What is the church supposed to be like, to look like? Too many times we answer this question by giving the details of our local church: whether the music is contemporary or traditional, the dress is formal or casual, the order of service is liturgical or spontaneous, the building is Gothic or contemporary (or, dare we say, a warehouse). However, these answers are shallow, aren’t they? For they really do not answer the question: “What is the church supposed to look like?” Rather, they answer questions about our local churches that only reflect our preferences, tastes, times, or what we can afford to do. But they do not answer the question: “What is the church supposed to look like?” For that is a deeper question that transcends musical style or the building where we gather. And it is a question that is too rarely asked, especially in light of the place church holds in God’s word. However, the bible helps us answer this rarely asked question, and within that, 1 Corinthians serves as chief letter in aiding us in answering this question.

One of the reasons 1 Corinthians helps us answer this question in such a great fashion is because Paul is writing this letter to help answer aspects of this specific question throughout the book. It is written to a church he had founded and spent a year and a half laboring. Now he is writing to them responding to what he hears of their situation and answering specific questions they have. That is why he will write, “Now concerning the matter about which you wrote” to begin chapter seven. He knows these people and he wants them to know specifically how to conduct their lives, especially in public worship. Therefore, as he speaks to those who are asking the questions we might want to ask, we get to listen in on the conversation, as it were, and hear the answers.

However, before addressing these specific questions, he outlines (in response to what he hears is happening among them) very much a portrait of what the church is and what it is to look like in these first four chapters.

Therefore, this morning we want to try to see the answer to the question we have begun asking this morning: “What is the church supposed to be like, and look like?” I will highlight four aspects of this portrait of the church from these first four chapters this morning.

The church is to be holy

Holiness is key throughout this letter, and it is not absent from these first four chapters. We, who are the church, are to live holy lives. That is to say, we have been set apart (the meaning of “holy”) and therefore should be different from the world. We should live different from the world. Paul introduces this letter writing, “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” (1:1-2 – emphasis added). Again, he points out their holiness in 1:8-9, writing, “[God] 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” (emphasis added).

As I’ve mentioned, the meaning of holiness is “set apart.” That is to say we are set apart from the rest of the world, we are odd, we are out of place (so it should seem). The world exalts those who are strong and wise, and yet we boast in our weakness and foolishness. We boast in our foolishness for the cross is foolish to the world. So Paul writes, “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” (1:18) and again in 3:18, “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.” In the same way, we boast of our weaknesses. Paul writes further, “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. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, \"Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord\" (1:26-31).

Therefore, we must be different, for such is our identity in Christ. And I think this is a chief characteristic of the church. When the church ceases to be different from the world, the church ceases to be the church. This is why the toleration of sin in the church (which we will talk about more next week) is one of the saddest realities in the present church in America. For trying to be a church without ensuring holiness is like trying to be a baseball team without ensuring that you are actually playing baseball games. The reason holiness is so important is because we reflect Christ. The church is the portrait to the world of what Christ is like.

Thus, the foundation for our call to live holy lives is that the Lord himself is holy. So, are you different from the world? And here I don’t mean, “Do you listen to rock-and-roll music?” I mean is your life characterized by a passion for God as your greatest treasure? Are you obsessed with God? Could people, after being around you, brand you as one whose treasure is not of the earth? Or is your life communicating to the world that it is the sin they are about that you really want? If so, don’t be deceived; you are communicating a message to them about your Lord.

So may we repent of our tight grip on the world and its passing pleasures and be willing to say, “Lord, I would forfeit everything if only to gain you.” As Luther has said, “Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also, the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.” May our lives vindicate who God is in light of all the slander that comes against him. May we live in such a way that the world mocks us and persecutes us, for then we are beginning to feel an identity with our Lord.

The church is to be united

In the Corinthian church, there was much division. Thus, Paul tells them division is contrary to the utter nature of what the church is, what it is to be like, to look like. He writes, in 1:10-13, “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?”

As part of the church, you have surrendered focus on yourself as an individual and have been purchased by God to focus on the corporate body of Christ. Therefore, you now live for the body as a whole. Your care for spiritual health is singular only in that it is focused on the church, which is one. You cannot try to be an individual apart from others and be part of the church, for the church by nature is united. And it is united because Christ is one. That is why Paul writes, “Is Christ divided?” He is showing that as the church is to be a reflection of Christ, and their disunity was lying about his very nature.

