Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Date: December 3, 2023
Event: The First Sunday in Advent, Year B
1 Corinthians 1:3-9 (EHV)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
4I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. 5You were enriched in him in every way, in all your speaking and all your knowledge, 6because the testimony about Christ was established in you. 7As a result you do not lack any gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8He will also keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Grace and Peace Enrich Us Until Jesus’ Advent
You know those feelings of anticipation you get when something big is coming up? Maybe it’s something really good, so you are impatient and counting the days, hours, and minutes until it’s time. Or, maybe it’s something you’re really dreading and feels like a storm cloud hanging over you constantly.
The season of Advent could be characterized by the word “anticipation.” Advent by itself just means “arrival.” It’s a season where we are preparing to celebrate Jesus’ first arrival that we mark with Christmas, but we also keep our eyes looking for his second coming, when Jesus will return.
Now, depending on your perspective, the thought of the almighty Creator of the universe bringing an end to this life may seem really good—and thus fill you with impatience until that day arrives—or it may be something you are really dreading and perhaps don’t even want to think about.
In our Second Reading for this morning, the apostle Paul encourages us to see in Jesus a joyful return to rescue us and note that he keeps us anticipating it and readies us for it. We need not fear—Jesus will return, and for us, that will mean rescue.
This first letter to the Corinthians is not exactly the happiest of letters. The members of this congregation had a lot of problems. They had divisions that fractured along the lines of loyalty to different teachers and pastors, as well as along the lines of socioeconomic classes—the rich enjoyed luxuries and were happy to leave the poor to go hungry. They tolerated obscene sexual immorality in their congregation and were even proud of it! They abused the Lord’s Supper and did spiritual harm to themselves.
Despite the really troublesome things that Paul needs to address with them, the opening of this letter is very positive. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. You were enriched in him in every way, in all your speaking and all your knowledge, because the testimony about Christ was established in you. As a result you do not lack any gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has such positive things to say! How can he be so positive and upbeat when there are so many problems?
There were indeed many concerns in the congregation, but Paul focuses on the positive here. To begin with, they have God’s grace and peace, which has positively affected them. They have a base to build off of to address the problems because they have the foundation of God’s love for them.
It would be good for us to spend a couple of moments considering those words we hear so often, that they can sometimes lose their meaning: grace and peace. Grace is what we sometimes define as the undeserved love of God. It’s love from God that we don’t deserve and, in fact, gives us the opposite of what we deserve. The Corinthians needed God’s grace because their sin separated them from God and brought hell on them. The same is true for us. Our sin, our active rebellion against God, deserves nothing but hell, eternal separation from God.
We don’t have to look far in our lives to see that sin, but as we start this new church year and have a fresh run at Advent’s preparation, maybe our minds specifically think about the times in the past (or even today!) when we’ve been apathetic in our approach to spiritual matters and lax in our preparation for eternity. Maybe we’ve let the worries and cares of this life crowd eternity out of our minds. Maybe we’ve prioritized our will over and above God’s will. Maybe we’ve let that time in God’s Word be something we’ll do “later” rather than something we’re actively doing now.
But God’s grace means we don’t need to dwell or fret over those sins. Real as they were and are, we also know that they are forgiven. God’s undeserved love for us in Jesus means that he has removed our sins. Sin brought hell on our heads; God’s grace gives us heaven in its place.
This is why Paul could be so joyful and thankful for the Corinthians and to God despite the massive problems wreaking havoc in that congregation. Were there things to be dealt with? Yes. Were they impossible to work through? No. Was there forgiveness in Jesus for these sins? Most assuredly.
The results of grace lead to peace. We are at a time in the world’s history where, once again, we long for peace between nations. The wars and rumors of wars that Jesus said would accompany us to the end of time on this planet are clearly not just theoretical as nations batter and destroy each other. Calls for ceasefires and peace fill news articles, political speeches, and prayers of God’s people. And while God may grant that peace and halt to fighting, we do know that it is only temporary because every person on this earth is a sinner and that sin means there will never be true, lasting peace between peoples and nations.
But, peace with God is different. Sin is conflict, war, with God. But in Jesus, God brings peace between himself and us. In not too many weeks, we will hear the angels announce to the shepherds that the newborn lying in a feeding trough means “peace, good will toward mankind” (Luke 2:14). This isn’t a temporary peace. It’s not peace that will last only as long as the terms of a treaty or until the hurt or greed of one group causes them to lash out at another. No, this peace that God’s grace brings about is permanent and eternal.
In Jesus’ life and death in our place, we have this true peace of God. Because Jesus’ work forgives and removes our sins, he does away with our natural hostility toward God. And because the hostility of our sins is gone, the just anger of God over our sins and the need to punish us for them disappears. The peace Jesus brings is the peace that means we will not be at odds with God but in harmony with God forever when he calls us from this world of sin to himself in heaven.
Thanks be to God for all of this! But what do we do now? We’ve talked a lot about future things or at least things that we will fully experience in the future—how does this affect our day-to-day life until God brings us home to heaven? How do we prepare during this Advent season and throughout our lives? Let’s consider what Paul said to the Corinthians: You were enriched in him in every way, in all your speaking and all your knowledge, because the testimony about Christ was established in you. As a result you do not lack any gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Paul says this gospel message of sins forgiven in Jesus had a tangible effect on the Corinthians. It obviously wasn’t perfect as they all still struggled with sin in very real, public ways, but the message of God’s love, his grace, and peace meant that they were enriched in every way, in all [their] speaking and all [their] knowledge. Jesus' forgiveness changed them for the better.
And that means that they were blessed with gifts, not necessarily physical, earthly wealth, but with spiritual gifts. Whether that meant the ability to teach or speak in tongues or lead or simply and foundationally the gift of faith in Jesus as Savior, these blessings were a gift from God and showed that God was faithful to what he had promised. They had the forgiveness of sins; heaven was theirs.
And despite the difficult conversations that Paul will have with the Corinthians in the chapters that follow this initial greeting, he is confident that he will also keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
So what do we do now? How do we prepare? How do we let our Advent anticipation express itself? Let God do his work. Through his Word and the sacarments, God builds us up in our faith so that we cling to him more completely. We are properly prepared to celebrate Jesus’ first Advent when we can see the spiritual, eternal blessings that God will work through this still-little child. We are prepared for Jesus’ second Advent when we have those same blessings at the forefront of our minds: despite being a sinner, you and I have God’s grace and peace. We will be in heaven forever.
So let God work on your hearts through his Word, as he promised. Surround yourself in it here at worship, in Bible class, in home devotions, and in quiet time of meditation on his promises and faith-driven prayer as a response to those promises. To prepare for the future is to let God prepare you. Your forgiveness is his work. Your faith is his work. Your life of thanksgiving is his work in you.
My dear brother, my dear sister. You have the grace of God, the free gift of his forgiving love. That grace has resulted in eternal peace with your Creator. God is faithful. He will keep you strong until the end. And until that end comes, let your focus be on him and his forgiving love for you. Amen.
