1 Corinthians 1: The Church Belongs to God, Not to Men

Introduction

"The world is shaken. Churches are shaken, but the Lord keeps on building his Church." That is the thread of this message, preached one Sunday morning after an evening of worship and testimonies. The pastor starts from a simple question: in a world where no nation is spared, and where some churches are shaken by the poor example of their leaders, what is the role of the Church? If everything is shaken and the Church is shaken too, we risk being shaken inside.

His answer rests on one detail in 1 Corinthians 1:2. Paul does not write "the church of the Corinthians"; he writes "the church of God which is at Corinth." From there, the message moves through the temple of the Holy Spirit, the cross as the foundation, and the price paid for our redemption. It ends with one sentence that sums everything up: "The Church is not my property. I am simply a servant."

Message Outline

1. A Church That Jesus Builds Himself

The pastor opens Matthew 16:18: "I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Jesus is the builder.
Here, Jesus speaks of the universal Church, the Lord's Church "throughout the whole world." In Matthew 18:15-17, "tell it to the church," he speaks of the local church.
One anecdote makes the congregation smile: a Christian tells a pastor that he belongs to "the universal Church." Some time later, in financial trouble, he asks the church to help him. The pastor's answer: "Go and ask the universal Church."
What delights the preacher is that when Jesus speaks, neither one exists yet. God had it all planned, and things were revealed little by little.

2. "The Church of God Which Is at Corinth"

Paul writes "to the assembly of God which is at Corinth; those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place" (1 Corinthians 1:2). "That means we are concerned too."
In 1 Thessalonians 1:1, Paul addresses "the church of the Thessalonians." At Corinth, it is not the church of the Corinthians; it is the Church of God.
The reason: after the great work of the founding apostle, "indescribable situations" arose in Corinth. Paul reminds them who this Church belongs to. The pastor invites us to reread all the epistles and the seven letters of Revelation to see it for ourselves.
All who are born of God and filled with the Spirit take part in building this Church that Christ keeps building, even in today's world.

3. Your Body Is the Temple of the Holy Spirit

"Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Despite the state of the church in Corinth, Paul believes in God's grace and wants to bring Christians back to a spiritual level.
Then 1 Corinthians 6:19: "Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own." The pastor pauses: "Do we realize that God lives in us? It is grace."
He recalls the experience of the baptism in the Spirit, where God's presence makes itself felt, "some will call it that warmth," and which has turned many lives upside down.
The church in Corinth is made up of men and women whose bodies are God's dwelling place. Hence the call to glorify God in our body and in our spirit, which belong to God.

4. What God Has Prepared: The Glories of the Cross

"Things which an eye didn't see, and an ear didn't hear, which didn't enter into the heart of man" (1 Corinthians 2:9). God has revealed them through the Spirit.
For the pastor, what God has prepared is not first of all heavenly glories but "the glories of the cross" and the full meaning of God's purpose. The cross did not come from our intelligence.
Paul arrives in a city of intellectuals and philosophers, where people had fallen to the ground with no one to lift them up. His message: "I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
The goal: "that your faith wouldn't stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:5). That is why worship is centered on the person of Jesus, his death and his resurrection, and not on objects, such as the crucifix, that do not answer: "It doesn't speak."

5. The Foolishness of the Cross and the Emptiness of the Heart

"Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom" (1 Corinthians 1:22). The pastor points to those who said to Jesus, "Give us a miracle," thinking of the manna given every morning in Moses' day.
The word "foolishness" is strong: "idiocy." How can a man who dies on a cross save us? And yet "the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25).
For decades he has watched faith collapse in the country. But "when God has been removed from a person's life, the heart is never left empty." He sees a resurgence of the occult.
In Normandy, many came to tell him they were caught up in the occult sciences and handed over their books. To those who spoke to him about healings obtained that way, he answers that he has never denied that the devil can perform healings, since the Bible says so, but that relief is quickly followed by another trial.
He also tells of the memory of a sister, who has since died at over 90, converted long ago one evening after seeing the film The Cross and the Switchblade. After her baptism, she had "problems." In her library were handsome bound books, books of magic. "Once you have removed them, things will go well." His conclusion: "We are not in fellowship with the enemy. We are in fellowship with God."

6. The Cross, Foundation of the Church

"The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing" (1 Corinthians 1:18). For the pastor, the message of the cross is atonement: "My sins have been atoned for. We are no longer on the road to hell; we are on the road of grace."
It is not the cross in itself, but what Jesus accomplished on the cross, that carries the power of God. The blood that was shed sets us free from the power of darkness: Jesus saves, he heals, he drives out demons.
Paul says he laid the foundation of the Church (1 Corinthians 3:10-11), and for the pastor, that foundation is the cross. "The day you take the cross out of your church, everything collapses." Likewise, the Bible lying on the table is not a symbol: "We believe it and we live it."
He tells of the church sign that disappeared one morning. The town hall, thinking they had moved, asked them to write down exactly who they were: "Pentecostal Evangelical Church." Why Pentecostal? "Because the Holy Spirit is there."

7. Bought at a Great Price

God's temple can be damaged, harmed, corrupted, degraded. "If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for God's temple is holy" (1 Corinthians 3:17). He also recalls Paul's warning about the Lord's Supper, where many are said to be weak and sick, and several have died (1 Corinthians 11:30).
He shares a story he has read, told about Abraham Lincoln: he is said to have bought a young slave girl at a market, then told her she was free to speak, to become, and to go wherever she wanted. With tears in her eyes, she replies: "If that is so, I want to go with you."
Paul says that man is sold to sin (Romans 7:14). Christ came to the slave market. The pastor bears witness to it: "I was a slave. I had a passion, gambling, gambling money." He wept for two hours before God, confessed his sins one by one, and God's love replaced the hatred that had been settled in his heart since childhood.
His final appeal: "Let us not destroy what God has built in our lives, in the Church and in our churches." The Church is the property of no pastor; "it is God's property." He is the one who said, "I will build my Church." And we build it together.

Key Takeaways

The Church is first of all the Church of God: Jesus builds it, universal and local, even when the world and the churches are shaken.
Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit: you do not belong to yourself, you were bought at a great price.
The heart is never left empty: without God, it fills up with something else, and the occult brings no real deliverance.
The cross, what Jesus accomplished there, is the foundation of the Church. If it is removed, everything collapses.
No pastor owns the Church: we are servants and we build it together.

Personal Application

When you see the world and some churches shaken, what is your inner stability resting on?
Do you realize that God lives in you? What in the way you live is damaging that temple today?
Are there objects or books linked to the occult in your home that you need to part with?
Does your faith rest on arguments and signs, or on Jesus Christ crucified and risen?
What chain has Christ freed you from, and how can you take your place in building his Church with others?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Paul write "the church of God which is at Corinth"?

The preacher compares it with 1 Thessalonians 1:1, where Paul addresses "the church of the Thessalonians." At Corinth, after the founder's work, the church went through indescribable situations. So Paul reminds the Corinthians who the Church belongs to: it is the Church of God, the one Jesus Christ builds.

What does "your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit" mean?

In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit lives in the believer, that we do not belong to ourselves, and that we were bought at a great price. The preacher draws an exhortation from it: not to damage this temple, but to glorify God in our body and in our spirit.

Why is the cross the foundation of the Church?

For the preacher, it is not the cross as an object, but what Jesus accomplished on the cross, that carries the power of God. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it saves. The day a church removes the cross from its message, everything collapses.