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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Well, I cannot think of a better way to start a new series in
First Corinthians than by going to Acts chapter #18 So if you
would, that's not a joke. Go to Acts chapter #18 this
evening and we are going to see the very first mention of the
church at Corinth here in our Bibles.
And if you will, maybe tonight's message is more of a prequel.
It it's not necessarily us being in the book of First
Corinthians. And we will next week.
But I just felt impressed as I was studying and considering
some things and praying on message, praying on the series
that we start at the very first place.
We even find Corinth, which would be here in Acts chapter
#18 and I think it's important for this reason.
You know, when we are going to get to 1st Corinthians, Lord
willing, next week. This is still part of the
series. But when we get to 1st
Corinthians next week, in the actual book itself, you're going
to see a camaraderie. You're going to see a closeness
between Paul and this church at Corinth that I'm not saying is
lacking in his other books, because I do think you can see a
warmth that he has to all these churches that he's ministered
in. But there's something special
about this church at Corinth. You know, camaraderie, closeness
can be built up a couple different ways, can't it?
Sometimes it just happens over time.
You know, I think of my best friend David Corley.
I've known him since I was in the eighth grade.
And it just happens to be that over the course of, you know, 30
plus years, we have told the jokes, we've experienced the
things. And sometimes we can laugh at
something without either of us even actually having to say what
needs to be said because we know the joke and the punchline
before either of us says it because we've been around each
other so long. So there's a closeness that he
and I have together. That can be the case sometimes
and there are other times that that closeness can come maybe
under pressure filled situations.
I think of maybe times you've been at work and maybe it's just
you and someone else. You work in close quarters every
day and maybe even have a supervisor.
You have a boss or someone that just they're not gracious.
Maybe we could put it this way. They don't know what they're
doing. They're putting a lot of
pressure on you and maybe the two of you and you haven't known
each other very long, but you're you're in the trenches together,
right? You're spending that time
together. And even though maybe you've
known each other a few months or a year, you feel close because
listen, you haven't really gone to battle.
Listen, we don't want to pretend like we have.
But at the same time, you've had to experience some things
together in very close quarters. And so because of that, there's
this closeness. Well, if I look at the people of
Corinth and Paul, I could almost look at both of those situations
and put them together and say that's how Paul got to know the
people of Corinth. That's why Paul was so close to
the people of Corinth. That's why we're going to see
some very, very personal, deep, thoughtful passages come out of
First Corinthians. Of course, Second Corinthians as
well, but we're not studying Second Corinthians, but but
understanding again, all of this is inspired by the Holy Spirit,
but yet there's this warp there and there's this depth there.
And, and we find some of the greatest passages and the
greatest explanations you will find anywhere in the word of God
in First Corinthians, First Corinthians 15, the explanation
of the gospel, 1st Corinthians 13, the love chapter where it
talks about charity. First Corinthians chapter 12
talks about how we relate to the church, our understanding that
the church is not just an organization that's an Organism.
I'm having trouble. 35,000 All right, whatever the number was,
I'm trying that that that we're not just here in static, but
that we're living, breathing, growing.
We're an Organism there. It is more than an organization.
We get that from First Corinthians 12A marriage in
First Corinthians 7, the way that Jesus Christ relates to
every area of our life. I mean, you'll find all of this
in First Corinthians, and I think you can find a lot of
this. Again, it's all inspired by the
Holy Spirit. But because of this great and
intense closeness that Paul had with the people of court.
And so as such, I thought, you know, we kind of need to see how
they came together. We kind of need to see when they
met one another. In fact, the title of my message
is this. This evening, Paul and Corinth
go way back. If we're going to understand
First Corinthians, I think it's good for us to know that there's
some history between them all. And the fact is that they go way
back. So we're going to read the only
text that we know about Corinth outside of 1st and 2nd
Corinthians right here in Acts chapter #18 So you remain seated
and I'll read here starting in verse #1 It says this.
After these things, Paul departed from Athens and came to
Corinth and found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontius,
lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla.
