Deadly Discrimination

1 Corinthians 11:17-34
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, October 09, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gregory Broderick

Our text this morning comes from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthian church, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  Remember that the apostle Paul personally founded the church in Corinth, to whom he wrote this letter.  This church began with Crispus, the synagogue ruler and “many of the Corinthians” (Acts 18:8).  Paul seems to have spent serious time at Corinth establishing the church.  Acts 18:18 says he stayed on for “some time” in Corinth before heading to Ephesus.  Acts 18:11 says he was there for 18 months, maybe even longer.

Paul’s church-plant in Corinth was God-directed.  Acts 18:9 says that God spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.  For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”  No doubt Paul preached all over the city, finding all of God’s elect that He had in that city, and he baptized them (v. 8).  Certainly, in addition to baptizing them, he also taught them the fundamentals of Christian doctrine and life and instituted the Lord’s Supper as an important sacrament.

With all apologies to Pastor Mathew and the first generation of this church, you could not ask for a better start than that: founded by Pastor Paul.  Yet a short time later, in our text this morning in 1 Corinthians 11, we see a major problem in this church.  Verse 30 says, “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.”  That is, God killed them.  This is a serious problem.  It is a shocking state in which to find this church, given its God-authored, Paul-planted beginning.  So we are left to ask: What happened?  How did they get there:  Division, disunity, and discrimination.

Let us look at this problem today, its seriousness in God’s sight, its relevance to us, and the solution.

I. The Problem

Our text shows clearly that weak, sick, and dying is not the problem.  These are symptoms of the problem.  The problem is discrimination, especially against the poor in that church.  You can follow the reasoning backwards in our text.  Verse 30: “That is why many of you are weak and sick and fallen asleep.”  Why?  Verses 27–28: They failed to examine themselves before taking the Lord’s Supper and thus failed to see that they were eating and drinking in an unworthy manner, bringing judgment on themselves.  What made them unworthy?  Paul reminds us in verses 23 through 26 that the Lord’s Supper is a big deal.  It was instituted by Jesus Christ on the night He was betrayed, and that each of us declares Jesus Christ by partaking of it.  This is no mere meal.  This is no mere formality.  It is to be taken with care and not with contempt.  Yet verses 17 through 21 tell us that these same people who were eating, who are proclaiming Christ, who are stating that they are in right relationship with God and with one another are shot through with division.  They are not eating the Lord’s Supper in the Lord’s way; but rather they are doing their own thing with a rather callous disregard for one another.  Verse 22 of our text says it was humiliating for those who had nothing, and that the uncaring actions of those who indulged in abundance was despising the church of God.  Some get drunk.  They are full of food and full of wine.  Others go away hungry.  Some are there early and can eat and drink and have a good time.  Others, because they have to work or perhaps because they are slaves, cannot come on time, and they arrive when everybody is already getting on with the party.

There is no question that this despising and discrimination was a root cause of the problem here at Corinth.  The church appears to have been a cross-section of Corinthian society.  Some, probably very few, were wealthy and they had abundance, while some, probably most, were poor, and perhaps even slaves.  It is likely that there were more poor than wealthy.  Isn’t it always the way?  We are told this in 1 Corinthians 1:26 and following, “Not many of you were wise, . . . not many of you were of noble birth,” and so on.  In other words, in Pastor Mathew’s shorthand, they were a bunch of zeroes with a few wealthy people thrown in.

So a conspicuous few gorged themselves while most sat by in hunger.  We know from our own experience that kind of thing will always result in division.  It means there is no love, no care for that other person.  How could you sit by in abundance and merriment while your brother or sister in Christ one table over is hungry and has nothing to eat for dinner?  You simply cannot do it if you have the love of God in you.  Our Pastor tells the story of when he was a young man in revival times in India.  Their family sat down to eat, and his father got up and took his plate of food and walked to a brother’s house and gave that food to that man because he knew that man did not have anything to eat.  He could not sit there and eat while that other man went hungry.  So you can’t do it if you have the love of God in you.

