3 Symptoms of Carnality Updated

Introduction/Illustration

As a kid, there were things that we all wanted to do, but our parents said no, not because they were bad things but because we weren’t ready yet.

Either we were too immature or too small or too vulnerable…

For some reason, our parents decided we weren’t ready to be released from their control in these areas.

I think back to when I was really little, and my parents wouldn’t let me out of the cart at the grocery store.

There is one thing that really annoyed me…

We had a lot of kids on our street, and when I was 6 or 7 years old, my mom would not let us out of the fence in our back yard. We lived in a very suburban neighborhood that was incredibly safe but my mom was younger and I am sure had read some crazy kidnapping stories on facebook and didn’t believe we were old enough to deal with those types of situation.

My mom was right, she recognized that we were too immature to leave the fence.

What made it even worse was that the neighbors right next to us had kids and I promise the youngest one was 3 years old, she may have even been in diapers still and they were allowed to leave their fence and go out, so they would just come and stand next to the fence and talk to us. I am sure we looked like prisoners of war to all the pets in the neighborhood that were watching us.

Of course, my mom would leave the screen door open so that she could hear us and know if any one was coming to kidnap us. my sister and I would climb the fence anyway and we would be incredibly quiet about it, but for some reason my brother didn’t and he would yell “mommy, look” and my mom would come out and see me or my sister half way over the fence riding it like a horse and we’d have to come back inside the fence and our adventure would conclude with us getting in trouble.

Eventually it got to the point where I was good at this, I would be out of the fence for 20 minutes just playing on the streets with the kids and my mom would have no idea, nonetheless, I was always told to come back.

It really showed my immaturity that I had no regard for the safety measures my mom put in place and it really wasn’t until I started negotiating with my mom, that our boundary was able to be extended beyond the fence, I would say, “mom there aren’t gonna be any kidnappers on the hill behind our house, can I please go up their and play” and she slowly started to say yes.

I say all of this to say, immaturity says, I am going to go beyond these reasonable boundaries that have been set, maturity says, I am going to talk about this instead of breaking the rules recklessly.

When I was jumping the fence as a 6 year old, I was immature and proving why I wasn’t ready to be allowed out of the fence, but as I started to mature and started to understand my mom’s concern, I would talk to her about it instead and this showed maturity which ultimately assured her that we could be trusted.

This story really reminded me of the carnality that we often face, when we are carnal, we are showing that we are not ready to receive the meat of the word.

Carnality just means to be under the control of the flesh instead of the Spirit. When we live passively, doing whatever feels good or operating under our own strength and guidance, we are being carnal.

Today we will see from our passage that God gives us the ability to move past carnality and recieve the meat of the word.

As we read, we will see 3 signs of carnality that I believe will convict each of us. 

1 Corinthians 3:1–2 KJV 1900

1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

Paul says that because they were carnal they couldn't receive the milk. He calls them babes in Christ. This is okay for a season. When we are first saved, we are going to have carnality because we are still spiritual babies, but the issue is that they were still babies even after all this time.

As I read this… I began to think of how often I live like a spiritual baby

I thought of my hunger and thirst for good preaching, for a word from God, for a rich devotional life.

and how so often, I finish my devotions, or I leave a church service, and I go away wishing I got more out of it. We know that God is sufficient and that He is not the reason for our destitution, so it falls on us.

I believe that what Paul says here about carnality is the reason why we fail to experience a rewarding and fulfilling Christian life. Our carnality is preventing us from growth and from receiving the meat.

We have the same problem that the Corinthians have. They struggled with carnality which kept them from receiving the meat.

Carnality is preventing us from having the relationship with Jesus that we want.

Now that we know our issue is carnality, the question becomes, how do we get rid of it?

In verse 3 we see Paul's 3 symptoms of carnality but before we jump in I want to caveat this, there may be other signs of carnality, I am not saying that if a sin is not listed here, than it is not a sign of carnality, each of us must check ourselves and see what sins we struggle with, but clearly these sins are especially impactful since Paul chose them as a catchall for the audience he was writing too.

1 Corinthians 3:3

“3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”

Really simple, here are the 3 sins that Paul associates with carnality.

The Sin of Jealousy.

The first word is Envy, this word very simply means jealousy.

Envy: intense negative feelings over another’s achievements or success, jealousy, envy. BDAG.

When I realized that that was the first word I was shook, we do not talk about jealousy very often, honestly the last time I can remember the sin of jealousy being talked about was in kids church.

We rarely address this even though it is a sin of the heart and goes so easily unnoticed by others.

Spend time on Application here - WHAT ARE SOME WAYS THAT WE STRUGGLE WITH JEALOUSY: ILLUSTRATE/APPLY

We see someone else and we say, “they have a newer car then me, and they don’t even work that hard.”