Because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart
from Rome and came unto them. And because he was of the same
craft, he abode with them and wrought.
For by their occupation they were tent makers, and he raised
in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuade the Jews and the
Greeks. And when Silas and Timotheus
were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the Spirit, and
testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.
And when they opposed themselves and blasphemy, he shook his
raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own
heads, I'm clean. From henceforth I will go under
the Gentiles. He departed thence and entered
into a certain man's house named Justice, one of the worship God,
and whose house joined hard to the synagogue.
And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed in the
Lord with all his house. That you read that right.
The ruler of the synagogue after most of the people who were in
the synagogue rejected Jesus. I mean, they rejected Paul, but
they're really rejected Jesus Christ.
Here's a leader of the synagogue who ends up trusting Jesus
Christ to say that's an amazing thing.
And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were
baptized. Then spake the Lord to Paul in
the night by a vision. Be not afraid, but speak.
Hold not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall set
on thee to hurt thee. For I have much people in the
city. How many of you have verses #9
and 10 in red letters in your Bibles?
Anyone have that here? That's seen a few of you.
All right, that's interesting. And AJ as well.
You got to have a Bible in your hand.
Have that though. So we'll explain more about that
in just a minute. And he continued there a year
and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
And when Gallio was deputy of AKA, the Jews made insurrection
with one accord against Paul and brought him to the judgment
seat, saying, this fellow persuades men to worship God
contrary to the law. And when Paul was now about to
open his mouth, Gallio said of the Jews, if it were a matter of
wrong or wicked lewdness, Oh, he Jews, reason, would that I
should bear with you. But if it be a question of words
and names, and of your law, look into it, for I'd be no judge of
such matters. And then he drave them from the
judgment seat. Then all the Greeks took
Saucenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before
the judgment seat. And Galileo cared for none of
those things. And then this text of Corinth
ends by saying, And Paul after this, Terry there yet a good
while, and then took his leave of the brethren and sailed
thence into Syria. And with him Priscilla and
Aquila having shorn his head in Sentra, for he had a vow.
Now looking at our text this evening, it's not my desire to
give a complete background of the church at Corinth or to give
a complete background of Corinth as a city.
Now there's a couple reasons for that.
One is because you might remember on Sunday morning,
maybe about two or three months ago, I preached on the fact how
amazing it was that a church was even planted in Corinth in the
1st place. And I gave quite a bit of
background about Corinth at that time.
And so I don't want to repeat that here tonight, But the
second reason is this. I will give some of the
historical background of Corinth, but I want to mix it
in. I want to weave it into the book
as we continue to teach from it and preach from it over the next
few months. But Needless to say, if you want
to know about Corinth, remember it was like Hollywood, Las
Vegas, Amsterdam and Wall Street all put together into one.
That's not a compliment. It's taking the seediest
elements of all of those places and being able to put them
together. That's what Corinth was.
To play a Corinthian was to be a fool.
To play a Corinthian was to be lewd and wicked in your actions.
It wasn't a compliment in any way.
Now for a little bit of geographical context.
I don't have a lot of slides here this evening, but I do want
to be able to show you just a little bit of an idea of where
Corinth is on the map. And you could see that you are
looking to the right of Italy. There's that boot that's hanging
out there. But at the right of that boot
you will see Corinth is right there on what's called an
isthmus. And that isthmus means that you
have water on either side. And Corinth is located on a very
narrow strip of land. Because of that, it was a
waypoint for ships that were going back and forth.
Typically, ships would not go way out into the Mediterranean
Sea. They would have to stay a lot
closer to land for their own safety because of the nature of
the wooden vessels of that time. And so there is Corinth.
It's perfectly located to be able to have people from all
over Europe, all over Asia, and all over Africa, to be able to
flow in and to be able to mix and to mingle and also to find
comfort. And I use that term loosely in
the arms of the Temple of Aphrodite.
