paul and Apollos; two people who chose to be fools for Christ.