Merely Human

Let’s all stop for a moment of clarity here.

If not the church, where do you go?

Where else can any person go and find real, lasting sanity?

When the church is functioning well, when we are what we are supposed to be, where else would someone go to find help?

Companionship?

Friendship?

And Hope.

Where would you go to find the Truth?

We are laying Mr. Bobby Bentley to rest this afternoon.

Do you know that I’ve prayed every day since last week that God would call him home?

It hurt to watch his body slowly but surely betray him.

And it hurt him over the years to see it, he’s seen it coming for a long time, but what was his response to that?

“I want to go home,” and he pointed toward heaven.

Where else can you go you go that will teach you to live nobly and honorably and peacefully and filled with love and hope?

With a foundation that is more than somebody’s thoughts, somebody’s opinion, somebody’s philosophy?

But with a foundation that is truth, all of the time - capital “T” - Truth.

Do you realize:

The Church is the only alternative God has for people. Don’t mess it up.

That’s Paul’s message and we’re going to hop right in.

Our text for today is 1 Corinthians 3:1-17.

Go ahead and start looking it up in your Bibles.

If you don’t have one with you, please use one of our pew Bibles.

And if you don’t own a Bible, please take one of ours as a gift.

While you are looking, let’s catch up to where we are.

The Apostle Paul had planted a church in the town of Corinth.

Corinth was located in Southwest Greece on a little spit of land that followed the three rules of Real Estate.

Location, location, location.

The town was perfectly located to be a economic and cultural powerhouse.

And the people who lived there were very cosmopolitan.

Arts, music and all kinds of religion, philosophy, wisdom, they loved that stuff.

Paul walked into that town and preached Jesus.

And you know what happens when you preach Jesus even in a cosmopolitan town? People get saved.

He stayed there about a year and a half and then moved on.

But they were real cosmopolitan.

Over time, the glitz and glam of the culture and the sweet sounding wisdom of so many influencers beguiled them.

They accused Paul of being too simple - his gospel wasn’t difficult enough.

They added a little bit of this thought here, a little bit of that there.

And pretty soon, you have a house divided and not graciously so.

It wasn’t just hubby loved Alabama and wifey graduated from UGA.

It was open warfare - each one arguing over who was right and what was better.

Because Paul’s gospel wasn’t enough, and they needed more.

Paul heard about it and wrote this letter.

Here is part of what he said:

Hear now the Word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 3:1-17

1 Corinthians 3:1–17 ESV

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

You can be Christian, but not act Christian.

I want you to notice in all Paul is writing, he doesn’t accuse them of not being saved.

In fact, he reminds them they are saved.

In verse 1, he calls them “infants in Christ.”

You are in Christ.

But you don’t think like you a person who is in Christ and you don’t act like a person who is in Christ.

Now how can he say that about the Corinthians? What is Paul’s evidence?

Verse 3, “There is jealousy and strife among you.”

Man, that ought to hurt every Southern Baptist’s feelings.

Being in some pretty wicked church conferences, and parking lot meetings.

I’ve seen plenty of jealousy and strife.

And so have many of you.

Have you ever thought about what jealousy and strife is?

Either you have something I want or I have a better way than you and I want you to do it my way

And we are willing to fight over it.

We get so locked in to a position that we’re willing to burn it all down if we don’t get it.

Or we’ll leave - either one.

Try to change someone’s mind when that’s their heart.

Paul describes jealousy and strife as being merely human.

But we aren’t supposed to think and act merely human.

Because we are not merely human.

What does it do to us when we choose to think and act merely human?

Paul uses that phrase in verse four.

To think and act as mere humans mean we think and act just like everyone else in the world.

There is no difference between us or anyone else we meet on the street.

Being Christian is supposed to change everything.

Acting and thinking as mere humans means as far as people can tell, we’re no different from anyone else.

And Paul says that can’t be.

Because mere humans view the gospel as foolishness.

It’s folly - it’s not enough.

So mere humans search for a wisdom that is enough.

And that’s what the Corinthians are doing.