And as I referred to before, there is a certain callousness to all of this: I eat and drink while you starve, not even waiting for you to show up (v. 21).  This means that I consider myself better than you.  I have to do so to engage in such conscious disregard.  Even beyond that, there is an uncaringness to it all.  I consider it “not my problem” that you have nothing to eat.  That is, by engaging in such callous conduct, I show that we are not one body in Christ, but rather we are two: I have what I need, and whether you have what you need is your problem.  If I engage in that kind of behavior, you are going to get the message.  You will reasonably conclude that we are not one body of Christ, but somehow we are two.  And whenever you have two, one begins to despise the other; or rather, each begins to despise the other.  That is how division and disunity gains a foothold in God’s holy church.  And the devil is ever so happy about it.

The devil will use such division and disunity.  It starts over a small matter, but it festers and grows.  He may use it to drag you or me away from Christ.  He may use it to give ammunition to enemies: “Oh, they preach that they are all one, but look at how they behave.  They don’t really practice what they preach.  They don’t really believe it.”  The devil may use this to keep us distracted from evangelism and from building up the kingdom of God, occupying us instead with sniping at one another and disagreeing.  The devil may use it to diminish the glory of God, for God is greatly glorified when His redeemed people live a life of love together, contrary to the selfish nature that is in most people in the world.  Division is no good, and it can start even over a minor matter of eating.

Moreover, this lack of love is a sign that the Holy Spirit is not present and working in that church.  We know that the first fruit of the Spirit is love.  Where the Holy Spirit is operating, love is overflowing from God to us, and from us to one another.  It is overflowing in word.  We make vows, we make promises, we give words of encouragement when the Holy Spirit is present.  Love is overflowing in deed when the Holy Spirit is present: works of service.  We help one another.  Where the Holy Spirit is operating, love is overflowing in tangible actions.  Pastor Mathew’s shorthand version: “When God comes in, money goes out.”

But where the Holy Spirit is absent or quenched by our sin, there is no love action and soon division and disunity will follow.  Just look at this whole first letter to the Corinthians.  Division is all over this letter, in the church founded by St. Paul and directed by God.  “I have many people in this city.”  And yet by this first letter, we see division, division, division.  Chapter 1:10–17 deals with division.  One says, “I follow Paul.”  Another says, “I follow Apollos.”  Chapter 3, between the so-called wise and the fools—division.  Chapter 8, the strong and the weak brother—division.  Chapter 12, spiritual gifts. There is division: “I have this gift, and my gift is better than your gift.”   It’s all division.  And, of course, our text this morning, division between rich and poor.

I don’t know which is the chicken and which is the egg here, but it is a big problem all the same.  I don’t know if the lack of love is the cause of the division, if the lack of love is a result of the division, or both.  They are mutually reinforcing problems.  But it is a serious problem.

II. The Seriousness of the Problem

As should be evident, this is a serious problem.  Virtually the entire letter is dedicated to division.  St. Paul keeps coming back to it throughout the entire letter.  Almost the whole of chapter 11, our text this morning, is dedicated to this rich/poor divide.  And this is not just St. Paul speaking.  This is St. Paul speaking by the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  In other words, God is speaking about all these divisions.  The Holy Spirit considers this division and especially this rich/poor divide to be a very serious problem.  It is not a minor matter.

On top of that, the severity of the penalty indicates the seriousness of the problem.  Verse 30: “That is why many of you are weak, sick, and dying,” dead.  God is so serious about this problem of division, this problem of discrimination against the poor, that He is killing people.  Just as in our society, the death penalty is reserved for the most serious crimes, it is true in God’s kingdom as well.  That should give us an indication that God views this matter of discrimination quite seriously.

