230212 Sermon on the work of the Holy Spirit vs the divisions of party spirit (Epiphany 6) February 12, 2023

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

Thank you for indulging me with all the sermons that I’ve
been preaching on 1 Corinthians. This will be the last sermon on 1 Corinthians,
at least for now, since the readings will move on to other things next week
with the Transfiguration. Today I’ll preach on 1 Corinthians one more time
though.

I really like the two Corinthians letters. I find them to be
very instructive for our times. We have struggled, and struggles continue over
what the Christian church should be. We have been living through a time when
churches have generally gotten smaller rather than larger. How do we fix that?
How can we attain success?

Very often, both back in Paul’s time and in our times, one
of the ways that people want to answer that question is through the leaders, through
the pastors, who have been put in place. How can we hope to be successful? We
need to have the right leader. Then these leaders might end up with a following
around themselves. In Corinth they had split up into different parties. There
was a Paul party, a Peter party, an Apollos party, and probably some other
parties too. If there are parties, it’s only natural to also have party
spirits.

Party spirit is when people gather themselves together,
think that their party is the best, and that everybody else is sub-par or perhaps
even down-right evil. To have such an attitude is definitely of the flesh, as
Paul says in our reading today. He says, “Insofar as jealousy, strife, and
factions have a place among you, are you not people who are following the
flesh? Are you not behaving in a merely human way?”

This does seem to be the human way. Gather together enough
people to get a coalition. Say nice things about yourselves and attack the
other side. We’re handsome, regal, majestic, lovable. They are terrible,
horrible, no good, very bad. The goal is to win, win, win, and defeat the other
party. Then we can feel good about being the winners. We can also feel good
about them losing, because they are losers, and they’re maybe even evil to
boot.

It is possible for us Christians to do this kind of thing
with our Christianity too. We can create a party spirit that is not from the
Holy Spirit, but of the flesh. This party spirit might manifest itself in the
way that we live. We can pride ourselves on our clean living, perhaps, and be
disgusted by the way that somebody else lives. How can they live like that?

It might manifest itself in a kind of pride where we are the
ones who are right—thank God we’ve always been right—and everybody else is
wrong. Because we are right and they are wrong, we will go to heaven and they
will go to hell. Whenever anyone focuses on how good he or she is, and how bad
somebody else is, you can be sure that you are dealing with something that is
purely natural, merely human—something that comes from the flesh.

“But,” you might be wondering, “don’t we live better than
unbelievers? If we don’t live correctly we could end up under church
discipline.” And furthermore, “Don’t we know what is right? Aren’t others
terribly mistaken with false beliefs?” And I have to admit that these
objections are valid. Christians do and must live differently than unbelievers.
Christians must hold to what is true, otherwise they are not really Christians.
But these things should be done and held to in such a way where there is not a
party spirit. It should not be an “us vs. them” kind of thing.

What it should be instead is that we urge all people to
repent under the mighty hand of God—ourselves included. We are not separated
from others but are also under the mighty hand of God. This is the unusual way
that Paul takes with these Corinthians. Party spirit is so natural to us that
it can seem unavoidable. Whenever anybody says something or wants to make a
change, it can seem like there is just one more party being formed. What Paul
says in his letter to the Corinthians can seem like just one more faction—oh,
yep, that’s just what Paul thinks.

But Paul doesn’t want the hearers of his letter to think,
“Oh, yeah, that’s just Paul doing his schtick.” He wants all people everywhere
to become obedient to God’s Gospel. He doesn’t want to gather anybody to
himself. He wants people to repent, to fear God, and to believe in Jesus. And
Paul doesn’t care whether that happens through his speaking, through Apollos’s
speaking, through Peter’s speaking, or through any man’s, woman’s or child’s
speaking. Whoever is doing the speaking is just the instrument through whom God
is doing his work. What matters is God doing his work.

These are the lines along which
Paul is speaking when he says, “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They
are ministers through whom you believed, and each served as the Lord gave him
his role. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then,
neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but it is God
who causes the growth.”

Note how Paul is praising God,
and not himself. One telltale sign of a party spirit is when goodness and
righteousness can only come from those who are on one’s own team, from one’s
own party. But Paul is different. God is the one who caused the growth.

Let’s apply this to a difficult
issue in our own times and something that has been divisive in our own church
body. Party spirit might manifest itself by people saying that only those with
their very special kind of worship are any good. If anybody does worship
differently from them then that church is in deep trouble. They are probably
going to die. That has been such a commonly expressed thought during my
lifetime. It’s unbelievable if you think about it! One group of Christians
tells another group of Christians that they are going to die! And it kind of
sounds like they want them to die too! They’re too old fashioned. Their worship
doesn’t work anymore.

