Keep The Water Out Of The Boat | 1 Corinthians | Week 3

Your life can change without a dramatic moment, just a steady decision you repeat. We talk about Bible engagement and why a simple rhythm of Scripture four times a week can reshape not only what we do, but what we feel, from anger and gossip to bitterness, loneliness, and discouragement. We also share a practical path to make it doable, using the “listen, learn, live” resources tied to our 1 Corinthians study so Sunday doesn’t stay stuck on Sunday. 

Then we step into the chaos of the Corinthian church: rivalry, sexual immorality treated like no big deal, and believers taking petty disputes to public courts. It’s a brutal mirror, because it shows how a church can sit in a city without realizing the city is seeping into the church. The image that sticks is the boat: the boat belongs in water, but water does not belong in the boat. When the world gets inside, instability follows. 

Paul’s first move is what makes this letter so powerful for Christian living today. Before he confronts problems, he reminds believers of their position in Christ: saints, sanctified, called, and held by a faithful God. We break down positional sanctification and progressive sanctification, and we land on the question that reframes everything: what if the real issue isn’t the problem you can name, but forgetting your calling? Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, what’s one habit that would help you stay anchored in Scripture this week?

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Transcript

Welcome And Summer Series

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Hello, this is Jamie Bridges, and thank you so much for joining us for this week's podcast. All of our services are inspired and built straight from the Bible. Let's get into this week's message recorded at Life Community Church.

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Man, so good, so timely, so prophetic. If you haven't listened to either one of those messages, I would encourage you to jump on the app and make sure that you do that. But we're going to continue in this series, 1 Corinthians, in chapter one. We're going through all 16 chapters this summer. It is going to be a ton of fun. And so, and this is norm for us in the summertime. We usually go through a book of the Bible, and this year it is 1 Corinthians. And as you get to 1 Corinthians, as you go to the LCC app and get to your notes, I want to talk to you about Bible engagement.

Why Four Days In Scripture

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Bible engagement. Because everything we're going to talk about this morning, Bible engagement is extremely important to what the conversation that we're going to have today. There is an organization by the name of Center of Bible Engagement, and they did a survey approximately with like 100,000 people over a span of eight years, people from all over the world trying to attempt to figure out what is what uh what is um the key, what are the components, uh, what is the the sweet spot. I mean, I it's kind of weird that we're even trying to figure this out, but this is what we do in Americans. It's like what is what is the least and the most that we have to do in Bible engagement to get the most effect out of Bible engagement, right? Uh but at the same time, in doing this survey, they found out some fascinating things, some incredible things. They found out that if you are in the Word of God at least four times a week, it'll transform your life. Now, I mean, we get it, right? One time a week we'll do the same. But there is a big difference between one day, two days, and four days a week, right? If you're engaging with a Bible four days a week, if you are reading the Bible, if you're listening to the Bible, if you're hearing someone share, talk about the Bible, if you're praying through the Bible, right? It's going to have a large effect on your life. Here's what they found out in regards to people's habits and people's emotions. They found this out. Drunkenness decreased 62%. Sexual immorality decreased 59%. Anger decreased. Gossip line decreased. Not only did it uh did it change people's habits, but it also changed people's emotions. We like the facts and here are the facts. Bitterness dropped 40%. Destructive thinking dropped 32%. Difficulty forgiving, 31%. Discouragement, loneliness, 30%. Your life will be transformed when you engage with the Bible. And the challenge that our pastor gave us two weeks ago was not to just come in on Sunday mornings and hear a great teaching on the book of first, the first letter, First Corinthians, but to engage throughout the week, Monday through Saturday, in God's word. So listen, we've done everything we can as a team to make it as easy as possible for you to engage. All you have to do is pick the time in the day and click a button and move in direction. We've actually created resources that allow you to engage with the Bible three times a week. You've just got to come up with a fourth one, right? You've just got to come up with a fourth one. What would happen this summer? What would potentially could take place this summer if we decided to engage in the Bible four days a week?