Notice also the progressive discipline involved here shows that this is a serious problem in the sight of God.  He doesn’t just go to the death penalty for the first offense.  The progression is weak, and then sick, and then dying, and then dead.  God in His mercy does not strike them dead immediately.  God is, after all, full of mercy and so He gives an ascending punishment so that the people may get the message and repent.  God desires all people everywhere to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), and He commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30).  If that is true for the whole world, how much truer is it of the people in God’s church, His chosen people!  He wants us to get the message and repent too.  So He gives us time, and He gives us increasing, progressive discipline so that we will repent.  He takes our time and our attention, knocking ever louder on the door until we get the message and repent.  So, first we are weak.  Hopefully that will cause us to stop and say, Why am I weak?  And the Holy Spirit will convict us: It is because you have no love for that brother or sister.  You discriminated against that poor brother or sister.  But we are slow, so we don’t get the message.  Then we get sick, and we are confined to the sickbed.  And maybe while confined to the sickbed we will ask ourselves why this is happening.  And we will go through the same exercise.  And finally dying.  As we die, we think, Why am I dying?  And then dead.  We should understand from all this how committed God is to unity among His people, to lack of discrimination among His people.

This should cause each of us to examine ourselves (1 Cor. 11:28).  Am I weak?  Is it due to my sin?  Is it due to no love?  Is it due to discrimination against that brother or sister?  Am I sick?  Is it due to such deadly discrimination?  Am I dying?  Is it because I have despised and humiliated God’s precious people and treasured possessions, as these people did?

Moreover, the strong language used in the Scriptures shows the seriousness of this problem of discrimination.  Verse 17a: “In the following directives I have no praise for you.”  No praise.  Verse 17b: “Your meetings do more harm than good.”  Stop and think about it.  This is saying it would be better for the church not to meet.  That is not the prescribed remedy here, but you get the point: You are doing more harm than good by gathering together as the people of God.  Serious problem.  Verse 20: “It is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.”  In other words, you are a bunch of hypocrites.  Your love feast, your Lord’s Supper that follows it, is a sham; it is a farce.  They thought they were gathering together for the great love feast.  The theologians who write on this topic seem to agree that there were two meals.  There was an agapē love feast, and then there was this Lord’s Supper as the culmination.  So they thought they were gathering together in great celebration worshiping the Lord.  And God says, “No, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat.”  Paul tells them by the Holy Spirit that it is nothing.  In fact, it is worse than nothing: it is a minus.  Verse 22: “You despise and humiliate the church of God by these actions.”  Strong, strong language.  Verse 22 again: “Shall I praise you for this?  Certainly not!” Verse 27: “You are guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord.”  All sins are against God; all sins are infinite, but this sounds a lot worse: guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord is a serious offense.  Verse 29: “You eat and drink judgment on yourself.”  Strong words.  Verse 32: “You are being disciplined, you are being condemned, you are being judged by the Lord.”  This is seriously strong language, meant to underscore the serious sin of discrimination and the severity of this problem.

They might have thought it was no big deal to treat the poor in the church as less, to discriminate against them.  After all, this was the common thing in Roman society at the time.  So what’s the big deal?  It’s the usual thing.  But God the Holy Spirit is saying, it is a big deal.  In fact, it is the biggest of deals.  It is possible, in fact, that this discrimination was the cause of all the division in Corinth.  Discrimination and resentment leads to retaliation, which leads to further division, which leads to further resentment, which leads to further division.  It is possible that all these divisions were the symptom of a larger problem: lack of love, lack of Holy Spirit.

Whatever it is, the message of our text this morning is plain: God opposes discrimination among His people and condemns it in the strongest possible terms.  It is an offense in the sight of God, and He disciplines and punishes His people when they engage in it.  Discrimination has no place in God’s church on any basis or for any reason.  This was a rich and poor problem, but there are lots of other ways to discriminate and human beings, being shot through with sin, will always find some silly basis on which to discriminate.  So perhaps it is money.  Perhaps it is race.  Perhaps it is education.  Perhaps it is status.  Perhaps it is power, or gifting, or physical attributes.  None of it—there is no place for discrimination on any of these bases in God’s holy church.  God will not tolerate it.  It is sin and it is a despising of His bride, the church of God.  If you engage in such actions, you will soon find yourself weak, and then you will find yourself sick, and if you do not repent, dead.

III. The Right Way

I have spoken so far of what not to do.  We are not to discriminate in God’s holy church.  But we must know what to do—the positive actions that we must take to avoid drifting into an  ungodly discrimination which is, after all, our natural flesh tendency.  So what do we do instead?

