Port City Faith Church
Sunday Morning - June 28th, 2026
  • You've Already Won
  • Firm Foundation (He Won't)
  • Trust In God
  • We are starting a new series this week, looking into 1st Corinthians.
    This is actually at least Paul’s 2nd letter to the church in Corinth, but we do not have that letter, it has been lost to time.
    Now, we see this pattern when Paul writes letters to churches,
    He is almost always dealing with some sort of issue, and providing correction to how the church is doing things.
    The Church in Corinth receives at least four letters (we only have two)
    and they are some of the longest letters that Paul writes.
    Which means: This church had problems.
    Almost every problem churches face today can be found in Paul’s letters to Corinth
    Divisions, Sexual immorality, marriage issues, lawsuits against each other, idolatry, misuse of spiritual liberty, immodesty, class divisions, bad practice and theology, misuse of spiritual gifts, disorderly worship, not recognizing authority, and the list goes on and on.
    The city of Corinth was an important trade hub of ancient Greece, located on a narrow strip of land that where trade could come by road or by sea.
    This meant that despite being in central Greece, it held a diverse population.
    It was also home to the temple of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sex.
    The temple housed thousands of “priestesses of Aphrodite” who were basically prostitutes.
    It was what the city was mostly known for.
    And this church was smack dab right in the middle of all of it.
    So we are going to go through these letters, discuss these issues, and see what we can learn from the mistakes of the Corinthians.
    1 Corinthians 1:1–3 ESV
    Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
    We start with the greeting,
    Paul is writing to the Corinthians with the help of Sosthenes, who according to Acts was the leader of the Jewish synagogue in Corinth who believed in Jesus, and likely acted a leader within the Corinthian church, and in this case was the messenger between Paul and the Corinthian church.
    He says the Corinthians are called to be saints, that is they are called to live as followers of Jesus, and that does require certain standards. Standards Paul is about to address.
    1 Corinthians 1:4–9 ESV
    I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
    Now, before Paul gets into the problems of the Corinthian church, he addresses something important.
    You are followers of Christ, that was clear when we first met, you have all the Spiritual gifts, and God is working through you.
    This is key, he’s not saying that the because the Corinthians have problems that they are not saved,
    He is not judging them
    rather he is saying “I know you all are saved, and i know That God is working in you, and i trust that God in his goodness will help you all solve these issues.”
    1 Corinthians 1:10–13 ESV
    I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
    The first, and biggest, issue is that there are divisions in the church.
    And church, sadly, this is still true and even more so today.
    A number that people like to throw out is that there are over 40,000 Protestant denominations
    Firstly that number is misleading - because most of the “Denominations” are actually plants from other churches, but have different names. But even if we shrink it down there are still hundreds of denominations.
    Many of which are incredibly similar, but churches split when they faced disagreements over minor theological issues, worship styles, who they welcome into their church, what color the carpet is.
    It is a tragedy, and that is why i try to work with other local area churches, rather than fight with them.
    The Corinthians were splitting off into groups, some followed the teachings of Paul, some followed the teachings of Apollos - who Paul’s friends once had to correct, some are following the teachings of Cephas - that is Peter, and some saying “I follow Christ” which is to say “I don’t trust what others say about Jesus.”
    What they did not realize is that Paul, Apollos and Peter all follow Christ.
    They may have taught the Gospel different ways, they may have emphasized different things, but all three of those men were in agreement.
    There is evidence of this in scripture,
    Paul and his friends made sure Apollos knew the whole gospel, when he had only learned part of it before.
    Acts 18:24–28 ESV
    Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.
    Pricilla and Aquilla were friends of Paul which he actually met in Corinth, when he planted the church. When he left they traveled with him for some time and encounter Apollos, a Christian who had not heard the full gospel, and he was grateful to learn more, and became a powerful witness for the early church.
    Peter was Jesus’s most trusted Disciple, and while Paul notes that there were some disagreements between him and Peter,
    Paul called Peter out on a bit of Hypocrisy once,
    Peter ended up claiming that the letters Paul was writing were to be taken as scripture.
    2 Peter 3:15–16 ESV
    And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
    Peter admits that Paul’s letters can be difficult to understand, and that people often try to twist their meaning “As they do the *other* scriptures.”
    Peter sets up Paul’s writings as scripture,
