Psalm 24 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 1 Corinthians 10:1–11:1
Jesus – our Source and our Goal: Part One
There is a little village on the Isle of Lewis called Barvas. It is a place of windswept moors, stone cottages, and long winters. In 1949, the church had become quiet and sleepy. The pews were filled with memories rather than expectation. If you had visited a church in Barvas at that time, you would probably have concluded that it was simply another congregation slowly fading into history.
Yet in one small cottage, two elderly sisters refused to accept that verdict.
Christine Smith was eighty-four years old and blind. Her sister Peggy was eighty-two, bent almost double with arthritis. Neither of them possessed influence or position. They could not organise events. They could not preach. They could not visit homes across the island. Their usefulness, many might have assumed, had long since passed.
But they could still pray.
One evening, as Pete Greig recounts in his book Dirty Glory, these two sisters sat by the peat fire burdened by the spiritual condition of their village. But their grief was not for themselves…it was for the absence of a generation. They longed to see young people filling the church once again. As they prayed, one of the sisters received a vision of the church crowded with young people. The next morning they summoned the minister.
"Revival is coming," they told him.
"What should I do?" the minister asked.
Peggy's reply has become famous. "What should you do? You should pray, man!"
They proposed an agreement. If the minister and the council members would gather twice a week in a barn on the opposite end of town to pray, they would spend those same nights praying in their cottage on their side of town from ten o'clock until three in the morning.
And so they began. Week after week. Month after month. Five hours at a time.
But nothing happened. No crowds of young people…in fact, no crowds at all. No conversions. No excitement.
Only prayer.
Now, we'll come back to that story later, because I suspect Paul would have understood those long months of apparent silence far better than we might imagine.
Last week, as we concluded chapter nine, Paul left us standing beside an athletic track. We watched runners straining every muscle toward the finish line. We watched boxers disciplining their bodies through relentless training. Their eyes were fixed on a wreath that would fade in time, and yet they willingly denied themselves every unnecessary indulgence because the prize mattered more than their comfort.
Then Paul said something extraordinary. "I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." Those words ought to stop every one of us in our tracks.
If any believer could be considered spiritually secure, surely it was the Apostle Paul. If anyone possessed theological knowledge, missionary experience, spiritual gifts, and sacrificial devotion, surely it was Paul. Yet he refuses to presume upon God's grace. He refuses to believe that yesterday's faithfulness guarantees tomorrow's perseverance.
As we have seen so far in our series on 1 Corinthians, Paul has one central argument running from 8:1 all the way to 11:1, and it is remarkably simple. The greatest threat to the church is not doctrinal ignorance, but self-centred confidence.
In Chapter 8, he tells us that while knowledge puffs up, other-person-centred love builds up. In Chapter 9 he said that he would willingly give up anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the Gospel of Jesus…that he became all things to all people so that he might save some…and that his focus in running the spiritual race was disciplined and determined so that he might himself not be disqualified.
But this closing statement leaves us with an obvious question. What does Paul mean by being disqualified? Well, I think Paul seeks to answer this question in chapter 10.
Now, I find it interesting that Paul does not answer with a definition, but rather he answers with a story and not just any story. The story. The Exodus. Because if we want to understand the danger of spiritual complacency, Paul says the best biblical example we can find is one that takes place during Israel's wilderness wanderings.
In Chapter 10 he recounts the story of post-Exodus Israel…a people that had every privilege imaginable and yet who still failed to obtain the promised prize.
But it is also here in Chapter 10 that Paul delivers his climactic clincher as he reveals the source of unity in diversity…the one single focus that helps us run the race together as one team despite our many differences…and that one focus is Jesus.
“You are one body,” he says, “because you all have the same thoughts on the mode of baptism or the way Jesus is present during Holy Communion.” No, wait, that’s not what he says. “You are one body because you all hold to the exact same millennial view.” No…Paul says, “You are one body because you share in one bread." That’s what makes us one body…we share in one bread. And because our participation in Jesus makes us one, we should never seek our own good but always seek the good of the others in that one body.
And then in Chapter 11:1 Paul wraps up his discourse by providing us with the method of how we should live as one body despite our many differences and that is each participant’s personal perseverance in their own pursuit of imitating Jesus.
If each one concerns themselves with their own quest to be more like Jesus…to be conformed to his image…to have his humble mind in themselves…then together, as members of the same team, united in the one loaf that is Jesus, we will cross the finish line and win the imperishable crown of life in him.
So, Paul begins. "I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters...that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink."
Now, did you notice that there is one word that echoes through these opening verses like the steady beat of a drum.
All.
All were under the cloud.
All passed through the sea.
All were baptised into Moses.
All ate the same spiritual food.
All drank the same spiritual drink.
Paul repeats it deliberately because he wants the Corinthians to understand something before he warns them of anything. Every single person who left Egypt stood on exactly the same footing before God.
