The Servant of God

The Story of Buffet with my friend (i barely see him

———- sometimes are like this servent, we do the mini and expect to recieve

what does it means to be a servant? a servant is under someone authority.

Those who serve are the instrumental of the Lord.

Preacher simply serve as a mouthpiece. Servant exists simply to implement the wishes of his master. The master assigns a task and the servant perform it.

Paul picture himself as a table waiter for the Corinthians and describes the service he provide. At the beginning of his ministry among them he served milk.

He served three groups of people: the unsaved, or the natural man (1 Cor 2:14)- the person without the spirit. The saved, or the spiritual man (1 Cor. 2:15), the spiritual person. The spiritual person can evaluate everything. Carnal man- believe in Christ but live as unbelievers.

The latter is supposedly a person who is a believer but lives like an unbeliever.

The difficult tasks for Gods servant is to work with the carnal men, those who believe in Jesus Christ yet live as unbelievers.

Serve or minister in Gods field (v5-9)

1 Corinthians 2. False Conception of the Christian Ministry (3:5–4:5)

Paul begins his question in verse 5 with a “what” and not a “who.” This allows the Corinthians to concentrate on the functions of Paul and Apollos rather than on their persons.

Focus on what they are doing instead of who they are

Both were servants of the one Lord and they were insignificant.

Ministers have different gifts but they are all engaged in the same task.

Paul Plant, and Apollos watered, but they cannot take credit for it because only God can cause the growth.

There’s the unity between planter and waterer. They are one in the aim, reulst, and motivating power of their works. They are allies and not rivals.

It is not the minister responsible to increase the number of the congregation.

As far as the Bible concerend, the minster’s job is not to be successful, but to be faithful in spreading the gospel.

Some may plant the words of God by evangelizing, and some will water the words of God by pouring it into the church.

Without the sower, there would have been nothing to water. Without someone to tend the growing seed, it may as well not have been planted.

Whatever the minister is doing, he must do it faithfully and simply trust God for the results.

One of the danger things for minsters is that they want to see the result fast and take things out of their hands.

For example, famers who want to see the result of their foods… they utilize chemical. However, when the plants grow it is bad for human to consume.

the same way, a minister can’t force the church to grow. Only God can give the growth.

The planter and the waterer will be paid their appropriate wages on the Day of Chirst.

Coworker - either work together for God or work together with God. Paul and Apollos were fellow workers for God. They formed a team, working together in God’s service. And the COrinthian church was God’s field., not theirs.

Faithful servant must recognize that they are the servant … God’s field is not theirs.

God was the Church ultimate leader and he own the church.

Illustration: A Pastor got a present from his church (car). Everytime when people asked him about his new car, he would respond it that it was God’s car. Until one day, someone hit the car and ran away. He was so mad, and he yelled at the other driver, why did you hit my car. it is no longer God’s car. it becomes his car. The point of this illustration is that sometimes we say we do God’s work, but no-, we aren’t doing God’s work. we do it for ourselves.

Build the church on a solid foundation(v 10-15)

Paul presented himself as a master builder. He only served to lay a foundation through the grace God had given to him.

expert builder” in verse 10 describes someone who superintends a building operation by contributing knowledge rather than labor

And as an expert, he warned that anyone building on Paul’s foundation was to be careful how he built.

Why should the builders of the church have been careful?

Paul already laid down the gospel at the corithin church and no builder of the church should try to lay any foundation other than Jesus Christ.

It seems like some leaders of the Corinthian church had begun to replace the church’s foundation.

When the foundation of Chirst is disregared, the church became merely a social club or an activist or advocator...

Church leaders can build upon the foundation for Christ’s gospel in two different ways.

1. Gold, silver and costly stone

The first group—gold, silver, precious stones—means work that makes a genuine and valuable contribution to the building of a sound community on the one foundation.

2. Wood, hay or straw

They represent doctrines that are not completely false—because they are, after all, built on the foundation of Christ—but rather ‘mixed’ doctrine. In other words, the true doctrines of Christ are mixed with all sorts of cheap, empty trivialities and vain

At the end of the day the quality of all our service will be exposed by Fire.… meaning we will be standing before the judge Christ (whose eyes are like a flame of fire: Rev 1:14. Christ will not merely determine but will reveal “what sort of work they are doing.

v14. The one who withstand the fire (Gold, Silver, and costly stone)- genuine worker, will be rewarded.

If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but himself will be saved.

what is interesting about this passage is that Even this one whose work is exposed as unworthy will be saved. “Salvation is to be distinguished from reward, or pay; it cannot be earned”

we should not mix up this verse of work with salvation. The reward that Paul mentioned in verse 8 and 14 could mean that God recognizes and approve their works (well done good and faithful servant).

Danger warning: Many churches strive to remain relevant in todays world. However, they sometimes abandon their true foundation, which is Christ, in favor of a foundation based solely on love and acceptance. Unfortunately, if churhces cannot have Christ as their foundation, they cannot genuinely love and acceptence others as they should.

Preserve the unity of the Church

Don’t you yourself know that you are God’s temple.

the “you” that Paul referred here is not singular. it is Plural you. meaning he is talking to the whole church.

Christians are a temple (the living) God, since God dwells in them (2 Cor 6:16) and since the Spirit of GOd dwells in them, their body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

The temple use here is (naos) which refers to the most sacred part of the temple (3:16)

Which is a bit differnt from 1 kings 6:17, 2 Chr 4:22- karen translate it as house

however, in 1 cori 3:16 it says tah lu hee, not house

what we need to understand

Being indwelled by the Holy Spirit is what makes the church the temple of God. In the O.T., God dwelled among the Israelites by means of the tabernacle/temple and the heavenely divine santuary (Pyhsical Place); in the New, the Spirit of God inhabits the community directly.

According to Paul, there are three dangers that threaten the building of the church. One is the defective builder, minister who build on the foundation of Christ but bring in doctrines that do not correspond to the foundation.

now it talks about the other two dangers: destructive ministers and deceived believers.

destructive minister decieved believers and deny the central truths of the gospel, those truths which God has promised to use to build up the church. (man is not sinful, he is good). intentionally teach the wrong doctrine. they minimize sin, and the Cross of Christ has nothing to do with sin, but only expresses the love of God.

To engage in divisions is to ‘destroy’ the divine society.

Those who can implement such tattic comes through two places: inside and outside.

Weather it is inside or outside, the servant of the Lord must keep the unity. And the unity must only comes from the truth.

As we can see in Col. 1:18, 24 Christ is the head of the church and we are the body.

the judgement is severe because the temple of God is sacred.

Application

A good servant recognize yourself

Listen, Read

when we were little, some elders talked about our karen history. We later read it on the history text book. Hearing and Reading.

those who do not listen during class

those who do not learn to read will not able to know their identity. And they would be careless about it.

As for believers, we must also learn to listen and read, so that we will know who we are… listen to Gods word, and read it.

2. Fulfill your roles

many have gifts yet they do not want to use it for the kingdom of God

As Paul might say they forgot to plant and water

When we neglet our identiy and responsibilty, as leaders and believers, we will fail to keep Gods’ temple holy and might even destroy it.