Listen Learn Live On The App

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So here it is. On the app, you're going to see a tab that says 1 Corinthian resources. It should pop up sometime today. And on that, when you click that, you're going to see three words. Listen, learn, and live. Listen, learn, and live. When you click on listen, you're going to actually hear an audible reading of the chapter you just heard about on Sunday. So you can just hit the play button and listen. You're going to recognize the voice. Try to guess what staff member it is. It is a beautiful voice, a wonderful voice. I get to hear this voice almost every single day. Most of the time it's beautiful. Most of the time it's wonderful. The second thing you're going to click on is learn. And when you click on learn, it's going to take you to our podcast page. And this is going to be such a great time for you as you get to listen to three or four of our staff members duke it out on the chapter that we are discussing that week. As they dive deeper into this week, it will be First Corinthians. And it's a really great conversation where you can just go a little further in that book. And then last but not least is the live, it's live. And when you click on live, you're going to get a PDF page. And it's just a series of questions and answers that you get to reply personally in regards to the book of First Corinthians. And so listen, we want you to engage with First Corinthians this summer. Not take the summer off. We know that your schedule looks different. We know you're going to be on vacation. We know you're not going to be out of town. We know you're going to be watching online. All these different kinds of things. But most importantly, the summer, we want to challenge you to engage in the Word of God. It will transform your life. Can we pray? You guys good? All right. You know how I am. Like, I got to watch that clock, but it's never good to preach too long on a holiday weekend. All right, let's pray.

Prayer And Open Hearts

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Lord, we thank you so much for the opportunity you've given us to be here today. And God, I just, man, what a what a great time in worship. God, and it's evident, God, that you are with us, that you are near this morning. And God, I pray that our hearts will be open to hear what it is that you have for us today. God, it's near nearly impossible. I mean, it is impossible for me to meet one-on-one with every single individual in a room like this. But God, it's not impossible for you. So, Holy Spirit, we just say, here I am. God help me to hear what it is that you want to say. Well,

Corinth’s Church Problems In Brief

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you know this from two weeks ago, but the first first Corinthian church, the Corinthian church is a troubled church. They have a lot of problems. Pastor Jamie actually went through a whole list of things in regards to all of the situations and issues that are going on in Corinth with the Corinthian church. Actually, the first six chapters, right, we see nothing but problems. And the remaining chapters, he's going to respond to a ton of questions that they've been asking him to respond to. It is a great opportunity for us as a church here in Columbia to learn a ton of things about a lot of topics that mean so much to us or no part of our every single day of life. This is a great book for us to go through. But for us to really understand the first portion of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, where we're going to be, the first eight verses, for us to understand that we need to revisit some of the things. For us to understand what Paul is attempting to do, what he's trying to communicate to this church, to these believers, it's important that we remember that we understand the problems that are happening in Corinth with the believers. Now we're not going to go through all those problems today because we would be here forever. But I'd like to just hit three of them real quickly. If you go with me to chapter 1, which is part of our text, verses 10 through 11, I'm going to uh read verse 10 here this morning. It reads this way. Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say. That's got to be impossible. That there is no division among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction. Verse 11. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters, by members of Chloe's household, Chloe's people, that there is rivalry among you. Hey, listen, in sports on the field, rivalry is a great thing. In the church, not at all. Not at all. These Corinth believers, these believers in Corinth, right? They are dividing over things, trivial things that do not matter, have no eternal significance at all. And if you've been in church in any time at all, you understand, right? Because it's probably why you're not of that church anymore. Why are we arguing about these things? And Paul gives us an example in verse 12 when he says this. When I, what I am saying is this one of you is saying, I belong to Paul. Another saying, I belong to Apollos. Another saying, I belong to Cephas. Another says, I belong to Christ. Is Christ divided? The church in Corinth literally is dividing over their favorite spiritual leader. They are picking favorites, they are making teams, and they are creating clicks. They're literally tearing, like a sheet of paper, the church in half. It'd be like you and I here today, family members of Life Communion Church, this body of Christ, saying, you know what, I'm a follower of Jamie Bridges. He started this church. He's the man. You know what? I'm a follower of Kelly. Have you seen the decor in this place? That lady knows what she's doing. It is beautiful. I'm on her team. Hey, listen, you know, Mike, Pastor Mike, like he's obviously the wisest guy in the room. Have you seen that beard? I'm with Pastor Mike. Right? I'm a follower of Jody. She gets my kids. She loves my kids. She speaks my language. Kids are the most important thing. I'm the follower of Jody. I'm a follower of Pastor Sean. He thinks circles are better than rows. Like he gets it for real, right? You know? What about Casey? I'm a follower of Casey. Why do they even let anybody else sing in that church? Her voice is amazing, right? I mean, this is literally what's taking place. They're disagreeing about not godly principles, but they're disagreeing about personality types. They had become a divided church. This is a church, a young church, a church that's focusing on personality and not principles, and they're becoming divided. How in the world do you are you be how in the world do you become a divided church? How do you get like this? The second thing that we see is they were a defiled church. They were a defiled church. This is hard to believe. In chapter 5, verse 1, it'll be on the screen. It reads this way It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and the kind of sexual immorality that not even Gentiles will tolerate. A man is sleeping with his father's wife. Holy smokes. Other translations, praise God, say his stepmother. Not that that's any better, but it's a little bit better, I think. Right? There's an obvious problem in the church. But Paul, right here, is not necessarily pointing out the fact that this is the issue because it is, yet he's having a problem with the way the church is responding to the issue. Because, see, the church is responding this way to this issue. He's they're saying this. Oh, we love you. We'll accept you. God's grace is bigger than that. Oh, praise the Lord. Come on in, you can hang out with us. They were accepting the sinner and unfortunately, the sin. And therefore not really loving the one who was in sin. They had become a defiled church. So they're divided, they're defiled, and third, they were a disgraced church. A disgraced church. Chapter 6, verse 1 reads this way If any of you have a dispute against another, how dare you take take it to court before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Listen, believers literally are taking their minor issues, the things that don't really matter, to the courts of the world, to the courts of the city, to unbelieving judges, to unbelieving individuals, and asking them to take care of their issues. We're not talking about law-breaking issues here. We're talking about the inability to work out a dispute. So this is the church in Corinth. They're divided, they're defiled, and they're disgraced. Corinth is a church that has a ton of trouble. This is a question that I have. First and foremost, I'm so glad we're not this church. But this is God's church. The church that we're talking about here. How do you become a divided church arguing about things that don't really matter? How do you get there? How do you become a defiled church tolerating sin instead of confronting it? How does that type of sin just become so normal in the body of Christ? How do you how do you become a disgraced church depending on the world, uh those that are not even Christians, settling your minor disputes? How do you get here? How does this happen? The church was not only in Corinth, Corinth was in the church, you see. The church was not only in Corinth, but Corinth was in the church. It's not a problem for the church to be in Corinth. The problem was that Corinth was in the church. The church in Corinth looks more like Corinth, the city, than it does Christ, their savior.