They are searching for a gospel plus something else that will make it harder, more academically rigorous, more socially acceptable, more fun in a worldly sense.

That will make it enough that it will satisfy me.

Mere humans do that - and we see it outside and inside the church.

Paul’s message is stop.

You’ve got to stop this.

“People of the Spirit simply must stop behaving the way you are.”

Second point:

We may do different things, but we have a single foundation.

Look down at verse 11: 1 Corinthians 3:11 “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

I read this and I want you to think about this too: “Anything you add to or take away from Jesus strips the gospel of its power.”

If we say that Jesus is enough - that Jesus is all we need.

But then we say since God is love, Jesus is love and we focus on no other attribute of God other than love, Jesus loses something, doesn’t He?

Because there is more to Jesus than that.

If we focus on nothing but the forgiveness of Jesus or the kindness of Jesus or the compassion of Jesus and that’s all, Jesus loses something, doesn’t He?

Because there is more to Jesus than that.

And if He loses something, He ceases to be God and He ceases to be all we need.

On the contrary, if we say we need Jesus and...

I read an article on purgatory this week - didn’t mean to but just stumbled across it.

Purgatory is Jesus plus - we need the sacrifice of Jesus to save us plus we need to work off our sins.

We can’t go to heaven burdened with our sins, so we have to go somewhere to work them off.

Jesus loses something in that equation, doesn’t he?

Jesus isn’t enough on His own to save me.

If we need Jesus and something

I have to do something or not do something or be some place, Jesus loses something, doesn’t He.

And when we start adding things or taking things away, we start fighting.

It has to happen.

You want something, I want something different, it has to happen, we’re going to fight.

In this church, their issue was they needed Jesus plus Paul’s teaching or Jesus plus Apollos teaching.

And because they were acting and thinking like mere humans, they completely missed what was really going on.

Paul was a church planter.

Look at verse 10 1 Corinthians 3:10 “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.”

According to the grace of God given to me: Paul is saying that God’s grace to him was to give him the job of church planter.

It was his assigned job in life by the grace of God.

Leads me to believe by the grace of God, He has an assigned job for us all in our lives.

God chose Paul to teach the gospel to people who knew nothing about Jesus.

Teachers, don’t you teach differently to students who know something about the subject than you do to those who don’t?

English 101 is taught differently than English 401.

English 101 is a prerequisite for English 401 so you can teach to people who have a foundation.

Paul taught Jesus 101.

Apollos on the other hand taught Jesus 102.

Apollos taught discipleship, he was trying to grow them in their faith.

And thinking and acting like mere humans, the Corinthians thought they were teaching two different things.

They didn’t understand that Paul and Apollos were on the same team, building on the same foundation.

That the whole process of the two of them working together was God’s plan to grow His church.

Now, I’m going to use a bad word here.

It may traumatize some of you because we aren’t supposed to say this word in church.

It’s a bad word so steel yourselves.

Here’s where you should be - scared.

Yeah - scared.

Now I know the argument some of you will make: 1 John 4:18

1 John 4:18 ESV

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

If perfect love casts out fear, then we should never be scared.

But here’s my argument, if you are acting as a mere human, you don’t have perfect love.

1 John 4:17 ends with the words, “…because as he [God] is so also are we in the world...”

If we are thinking and acting as mere humans, we are not thinking and acting like God - not even close.

So yes, this next part should scare some of us and it should be a giant cautionary tale to others.

How you behave matters

We are talking about how we think and act.

We are talking about we add to Jesus in our teaching.

We are taking about what we take away from Jesus in our teaching.

If you look back to verse 8, Paul says, “Each will receive wages according to his labor,” - how good of a job he’s done.

The word labor there is a specific word meaning hard work with the expectation of difficulties and troubles.

And when you do the work that by God’s grace He has appointed to you, there will be wages.

I can’t go beyond what the text says - I don’t know what the wages will look like or exactly where in the end they are awarded.

But I do know that we can expect wages - rewards for our hard work and endurance working for the Lord.

Simple justice says that if you slack, you can expect slack, but if you are diligent, you can expect the reward of the diligent.

