The fellowship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the most exclusive fellowship. There are only Three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. No one else can participate. This fellowship is too holy, and it is perfect. No one is qualified to enter.
But we thank God. Because of His love, He is willing to open His fellowship and bring men into that fellowship. The Lord Jesus is willing to share with us the fellowship between Him and the Father.
What the Father has shared with Him, He shares with us, so that we may have a portion in that portion.
This fellowship is not something into which you can simply enter or join. You have to be born into it. So we have to be born again.
After we are born again, we are in that fellowship. We can enjoy our Lord. We can enjoy our Father. Now we can enjoy each other.
This is a beautiful fellowship. There is only one fellowship; there is no other fellowship. So Paul says, “Is Christ divided?” Christ is not divided. There is only one Christ. We are all in that fellowship.
This is the footstep of the flock. But the Corinthians departed from this fellowship. Their footsteps became the footsteps of division.
Paul says that those of the household of Chloe informed him that there were divisions among them. Paul says, “I believe it too, because some of you say, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and, ‘I belong to Apollos,’ and, ‘I belong to Cephas,’ and, ‘I belong to Christ.’”
Some were saying, “I belong to Christ.” As though Christ were their private possession, their monopoly. But Paul asks, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?”
Paul counts for nothing. Apollos counts for nothing. God is all in all, brothers and sisters.
In the Corinthian church, some said, “I am for Paul, because I was saved through his preaching.” Some said, “I am for Apollos, because Apollos taught me the Bible.” Some said, “I am for Cephas, because Cephas was the orthodox one.” Others said, “I am higher than you. I belong to Christ.”
Brothers and sisters, is Christ divided? At that time, they were still together, but they were divided into different parties. Why did that happen? Because they lived in the flesh.
You know that the flesh is always dividing. There are not two fleshes that can be one. If your flesh is weak, you raise up another person who has a bigger flesh and say that you are for him. But in reality, you are trying to boost yourself.
So Paul told them that they were wrong. Paul counts for nothing; Apollos counts for nothing. He said, “All things are yours.” You have the Lord. Everything is yours. The whole world is yours. You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. This is unity.
So, brothers and sisters, here we have a warning: when we deviate from the footsteps of the flock, we fall into division. The more we divide, the poorer we become. If we are in unity, then all the riches of Christ are ours.
Here we have to learn a deep lesson. From 1 Corinthians 5 to 1 Corinthians 6, we can say that the subject is holiness and worldliness.
1 Corinthians 5:7-8 says:
Therefore purge out the old leaven, since you truly are unleavened.
For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord is the Lamb of Passover. We have already passed the Passover. Now we are in the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
We know that the Feast of Unleavened Bread immediately follows the Passover. The unleavened bread is for seven days, not just one day. That means that, since we believe in the Lord, we have to live in the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Leaven represents sin. Sometimes it represents sins in our daily living, and sometimes it represents heresy in doctrine. But we who belong to the Lord are a new lump. The leaven has been taken out.
We know that during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the whole household of Israel could not have any trace of leaven. This is the church. The church is a new lump. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, our sins are washed away. He has saved us from this world.
Now we are to follow the Lord with sincerity and truth, living a separated life. But we see the Corinthian church.
First Corinthians 5 tells us of a sin found among the believers that could not even be found in the world. A brother had committed that sin, and the brothers and sisters simply let it alone. They did not think it was a problem.
They themselves were tolerating it. They did not have a sense of sin. The church did not rise up to deal with the sin. Brothers and sisters, they had fallen into the sins of the world.
In 1 Corinthians 6, we see brothers going to court against brothers. Paul says, “You belong to the Lord, and one day you are going to judge angels. Yet, over these small things, you go to the Gentile courts against a brother.”
Why do you wrong your brother? Why are you not willing to be wronged? You really put your Lord to shame.
Brothers and sisters, the church is holy because our Lord is holy. Salvation brings us into sanctification, to be made holy. How can we return to the world and to the sins of the world? This is not the footstep of the flock. This is the footstep of the world.
From 1 Corinthians 7 to 1 Corinthians 10, we can say that the subject is discipline and indulgence.
In 1 Corinthians 9:24-25, Paul says:
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize?
Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things.
Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.
He continues:
Thus I run, not with uncertainty.
Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air.
But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection,
lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
Paul was one who disciplined his body and brought it into subjection. In the original language, he actually says that he buffets his body. This does not mean that he abused his body. It means that he was a disciplined person.
For the sake of the Lord, he lived a very disciplined life. But the Corinthians just let go.
They wrote to Paul about marriage. They wrote to Paul about eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. In other words, they were very loose in the matter of marriage and very loose in the matter of eating meat sacrificed to idols.
They said, “We believe in only one God. There is only this God, and there is no other god. These idols are all false. Therefore, to sacrifice to an idol is merely to sacrifice to nothing. So it does not matter if we eat.”
They also said that meat sacrificed to idols was the best meat and the lowest in cost. Why could they not eat it?
At that time, most social activities happened in the temples. They said, “If we do not go to the temples of idols, then our life is very bland.”
Paul said, “Yes, you have that knowledge. But knowledge puffs up; love edifies.”
You have to think about the younger brothers who worshiped idols before. Behind the idols there were indeed evil spirits. After they believed in the Lord, they did not touch these things. When they thought about eating these things, they thought that they would have a portion in those things.
