Ready to Live in Jesus

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1.3-9

Have you ever noticed that when you are around your family words are like dynamite? What I mean is, because these people know you so well, every little thing that’s said has a story or history behind it, every little nuance has significance. Like for example, “Gee mom, the turkey is really moist this year.”

Why? Was last year’s too dry? I try to make it right.

Sometimes things just shouldn’t be said. Like when I saw my nephew the other night and said boldly, “I heard you’re in love!” Now, that was wrong because my information was over a year old. The girl he was in love with is no longer in the picture. Oops.

Sometimes what is not said carries a lot of meaning. Or as Allison Krauss sings, “You say it best when you say nothing at all.”

When Paul addresses the Corinthians in this letter, it’s what’s not said that is almost as important as what is said. See, greetings in those days, and especially written greetings observed a certain form and content, always. You commended your audience or recipient for some thing specific to them. You wished them grace and peace (both a Greek and Jewish influence), but you went beyond that to what they specifically mean to you. Paul does that but doesn’t do it. The focus of what he says is, “I thank God for all of you for what God is doing for you.” Notice the emphasis, what God is doing.

Now, that’s good theology and that’s a thankful attitude. We must always first start with God and what He has started in us. The initiative has always belonged to the Lord. But what goes unsaid in this greeting is that the Corinthians have failed to do their part.
Somewhere along the line, they have just not followed through and grown from the promising start they have been given in the Lord.

If you don’t see what I mean in this, check out how Paul addresses the Thessalonians. Paul says some of the same things to them about how God has blessed them, but he goes on to say that he is thankful that they “have become imitators of me as I am of Christ.” There is a maturity and a fruitfulness to the Thessalonian Christians that is not there at Corinth.

As we’ve said, it’s not because God has shortchanged them. “The word is strong among you,” Paul says. “You have every spiritual gift you need.” And yet the Corinthians seemed to get bogged down with their old sins and pointless controversies about things that don’t really matter. (Read chapter 12 about spiritual gifts).

This should be a red flag and a word of caution for us. We too have been given everything we need. I believe we possess every spiritual gift in this congregation. Are we using them to the glory of God? Or are we hiding them under a bushel or hiding them in our own self-centeredness? Are we boldly stepping out in faith and action? Or is our power sapped by our sins and our faith stolen by stupid arguments over things that don’t matter?

We have received so much preaching and teaching in our lives. What have we done with it? Is “the word strong among us”? I was listening to NPR on my way to Williamsport the other day and they were replaying an interview from 1997 with Johnny Cash. They discussed Johnny’s resurgence at the time in popularity as a new generation discovered his music. He was nothing but thankful and blessed to be able to do what he was gifted to do and love to do. When the interview was over the interviewer, said, Mr. Cash thank you so much for taking the time, and here’s what this giant music legend said to this reporter, “Well, I thank you for talking to me. You are very good at what you do and I want you to know I appreciate you.” See, that’s the word of God strong in a person. Then they played an interview with June Carter and they asked her, “Were you afraid to get mixed up with a man who so famously had chemical dependencies?”

“Of course I was,” she said. “So I asked him do you think you can give that up for me, and he said he thought he could. And so I agreed to marry him and I said to him, ‘If you’re gonna die I’m gonna be right there with you and if you’re gonna live I want to live with you too.’ I made a commitment and I stuck to it.”

“Do you have any advice for women who are with men who have been drug abusers or violent, how they might get through it?” the interviewer asked.

“Well, I don’t know how you get through it if you’re not a praying woman. When you pray you know that there is power there. And you are given power to overcome the situation,“ June Carter answered.

Now NPR is not known as a Christian radio station. I mean this is the radio program in which one of its editorialists said a few years ago he thought that “we ought to just get rid of all the Christians” because they’re so difficult and bad and narrow-minded. So for John and June Carter Cash to be speaking these words on this station, well, it was the word of God strong among us.

Then NPR followed that story with a story about how the Salvation Army and other church groups were so much more effective in bringing aid to the Gulf coast than FEMA and other agencies. I thought to myself, maybe I need to rethink what I think about NPR.

Is the word of God strong in you?

See, when Christians do what they say they believe otherwise skeptical people take notice. And really, we can not afford to do otherwise. When we fall short of the promise that we have been given to heal the sick and feed the hungry and preach good news to the poor, well, people die and souls wither. We have a “call” and we must answer in real terms. Are we ready to live, really live in Jesus? Or are we content to give lip service to our religion? The difference is not always in what is said, but it is always in what is done.