1. Love one another. In John 13:34–35 Jesus himself said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” This love is obedience to God.  It is also a witness to the world.  “By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”  This is not the shallow, emotion-driven love that we are used to in our culture which waxes and wanes with my feelings.  No, it is hesed love, covenant love, love of commitment, love that does not fade with feelings but which loves despite the lack of emotional feelings and it lets those feelings follow.  It is a God-given and God-driven love.  It flows from God to each one of us and then it overflows from us to one another.  We love because he first loved us.  To have this love, to have this first fruit of the Spirit, we must be full of the Holy Spirit.  We must be regenerated, born again by the Holy Spirit and ruled by the Holy Spirit in our lives as our resident Boss.

This is an other-oriented love.  It is not an abstract force of love, which I just go around feeling in my heart.  No, it is a directed force.  This love has an object.  Love one another.  We must first love God.  He loved us.  If we are born again, we must love Him.  And then we must love one another—love our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Love those with whom God knitted us together into the local church.  It is not “love whomever you feel like.”  The Scripture has lots of commands about love, but when you read it, it never just says, “Love.”  It says, “Love one another.”  It says, “Love your wife just as Christ loved the church.”  “Love,” “Love,” “Love,” but it always has an object for that verb.  It is “Love your wife.”  It is “Love your pastors and elders.  Hold them in the highest regard in love.”  It is “Open wide your hearts to us also” (2 Cor. 6).  He is speaking about their pastors and ministers.  It is love to all the people that God placed you here together with in the local body.  So it is an other-oriented love.  You are not just some abstract force of love walking around.

It is also other-oriented in that it seeks the good of the other rather than my own good.  In other words, this love that comes to me from God is for your benefit.  It is not principally for my benefit.  I will benefit also as a collateral matter.  But it not “I love you so that I can get something out of it.”  It is “I love you so that you can get something out of it.”  Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  How did Jesus love us?   Did He seek to get anything from us?  No!  Did He gain anything from us?  No!  All He did was give to us.  He gave us life.  He gave us new life, redeeming us.  He gave us propitiation, turning away God’s wrath from us.  He gave us eternal glory with God.  He who had no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).  He gained nothing from us.

It is a sacrificial love.  Jesus came and loved sacrificially.  I sacrifice my good for your good.  When I am impatient, I exercise patience for you.  Love.  When I want to give up on you, I dig around the tree for you.  Love.  When you sin, I sacrifice my own ease and comfort and, instead of letting it go for your detriment, I rebuke and correct you for your good (Ps. 141:5).  Love.  It is, as our Pastor put it, a Titanic love.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his brother” (John 15:13).  It is also a communicating love.  Love communicates.  We speak the truth in love to one another (Eph. 4:15).  When you love someone, you are eager to talk to that person.  It is an action-oriented love.  We could call it a “do-something” love, not just a sympathizing love.  Love sympathizes also, but then it does something about the problem (James 2:14–17).

This Spirit-produced love is the key.  It is the solution to the discrimination problem.  If we have the love of God in us, overflowing from us by the Holy Spirit, we will not discriminate against our brothers and sisters.  We will not get drunk while that other person remains hungry.  We will not go ahead and eat before that enslaved person can come.  We will wait, and we will give to one another, and we will care for one another.  So that is solution number one: Love one another.

2. Know one another. If we are to love one another, we must know one another. You cannot really love a stranger.  You can love the idea of a stranger, but you cannot really love that person if you do not really know him.  We are to fellowship with each other to know each other so that we can show love to each other by helping each other.  Our Pastor added this as a fourth mark of the church: preaching of the word, proper administration of the sacraments, and church discipline are universally recognized as three marks of the church.  But Pastor Mathew said there is a fourth mark: It is fellowship.  The idea is, fellowship to know you so that we can know your problem and meet your need.