And we don't have to go too deep into what that would mean this
evening, other than to understand that would not be
comfort in the sense that they were going to a Comfort Inn and
suites, but rather that they were finding comfort in very
wicked and ungodly ways there with the temple prostitutes who
were part of that situation. So all of this is taking place
there in Corinth, and we find that Paul comes and has the
audacity to preach the gospel in a wicked place.
Thank the Lord for those who are willing to be able to preach the
gospel in wicked places and in wicked times.
And here's Paul and he comes in and thank the Lord.
He finds a couple of people who are also believers.
Aquila and Priscilla are their names and they love the Lord and
Paul and they have some commonalities.
The first commonality that they have is that, well, they're both
believers. The three of them are believers.
The second is that they have the same tray that they are tent
makers. Now Paul at times and seasons
would receive funding for preaching the gospel and the
Bible makes clear, Peter talks about this at the end of first
Peter, that there is nothing that is wrong or unseemly for a
pastor to receive funding for preaching the word of God so
that his needs are met, so that he then can meet the needs of
the flock. The Bible says that we're not to
muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.
There's nothing wrong with that, but the same time, the pastor's
not to be in it for the money. I mean, the way I looked at is
after the first Gulfstream jet that I got, that was enough for
me. Amen.
And so I was good, you know, I got enough.
Look, hey, look, I don't need to, all right?
That's just the way that it is. But you understand what I'm
saying, that that sure, it's good to have needs met so that I
can be free to be able to do the things that need to be done.
But yet at the same time, my goal, my driving desire should
not be funding. And if there are times where
there is no funding, guess what? Do you just pick up steaks and
leave? No, you keep preaching the Word
of God because this is what God has called you to do.
Very early on in my time here at Liberty, we had a drastic drop
of funding, about 6 to $700.00 a month that we lost just like
that, and there was nowhere in the budget for us to figure that
out. I came to the two trustees that
we had at the time because they want to know if we lost funding
to be able to tell them. I said I need to tell you that
we've just lost about $700.00 a month in funding and I want to
leave that in your capable hands.
Now, I knew that our offerings at that time were probably
somewhere between 1000 and $1500 a week, 1500 on a good week.
There was nowhere for that money to come to me.
And so they talked about it. They talked to me after service
on Sunday night. And as a pastor, we don't see
any way that the church can really give you any more funds
than what we are. We're barely making rent right
now. And I said to them, I agree with
you. This was the conclusion I came
to. But you told me that you wanted
to know when these things happened.
And I told you, I said. The Lord will.
Provide and he did. I worked for Uber for about 2
1/2 years and that was able to do that to be able to meet the
funds. But I remember one of them
looked at me and he said this to me and says, so you're not going
to leave? I said, who said anything about
leaving? I said when in the conversation
that we had this morning or this evening did I say that we're
going to leave? I said the Lord called us from
Florida to come all the way up here to work and labor for about
a year and a half here in this town.
And then because the check didn't clear, if you will, that
we're just going to disappear, I said, I just happen to feel like
the Lord has other plans for now.
And the Lord's taking care of us every bit of the way.
I thank the Lord for that. You know what I needed?
This is where I'm getting at. I needed a tent maker.
I needed something to be able to make a little bit of money to be
able to help supplement that which God had called me to do.
And where do we get that term from?
Sometimes you've heard that perhaps before from what Paul
did when he went places and they didn't have funds.
Listen, Paul didn't show up a court and say, hey, there's no
money around here. Why was there no money?
Because there was no church, nobody had sent money yet.
Now, there was discussions about that.
Remember, we've seen in Second Corinthians that there was
discussions about monies flowing to him so he could do what he
need to do. AJ, Hey, yo, hey.
Remember Me? I'm your dad.
Look up here. All right?
Good. There were times that that was
the case. Other times it wasn't.
And Paul didn't say, well, you know what, maybe I better go
back to Jerusalem because there's no funds.
He said, if God called me here, God's going to sustain me here
and I'm going to do what I need to do.
And so Paul already had a burden for these people because he was
willing to put himself out there.
He was willing to sit down and make tents, which I couldn't
have imagined was a very easy thing to do at that time or
well, anytime, now that I think about it.
