1 Corithians - Talk 2

The Spiritually Mature realize that under God’s sovereignty we are all God’s Fellow workers; but only God makes things grow!
So build God’s Temple well now because a day of testing is coming!
Intro

As most of you will be aware, I have only fairly recently become a parent, and as you may also be aware, I have very recently got to experience the great joy it is, to go on a long family holiday car trip with a small child. And just to put the cherry on top of the cake, a small child who is cutting their first teeth.

Now even as a child I remember family holiday car trips being difficult, if not outright traumatic, occasions. I mean sure we didn’t have air conditioning back then, that didn’t help. And the fact my sister had a penchant for being car sick after drinking spearmint milkshakes at the oak at Hexam, in 40 degree heat on vinyl car seats, that didn’t help either.

But the hard thing is that as much as you try and explain things to kids, (like you can’t drink that because you’ll get sick, just like you did before) they just don’t seem to get it. The funny thing about kids is, that they only know what they know, and they don’t know enough to know, they are most likely wrong. They want to be adults before their time, and in their mind they think they know more about being an adult, than the adult who has been an adult for at least 15 years before they were in existence.

But you just can’t explain that can you, but then you just couldn’t explain that to us either when we were their age.

And it seems Paul is having a hard time explaining it to his children, his children in the Christian faith the Corinthian church. He is their father in the faith, but they have decided they know better, they want to go and live with their uncle Apollos. But what is particularly striking about the situation in Corinth, is that in questioning Paul and his authority, the Corinthian believers are implicitly questioning God himself.
God appointed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthian Church, but these children in the faith, think they know better than their father, and not just their spiritual father, but also their heavenly father.

The Corinthians confidence in their spiritual maturity, by questioning their God appointed leader, is ironically ‘proof perfect’ that they are in fact utterly immature. How can a spiritually mature person say to God, (like a football crowd to the referee), ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’?

Well these are the issues that the Apostle Paul is going to cover in today’s chapter which is something like a version of a lifestyle show, where he will cover the topics of; Infants, Plants, Building and Maturity (or Spiritual Maturity). So a reminder this lifestyle program, which is not quite like any other; covers Infants, Plants, Building and Maturity by which Paul means Spiritual Maturity.

And in his first segment today, Paul is going to talk about infants.
Infants – Do not be infants any longer, what Paul means is don’t be divided, it’s childish
NIV 1 Corinthians 3:1
Brothers,
I could not address you
as spiritual
but as worldly—
mere infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk,
not solid food,
for you were not yet ready for it.
Indeed, you are still not ready.
3 You are still worldly.
For since there is
jealousy and quarreling among you,
are you not worldly?
Are you not acting like mere men?
4 For when one says,
"I follow Paul,"
and another,
"I follow Apollos,"
are you not mere men?


Paul, starts this chapter with another stinging rebuke for the upstart and proud Corinthian church. They are divided amongst themselves, they are being sinful and selfish in their ambitions and their views of what Church is supposed to be. They are being sinful in their political positioning as to who they think is supposed to lead the church. And everybody knows it as Paul already told us back in chapter 1.

Paul asked them ‘if there is Jealousy and quarrelling amongst them (and between them), how are they not just being mere men?’.
Paul’s language here has the idea of them just like being brute beasts and fleshly in their behaviour. To pick up the idea of Chapter 15, the Corinthians are people who have been saved at great cost and placed ‘in Christ’, but right now they are acting more like they are ‘in Adam’. They are acting more like they are the problem and not part of the solution.

The Corinthians at some level seem to have a profound lack of self awareness, they insist to Paul that they are mature people, ready for mature spiritual food, and Paul emphatically says to them,
‘You are kidding yourselves! I should be able at this time treat you as mature, but you were infants and in fact are still infants. And you prance around thinking you show your wisdom in your boasting about your leaders, but in that very act, you expose just how infantile, or juvenile you really are. You think your words demonstrate your spiritual wisdom, but instead these words clearly demonstrate that you are immature.’

Illus: The Corinthian believers are insisting that they can be big people too, they can keep the spearmint milkshake down, and Paul is looking at the strewn mess of division across the back seat of the car, thinking to himself, ‘sure you can, boy didn’t you prove me wrong!’


Appl: Now it is interesting to note that the Corinthians sinfulness at this point is not about their personal piety as such, but is a problem of the way they relate together, it is a problem of how they treat their God appointed leadership. Their problem is a communal problem of spiritual pride.

As we read this, it is easy to point the finger at the Corinthian’s, but the passage asks the question of us, Do we have a communal problem here?
Are we divided?
Do we divide ourselves about our church leaders?
Are we in danger of spiritual pride?

Should we ever have division, well yes, Some times issues are so important that we do actually need to go separate ways? And Paul often writes as such, but I suspect that what a church disagrees over, is the great barometer of what it’s corporate maturity is like I think. Paul in his letter is saying here don’t be divisive over worldly things, or over spiritually childish things.
Are you divisive over worldly things?