This is the Acts 2 church life—the way God’s church is supposed to be.  Acts 2:42: “They were devoted to fellowship.”  They all knew one another.  They did not say, “Well, I don’t really know him or what his problem is.  I see him at the temple and I wave at him: ‘Good morning, brother,’ and that is it.”  No.  They devoted themselves to fellowship.  They knew each other.  They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread.  This is eating together, talking together, knowing one another, getting to know you and your problem and your gifts.  Verse 42: Devoted to the apostles’ teaching.  It is love within a set of God’s rules.  Verse 44: They were together.  Verse 45: Sharing with those in need.  Verse 46: They broke bread in their homes and ate together.  There is intimate knowledge of one another.  Verse 47: Praising God together.  Verse 46: Meeting together daily in the temple.  Verse 47: Sharing Christ together with the world.  Together, together, together.  These people were always together.  They got to know one another, and they were able to help one another and bless one another.  When we look at this, we say, “What a life that was!”

We are all involved here in the great group project of the kingdom of God, His beloved church.  We should be excited to get to know one another, those whom God has placed in the church with me, God’s treasured possession, to help me on my big group project of church.  We should be excited to welcome new brothers and sisters, newborns who are born of the Spirit into the family of God.  Whenever there is a newborn baby, we are excited to see them and people say, “Oh, they are so cute!” I have never heard of anyone look at that picture and say, “Meh!”  But we are so excited to see that newborn baby.  It is the same thing in the church.  That brother or sister who confesses Christ is a newborn in God’s holy church.  We should be more excited to meet and to get to know that new person.

The idea is relational life, the fourth mark of fellowship.  Relationship, not so that I can enjoy it (though it is enjoyable), but relationship so that I can know you, so that I can help you, so that I can sharpen you and you can sharpen me, so that I can encourage you and you can encourage me, so that I can correct you and spur you on, and we can comfort one another.  We must get to know all of God’s people in the local church and relate to them.

3. We are to help one another. We all need help and we all need one another.  God put us all together so that we can be complete together.  Without a part of what God has joined together, we are necessarily incomplete.  God Himself gives each one gifts (Rom. 12:6; 1 Pet. 4, etc.).  These God-given gifts have a God-given purpose.  First Peter 4:10: “Everyone should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.”  So you have a gift, but your gift is to serve me.  I have a gift, but my gift is to serve you.  (GTB)  If I don’t know you, I can’t serve you and you can’t serve me, and we cannot have that specially-tailored blessing from God.  You need me to preach for the building up of the church, I need you to encourage.  She needs you to fix her car, and you need her to teach your kids, and so on.  In other words, we are mutually interdependent.  Each one of God’s true people is an integral and necessary part of God’s masterpiece: His church.  We are each His gifts to each other.  We should not dare to mistreat, to look down upon, or to discriminate against God’s gifts to us.  That is a despising of God’s gift to us.  Our fellow Christian brother or sister is God’s gift to us.

Maybe you are saying, “I don’t know what that person needs.”  Get to know them and find out their needs.  You may say, “Gee, I have gotten to know them and they don’t seem to have any needs.”  If nothing else, you can pray for that person.  When you pray for someone, it is hard to stay mad at him.  When you pray for someone, it is hard to discriminate against him.  You become invested in their wellbeing, in their good, when you pray for them.  But beyond that, there are a lot of practical needs and practical needs that we can fulfill.  So we love one another, we get to know one another, we serve one another, we give to one another.  Is that brother poor and you are rich?  Then give money.  Acts 2:44–45: They had all their things in common and they gave to each one as he had need.  I heard Pastor Mathew say once in the office that rich people are God’s bank, and He makes withdrawals to help poor people.  Are you an encourager, and that person needs encouragement?  Then give encouragement (1Thess. 5:11).  We could go on and on, but you get the point.  Life together, helping and benefiting from all of God’s people that He has joined together in this place for our mutual good and for His great glory.

4. We are called to agree with one another. This is speaking of unity in Christ.  We are not to be divided.  The whole of First Corinthians is speaking of this division as a problem and we know division is a product of the devil.  Wherever you see the devil, you see division.  Wherever you see division, you will find the devil operating.  We are not to be divided; we are to be united.  We are to be of one mind (2 Cor. 13:11), the mind of Christ.  We are to be one in Christ (Gal. 3:28).  We are all part of one body, the body of Christ (Rom. 12:4–5).  We are told to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3).  Every effort.  Certainly, we can forgo discrimination as part of our every effort.  Such unity, such life, is good and pleasant (Ps. 133:1).  If you are not convinced by that, it is a command of God Almighty, so do it.  God makes no room for discrimination or division among His true people.