But sure, here he was. He was doing this, and as he was
doing it, and as he was staying up late making these tents,
guess what? He saw people.
Lots and lots and lots of people.
And you know what? They weren't saved.
They didn't know Jesus like Aquila and Priscilla did, and
his backup wasn't there yet. You'll remember in Athens, he
was alone and and he was waiting for his backup, Timothy and
Silas to come meet up with him because they're on the second
missionary journey and he's waiting for the meet up, meet
up. But like Paul's habit was in
Athens, he gets there and he just says, I can't keep my mouth
shut. I've got to say something.
These people have no idea what they're doing if they have no
idea who Jesus is. And I just can't wait for my
backup to get here. I can't wait for the checks to
start clearing. I got to do something now.
And So what does he do? Look at verse 5.
I love this. He testified to the Jews that
Jesus was Christ. I mean, you want to boil down
the message of the gospel? Here's what it is Jesus is
Christ, I want to introduce you Jesus and I want you to know why
he should be your Lord and Savior.
So what did he do? He was pressed in the spirit.
He testified he preached the word of God, but what happened.
I love this as well. Look at verse #6 says they
oppose themselves. They oppose themselves when they
were starting the Jews. He's talking the Jews and
Greeks, but I believe this is really more in reference to the
Jews here because he's going to move to speaking more to the
Greeks, to the Gentiles here in just a moment.
But they oppose themselves. Listen, those who say there is
no God oppose themselves whether they realize or not.
Those who say that Jesus Christ is not God oppose themselves
whether they realize or not. I think our Sunday school series
is going to be really good and helping us with this even on
Sunday. I was preparing Sunday's school
lesson last night and it's going through it and realizing just
our faith is not about logic. Understand that faith is the
subject of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
But it is very logical to believe that a logical God
created all of this. You know what's not logical?
That everything exploded out of nothing and that nobody knows
what that original thing that exploded where it came from.
To me, that's logic. You know what's logical?
That because there's a God of order, that knowledge can be
understood, that reason can be understood, that morality can be
understood. That if, and this is if we're
just some big cosmic mistake, then how is knowledge knowledge?
Then who's the arbiter of morality?
You see what I'm saying? Listen, to disagree with God is
to oppose yourself. I'll be honest with you, I've
opposed myself a few times before I got saved.
And listen, even after I got saved when I disagreed with the
word of God and it's work within my own life.
And so I love how the Holy Spirit puts the nail right to it
here when it says they oppose themselves, they blasphemy.
He shook his raiment, He said this, your blood be upon your
heads. I am clean and from henceforth I
will go unto the Gentiles. It makes me think of what Jesus
said in Matthew Chapter 7, verse 6 in the Sermon on the Mount
where he said this. Don't cast your pearls before
swine. He said that there's a time when
they don't want it. Then you move on and you go to
someone else. Now I suggest that if you're
trying to teach someone about Jesus Christ, you're trying to
and they don't want anything to do, say you know what you are,
you're a swine. Don't say that.
I don't think that's what I don't think.
That's what Jesus is telling us to say.
You know, just say, say, say hey little piggy, I'm moving on.
You know, that's not we're talking about.
That's not what it is. But the idea is don't give that
which is precious to those who will trample over it and have
nothing to do with it. Maybe wait for another time when
the Lord has softened their heart, but this is not the
moment we want to give the gospel to everyone, but we
realize that some will be more open than others.
They were not open. And So what did he do?
He shook the dust off and said I'm moving on.
He went to a certain man's house named Justice.
He worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.
Crispus was there. Crispus got saved.
I believe that he left after some period of time.
And then another ruler of the synagogue was also believer
named Sasanese took his place. Because we see that in verse #17
how he was taken by this unruly mob and was beaten.
So there were Jews that were still getting saved.
You know what I love about this and and maybe this is just free
for us tonight, but but I want you to consider this, that even
though Paul it was done preaching and teaching to the
Jews in general, he was not done with the Jews as people.
Somebody get a little worried. You're saying what are you
talking about the Jews or any of that?