Water In The Boat Illustration

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I know one of the things that a lot of people are doing this weekend is they're shining up their boats. On my bus route, there's a guy, literally, his boat is bigger than his house. I mean, I'm like, that dude's got it right. That dude's got it right. And it is a very fast boat. And uh he's out there all the time sprucing that thing up, getting it ready. And I guarantee you, when the weather's nice, that dude is having a good time. I grew up in Michigan, the lower part of Michigan, right here. If you've never been right here or this part, I would not encourage you to go to the upper peninsula. Just kidding, the upper peninsula is a great place. I love that. I love that part too. But uh, I grew up in the lower peninsula and um I grew up literally on lakes. When I moved to Missouri and they showed me a river, I thought to myself, what do you do with that? You put a boat on that thing and ski? That does not seem like a good idea. I like water that doesn't move, right? And uh man, I grew up behind a boat, literally. And uh I remember times in the summer, like I'd be at one friend's house, and we would get up in the morning and we would uh have breakfast and we would go out and we would get on a boat and we would just start driving around the lake. We'd get behind the boat, tubing, all that kind of stuff. We'd pause for lunch, literally, eat lunch, literally walk across the street to a different lake and jump on my other friend's wave runners. God bless my friends. So thankful for them, right? I'll never forget one trip as a uh young student, as a young kid. Uh my best friend, his dad was a carpenter, a really handy with his hands and woodwork. And he decided that he was gonna buy a boat. Uh and when he brought this boat home, I'll never forget when he pulled in because I was either living at my friend's house or my friend was living at my house, you know what I mean, all summer long. That's just the way we rolled. And I remember we were so excited, like, yes, my friend's got a boat. Another friend got a boat, a new lake, a new opportunity, you know, those kind of things. I also had a boat at my house. I mean, if you lived where I live in Michigan, everybody had a boat, you know, and uh kind of thing. And so uh I remember even pulling that boat up, and we thought to myself ourselves were like, this boat is not gonna float. It's just not gonna float. And so what seemed like a whole year, my friend's dad literally is working on this boat, fixing it, cleaning it, getting the holes out of it, the cobwebs out of it, making it look like a boat that could potentially float. And so, what seemed like a year, finally, the trip came, and I was invited to the trip. We were going uh in northern Michigan somewhere, I have no clue where we are, it just felt like we were going forever. We might have been in the UP, I don't know. And so we were just going north, and it seemed like a long time. But we packed that car, threw everything in the boat, we're pumped, we're excited, boats ready. We're off, right? We get to the camp cut site because we're camping, you know, uh, pop up the tents, get everything ready to go, take the boat to the lake. Put the boat in the water. All seems good for a minute, and all of a sudden we realize that our feet are are getting wet in the boat. Which to my friend and I were like, I mean, we're like 10, 11 years old. This is not a big deal. We're not panicking, there's no trouble in our hearts, but as I am observing everybody else from the boat, my friend's sister, my friend's sister's best friend, my friend's mom, my friend's dad. He's angry. Right? Because he has spent a lot of time and a lot of money fixing this boat. His wife, she's panicking. We're all gonna die in the middle of this lake. His sister, oh my goodness, this water's ruining my nails. You know what I mean? Like everybody's freaking out. I mean, there's trouble in paradise. Why? Because water does not belong in the boat. That's why. Needless to say, we did not take that boat out again for the rest of the week. We were there, unfortunately. Hey, listen, the boat belongs in water, but water does not belong in the boat. But when the water gets in the boat, right, we've got a problem. The Corinthian believers' boat was taking on water. Taking on water. And because they were taking on the world, it was causing a lot of problems. Paul's