Men. Women. Children. The elderly. The young. The strong. The weak. Even the mixed multitude that had joined Israel when they left Egypt.
Not one person was excluded from God's miraculous deliverance. The cloud shadowed them all. The sea opened before them all. The manna fed them all. The water sustained them all. Grace made no distinctions even though there were many differences among them.
And that is where Paul begins. With grace…and what a magnificent grace it was.
Imagine standing on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Behind you lies slavery. Before you lies a new life of freedom. The sea that moments before seemed to be a barrier to freedom has now become the boundary between your old life and your new one. Egypt can no longer reach you. You are free.
I think this is what Paul wants to impress upon us when he says that they were "baptised into Moses”.
Well, just as our Christian baptism symbolically marks our passing from the kingdom of darkness and slavery to sin and Satan into the kingdom of light and freedom to serve Jesus…so too their baptism in the Sea marked their passing from the kingdom of Egypt and slavery into the kingdom of God and freedom to serve him.
And just as our Christian baptism marks our union with Jesus and our inclusion as members of his covenant people, placing us squarely under his leadership and his sovereignty, so passing through the sea united Israel under the leadership of Moses and the sovereignty of God. They emerged not merely as escaped slaves but as one covenant community, one redeemed people, journeying together under God's appointed servant.
Now notice that Paul does not focus on individuals here. He focuses on a people. Divine salvation created a community. Divine deliverance created unity. God did not redeem isolated believers. He redeemed a people for himself.
So, already, perhaps, we begin to see why Paul has brought the Corinthians to this point.
Their arguments about things that divided them…food, freedom, and rights…those things caused them to think almost entirely as individuals. But individualism leads to disunity because it focusses on what I think and what I want.
So Paul gently yet firmly reminds them that redemption has never been about isolated individuals. It has always been about forming one people who belong to one God.
But then Paul says something even more astonishing. "They all drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ."
Those words have puzzled Christians for centuries. Was Christ really present in the wilderness? Now in my simplistic and perhaps naïve mind, I think Paul's answer is wonderfully simple. Yes.
You see, Jesus did not appear for the first time in Bethlehem. It is not as if God's Son suddenly entered history at Christmas. No, the eternal Son has been an active member of the Trinity since before time began…through him all things came into existence…he has always been the saviour of his people from eternity to eternity.
So, when Israel drank water from the rock in the wilderness, they experienced not merely a miracle but the gracious foreshadowing of the one who would provide spiritual water that will quench our thirst for eternity (John 4:10-14)…the one from whom God’s River of living water would flow (John 7:37-39)…and the one from whose pierced side blood and water flowed as he died for our salvation.
I think Paul is saying that the same one who feeds his Church today sustained Israel then. The same faithful Lord who invites us to his table today, journeyed with his people through the wilderness.
The Corinthians, therefore, cannot imagine themselves to possess privileges greater than Israel's. And nor can we.
We are all are baptised. We are all fed with bread from heaven. We all drink from the Rock that is Christ. All of them…all of us. God was gracious in ages past…God is gracious still today…and God will be gracious into all eternity.
However, having repeated the word "all" five times, Paul suddenly changes direction with words that must have fallen upon the Corinthians like a thunderclap.
"Nevertheless..."
"Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness."
That sentence is almost unbearable. All received grace…and yet. All experienced God's mighty deliverance…and yet. All belonged to the covenant community…and yet…most never entered the Promised Land…in fact, only three members of the original adult company that left Egypt crossed over the River Jordan into the Promised Land.
How can that be? Well, that is precisely the question Paul wants the Corinthians (and us) to wrestle with.
Because if the astonishing privileges poured out on Israel did not make them immune from judgment, well then neither baptism, nor communion, nor years spent in church, nor theological knowledge, nor faithful service can ever become grounds for spiritual presumption.
Grace is never a licence for complacency. It is always an invitation to humble perseverance.
And perhaps, without yet realising it, we are beginning to understand why nothing happened for so many weeks in that little village of Barvas, for the greatest obstacle to the work of God is seldom a lack of activity.
It is far more often the quiet assumption that because we have known God's blessings, we no longer need God's searching.
As Pete Grieg says in his book, despite the fact that there “were no instant answers, no further visions, and certainly no teenagers miraculously turning up at church…the Smith sisters kept praying in their cottage and the (church council) kept praying in their barn for many weeks, until…until a particular night when one of the council members stood to read Psalm 24:
“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” (ESV)
“Brethren,” (the council member) said, “it is just so much humbug to be waiting thus, night after night, month after month, if we ourselves are not right with God.” They nodded and he continued, “I must ask myself, ‘is my heart pure? Are my hands clean?” He lifted his head and emitted a strange cry, then he fell to his knees and crumpled to the floor. The barn was suddenly filled with the presence of God. It was a moment that would later be identified as ‘the catalyst that let loose a power that shook the Hebrides’.”