What I'm saying is this, the Jews in general in Corinth said
we don't want to hear you. But he didn't look at each
individual Jew and say, I won't tell you the truth.
No, he still wanted to give people the truth.
You know, he didn't get jaded. He didn't get bitter.
He said, you know what, this group, I may not be going to
their synagogue anymore, but I'm still going to try to reach
people if they'll listen to me, whether Jews or whether Gentiles
listen. There are people who are of
different political persuasions that we are.
And in general, most of them are not interested in the gospel.
Say, pastor, what are you talking about, liberals?
You made me say it, all right? You beat it out of me.
OK. Are you happy, Vince?
All right. So listen, a lot of them,
because of their very positions, don't want anything to do with
God. But does that mean we should
never tell someone who is a liberal about Jesus Christ?
I don't think Paul's pattern was that at all.
Was it? Oh, no.
You know what? We need to try to reach as many
people as we can wherever they were.
I'm thankful that there are people who had a liberal
position. Listen, I know people had
liberal positions. They were, they were for
abortion, the murder of a child that they were for some of these
things that are just so anti Bible.
They got saved and they changed. Listen to their political
persuasion didn't change. They changed in their heart and
their soul. And then other changes came.
Look, we're not trying to make political converts here, but I
don't work for the RNC or the DNC because I work for the King
of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and that's it.
And I'm not worried about building a political party.
I'm worried about this trying to win souls of Jesus Christ.
And while a whole thought process may say no, we don't
want Jesus Christ, there are individuals who are inside those
thought processes that say this. I would listen because nobody's
ever approached me about this before.
Do you see how Paul didn't give up on the Jews, even though.
Do you understand what I'm saying here tonight?
Just do this, if you understand. If not, just.
OK, good. We're good.
All right, Some good things going on here.
There's a church growing in a. Wicked.
Place the Jews were against them, the Greeks, the Gentiles
had this temple to Aphrodite that was Amsterdam beyond our
comprehension, a red light district, all in the name of
religion. All this is taking place and I'd
like to think this way. I think Paul's a pretty tough
guy. Do you feel that way?
I mean, I like to think about Paul as AI think his countenance
of stature was not very big. There's some historical accounts
that perhaps he was around 5 foot somewhere around there,
maybe even stooped over because some of the things, because the
Bible basically said the people saw him and they were like,
you're Paul. Like we thought you were a tough
guy. Now he was tough.
He was tough. Think about this.
He's in the middle. Of the second missionary
journey, this is what he has gone through so far.
He's been stoned and debt left for dead in Lystra.
He was persecuted and expelled in Antioch of Pasidia.
He was threatened to be stoned in Iconium.
He was beaten and imprisoned in Philippi.
He fled Thessalonica and Chase was chased out of Berea.
And one commentator said this, there had been culture shock in
Athens and now Paul was experiencing moral shock in
Corinth. I mean, sure, people are getting
saved, but you wouldn't blame Paul for maybe being a little
bit. What's the word I'm looking for?
Afraid. Where would you come up with
that? Well.
Go to verse #9 and 10. We do that.
Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision.
Now this is where that red letter thing comes in.
We just saw a few moments ago that this red letter, maybe you
ask yourself, why do we know? Why would we think and we can't
know. You understand that when Luke
was writing this, he wasn't using a quill with black ink and
then changed to a quill with red ink as he was writing in Greek.
That's not what took place. Our publishers have supplied
this later on and they're doing the very best that they can to
guess. Although I I do believe this
would be the case for a few different reasons.
One was because the Lord the term Lord was used often when
Paul spoke to Jesus, whether it was on the Damascus road or
looking Later in Acts chapter 22 and 23 when he recounts what
happened on the Damascus Rd. That the the term Lord was often
used in Acts to describe Paul talking to Jesus Christ.
So that that's the first part. Second, it was the Lord who also
said in the gospels, be not afraid.
And so that's not unusual as well.
And it also could be the case he said I am with thee.
And Paul's encounters with the Lord post ascension have all
been with Jesus and not with the Father.