Recall Position Before Addressing Problems

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primary goal in writing this letter is to get the water out of the boat. And he does this by reminding them of their what? Their position. He doesn't focus on the problem right up front, even though there is set uh 17 chapters of problems, one chapter of position. But before he starts talking about problems, he talks about position in the first eight verses. There's a very, very, very valuable lesson that we're gonna learn from Paul. Before you point out the problem, you first have to recall the position. Before you point out the problem, you first have to recall the position. Let's get to verse uh the beginning of this chapter, first Corinthians chapter two, raised this way. To the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints. He's talking to this problem church, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus. That would be you and I, all of those who call on the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both their Lord and ours, grace to you, peace from God. I feel like they need a belt, is what I think. I'm like, somebody needs to straighten these kids out. Don't they know what's going on? Our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul, is aware of all of the problems that need to be addressed. He is aware of the division, he's aware of the defilement, he's aware of the degrace, disgrace, yet he addresses them as saints and sanctified. He addresses them as saints and sanctified. Listen, before he addresses the problem, he reminds them of their position. Before he addresses the problem, he reminds them of their position. Our problems oftentimes result from not having our eyes on the right thing. If your side is off, so will your balance be. If your side is off, so will your balance. Paul knew that to deal with the root of the problem, he had to remind them of their position. He has to just remind them of their position.

Positional And Progressive Sanctification

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There's two types of sanctification here. We're gonna just kind of nerd out for a few seconds if we can. He says saints, and he says sanctified. The first type of sanctification is called positional sanctification. This is who you are in Christ the moment you're saved. Do you remember that moment when you gave your life to Jesus Christ for the first time? When you realized, listen, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to control my life. I'm messing it up. I realize I'm a sinner in need of a savior, and I I get this. I understand the work of Jesus Christ and what he's done for me, and I am releasing, surrender to him. It's what we sang this morning. I give it to you. In that moment, right, you become a saint. I always thought you had to do all these really cool things. At least the religion I grew up in. And if you did all these really great things, at some point they might deem you a saint. When someone places their faith in Jesus, God declares them holy, set apart, forgiven, belonging to Him. This is positional sanctification. This is not based on our performance, it's based on the finished work of Jesus Christ. Progressive progressive sanctification is this. This is the ongoing process of becoming more like Jesus every day in life. While positional sanctification Changes your standing before God instantly. Progressive sanctification changes your character over time through the work and the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, I've done my work, you're good to go. I'm going to leave you the Holy Spirit. Why? Because you're going to stay in the world as a Christian. And staying in the world as a Christian, there's opportunity for you to get your sight off the wrong thing. And when you do, you're going to let the world come in and you're going to see problems. You know what I do when I realize that there's a season of my wife and I arguing a lot. I used to do this. Girl, what is your problem? What is I'm looking at Scott and Scott only because my wife's over there. What is your problem? Get it together, girl. That's free marriage counseling. Don't try that out, okay? You know what I do now? I sit before the Lord and I say, hey, how what is what does my personal time in the Word look like the last three weeks? And you know what I find out? Oftentimes, it's been horrible. Because when I get my eyes off of who he is, there's a tendency that I allow the world to start now dictating how I live. And when I let the world dictate how I live, it causes problems between me and my wife. Paul gets it. He's like, you know what, we're gonna talk about these things, but for you to really understand, and I promise you guys, as we go through this, they're gonna pick up on it. Why? Because Paul first and foremost says, before we deal with a problem, I need to reposition your eyes. You might reconsider when God first called your name. And so after he calls them saints and sanctified, he continues on and talks about how thankful he is for this church. First Corinthians verse 4 says this I always thank my God for you because of great the grace of God of God given to you in Christ Jesus. As bad as it bad as it is, these Corinthians had experienced God's undeserved kindness, unconditional love. Verse 5. You were enriched in him in every way, all speech and knowledge. In this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you. It's not physical wealth, it's spiritual wealth. Everything you need to live a godly, successful life has been given to you by God through his word. He gives us spiritual gifts, right? So that we can fully live the way he wants us to live, and we can help others live the way he wants us to live. Verse 7, you do not lack anything spiritually at all. You do not lack any spiritual gifts as you eagerly wait for the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. These believers had all they needed, all they needed, nothing more, nothing more did they need. Everything they needed, they had. Verse 8 and 9.