IV. Discrimination Is Stupid

Only a fool would discriminate.  Only a fool would believe that little green pieces of paper make me better than you, or that my translucent skin or your dark tan makes one of us better than the other.  What difference does it make?  Or that my education, or my height, or my weight, or my number of children or grandchildren make me better than you?  I will tell you in plain terms, there is no difference.  Each one of us is a sinner by our own nature deserving eternal hell.  There is no difference.  Little green pieces of paper or grandchildren or skin color don’t change that fact.  There is no difference.

Listen to what the word of God says:

• Romans 3:9: “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.” Jews and Gentiles means everybody.  That is a universal statement, a universal pair.
• Romans 3:10: “There is no one righteous, not even one.” So just in case you thought “there is no one righteous” doesn’t include you, you are included in “not even one.”
• Romans 3:11: “There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God.”
• Romans 3:12: “All have turned away; all together have become worthless.” So you think, “I was not worthless.”  No, this says all have become worthless.
• Romans 3:12: “There is no one who does good, not even one.”
• Romans 3:22–23: “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All deserve the wages of sin—eternal death.
• Romans 9:16: Speaking of our salvation, it says, “It does not . . . depend on man’s desire or effort.” Just in case you thought your confession of Christ as Lord made you different—wrong again.  It does not depend on man’s desire or effort.
• 1 Corinthians 1:26: We are all zeroes. So one zero is not better than the other zero.  One zero is not worse than the other zero.  It is just a bunch of zeroes.  This is very, very humbling to hear.  I don’t like to be told that I am a zero.  But the truth is, we are zeroes.  In fact, we are negatives.  We are all wretched sinners deserving eternal hell.  How dare we draw distinctions where God says none exist?
• Colossians 3:11: In God’s church there is no room for this ridiculous discrimination. “There is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free.”  No distinctions.  All those people are in God’s church.  There are Greeks and Jews and slaves and free and circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians, Scythians, slaves and free, but there is no difference among any of those people.
• Galatians 3:28: Same idea. “No Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.”
• James 2: An entire paragraph in James 2 is devoted to teaching not to treat the rich better than the poor. James issues a scathing condemnation of that kind of discrimination.
• 1 Samuel 16:7: “Man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart.”

So discrimination is stupid because we are all the same.  There is nothing to distinguish us that matters.  Discrimination is especially stupid and illogical because it rejects the fundamental truth that we are all zeroes and sinners.  We consider ourselves better than someone else, saying I am not a zero.  Maybe I am a 0.1.  But he is a zero, so I am a little bit better than him.  No, zero equals zero.  We try to deny the reality that we are all zeroes by inventing arbitrary categories of race, of money, of height, of certificates, of intelligence, or of procreative capacity.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  None of it makes a difference where it counts: in the matter of eternal life.  We might as well judge people based on their shoe size or their head shape or the color of their ear wax.  So it makes no difference.  Those are all simply arbitrary categories.  It would be like a bunch of ants having a contest to determine which ant is the best.  You are all just a bunch of ants.  It is just a bunch of meaningless bugs that will all be dead in a week or two.  Who cares?  What difference does it make?

Let us not avoid the painful reality that we are all zeroes by inventing capricious categories on which we can distinguish ourselves.  Let us instead accept God’s view that we are sinners deserving damnation in our own nature, for in that view there is hope.  If we understand that I am a zero and you are a zero, we will not discriminate against each other on any basis.  There are distinctions.  I may have more or less money than you.  You may be taller or shorter than I.  You may have more children or whatever.  There are distinctions, but there is no difference.  Zero equals zero.

Discrimination in God’s household is stupid for a second reason.  We who are in Christ are all of infinite value.  I said we were zeroes, but that was our prior estate.  Now we are of infinite value.  So we are not all the same, but we are all infinitely valuable.  We are all God’s segullah, His treasured possession (Deut. 7:6).  We are all God’s sons and daughters if we have confessed Christ as Lord (2 Cor. 6:18).  We are all God’s chosen people.  We are all God’s royal priesthood.  We are all God’s holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9).  If we are in Christ, we all have the same glorious destiny: glory, heaven, eternity.  I am not more or less God’s son than you are.  I am not more or less God’s segullah than you are.  I am not more or less chosen than you are.  I am not more or less of infinite value than you are.

