Sermon Recap
Encountering God’s Goodness
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Brian Hunter · November 30, 2025
“I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by him, in all utterance and all knowledge… so that you come short in no gift.”
Scripture Referenced
Recap
Coming off Thanksgiving weekend, Brian titled the message “Encountering God’s Goodness” and opened 1 Corinthians to Paul’s greeting to a church that, by the time you finish reading the letter, turns out to be a mess: divided, immature, tolerating serious sin. And yet Paul opens by saying he always thanks God for them and that they lack no spiritual gift. Brian sat the room down in that tension: how could Paul be so genuinely thankful for a church with that many problems?
The answer he landed on was that Paul’s gratitude wasn’t based on the Corinthians’ behavior at all: it was based on what God had already given them: grace, gifts, and the presence of Christ’s testimony confirmed among them. Brian moved to 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 to unpack what those spiritual gifts are and why they’re given: not as a personal reward for good behavior, unlike, as Brian put it, Santa Claus rewarding good boys and girls, but as gifts distributed for the benefit of the whole church. A gift not used for others, he argued, is a gift wasted.
The application Brian drew was that real thankfulness gets untethered from circumstances and other people’s behavior, rooted instead in who God is and what he’s already given. That posture, modeled by Paul toward a genuinely difficult church, becomes a template for encountering God’s goodness even when the people or situations around you are far from perfect.
Touch Points
- Paul thanked God for a church full of problems. Is there a relationship or situation in your life where your gratitude has gotten tangled up with someone else’s behavior?
- What spiritual gift or ability has God given you that you could be using more intentionally for the benefit of others?
- Brian said gifts are for the profit of all, not just personal reward. Where might you be sitting on something God gave you to share?
- What would it look like this week to thank God for his goodness completely apart from how your circumstances are going?