Or we look at the vacation that someone just took and we are jealous, wishing we could do the same thing.

Before long these feelings of jealousy turn to bitterness and a disliking of these people. We now start to think less of them as a person because of something that they have.

The key to Jealousy is not to try harder, it is to focus your heart and mind on what God has done for you. If you are grateful for what he has given you, you will not be nearly as likely to allow bitterness to take root.

Romans 8:32 KJV 1900

32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Where most of us need to start is with just recognizing our jealousy. Many of us, don’t even recognize our jealousy so the remedy doesn’t do much good for us.

Ask God to reveal the jealousy in your life.

Ask yourself, “If I was jealous, what would it look like?”

Humble reflection will reveal the areas of Jealousy, and developing a mindset of gratefulness will combat jealousy.

The Sin of Rivalry.

The second word is strife, when I looked this word up I found that it is a rich word that can be translated, discord, contention, arguments, or rivalries. 

Strife: Engagement in rivalry, esp. w. ref. to positions taken in a matter, strife, discord, contention. - BDAG

The term rivalry resonates so much with us today so I chose it out of all the synonyms, how often do we have these little rivalries in our hearts with people?

I know it’s not something that we associate with ourselves because when we think of rivalry we think of physical altercations like in the old West.

I know for me, it is something I honestly struggle with, I am on going about my life and if I am not careful I fall into the trap of rivalries with people.

Almost every day, it is easy to get annoyed at little things that people do or say.

“why is that person walking so slow?”

“why is that person so loud”

There is nothing wrong with noticing things that bother you, or disagreeing with someone. The problem comes because we often hold on to these things and don’t let them go.

It is easy to fall into this trap because all it takes is a bad interaction with someone, or someone being rude to you, and before you know it you see that person and you start to associate that tiny thing that they did that annoyed you with who they are.

It is almost always silly little stuff, like

someone not saying hi to us

We say, “This person annoys me”

or maybe we are upset at the waiter for forgetting our ranch.

Before we know it, these little things that we have let take root in our heart now puts people into a box where we are willing to say “I don’t like them.”

It is okay to have a moment of frustration because that is going to happen, but the problem comes when we see these people again and we now are holding on to the thing that they did to us and are allowing that to cause divisions in the body.

Perhaps the place where this has the most negative impact is in churches, we see the same people in church multiple times every week and we have developed a distaste and even rivalry with some people just by watching them.

We have a rivalry with someone that we have never talked to.

The Sin of Division.

The third word kind of summates the previous two words.

The big reason why jealousy is so bad is that it leads to division.

The big reason why rivalry is so bad is that it leads division.

When we are divided, these things lead us to fail as a body of believers.

Illustrate:

We have heard the common saying, a house divided against itself cannot stand. We all understand this to be true.

Every year in sports, there are teams that are stacked with talent that underperform. Some teams seem like a sure team to be successful and make a deep run but often, players will come with selfish motives or they wont diligently work to build team chemistry and it shows in the biggest moments.

Think about something as simple as a group project. You can have a group of intelligent, capable people, but if everyone has their own agenda, refuses to listen, or is more concerned with getting credit than accomplishing the goal, the project will suffer. The problem is not that the group lacks ability; the problem is that they lack unity. When people who are supposed to be working together begin working against one another, nothing will be accomplished. (ChatGPT, altered by me.)

We each have a responsibility to fight for unity. The world possesses unity. Think about social media companies, tech companies, entertainment companies, and companies that are built to get us caught up in consumerism. These companies are completely unified in their goals. Often their goals run up against what Jesus is trying to accomplish in us.

When we are divided, we cannot reach the world with the gospel.

When we are divided, we will not receive the meat of the word.

So when we’re wondering why we aren’t receiving meat from the word, we must ask, what barriers are we putting up.

Conclusion

Carnality is a barrier that is preventing us from having the relationship with Jesus that we want to have.

We have seen the 3 sins that Paul used to convict the Corinthian believers of their carnality and I think we are all very guilty of these sins as well.

These sins are dangerous because they take place in the heart and are easily hidden even from ourselves.

Every single one of us can see one of these sins in ourselves and seek to cleanse it. And the more time that we spend with Jesus, the more that these sins will become evident. When we are close to him we will want to root these sins out of us and He will do that for us.

Ask Jesus, in what areas of my life am I falling prey to the sins of jealousy, rivalry, and division? He will show you those areas.

So next time your asking, “why is my relationship with Jesus not where it should be?”

Check your carnality. Sometimes these sins wont be the one that is the sign of carnality, maybe it is another.

Choose to walk in the Spirit because He is the solution for your carnality.

God gives us the ability to set aside carnality and receive the meat of the word.