Gary Gleans

                                                                                       1 Corinthians 5:1-8 It is actually reported that there is   sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans,   for a man has his father's wife.   And   you are arrogant! Ought you   not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.  For though   absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.   When you are assembled   in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,   you are   to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so   that his spirit may be saved   in the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that   a little leaven leavens the whole lump?   Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrific

                                                                        1 Corinthians 4:14-21 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.   For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.   I urge you, then, be imitators of me.   That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church. Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.   But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.   For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.   What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?   Paul confronts the pride that he sees in the church at Corinth.  They were using their comfort and prosperity as a defense for their immo

                                                                        1 Corinthians 4:6-13 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may   be puffed up in favor of one against another.   For who sees anything different in you?   What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?   Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!   For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all,   like men sentenced to death, because we   have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.   We are fools for Christ's sake, but   you are wise in Christ.   We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.   To the present hour   we hunger and thirst, we are

                                                                                  1 Corinthians 4:1-5 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.   Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.   But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.   For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.   Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.   The theme of the Judgment seat of Christ continues with Paul giving us a glimpse of how he looks at the subject in his own personal life and ministry.  I look at this passage like the class that is right before finals week in college and the professor lets t

                                                                   1 Corinthians 3:16-23 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?   If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For   God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.    Let no one deceive himself.   If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.   For   the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written,   “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”   and again,   “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”   So   let no one boast in men. For   all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours,   and   you are Christ's, and   Christ is God's. The Church is very important to God.  Paul and the apostles laid her foundation.  All believers have been building it throughout history.  Christ wil

                                                                             1 Corinthians 3:10-15 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.   For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.   Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.   If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.   I believe that the Judgment Seat of Christ is one of the most important and neglected subjects in today’s preaching.  This is amazing because it is an often-repeated

                                                                             1 Corinthians 3:1-9 But I, brothers, could not address you as   spiritual people, but as   people of the flesh, as   infants in Christ.   I fed you with milk, not solid food, for   you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,   for you are still of the flesh. For while there is   jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?   For   when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,”   are you not being merely human?  What then is Apollos? What is Paul?   Servants through whom you believed,   as the Lord assigned to each. I planted,   Apollos watered,   but God gave the growth.   So   neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.   He who plants and he who waters are one, and each   will receive his wages according to his labor.   For we are   God's fellow workers. You are God's field,  

                                                                        1 Corinthians 2:14-16 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.   The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.   “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.   There are only two types of people in this world: the natural and the spiritual.  All of us are born natural and we will remain natural until death apart from the work of the Spirit of God in our lives.  When the Spirit of God brings us to Christ, there is a radical change that takes place in our hearts and minds.  This explains why there are such radically different worldviews between those who have the Spirit of God and those who don’t.   THE NATURAL PERSON IS UNSPIRITUAL: Apart from the Spirit of God, the natural person looks at all thing

                                                                                  1 Corinthians 2:6-13 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, th

                                                                             1 Corinthians 2:1-5 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.   Too often preaching can focus on the methods of the preacher more than the content of the message.  Paul makes it clear that this was never his goal or his means of ministering the Gospel in Corinth.  This same kind of straight forward and Christ centered preaching is still what is needed today.  Deep philosophy generally leads to a shallow faith because it is focused on the wisdom of man.  The Gospel will always focus on the power

                                                                        1 Corinthians 1:26-31 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,   so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”   The glory for our salvation and all that we have become belongs to the Lord.  He takes the week and foolish and transforms them into faithful followers of Christ.  It is such a joy to experience His transforming power through the Gospel.  He gives us purpose

                                                                        1 Corinthians 1:18-25 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. God does not work in ways that se

                                                                        1 Corinthians 1:10-17 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?   I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,   so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.   (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)   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.

                                                                        1 Corinthians 1:1-9 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. 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. Paul begins this chapte