Emmaus Road Church

1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1 IMITATION GOVERNS THE WORLD Every Christian should find someone who is Christlike and learn from his or her example, and aim to become someone whom others can follow. When we imitate Christ, our love for Jesus grows because we do not allow external circumstances or internal desires to distract us. We focus on obedience to His Word as we will fulfill the Great Commission. When we imitate Christ, the lost will come to know Him!

1 Corinthians 10:1-22 LEARN FROM THE PAST Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.The Lord wants us to look back and learn from our spiritual history with the nation of Israel so that we do not repeat their mistakes. We remember our spiritual heritage, and that God calls His children to holiness because He is holy.

1 Corinthians 9:19-27 RUNNING FOR THE PRIZE God’s Word acknowledges that there are lost people all around us, in every country, every town, so He calls the born-again Christian to join Him in the labor of winning souls. The Apostle Paul was willing to do whatever it took to get the Gospel to the lost. For him and for us, everything must be subservient to this one mission - the proclamation of the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 9:1-18 Support Those Who Serve We are called to be generous. God has called each one of us to support those who serve us in the Gospel. We need to be cheerful givers and have an eternal mindset. When we support our pastors or other ministers, it not only benefits us but benefits others. We must be kingdom minded!

Luke 12:13-21 The abundance of generosity poured out on you and me now holds us culpable. We bear the responsibility to be generous in return. The Gospel should give us generous hearts overflowing with radical sacrifice to God.

1 Corinthians 8:1-13 ACCOMMODATING THE WEAK The Church must not accommodate sin or the tyranny of the weaker brother, but instead press on to present everyone mature in Chist Jesus. And the perfect love of Jesus among us will cast out fear as we continue to grow in the grace and goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 7:25–40 SINGLE MINDED We are far too entangled in this world and this life, and need to fix our eyes on what is eternal. We should live for that, invest in that, and accept nothing less. Jesus is calling us to be supremely devoted to Himself and His working in the world at this moment in time, and that’s the heart of living SINGLE MINDED!

1 Corinthians 7:17-24 CONTENT IN THE LORD Take your focus OFF you status on earth and put it ON your status before God. This admonition is there precisely because we get tangled up in our efforts at upward mobility. We think the grass is greener on the other side. But our status before people makes no difference when it comes to our standing before God.

1 Corinthians 7:1-16 THE BIGGER PICTURE The big picture is that our earthly marriages point to Jesus and the Church. And as we love Him more with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, then we will love our spouses better and more deeply and completely. And we gain insights into the depth of the love and forgiveness that God has for us as His covenant people. We need to have the bigger picture in view when it comes to the things of God, and especially marriage!

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 HOLD MY BEER Just because you can do a thing, it doesn’t mean you should. And that’s what Paul is saying to the Corinthian church, when they are found pushing the boundaries where grace lies. It is as if when it came to flagrant, sexual sin, they were saying “Hold my Beer! Watch this! Paul’s rebuke is a needed warning to the Church then and now!

1 Corinthians 5:9-6:11 SO WERE SOME OF YOU God doesn’t want us to merely have the right information, but to experience a fundamental transformation that continues over the course of our lives. So we press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us, We go forward and walk in light of our new identity. And we submit to the transformative power of the Spirit who now lives in us!

John 19:38 - 20:18 GOD’S EMPTY PROMISES Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And this is where the fears of Friday are turned into the security of Sunday. But we don’t stop there - we must go on to the Mission of Monday! The ongoing story of Easter is what WE DO with the Gospel.

1 Corinthians 5:1-8 CONFRONTING IMMORALITY Christians must seek to be holy and keep themselves from sin. We are called to live lives separated from sin. We must be honest with one another in the Body, confronting each other in our sin and confessing it to one another. None of us is above sin.

1 Corinthians 4:6-21 SPIRITUAL FATHERS The Church today does not have many spiritual fathers - men who teach but also invest themselves in the lives of others. When God raises up men like this, the Church becomes healthy at every level, and the mission of Jesus is fully engaged. The younger see the older and do likewise because imitation governs the world.

The Apostle John delivers his first letter to the Church.

1 Corinthians 3:18-4:5 ALL THINGS ARE YOURS All things are yours...This world, this life is for our use, not for our enjoyment. When this short life is over, we will have 1000 years of the Kingdom on earth to reign and rule with Christ, and then at the ending of that Age, there will be then a new Heaven and a new earth in which righteousness will dwell forever. So look up from the grind of THIS life and glance ahead at what is coming, and live free from entanglement in the knowledge that all things belong to you!

1 Corinthians 2:1-16 THE ULTIMATE BAIT & SWITCH So Jesus pulls the ULTIMATE INVERTED bait and switch! The inverse is getting something we think is good, but instead of something bad, in the end, we receive infinitely more good than we could have imagined! And God’s express desire is that we would trust His character as our foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:1-17 WHAT IS THE CHURCH? When we think of this thing we call Church, Jesus invites us to think of it as a Family, a Field, and a Building. We are born again into a new Family where we grow up in Christ and mature. We sow and reap in the Field, as we ourselves produce. And we build up the Kingdom like a Building that is cared for by the quality of our service unto one another and the Lord. Where is God developing your maturity? What is your life producing? What is the quality of your service?

1 Corinthians 1:18-31 THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD The Christians at Corinth were quarreling and it was sabotaging their impact upon the city. That which had started out with tremendous power in the Spirit was beginning to fade, but the cure for divisiveness and dissension was and is the Gospel. Believing the gospel is not only the means by which you become a Christian, it is the means by which you are delivered in your Christian life.

1 Corinthians 1:1-17 CHURCH MATTERS Why would Paul take time to write to such a divided, dysfunctional, jacked-up church? Because Jesus loves His Bride! When the church is wayward, He calls us back. When the church is steeped in sin, He disciplines us. Those in the church are to steward it well, and that means being willing to have the hard conversations and do hard things for the sake of Jesus’ Bride. We deal with church matters because CHURCH MATTERS!