Well Paul finishes talking about infants, and now he wants to move on to the second segment of his lifestyle show and talk about plants.
Plants – Don’t you realize we are all just servants doing what God has given us to do, God makes things grow
5 What, after all, is Apollos?
And what is Paul?
Only servants, through whom you came to believe—
as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
6 I planted the seed,
Apollos watered it,
but God made it grow.

7 So neither he who plants
nor he who waters is anything,
but only God, who makes things grow.
8 The man who plants
and the man who waters
have one purpose, and
each will be rewarded according to his own labor.


Paul, points out to the Corinthians, that by the fact that you argue over Paul and Apollos, it just demonstrates exactly how immature you are. You are so immature that you don’t even understand what is going on here, you can’t see the great work that God has done. You don’t get God and his purposes, because you are openly questioning God’s plans, (which you highlight to all and sundry), because you have the arrogance to question Paul’s credentials, and to undermine his authority, to dismissively say, we prefer Apollos.

God chose Paul to be an Apostle, God chose Paul to be his Apostle to the Gentiles. But the Corinthians said,
‘Ahh, Give us Apollos, he’s impressive, not embarrassing like Paul.’

But Paul points out, God chose both himself and Apollos, and appointed them to particular roles. Paul planted the word of the Gospel, (in a analogy of sewing reminiscent of Jesus own parable of sewing seed in Mark 4). So Paul plants, but Apollos waters. And more than that, (in fact it is so important he says it twice in v6 and v7 which is not so subtle way of getting our attention). Paul says,
‘But God makes it grow!’.

Paul and Apollos aren’t in competition, like the Corinthians think, (they have missed it totally!) Paul and Apollos are in partnership as we see in V8. But they are in partnership on the Lord’s farm. And only the Lord can make things grow.

Now if you’ve been paying attention, the last part of verse 8 would no doubt raise a few questions for you, what does Paul mean they will receive a reward? I mean we are grace people aren’t we, what’s this stuff about rewards?

Well we’ll get back to that in a minute.

In any case the point of the gardening section of the program is clear, Paul and Apollos are not competitors, but co-workers, and they serve God (the one alone) who makes their work powerful.

God chooses and appoints people to carry out his work, including leadership in his church, and it is his sovereign choice to do it. This is a good thing to know, and even better to act upon, because it stops division in the church.

In the third segment of his lifestyle show the section which goes from V10 to V17 Paul talks about:
Building – Build well because testing will come
In the last section of chapter 3 that we are about to look at, Paul gives the Corinthians three explicit commands, and It seems to me that v9-10 are the heart of Paul’s message in this chapter, and in v10 he gives the first of his direct commands to the Corinthians
Command 1 - See to it and watch how you build
9 For we are God's fellow workers;
you are God's field,
God's building.
10 By the grace God has given me,
I laid a foundation as an expert builder,
and someone else is building on it.
But each one should be careful how he builds.

Paul in a way that reinforces and underscores his previous point, highlights that it is God who builds. God’s sovereignty is seen in the repetition of these verses, everything here belongs to God!

We are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field. You are God’s building, and you have been built through the grace of God given to Paul to share the Gospel message. God is entirely sovereign in this building activity.

And Paul seems to have a Kath Day moment here, where he says, ‘look at me!’.
He means look at how carefully I went about laying the foundation of the Gospel among you properly, knowing that the foundation is literally the grounds on which a building will stand or fall. And those who come after Paul need to build just as well.

And Paul commands the Corinthians that ‘each person should be careful (just as careful as Paul was) how they build!’ We see in V10. He literally says ‘watch what you are doing closely’, so you don’t get it wrong.

And the reason Paul tells them to build well is because testing of their work will come.
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid,
which is Jesus Christ.
12 If any man builds on this foundation using
gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
13 his work will be shown for what it is,
because the Day will bring it to light.
It will be revealed with fire, and
the fire will test the quality of each man's work.
14 If what he has built survives,
he will receive his reward.
15 If it is burned up,
he will suffer loss;
he himself will be saved,
but only as one escaping through the flames.

Paul reminds the Corinthians to build well on the strong and precious foundation he has laid of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the rock foundation on which the Church will be built and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Paul says build well, because testing of each person’s work, (yours and mine), will come.
But then again, would you expect any less than being held to a serious account for your work given that what is being built is God’s residence, God is the one who will live in this house.

Build well because testing will come

Now if you have been paying attention, it seems to me you would have at least two questions about this section of the text. And the first of these is:

What does it mean to build well?
Paul doesn’t explicitly tell us in this passage, he lets the metaphor do the work for him, so at the risk of ruining Paul’s linguistic richness by trying to explain the obvious, well here goes..

It seems to build well is to instruct people, and urge people, as to the truth of the gospel, the gospel of the crucified Christ who is the power and wisdom of God. Paul says in his letters that he seeks to pass on what he received as of first importance, the things of the mystery of the spirit, the truth about the Christ and the implications of this for life now.

We are to build well and be good stewards with the great riches of knowledge of God we have received, and in particular the knowledge of God that has been handed to us in the scriptures by God and his Apostles.