So I think this being Jesus Christ here is a very normal
thing for us to think. So here's Jesus and he says
this. Be not afraid, but speak, hold
not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall set on
thee to hurt thee. For I have much people in this
city. So here is Jesus Christ, who
appears to. Paul in Corinth.
This is serious, this is a big deal and he has a three fold
message that he wants to give Paul here in the midst of this.
The first was comfort. Be not afraid, for I am with
thee and no man shall settle me to hurt thee.
The second was a command. Speak and hold, not thy peace.
The third was confirmation. I have much people in this city.
That's an incredible message. He says don't be afraid and
listen. Maybe you think Paul was a tough
guy, but here's the thing. If Jesus says that he's afraid,
he was afraid. And.
Listen, this whole idea of people having not being afraid
is is a farce. You know the people that are
able we all deal with fear. It was Mark Twain who said
courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence
of fear. Only a fool is never afraid.
But yet we are not to be controlled by our personal
fears. I was told in Bible college when
we were trying to 1st get up to speak publicly, they would say
this. The goal is not to eliminate the
butterflies. The goal is to get them to fly
in formation. And I like that.
Hey, you're going to be afraid. It's OK.
Just deal with it and move ahead and give it to the Lord.
So here's here's Jesus Christ who comes here to Paul, this man
who did all those things I talked about earlier and he says
this listen, I. Know you're afraid right now,
but I want you to keep preaching because there's people in the
city that need to get saved. Even though this is a wicked
city, even though this is a lewd city, even though this is a city
that is crazy about money and sex and politics, He says listen
to me. They need you to keep preaching
the word. Keep going, don't be afraid.
It may not look like it, but there's profitable work to do.
Now, let's be clear about something.
This is an incredible promise, but Jesus is giving that promise
to Paul, not to us. This Paul.
I can't. I wish I could preach those two
verses and say look at what Jesus told us.
No one will be hurt. Keep preaching.
And there's a lot of people here.
I can't say it. Listen, that wasn't always true
in Paul's life, because later on he's going to get arrested, and
later on he's going to die a martyr's death.
But was this promise for this period of time true?
Yes. You know why I know it's true?
Because it came from Jesus Christ.
But this promise in its specificity is not for us today.
Here's what is for us today. There's a lot of promises from
the Lord to not be afraid. There's a lot of promises from
Him for us not to be afraid. I want to read some to you.
Isaiah 41, verse 10. Fear not thou, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed.
I am thy God. I will strengthen thee.
Yeah, I will help thee. Yeah, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness.
My light verse. Joshua 19.
Have I not commanded thee? Be thou strong, and have a good
courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou
dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou
goest. Psalm 56, verse three.
What time I am afraid I will trust in thee.
Second Timothy 17, Another one of my favorite verses.
The Lord had not given us the spirit of fear, but of power,
and of love, and of a sound mind.
John 1427. Peace I leave with you.
My peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Deuteronomy 31 verse 6 Be strong and of a good courage.
Fear not, nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, he it is
that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor
forsake thee. Is that enough to help?
Maybe give us the realization that we don't need to be afraid
in the face of the difficulties that we go through.
Sure, we have those fears that naturally rise up within our
emotions, but what do we do when they well up within us?
We give them to the Lord and say I fear you.
I honor, respect, Revere you. I don't cower before God, but I
respect you. I fear you.
I trust you so much. That I take these.
Other fears and I give them to you and I'm going to go forward.
I'm going to do what you call me to do.
And what happened? Well, a lot of people were saved
and baptized. A church was established, and if
you were to take a focus group and say, hey, where should you
plant a church up here? Nobody's picking Corinth.
God did. God allowed it to happen.
God. God made a way when human logic
and reasoning didn't make a way, even when trouble crept up.
Did you see that at the end of our text?
