This past Sunday we had the privilege of having Chris Wienand, a father to our church family, continue our current sermon series, “The Beautiful Mess,” through 1 Corinthians. Chris preached through the fourth chapter of 1 Corinthians, which gave us a glimpse into some of the difficulties the Apostle Paul was having personally with the church he planted in Corinth just a couple years prior. The church in Corinth was continually looking back to the world instead of the cross to inform their living, but Paul continued to correct them by pointing them back to Jesus and His finished work.

Wienand used the text and showed how it applies to leaders in the church who are to be spiritual fathers to the community. Like Corinth, we live in a fatherless generation. Very few of us grew up with godly parents who made it their primary objective to mature us into Christ. Most of us had parents who were absent physically or emotionally and didn’t view our maturity as a priority. But through the grace of Jesus we now have fathers, as Paul said to the Corinthians, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” The role of leaders/elders in the church is to father men and women into their maturity and distinct callings that Jesus has on their lives.

At the end of the gathering, Andy challenged our church family that the primary way of growing as a disciple of Jesus is being able to receive correction well. All of us have blind spots and areas in our lives where we need to grow, and through the Gospel, we now have men and women who are able to lovingly speak truth into our lives and point us back to the reality of Jesus’ call and forgiveness on our lives.

If you missed Sunday’s sermon, be sure to listen to it here: Fathers in the Faith