Paul says, “You eat and drink of the cup and the bread of the Lord, and then you go ahead and partake of the cup of demons.” You have to consider other people’s conscience.
You have to use love as the reference and standard of your walk, not according to the knowledge in your brain. Your knowledge may be right, but knowledge puffs up.
The Corinthians looked only to exterior knowledge, utterance, and talent. They lacked love, and they lacked life. They indulged their own flesh.
So, brothers and sisters, here we see that the footstep of the flock is discipline, because our Lord is disciplined.
The discipline of our Lord toward Himself was to such an extent that He said, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself.” Brothers and sisters, this is the footstep of the flock.
From 1 Corinthians 11 to 1 Corinthians 14, we can say that the subject is spiritual order on the one hand and carnal liberty on the other hand.
Before God, there is an order. At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says that God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, and man is the head of woman.
There is an order not only in the family, but also in the church. When we gather together, there is an order.
First Corinthians 14 says:
Let all things be done decently and in order.
Our God is not a God of disorder. Our God is a God of peace. Of course, this order is not designed by men. This order is the order of God.
When God rules the whole universe, there is an order. Today, among God’s children, there is also order. There is the order of the Spirit. It is not something organized by men.
It is the Spirit of life that brings in spiritual order. This is the footstep of the flock.
But the Corinthians wanted liberty. They wanted to do everything according to what was right in their own eyes.
Even when they used spiritual gifts, they used those gifts in order to magnify themselves. They did not think about edifying others. This is where the Corinthians went astray.
In 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Corinthians 16, we can say that the subject is believing and obedience on the one hand, and doubt and disobedience on the other.
At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “I preached to you what I received, and you also believed.”
First Corinthians 15:2 says:
By which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
But among them there were even some who did not believe in the resurrection.
At the end of 1 Corinthians 16, Paul says:
I urge you, brethren—you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints—
that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us.
Along the footsteps of the flock, we believe and we obey. If we deviate and go astray from these footsteps, then we will doubt and we will not obey.
When Paul concludes his letter, in 1 Corinthians 16:22, he says:
If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed.
O Lord, come!
If anyone does not love the Lord, that love is not agape. It is not an absolute love. It is not the God-like love.
Could the Corinthians receive that word? They did not understand the agape love of God. They did not even have filial love among themselves, and they had no feeling for the Lord.
If you have some compassion for the Lord, you will not fall to this extent. If you have no feeling for the Lord at all, then you are accursed, because the Lord will come. Brothers and sisters, this is a very serious word.
Here we see that if we deviate from the footsteps of the flock, it is very dreadful, because the Lord is coming.
We thank God that Paul did not give them up.
Strictly speaking, Paul wrote four letters to the Corinthians, according to what we can discover today, but only two letters remain. First Corinthians is actually the second letter.
In 1 Corinthians 5:9, Paul says:
I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
He explains:
Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
So First Corinthians is actually the second letter. In verse 9, Paul says, “I already wrote to you.”
After he wrote First Corinthians, Paul had a real love for the Corinthian brothers. According to what we can determine today, although it is not recorded in Acts, he went from Ephesus to Corinth in a hurry.
After he wrote the first letter, he did not feel peace. So he went to Corinth quickly, hoping that he could help them face to face. But, very regrettably, they did not accept him.
How do we know? In 2 Corinthians 13:1, he says, “This is the third time I am coming to you.” Therefore, he must have gone there a second time. We know that he must have gone quickly.
Maybe that visit was very short, because they were not willing to accept him. So he wrote another letter.
When he wrote that letter, he was writing in tears. You can see this in 2 Corinthians 2 and 2 Corinthians 7. He was weeping in his heart, and he wrote a very severe letter in order to make them sorrowful. He asked Titus to bring the letter to them.
The letter went, and Paul had an arrangement with Titus to meet him in Troas, because he wanted to know the result of Titus bringing the letter to them.
This is in 2 Corinthians 2. When Paul went to Troas, Titus was not there, and Paul was uneasy in his heart. Even though a door for the gospel was open, he had no heart to work. So he went to Macedonia.
Then Titus came to Macedonia and brought him good news. When the Corinthians received that very severe letter, they repented.
In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul says that because of the letter they grieved in their hearts. They feared, they turned, and they rose up to deal with the matter. They received Titus.
So Paul had joy in his heart. We thank God.
When Paul wrote Second Corinthians, his tone was different. We see that the Corinthian church was brought back to the footsteps of the flock.
To come back from deviation and walk according to the footsteps of the flock, there is only one way: the way of the cross.
If man is willing to accept the cross and let the cross deal with the flesh, deal with sin, deal with the world, and deal with self, then we will be restored to the footsteps of the flock.
When Paul wrote Second Corinthians, he concluded in 2 Corinthians 13:11:
Finally, brethren, farewell.
Become complete.
Be of good comfort.
Be of one mind.
Live in peace;
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Although there were still a few people opposing him, by and large the church was restored.
Finally, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:14:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all. Amen.
Thank the Lord. Let us pray.
O our Lord, You never despair. You never let us loose. We thank You and praise You.
Your love always follows us to bring us back to Yourself. We thank You.
We put ourselves again into Your hands. May You have freedom in every one of us.
In the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.