Colossians 3:11 and Galatians 3:28 say we are all one in Christ.  In myself, I have no value.  But in Jesus Christ, I have great value.  He made me valuable.  You have no inherent value, but in Jesus Christ, you are greatly valuable.  It is the same value for all believers—infinite value, infinite worth in the sight of God.

V. This Is a Relevant Problem

I will freely confess that preaching this sermon was not my idea.  Pastor Mathew said to preach on discrimination.  And I began to think to myself, is this a real problem for us?  The answer is yes, this is a real problem for us.  Maybe you think this is not a problem in 21^st-century West Coast life.  Maybe a long time ago, maybe in other “less-enlightened” parts of the country, this is a problem, but it is not a problem for us.  No, it is a problem for every human being because our hearts are sinful and the tendency to discriminate lies in all of us.

We have all kinds of people in this church: rich, poor, black, white, tall, short.  We even let the PhDs in.  This church practices the fourth mark: fellowship and sacrificial love.  But that doesn’t mean we have arrived.  We are all still fallen people.  The old man is still in us.  Pride is still in us, and pride divides.  Pride whispers to me: You are better than her; you are better than him.  We are all vulnerable to it.  The devil will happily inflame our pride with false distinctions in an effort to destroy this church and this work.  Enemies from without can never destroy the church of God, but division from within can tear it apart.  And it can happen to this church too.

On top of that, this kind of discrimination has been a problem throughout church history.  Look at the early church.  We think of the early church as the pinnacle, and that is true in a lot of ways.  But they had a lot of problems too.  In Acts 2, they had everything in common, everything was great, it was a utopian time.  By Acts 6, discrimination has already seeped into the church and is causing division.  The Greek-speaking widows are suffering discrimination in the handing out of food.  So there is division now.  We have the Grecian Jews and the Hebraic Jews, and there is division.  Romans 9 and 10 seems focused on divisions between Jews and the ingrafted Gentiles.  Most of this letter—First Corinthians—deals with this division and discrimination on various bases: rich, poor, gifting, Paul, Apollos, etc.  There is heavy teaching on no distinction in Galatians 3.  Why?  It is probably because there were divisions.  Ephesians 2:11–22 deals with the Gentile/Jew false distinction.  Ephesians 4 focuses on unity.  Why?  Lack of unity is a problem.  James 2 especially hammers this point of discrimination, of treating rich and poor congregants differently.  Colossians 3:11—no Greek or Jew.  So you see even in the early church, even in this first generation of the early church, they have all kinds of division and discrimination.  If it was a problem for them, how much more is it a problem for us!

The truth is, Christian churches are all subject to factionalism and discrimination.  Why do we have black churches and white churches, Korean churches and Chinese churches?  In the 20^th century, there was a “color guard” at some churches.  The idea is that you get someone of the “wrong color” coming to your church, you encourage them to go on down the road to somewhere where they will be “more comfortable.”  I read an article about this.  A man was recounting a story of when he was a little kid and his dad served as a color guard in a church in Alabama.  They told people, “Go and worship with your own kind.”  Well, I agree with that, but my kind is born again.  It is not white or black or whatever else.  Our kind is born again, born of God.  Or we see the current leftist “woke” churches letting in the Marxist evil of critical race theory and Black Lives Matter ideology, which is explicitly racist.  So it can go either way.  You can become a racist by thinking the white man is better than the black man, or you can become racist by thinking the black man is better than the white man.  God says there is no place for such division.  And the divide between the wealthy and the poor is ever-present throughout human history.

We know our own pull as people is towards other people who are like me.  That can mean anything, but we gravitate towards people who are “like me.”  This causes factions.  This causes division.  We are all to be like Christ, ever-conformed to the likeness of Christ.  So we should all be glad to spend time with our brothers and sisters who are also being conformed to the likeness of Christ.