Now follow me here.

1 Corinthians 3:12 “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—”

This is important - who builds with gold, silver and precious stones?

Someone who is building a temple builds with gold, silver and precious stones - go review the temple in the Old Testament.

Wood, hay and straw - they were common building materials back in the day.

Something, mere humans would use.

1 Corinthians 3:13 “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.”

On the judgment day - and each one of us will be judged according to our works, what we built with will be exposed.

If what we built on the foundation of Jesus was based on Jesus, well, we’ll see that.

It will stand.

But if we teach Jesus plus or Jesus minus, that will be revealed as well.

We will get to see it.

We’ll be standing there when the test is done.

That might cause a little tightening in your gut.

And it will be revealed by fire - now - you know where this image comes from because we’ve studied it.

Daniel 7:9–10 ESV

“As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.

A stream of fire issued and came out from before him - just what does that fire do?

Revelation 20:9 ESV

And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them,

The stream of fire is judgment.

And everyone Christian’s work will be judged.

1 Corinthians 3:14-15 “If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

Those who are Christian but who think and act as mere humans will go into eternity hearing the crunch of the ashes of their work under their feet.

They still enter heaven, they still have a place in the new heaven and the new earth.

But they will be missing something.

This is a huge caution to me and it should be to all of us.

Speak Jesus purely. Live Jesus purely.

Speak what the scripture says.

Avoid anyone who has a “special revelation,” “their vision or dream” that deviates even a dot from scripture.

Preach Jesus. Teach Jesus. Pray Jesus. Sing Jesus.

Live Jesus.

“There is an inheritance for the people of God that includes not just eternal glories but the possibility of living a life that is good, one that God intended.” M. William Ury.

One last point.

Don’t mess with the Church.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

The you here is plural.

The word for temple means a sanctuary.

Yes, you individually are a temple of the Holy Spirit, Paul will say so later in chapter 6.

But he’s not saying that now.

Paul is saying that this body - us - here in this room gathered right here today, he is saying the Holy Spirit dwells in us right now.

This gathered body is indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

It means when we enter this room, we should always come in expecting the unexpected.

We don’t see it much because we tend to come in thinking like mere humans.

The room was cold or hot, the lights were too bright, too dim, someone’s baby was too wiggly, the music was too loud, too soft, the preaching was too dull, was too exuberant.

Did any of us enter this room today with any expectation that the Holy Spirit might just do something unexpected and awesome?

That one hit a little to close to home.

But there is more to this than just that.

You be very careful when you dog out your church.

You be very careful when you put your wants and desires above the Gospel of Jesus Christ in your church.

When you can make fiery, passionate arguments and never once think about Jesus, you might want to remember.

“If anyone destroys (tears down) God’s temple, God will destroy (tear down) him.”

“For God’s temple is holy, and you - this place with us in it - are that temple.”

The Lord don’t play.

We have to start taking this fact seriously:

The church is the only alternative God has in the city where you live.

“Seldom does one sense that [the Church] is, or can be, experienced as a community that is so powerfully indwelt by the Spirit that it functions as a genuine alternative to the pagan world in which it is found. It is perhaps not too strong to suggest that the recapturing of this vision of its being, both in terms of its being powerfully indwelt by the Spirit and of its thereby serving as a genuine alternative (“holy” in the most holistic sense) to the world, is its single greatest need.” Gordon Fee

The good news is, by the grace of God, we can repent and try again.

The Church is the only alternative for people. Don’t mess it up.

Let us pray.

Amen

Don’t you see that the gospel is the only answer we have.

There is no safety, no salvation.

No guardrails, no second chances with anything but Jesus.

Jesus really is our life.

Why do we continue fighting to find something better?

If you have never trusted Jesus, please, he died for you.

He was buried but the grave could not hold him.

He rose to new life - so you could have life - a good life.

A life God intended for you to have.

We’ll sing in a moment, please come talk to me about Jesus.

And church - you are the only place Jesus uses to give hope to the world.

Are you holding up your end of the deal?

Talk to the Father about that as we sing.