Or, perhaps, from the other side
it might be said that if certain modern instruments end up getting used, then
that church isn’t any church at all. That too is an amazing thing to say to
someone. You’re not the church. The issue of worship is one of those hot-button
issues that has caused deep rifts in our church body, and much of it has been
carried on with a party spirit. My side is the best, and the other side is
horrible, terrible, no good, and very bad.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not
saying that it doesn’t matter how Christians worship. I don’t believe that
there should just be a free-for-all, and let the floodgates be opened to
anything and everything. What a lazy, thoughtless position! What I am saying is
that there is something deeper and more important. And perhaps someone might
just say, “oh, yep, let’s now hear what Michael Holmen has to say,” but I’d
like it if people wouldn’t think that way. I think I’m speaking the truth. What
I believe to be deeper, more fundamental, is the fear of God, the abhorring of
one’s own sins, and believing in Jesus. Wherever there is this attitude, which
I say is from the preaching of the Holy Spirit instead of any party spirit, you
are going to have people with whom you can profitably discuss things—serious Christians
who care about the damnation or salvation of their fellow man.

This also is not just my own
personal opinion, it is also the confession of our Lutheran Church. The
Augsburg Confession says, “It is enough for the true unity of the church to
agree concerning the teaching of the Gospel and the administration of the
sacraments. It is not necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies, instituted
by human beings be alike everywhere.”

That is very similar to what
Paul has been saying in these first three chapters of Corinthians. Paul has
been saying, “We preach Christ, and him crucified… I was determined to know
nothing among you except Christ and him crucified.” What is the gospel that
we should all agree about? Isn’t it the message of Christ and him crucified—the
good news that Christ has died for all sinners? And what are the sacraments if
they are not the preaching and application of Christ crucified for you.
Baptism, for example, is being united with Christ in his death, so that we may
also be united with him in his resurrection. The Lord’s Supper, as Paul says in
this same letter, is the proclamation of Christ’s death until he comes again.

Wherever you have the preaching
of Christ and him crucified, and wherever you have people who are given the
gift of faith in that preaching by the Holy Spirit—that Christ died for you—there
you have Christians. We don’t need Apollos. We don’t even need Paul. You don’t
need any particular human being or any particular human party. What we need is
the revelation from God. What we need is the fear, love, and trust in God that
is worked by the Gospel of Christ and him crucified. That is not just one more
party spirit. That fear, love, and trust in God is worked by the one Holy
Spirit, who is true God.

Wherever you have that, you have
Christians. And, on the other hand, wherever you don’t have that you don’t have
Christians. It doesn’t matter how beautiful, eloquent, reasonable,
entertaining, popular or righteous any group might appear to be. The
indispensable thing is the preaching of Christ and him crucified.

So we should be thankful that we
have enjoyed the preaching of Christ and him crucified for each one of us. That
each one of us has received Christ the crucified and continue to receive Christ
the crucified is not from any merit or worthiness in us. Nor has it been by the
graces or faithfulness or merits of any human being or human party or human
church body. Anytime we hear the pure preaching of the Gospel and the
sacraments are administered according to Jesus’s institution, you can know with
100% certainty that this has come from God. It is his gift to you for you to
believe in.

But this has, at the same time,
come through instruments that God has used. There’s no sense in denying that.
God didn’t speak directly from heaven to each one us. He used believing Christians,
but this came from God, was worked by God, and is made effective by God. Paul
says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.”

So it has been and so it is with
each one of us. Each of us was baptized by some other Christian. Each of us has
received instruction from fellow Christians. Sometimes that instruction,
guidance, and correction has been through formal and public channels in
institutions, through pastors, teachers, or professors. Sometimes that has been
less formal, but certainly not less important. Sometimes it is through family
members. Sometimes it is through fellow congregation members. Sometimes it is
through friends.

In whatever way our faith has
been planted, watered, perhaps replanted, and so on, this has been God working
through his means to create and sustain our faith. And this has not been done
through one person or one party, unless you want to identify that person as
Christ. Christ has been faithful in taking care of us, his sheep, and he will
continue to be faithful. The instruments through whom Christ speaks his
Scriptural Word will inevitably change. Quite possibly the person who baptized
you is long dead. But Christ is faithful. He keeps bringing his Word to you so
that you may be his disciple, so that you will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free.

Therefore we must not attach our
love and trust to a human being or the party or group in which we happen to be.
We couldn’t and shouldn’t do that even if the apostle Paul were here standing
among us. He wouldn’t want us to attach ourselves to him. To be faithful to
Paul is to be faithful to his preaching and teaching, and he is always pointing
beyond himself to Christ and him crucified.

Jesus alone is Lord. He is Lord
of his church. He is your Lord and Savior. It is the pleasure of us Christians
to declare the praises of him who has called us out of darkness and into his
marvelous light.