Inevitably the trouble comes. It's like it's always nipping at
the heels of Paul, isn't it? Every town he goes to, he's
there for a couple weeks and it's like the trouble catches up
with him. And that's what happened here in
Corinth. Eventually the Greeks get
involved. They say, look at what he's
doing to our city. Look, look, look, he's causing
problems around here. You know, he's preaching about
Jesus Christ. And they bring him before
Gallio, who was the leader there in the region and before Paul
could even. And I love how specific the
Bible is about this. It said before he even opened
his mouth. And you know, Paul, Paul, he
loved to open his mouth. So did Peter, but a little bit
different of a problem. But Paul had no problem speaking
out in front of people and saying what need to be said.
And he was about to defend himself.
And Galileo almost does this. He says, hey, listen, Paul, you
don't need to say anything. You all are out of line.
Leave him alone. What you have a problem with has
nothing to do with politics. He has nothing to do with our
laws. It has to do with religious
questions. He says I got nothing to do with
this. He says leave them alone.
And go away, and even the Roman. Government protected him there
in Corinth, allowing that church to flourish even more.
So God did a great work and it was from that 18 month period.
It's from that 18 month period that we got the intensely
personal epistle that we call First Corinthians.
It was from this 18 month period.
Of fear and growth and promises from God, the time they spent
together and the pressure cooker of being under all of those
difficulties that brought them together and what gave us that
most intimate of epistles that we'll be studying over the next
several months. So here's what I want to pose to
you. What if Paul had given up
because of his fears? What if he decided to leave when
the Jews rejected him? What if he decided it wasn't
worth the trouble to reach a lousy, lewd place like Corinth?
What if he just said, you know what?
This ain't worth it, I'm tired of this, I'm afraid.
Get We know he was afraid because Jesus said he was
afraid. I'm done with this.
My body can't take much more of this.
My spirit can't take much more of this.
I'm laying myself out here, and for what?
Now the Jews, they, they, they chase me out of the synagogue
again. What's the point?
Well, if he left because of his fear, then we wouldn't have this
epistle that told us about the gospel in First Corinthians 15.
We wouldn't have the words of First Corinthians 13 about love.
We wouldn't know about the church in First Corinthians
chapter #12 we wouldn't know about marriage in First
Corinthians 7. We wouldn't have the
instructions on the Lord's Table from First Corinthians Chapter
11. We wouldn't have this intimate
portrait of how Jesus is involved in every area of our
life. This epistle in my estimation,
and I don't think I'm overreaching to say this as well
as Second Corinthians, just, well, it would not exist.
You know, I, I know the sovereignty of God and I know
God had had this to be in place for us.
But I'm just saying, humanly speaking, if Paul leaves and no
church is established, then there's no church for him to
write to. And we don't have this letter.
So here's what I want us to think about the last few
minutes. And we're done.
When we give in to our present fear, we will never see future
fruit. We give in to the fear that we
have now. And we will never see the fruit
that God has for us in the future that we can't even
imagine yet. Think about the negative.
There were 10 spies who never got to see Canaan because they
didn't believe King Saul feared the people.
So we offered a sacrifice that he knew he couldn't have offered
and lost his Kingdom. The rich young ruler feared of
losing his wealth and never trusted Christ.
The pilot feared the people and never truly listened to what
Christ was saying right in front of him, because he was more
afraid of Rome and he was more afraid of the mob than he was
about standing before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
But what about the positive? Well, there were 10 bad spies,
but there were two good ones. Joshua and Caleb were mightily
blessed because they didn't give in to their fear.
They said, yeah, those giants are big, but our gods bigger.
David saw a giant, but he saw a bigger God.
Esther said if I go in and talk to the king, he could kill me.
But you know what? Perhaps God has prepared me for
such a time as this. And she went in anyway.
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, right down the line,
they could have all died at multiple junctures, but every
time they kept trusting God and listen, we're the beneficiaries
of all of their faith. No, we benefited because Paul
didn't give in to his fear. We benefited because we get to
read of Queen Esther. We're benefited because we get
to know about. David and we're.
Benefited by all of these things.
And listen, it's true for us as well.
Does fear cause you to not do some of the things that you know
you ought to do for the Lord? I wrote some of these down here.