The truth is, discrimination is and always will be a relevant problem in the church until Christ comes again in glory and renews all things.  Until then, we must remain vigilant against this sin of discrimination, for it crouches at the door, ready to strike and sow division in God’s holy church.

VI. Divine Discrimination

I said discrimination is bad, but there is a good discrimination.  It is Divine discrimination.  I said there is no difference, but God makes a difference.  God makes one difference: His elect for salvation.

It is true that all deserve hell, but not all will get it.  Some will go to glory; the rest will be condemned.  This is due to God’s discriminating love, without which everyone would go to hell.  Romans 8:1: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  You see the distinction.  There is condemnation for those who are outside of Christ Jesus, but no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  At the final judgment, there will be a discrimination.  Some will be on the right and some will be on the left.  Some will be sheep and some will be goats.  It is not going to be based on the silly and false distinctions of race, sex, nationality, money, power, family status, or degrees.  Can you imagine, it is the final day and someone goes up front and says, “Where is the line for the PhDs?”  Get to the back with everybody else.

This division, this final distinction will be based on one thing: Am I in Christ Jesus?  Have I confessed Jesus Lord, and believe that God raised Him from the dead?  Have I trusted in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone for my salvation?  Have I put my faith in God, in Christ, who became man, who lived a perfect life, and who offered His sinless self, of infinite value as God, to pay the infinite cost for my sin?  Am I saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone?

What is the basis for that distinction, for this kind of Divine discrimination?  It is love: God’s discriminating love.  Ephesians 2:8: “But because of His great love, He saved us.”  Ephesians 1:4 says He chose us in His discriminating love before all time.  In other words, there is no basis for me to brag.  He did not choose me or choose you based on something in me or something in you.  He chose because of His great love.

The key question for you is, did He choose you?  Well, I don’t know, and neither do you.  But I know this: He made you.  He gave you life.  He gave you a reasonable mind.  He kept you alive thus far.  He brought you here today to hear this message.  He imposed a serious disruption, an inconvenience to my plan for my life to call me to stand up here and speak this word to you.  He brought another man from the other side of the world to start this church and to train up people like me in the gospel, to add this fourth mark, and to preach this message so that you could hear it.  And He caused a small army of cleaners and A/V people and ushers and security folks and others to take a thousand little actions to put you right here where you are and to hear this: Jesus Christ died to pay for your sins.  Confess Him and put your faith in Him and be saved.  And beyond all that, He came and He lived and He suffered physical torment and incalculable wrath to pay for your sin Himself.  Then He promised you, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13).  He chose you to hear and to know all of that at no small price and at no small inconvenience to many people.  Did He choose you?  Sounds awfully chosen to me.  So don’t go away unsaved.  Confess Christ today and live.

For those of us who have confessed Christ, make sure that you hear this word this morning: Don’t discriminate.  It is deadly: Many of you have fallen asleep for this reason.  Instead, love God by loving His children, your precious brothers and sisters in Christ.  Love God by loving His bride, the church made up of His people.  Produce this first fruit of the Spirit: love.  Experience the love of God overflowing to you and overflowing to others.  Have humility.  Consider others better than yourself.  When you find yourself tempted to think that you are better than somebody else, remember that Jesus Christ chose him.  Jesus Christ chose her.  Remember what you were, if you are ever tempted to discriminate against someone else.  If you are tempted to discriminate, remember what that other man or woman now is: God’s segullah, His treasured possession, His beloved; in fact, we are each God’s gift to you and to the whole church.  Love that other person as the object of God’s love and mercy.  God loves them, and you should love them too.

I said I would say what the solution is to this problem of discrimination.  The solution here was so simple.  Verse 33: “Wait for each other.”  That’s all.  Wait for each other.  If you are hungry, eat at home, but wait for each other.  We can do that for the sake of Jesus Christ.  We can do much more than that for the sake of God’s people.  So love God’s people and show consideration for God’s people.  After all, Jesus Christ died for them.

Brothers and sisters, let us keep the big picture in mind.  Let us be united as God’s people.  Let us live lives of love for one another and glorify God by our unity in God-authored love.  Amen.