What Paul tells us about the Israelites serves as an example to us all. “These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
And so, I must ask myself, is my heart pure? I must ask myself, are my hands clean?
There is something deeply unsettling about what Paul says here about Israel in the wilderness.
Surely God would not rescue an entire nation from slavery, sustain them through the wilderness, reveal his glory in the pillar of cloud, feed them daily with bread from heaven, give them water from the rock and then say that he was "not pleased with most of them."
And yet that is exactly what Paul says.
But the tragedy was not that God had failed them. The tragedy was that, having received such extraordinary grace, they gradually lost sight of the God who had given it.
But isn't that the story of the human heart?
How easily we become more fascinated with God's gifts than with God himself.
How easily yesterday's miracle becomes today's expectation.
How quickly gratitude gives way to entitlement.
The wilderness generation did not wake up one morning and decide to abandon the Lord. Their downfall was far more subtle than that. It happened one small compromise at a time, one act of distrust at a time, one complaint at a time. Their hearts slowly drifted from the God who had redeemed them.
And that is precisely why Paul says, "These things happened as examples for us."
But we need to take notice of that word ‘example’. Paul is not inviting us to sit in judgment over Israel. He is inviting us to use Israel as a mirror.
The temptation when we read the Old Testament is always to think, How could they have been so blind? But Paul wants us to ask a far more uncomfortable question.
How much of Israel do I find in myself?
And the answer to that question changes everything, because now the wilderness is no longer ancient history…it has become a spiritual diagnostic tool.
Paul names four particular sins. Idolatry, sexual immorality, putting God to the test, and grumbling.
At first glance they seem unrelated, but beneath them lies one common root.
Each one is, in its own way, a refusal to trust that God is enough.
Think about them for a moment. Why do people turn to idols? Well, because they want a predictable god they can control.
Why does sexual immorality become so attractive? Because immediate gratification seems preferable to patient obedience.
Why do people test the Lord? Because they demand that God prove himself on their terms.
Why do people grumble? Because they quietly accuse God of failing to provide what is best.
All different sins yet one single disease.
The problem with Israel was that they were no longer satisfied with the God of Scripture. They wanted a god that was more like them.
That is why these stories matter. Paul is not giving the Corinthians a catalogue of ancient failures. He is exposing the anatomy of every temptation that is common to humanity, because sin begins long before the outward act. It begins when our confidence in God's goodness begins to erode.
So Paul’s advice to the Corinthians and to us is simple: "…if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall."
Now, I don’t know about you, but I find that warning intensely personal. It is as if Paul has stopped talking about Israel…that he has stopped talking about Corinth…that he is now he is talking to me.
You know, pride is astonishingly difficult to detect in ourselves. It can even disguise itself as spiritual maturity. That, after all, had been the problem in Corinth from the beginning.
But to return to the story we began with…for weeks those council members gathered in a barn. They prayed faithfully…earnestly…expectantly. And yet...nothing happened.
Until one evening a council member stood to read Psalm 24.
"Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart..."
I believe that in this passage Paul quietly places a mirror before us all.
"If you think you are standing..."
Yet, and this is so characteristic of Paul, he refuses to leave us beneath the crushing weight of self-examination. If the passage ended there, we might despair, because who among us can honestly say, "My heart is completely pure." Or "My hands are entirely clean."
So, instead of leaving us in front of the mirror of post-Exodus Israel’s disqualification, Paul immediately lifts our eyes away from ourselves and fixes them once again upon God. "There is no temptation that has overtaken you except what is common to humanity." What a wonderfully realistic sentence. Paul demolishes one of Satan's oldest lies. The lie that whispers, "No one struggles like you." "No one understands." "No one has ever faced this temptation." “It is just nasty, icky, sticky little you.”
Paul says, "That simply isn't true." Every believer throughout history has discovered the same battlefield. While our temptations differ in form, they do not differ in essence. They are the common inheritance of fallen humanity. Which means none of us fights alone. None of us is uniquely broken. None of us is beyond God's help.
But then comes one of the most hope-filled declarations in Scripture.
"But God is faithful." And in this declaration, Paul has subtly reversed the emphasis. Yes, Israel was unfaithful. Yes, Corinth was becoming unfaithful. Yes, we are often unfaithful. But God's covenant faithfulness never wavers. Our perseverance ultimately rests not upon the strength of our grip on him, but upon the unwavering certainty of his grip on us.
Isn't that the pattern of the whole gospel? When we finally discover that we cannot save ourselves...God points us to his provision…ultimately, to Jesus himself. For every temptation that would draw us away from God finds its answer, not in greater willpower, but in a greater vision of Jesus.
When the council member asked those very personal questions in that barn in Barvas…when he stood before the mirror of God’s Word and was willing to let the Holy Spirit examine him…God was faithful to meet him in his honest questioning and revival was the result.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2026