Does fear cause you not to serve at the church?
You know you ought to, but you're afraid.
Maybe you, you know you should teach, you should speak, you
should minister in front of others, but you're afraid.
Afraid to share your faith? Afraid to give your tithe?
Afraid to take a missions trip? Afraid to invite a visitor to
church. Afraid to confront sin and love
when necessary. You know, there are times and
seasons that we are afraid and we know God has told us to do
things from His Word and we don't do it.
But we miss out on the future fruit when we don't step out by
faith. You know what makes the
difference a lot of times? Love.
Here, here. Here's what I mean.
My mom, bless her soul, We, we're getting stuff ready for
Bethany's wedding and we're scanning a lot of pictures, you
know, because, you know, negatives and photos.
Remember photo albums? Yeah, those were a thing.
I I was in on that generation. And so we have pictures we need
to scan to get ready. A lot of them.
My mom, you know, my mom passed 10 years ago from cancer.
And trying to get some of the pictures of my mom and Bethany,
my mom and the girls specifically together in a few
with AJ. But my mom had this intense fear
of flying. She did not want to fly.
She did not like to fly. She flew once when she was very
young, young adult. It was a bad flight.
It was a little puddle jumper. I believe it was going to Key
West, Tampa. And it never stopped shaking
from the moment it he took off from Tampa until it landed in
Key West. And when she got home on the
return trip, she says I'll never do that again.
And to her word she never did until her first grandchild was
going to be born, Bethany in Oklahoma City.
And my dad says I am not driving from Florida to Oklahoma City
again. He already did that for the
wedding. I'm not going to do it again.
He says that's a 24 hour drive. It's crazy.
He says I'm going to fly and I suggest you come along with me.
And so my mom, for the first time in 30 years, got on the
plane. The only reason she overcame the
fear, the love of a grandchild. Her first grandchild, when we
moved up here, become an only child.
And so that was some separation for us as a family.
My mom wanted to come see us. Well, guess what, Mom?
Logan Airport is a great airport.
Actually, it's not, but that's OK.
But but will Mom flew to Logan. Did I tell you another.
Another fear. She had tunnels.
She's not a fan of Ted Williams, let's put it that way.
I didn't tell. Her till she landed that we're
going to have to go through a few tunnels to be able to get
you know what she was willing to do it love for us compelled her
to fly when she never would have.
She overcame her fears because of that first.
John 48 says this 418 There is No Fear in love, but perfect
love casteth out fear. Paul said this as well.
Paul said this Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord.
There's some fear there, knowing how the Lord judges.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord.
We persuade men, but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust
also are made manifest in your consciousness.
For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you
occasion to glory on our behalf, that you might have somewhat to
answer them, which glory in appearance and not in heart.
For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or
whether we be sober, it is for your cause.
Listen, for the love of Christ constraineth us.
Now that doesn't mean it restrains us, it means it
propels us. It constraineth us because we
thus judge. If one died for all, then we're
all dead. Our love for the Lord, our love
for souls, should make us be able to go out and do things
that we normally would not do on our own because there's future
fruit that's available. Paul and Corinth go way back.
There was a camaraderie, A blessedness, a joy, heartache,
sadness, and a host of other emotions that we're going to
find in First Corinthians. But none of it would have ever
happened if he didn't confront his fear and obey God.
You know, if you're willing to overcome your fear, you'll be
able to not just go way back, but you'll be able to look back
at what God has done and say, on my own, I couldn't do any of
this. I, I couldn't speak in 8th grade
in front of my class. And now my son can have a
meltdown and I can preach standing right next to him.
I can't speak about the quality of it, but God's brought me a
long way and I'm not saying that much, but whatever I am, it's
thanks to Him because I didn't want to talk in front of people.
I didn't want it. I didn't want to talk to them.
I didn't want to look at Him. Praise be to God, you know,
don't miss out what God has for you because of fear.
We have a book today because Paul was not afraid.
And think of how God could use you if you just submit yourself
to him. Don't miss that future fruit.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.