What this means then, brothers and sisters, is that when you allow walls to form between you and other professing believers for carnal reasons and do not deal with them, you are lying about who Christ is. And you are lying about the nature of his church. Therefore, as we gather in this building this morning for “corporate” worship, your focus should be corporate. You simply cannot act as if no one else is here and expect that to be glorifying to our Lord. When you pray, you are praying for the corporate body. When we sing, we are singing as the congregation, as the corporate body, and as we sit to hear the word, we are doing that corporately. Therefore, this time is different from your quiet time, for you must have concern about others. William would be wrong in his singing simply to go off and sing whatever he desires without leading us to sing with him, for he is up front during our singing to aid the congregation in singing. He is not here for himself, and neither are you. Therefore, be careful of falling into the trap of thinking that the height of worship is when you feel like there is no one else present but you and God.

For does this not speak against the unity of the body and the blessing of worshiping with your brothers and sisters? One of the joys of corporate worship is the corporate element. It is being able to encourage one another and to be encouraged by one another.

So, examine your heart for the church. Do you think mainly in terms of yourself? If so, you will fit into the American mold, but remember the holy (separate) characteristic of the church – we are to be different. Do you ask how your actions might affect others? Did you think when you came to Cornerstone how you might aid in building up this body or just how you might profit? And will you think if you ever leave this body of your affect on others? I dare say most pastors in America don’t ask that question, let alone most other church members. Yet we must, for the church is to be united, for Christ is one.

The church is to be humble

Now maybe you would list these first two characteristics in your answer to the question, “What is the church like?” But I dare say few of us would mention humility as one of the most crucial descriptions of the church. However, it is high on Paul’s list and resonates throughout this letter.

First, remember the note of humility that he sounded in writing in 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. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Yet he does not stop there. Again in 3:5-7 he writes, “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 or he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (emphasis added).Finally, in 4:6-7 he writes, “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?”

In reading these first four chapters, we cannot ignore the reality that humility is as crucial in the life of a church as most anything else. And it is crucial because it reflects an understanding of grace, which is the reason the church exists. Therefore, just as we might say that one who does not think parenting is a challenge must not be a parent, so we might say that one who is not humble does not understand grace. For grace brings about as its fruit, humility. Therefore, we must fight to know God’s grace more deeply and fight for humility to characterize our lives and this church.
But do we fight for humility? Yes, I know we would all give lip service, at least, to the correctness and necessity of humility, but do we fight and labor for it? For if it is a necessary element in the life of a church, as is studying the Scripture, prayer, encouragement, and rebuke, then why do we so often labor and pray for God to make us apt in these things while hoping we simply remain humble? Rather, we must labor for it. And one of the key ways we labor to be humble is by meditating on God’s grace, for it is our basis for humility.

Also, pray that God keeps you and your brothers and sisters here humble. Pray that we might understand grace more and more deeply. Meditate on texts like 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 until you realize that you are the foolish, weak, and nothings that God has made his chosen precious children. So labor to understand his grace and labor to know humility in your life.

Finally, the church is to be faithful – as stewards of the gospel

Paul makes our stewardship of the gospel clear writing in 1:17-18, “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,” again in 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” again in 2:6-7, 10, “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 … these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit,” and again in 4:1-2, “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 trustworthy” (emphases added).

So as crucial as holiness, unity, and humility are to our identity as the church, so is the reality that we are faithful stewards of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ours is the task of speaking the gospel to one another and to the world. Therefore, may we be found trustworthy and faithful stewards of that which alone is the power of God to salvation.

Therefore, this morning, as part of the church, does this description describe you? From your actions are you aiding in providing an accurate portrait of the church? Are you providing an accurate portrait of Christ? Are you striving for holiness, being different and set apart from the world’s thinking and practices? Are you united with the body of Christ, laboring to build up your brothers and sisters for the good of the whole? Do you meditate on God’s grace and cultivate an attitude of humility in which boasting in something besides God’s grace strikes you as ridiculous? And are you being a faithful steward of the gospel, speaking it to your brothers and sisters, the lost, and yourself? If, this morning, you cannot answer these questions as Scripture would have you, may you repent and taste God’s mercy and grace this morning as we close. For it is only by his grace that we are different from another. So may we rejoice and hope in it this morning as we close. His grace has brought us safe this far, and his grace will lead us home. Amen.

A PORTRAIT OF THE CHURCH