The knowledge of God that we have received in the Scriptures and pass on is building work that produces Spiritual maturity, it build’s people up with the wisdom that God provides, the wisdom that brings unity, the wisdom of them being of one mind and judgment as we learned from chapter 1, not the wisdom of men that brings division.

The second question you should probably have is:
What does it mean to receive rewards, or to suffer loss?

What does it mean to be rewarded for your labour from v8?
Or what does it mean to receive a reward in v14?
And what does it mean to suffer loss but still be saved in v15, how does this work?

Well it seems that when Paul gives us the clue when he talks of ‘the Day’ in V13. This expression picks up on the OT image of the ‘day of the Lord’, which we know as NT readers is the Day of Christ’s return. This will be the last day of this earth, where Christ will return to put everything right, and this will include testing the quality of each persons work. The work that has been built with God’s gold will survive and what work has been done with man’s dross, will be destroyed.

There are many opinions on exactly what Paul means here in regard to rewards and loss, but it seems to me, that Jesus parable of the shrewd manager from Luke 16:1-9 may give us an insight here. The point of this parable is that Jesus commends people to use their worldly wealth wisely, in order that there would be people to greet them in heaven. The rewards are not possessions as such, they are the people that we invest in building with silver and gold, they will be our reward into the next life. Paul is not talking about some sought of self-improvement course here.

And I think this kind of idea is reflected by Paul himself when he describes the believers in 1 Thessalonians 2:19
‘For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?’

And in V16-17 Paul goes on to tell us the reason it matters so much how we build is:
16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and
that God's Spirit lives in you?
17 If anyone destroys God's temple,
God will destroy him;
for God's temple is sacred,
and you are that temple.

Build well because we are building God’s temple

People are the temple of God. God himself dwells in us by the power of his Spirit and Christians are to be God’s servants in building this temple, with precious silver and Gold. We are to build each other.

Appl: What are you currently building? A four bedroom house? A home entertainment system? A life, a career, A reputation? prodigious and prestigious offspring?
What are you building with the abilities, gifts and time on earth God has given you?


The world tells us to build things.
Houses, cars, superannuation nest eggs.
Paul tells us to build people, we are to spend our time building people into a temple of the living God. And Paul in contrast is to just about everyone in society today is not talking about us undertaking a program of rigorous self improvement. Christians are focused upon building up other people. We build people to help them be with us in the next life.

Are you building people?
And if you are is it with the gold and silver of the Christian Gospel and Christian Maturity?
Are you careful how you build? Are you as discerning and intentional as you are when you invest a lot of money, or build a new home. Build well because you are building God’s temple, build well because God will hold you to account.

It would be easy for you to ask me, ‘Well that’s easy for you to say, you’re a minister it’s your job to do that?’
And you’d be right, but then We are all Christians aren’t we?
We all know people don’t we?
Well then we are all in the same game them, of building the temple of God, which is the People of God with precious stones. The gold and silver of the truth of the Christian faith the truth about Jesus, the truth of the Gospel, the truth of the Bible, which is really all one and the same thing.

Now in the final segment of his lifestyle show Paul calls the Corinthians to spiritual maturity.


Spiritual Maturity – don’t be children any longer, but be mature, don’t be deceived by the world, don’t boast like mere men!
V 18-20 we read
18 Do not deceive yourselves.
If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age,
he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world
is foolishness in God's sight.
As it is written:
"He catches the wise in their craftiness";
20 and again,
"The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."

In these verses Paul gives the second of his three commands
Command 2 - Do not be deceived, but be fools
Which seems like a bit of a contradiction really, but he is back on to one of the main themes of the first few chapters of the book. And that theme is the wisdom of the world versus the wisdom of God. And I’ll give you the tip, in this battle God wins!

Paul is exhorting us to Let God’s wisdom of the crucified Christ be what shapes your thinking, not the apparent wisdom of men. Because nothing that men in their wisdom can offer you will last, none of it will stand when you leave this life. Build with silver and Gold, build things that last, build with God’s wisdom of the crucified Christ.
In verse 21 Paul gives his final command in this chapter
Command 3 - Don’t boast about men
21 So then, no more boasting about men!
All things are yours,
22 whether Paul
or Apollos
or Cephas
or the world
or life
or death
or the present
or the future—
all are yours,
23 and you are of Christ,
and Christ is of God.

Don’t boast about men, for all of it belongs to God, and God distributes what he has to whom he wishes as he sees fit for his good purposes.

There is a sense here where Paul is putting things back in their proper and right order here, God is the one who sets the agenda for his creation and his church. Paul is telling the Corinthians to let God be the authority here in his church, he is in fact good at it.

Conclusion:
The letter to the Corinthians is a confronting read for anybody I think, but it reminds us of the importance of Christian growth toward Spiritual maturity.
The Spiritually Mature realize that under God’s sovereignty we are all God’s Fellow workers; but only God makes things grow!
And because of this we are called to build God’s Temple well now because a day of testing is coming!