Paul had much to say to the Corinthian church. These believers he wrote to were beloved and precious, but they had so many problems. They were proud. They were contentious. They were immature. They were sinning to the extent that Paul ...challenges them in verse 5, saying, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.”
Saved is saved. Redeemed is redeemed. Reborn is reborn. Once you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, not even you can take yourself out of His hand. However, because salvation is also a transformation, if the evidences of transformation are not there, it is time to examine whether or not you were ever saved at all. The Corinthians’ behavior was so incongruous to that of a true believer’s that Paul felt it necessary to “stir them up” with this disturbing warning.
Oh, the trouble in the Corinthians’ fellowship. It compelled Paul to write in verses 1-4, “This will be the third time I am coming to you. ‘By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.’ I have told you before, and foretell as if I were present the second time, and now being absent I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare—since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.”
The more Paul loved the Corinthians, the less he was loved by them. As they allowed themselves to drift away from the truth, they also drifted away from Paul. They questioned his authority. They questioned his love. They questioned his ministry. They deceived their own hearts and allowed false, abusive teachers into their midst. Paul, because of his love for the Corinthians and because of the calling God had placed on his life, could not pretend the problems did not exist. He wasn’t going to take the easy way out. The Corinthians wanted proof of his apostleship? Of his qualification? They were going to get it. Paul did not desire to use such sharpness, but as a loving parent, he would do what was necessary for their edification and not their destruction.
Ultimately, the Corinthians’ problem was simple. Their sin, their pride, their contention, their rebellion, their immaturity, their foolishness – it all stemmed from a common source: un-surrendered wills. Philippians 2:5-8, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
The mind of Christ was exactly what most of the Corinthians clearly did not exhibit. Jesus emptied Himself, became a man, and surrendered Himself wholly to His Father’s will. He says in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”
Human beings hate surrendering their wills. We hate to consider that we are weak or insufficient. We hate the fact that we have nothing we have not been given. We hate to admit or even realize that we have absolutely no control over the world around us. Instead of willing, joyful surrender to the loving, Creator God whose will is only good, human beings naturally fight him from the moment of conception to the moment of their last breath.
And we crush God’s heart in the process.
The Living God, the Creator God, the one and only God – whose name is Jehovah, the I AM WHO I AM – is the only one who is sufficient of Himself. Nothing fazes Him, nothing is beyond Him, and nothing is greater than Him. He alone is sovereign and in control. But us? Human beings? Any “control” we believe we possess is purely phantasmal and a self-delusion. God gave you the ability to pick up that pencil and apply it to a piece of paper; God can take that ability away. God’s grace permits you to take your next breath; He can withdraw that grace at any given second. I might imagine myself capable of getting up in the morning, beginning the day, and accomplishing this or that, but in reality, there is all but infinity of factors to unbalance that equation: earthquake, injury, illness, weather, another person, etc., etc. Trials are multipurpose, but one major objective is to yank the rug out from under our feet and remove the harmful delusion of sufficiency or control. Such a fantasy is an immense roadblock to eternal salvation, and it is a millstone that drags so many souls down to the depths of damnation.
“But Jesus answered again and said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’” (Mark 10:24-25)
If you are rich in yourself, you will not seek the true riches of God. You will deceive yourself into trusting in your own ability, strength, and sufficiency. It was this willful blindness that condemned the self-righteous Pharisees. No one is sufficient of themselves. We are all weak, needy, and powerless. If you do not surrender to the Lord who gave His life for you, then by default, your soul is enslaved to the prince of the power of the air, and you will share his eternal judgment.
Which will it be?
Christ was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God – His own power. Christ laid everything down, even His very life, for us. He surrendered to His Father and in so doing purchased our eternal redemption. All it takes for us to share Christ’s life and inheritance is simply to surrender, as He did. Give your life to Him, and He will do the rest.
Luke 9:23-24, “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.’”
Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Isaiah 40:28-31, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Saved is saved. Redeemed is redeemed. Reborn is reborn. Once you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, not even you can take yourself out of His hand. However, because salvation is also a transformation, if the evidences of transformation are not there, it is time to examine whether or not you were ever saved at all. The Corinthians’ behavior was so incongruous to that of a true believer’s that Paul felt it necessary to “stir them up” with this disturbing warning.
Oh, the trouble in the Corinthians’ fellowship. It compelled Paul to write in verses 1-4, “This will be the third time I am coming to you. ‘By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.’ I have told you before, and foretell as if I were present the second time, and now being absent I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare—since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.”
The more Paul loved the Corinthians, the less he was loved by them. As they allowed themselves to drift away from the truth, they also drifted away from Paul. They questioned his authority. They questioned his love. They questioned his ministry. They deceived their own hearts and allowed false, abusive teachers into their midst. Paul, because of his love for the Corinthians and because of the calling God had placed on his life, could not pretend the problems did not exist. He wasn’t going to take the easy way out. The Corinthians wanted proof of his apostleship? Of his qualification? They were going to get it. Paul did not desire to use such sharpness, but as a loving parent, he would do what was necessary for their edification and not their destruction.
Ultimately, the Corinthians’ problem was simple. Their sin, their pride, their contention, their rebellion, their immaturity, their foolishness – it all stemmed from a common source: un-surrendered wills. Philippians 2:5-8, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
The mind of Christ was exactly what most of the Corinthians clearly did not exhibit. Jesus emptied Himself, became a man, and surrendered Himself wholly to His Father’s will. He says in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”
Human beings hate surrendering their wills. We hate to consider that we are weak or insufficient. We hate the fact that we have nothing we have not been given. We hate to admit or even realize that we have absolutely no control over the world around us. Instead of willing, joyful surrender to the loving, Creator God whose will is only good, human beings naturally fight him from the moment of conception to the moment of their last breath.
And we crush God’s heart in the process.
The Living God, the Creator God, the one and only God – whose name is Jehovah, the I AM WHO I AM – is the only one who is sufficient of Himself. Nothing fazes Him, nothing is beyond Him, and nothing is greater than Him. He alone is sovereign and in control. But us? Human beings? Any “control” we believe we possess is purely phantasmal and a self-delusion. God gave you the ability to pick up that pencil and apply it to a piece of paper; God can take that ability away. God’s grace permits you to take your next breath; He can withdraw that grace at any given second. I might imagine myself capable of getting up in the morning, beginning the day, and accomplishing this or that, but in reality, there is all but infinity of factors to unbalance that equation: earthquake, injury, illness, weather, another person, etc., etc. Trials are multipurpose, but one major objective is to yank the rug out from under our feet and remove the harmful delusion of sufficiency or control. Such a fantasy is an immense roadblock to eternal salvation, and it is a millstone that drags so many souls down to the depths of damnation.
“But Jesus answered again and said to them, ‘Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’” (Mark 10:24-25)
If you are rich in yourself, you will not seek the true riches of God. You will deceive yourself into trusting in your own ability, strength, and sufficiency. It was this willful blindness that condemned the self-righteous Pharisees. No one is sufficient of themselves. We are all weak, needy, and powerless. If you do not surrender to the Lord who gave His life for you, then by default, your soul is enslaved to the prince of the power of the air, and you will share his eternal judgment.
Which will it be?
Christ was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God – His own power. Christ laid everything down, even His very life, for us. He surrendered to His Father and in so doing purchased our eternal redemption. All it takes for us to share Christ’s life and inheritance is simply to surrender, as He did. Give your life to Him, and He will do the rest.
Luke 9:23-24, “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.’”
Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Isaiah 40:28-31, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
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