God’s Faithfulness And Blameless Standing

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He wraps this up, talking about the faithfulness of God. He will also strengthen you to the end. He will strengthen you to the end so that you will be blameless. In the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, he strengthens so that you're blameless. God is faithful. You were called by him into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That word strengthen literally means preserve. He will preserve you till the end. He shall preserve you until what? Until his return. I love this, this word blameless. It's a legal term, meaning not to be called to account. Not to be called to. This is incredible news for us. So when your name is called by the judge and you're sitting outside of the courtroom, and you're in Christ, you are a believer. That's who I'm talking to today. Jesus is the one who shows up, and through his work, by his righteousness, God sees you blameless. Why is Paul so confident about these troubled Corinthian believers? Why is Paul so confident? Why can he so confidently say these things about this troubled group of people that seem like a bunch of heathens? Because God is faithful. Because God is faithful. Paul is reminding us, right? That our confidence is not our in our performance. That our confidence is not in our performance, but it is in God's faithfulness. Our confidence is not in our performance, but it is in God's faithfulness. Riley, I am actually going really fast. You can come on out. That does not happen in John's world.

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This is the question I have for all of us.

Delusion And Looking Like The World

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Maybe the problems that you're facing are a reminder that you have forgotten your position. You see, the problem is not division. And it's so important that we understand this before we even jump into chapter two. Before we process all of these problems and all of these questions. Because if we process them the wrong way, you're in trouble. Because the moment that you think you can get it right, well, the moment you'll the moment you'll destroy literally destroy yourself. You see, the problem is not division, the problem is not defilement, the problem is not disgrace. It's delusion. It's delusion. When you lose sight of your position, we lose sight of who we are. And when we lose sight of who we are, Holly, we allow ourselves to be open to the world's work, not the word's work. If we have a desire to embrace what Paul is going to teach us in the book or the letter that he wrote to this Corinthian church, Bible engagement is key. Knowing our position in Christ is key. When we forget our position, we begin to reflect the world. When we forget our position in Christ, we begin to reflect the world around us. Why is it that these Corinthian believers began to look so much like the world? Why is it that their boat started taking on water? And what is our response?

Consider Your Calling

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As we look inward, as we process. What would Paul might have said to us? If we're the one in our home going to God, saying, God, there's problems. There's problems in this house. There's problems. There's troubles. There's problems. There's troubles. I need someone, a spiritual leader, to come into my life and to speak something. What would Paul say to us? See the same thing he's saying to the Corinthian church. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 26. Guys, you really need to spend some time in 1 Corinthians this week. And in doing so, even read Acts chapter 18. But what is Paul, what is Paul asking of us? He says it super clear. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 26. He says this. Brothers and sisters, he's talking to the church, to people that have given their life to Jesus Christ. This is what it means when he says brothers and sisters. Consider your calling. He says, consider your calling. When you write him a letter and you begin to explain all of your problems, the first thing that he's going to say to you is this consider your calling. Consider your calling. But that's where we want to get so quickly. And if we do, we're going to miss it. He's going to say, consider your calling. Remember the first time that you trusted Jesus.