    and this is why all the ones we still have are included in the Bible.
    So Peter, Paul, and Apollos all agree, “Follow Christ,” and allow their teachings to point you to Christ,
    So lets go back to Paul’s argument. since people are dividing themselves by their favorite teacher, he seeks to remind them of that teaching:
    1 Corinthians 1:17–25 ESV
    For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
    The Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
    So many people immediately dismiss our faith as “foolishness” “idiotic” “a fairy-tale”
    Or they will say that it doesn’t make sense that Jesus died,
    They will call God cruel.
    Those people will perish.
    But to those who are being saved it is the power of God.
    God defeats death by the death of his son. He defeats sin by becoming sin for us.
    He turns everything on its head, thwarting all worldly wisdom.
    Turning worldly defeat into eternal victory.
    1 Corinthians 1:26–30 ESV
    For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
    Think of this, Jesus chose 12 disciples. at least 4 of them were fishermen, one was a tax collector, one was a zealot - an ancient assassin, None of them were the highly educated religious leaders of the time.
    His victory came with his death, and resurrection,
    His message was that the last would be first, and the first last,
    that the proud would be brought low and the humble would be exalted.
    And according to the prophet Isaiah, Jesus was not even what someone would consider handsome in appearance.
    Isaiah 53:1–3 ESV
    Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
    All of these things the world would call foolish.
    Look at our political leaders:
    Our President is perhaps the least humble man in the world.
    His strength is in literal strength, not weakness.
    and he celebrates Strength,
    Military strength
    economic Strength,
    diplomatic strength
    He even held a night of professional wrestling - with the most musclular men there are, at the white house as part of our country’s 250th Anniversary.
    And as a political leader, he does need to be strong,
    But Christ calls us to find our strength in Him.
    and So Paul continues.
    1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ESV
    And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
    Paul’s entire message from the beginning is Jesus Christ Crucified.
    Becuase at the core, that is what makes us Christians,
    Faith in the saving power of Christ by means of his crucifixion.
    That is the message, that is what originally unified the Corinthians, and the Church as a whole
    and that is what Peter, Paul, and Apollos all teach.
    And when we come back to that message, Jesus Christ and him crucified, we re-center ourselves.
    Everything else is details.
    There is a story about Vince Lombardi, He was the coach of the Greenbay Packers when they won the first Superbowl, and the superbowl trophy is named after him.
    He would start each new season by sitting down his players, at the beginning of training camp, hold up a football and say
    “Gentlemen, this is football” going back to the basics every single time.
    Becuase it is too easy to forget or ignore the basics,
    It’s too easy to get caught up in the details that divide us.
    Church, this is the basics: Christ Crucified.
    Jesus Christ, the Son of God came and died in your place, so that you might take his place in eternity.
    Now, having established the basics, Paul does go on to say that there is further wisdom they can teach,
    1 Corinthians 2:6–14 ESV
    Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
    Paul is saying that for those who have fully understood Christ Crucified, the rest of what the apostles teach was given to them by the Holy Spirit - who dwells in every believer. And the wisdom imparted by the Spirit is often counter intuitive to the wisdom of the world.
    It is not found in Academia, or Politics, or Study,
    There is a place for those things, but they are not the be all end all.
    It is found by looking to the Holy Spirit.
    Church this is what we mean by the catch phrase: Christianity is not a religion, its a relationship.
    It is about learning to understand the Holy Spirit in your life.
    Church, we live in a time when Christianity is so divided, over the stupidest things.
    what we need to do is understand that so long as we recognize Jesus Christ and Him Crucified, the other details should not be driving us apart.
    And don’t get me wrong, the details do matter, we will get into that more as we continue this series.
    But first and foremost we need to recognize that we all worship and serve the same God.
    Then as we continue to grow, we each, individually, need to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit guiding us, because that is where there is true growth.

      • 1 Corinthians 1:1–3ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 1:4–9ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 1:10–13ESV

      • Acts 18:24–28ESV

      • 2 Peter 3:15–16ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 1:17–25ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 1:26–30ESV

      • Isaiah 53:1–3ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 2:1–5ESV

      • 1 Corinthians 2:6–14ESV

  • Goodness Of God
Port City Faith Church
3 members • 1 follower